Post by Andrew Jacobsen on Feb 28, 2010 3:12:25 GMT -6
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Tempestad's head is bowed in prayer outside the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, late at night. He kneels before a simple wooden cross, speaking a basic prayer for the fallen. The name of Sephiroth's departed loved one, Tabitha, can clearly be heard amongst the words. He stands, revealing that the cross stands atop a gravestone, simply engraved “To one who fell too soon.” Tempestad leaves a copy of the Bible leaning against the grave, walking away. The camera follows him as he looks up at the imposing structure of the asylum. Tempestad closes his eyes, looking down.
“You were once a good man, Sephiroth. You loved, you laughed, and you were happy. You had people that loved you in return. And you lost it all because of one selfish man. You had everything taken in that one moment. I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been. To see the one you loved so callously taken from you in the blink of an eye, and to be helpless to do anything about it. I feel your pain, Sephiroth. I know what loss can be like...”
Tempestad sighs. The faint sounds of gunfire and screams can be heard in the background.
“I was not always a virtuous man. In my youth, I was part of a small-time gang in Arteaga that dealt in drugs and firearms, including being a distributor of cocaine and marijuana. I did things I am not proud of. I shot at rival gang members, wounded them. I was wounded myself. In my left leg, there is a scar. I was shot there with a nine-millimeter bullet. If I focus I can feel the pain shooting through me again, vivid as the day it happened. Have you ever been shot, Sephiroth? Do you know what it is like? I doubt it. For four years, I was part of this gang. From the ages of seventeen to twenty-one. Then came that day...that day that changed my life.”
He looks up slowly, continuing to walk around the perimeter of the asylum.
“My girl at the time...mi amor...Karolina. Karo Martinez. She had mouthed off to the head of the gang, Angelo. Slapped him, too. Apparently he had been disrespecting her and calling her a whore...which she technically was, but never let it be said that facts got in the way of a story. In any case, Karo was walking home from her day job as a clerk at 7-11...and Angelo stepped out of an alley...and he brought friends. Four other men, all men I was to that point proud to call mis carnales, my blood brothers. We would have died for each other...and I wanted them to die for what they did.”
A tear rolls out of his mask. Tempestad's voice gets choked as he recounts this heretofore untold dark passage in the Book of the Luchador.
“The police called me from her cellphone. They found her in the alley with her throat cut and tongue sliced out. The coroner said she had been brutally beaten before she was finally put out of her agony. I was going to propose to her the next day. Karo...she was a good girl. She was kind, and sweet, and beautiful...and Angelo, a man who I loved like my own blood, killed her for nothing. I spent a year hunting Angelo like the dog he is. He knew better than to stay in Arteaga with me out for his blood. That year took me places I had never been before. Places I do not want to go again...and at the end of it, I was no better mentally or phyiscally. To this day, Angelo runs free. He was never caught and presumably his warrant still stands in the state of Coahuila. So you see, Sephiroth. I have lost too. Unlike you, however, I have not had the pleasure of exacting vengeance upon the one that wronged me. It makes me think: how many more like me will there be? How many more will Angelo harm? It weighs upon my soul each day. I think, 'What if I had done something differently?' What if I could have been there for her? What if...what if...”
He shakes his head, walking through the overgrown rushes around the asylum.
“I lost as well, Sephiroth. The difference between us is that while your loss made you lose faith in not only the Lord but humankind, my loss let me truly understand what God is. He is loss and he is gain. He is sadness and he is joy. He is everything and everyone around us. God is in me, in Angelo, and yes, in you. Losing Karolina led me not to the bottle or the needle, but the Bible. Sephiroth, I AM your past. But I am also what could have been. You could have stayed resolute, a force for good. Instead, you took the easy path. You took the path of darkness and destruction. I stayed strong and chose the path that requires self-control. I worked for my salvation. For five years I have been a man of good, of righteousness, of piety. Hearing your story brought me back to the days of guns and drugs...and darkness. Would I give anything to have her back? I would go to Hell itself and back to be able to hold Karolina in my arms one more time. I would do anything to have her back...but I know that it cannot be. I will meet Karolina in Heaven when I finally pass on from this earth. That knowledge, that she is in Paradise, free from the ravages of this mortal Earth, comforts me.”
Tempestad smiles again as he thinks back to those days, when he was happy and had both his brothers and his love to comfort him. Echoes of laughter and the clinking of glasses can be faintly heard in the background as Tempestad remnisces. He smiles as the warm feeling he got when with Karolina spreads through him from his heart. Tempestad wipes another tear from his face.
“Te amo, Karo. Te amo y yo fáltele. Le falto tanto. Deseo usted estuviera aquí conmigo, capaz de animar me en… pero me sepa que usted está mirando de cielo, y ése tendrá que ser bastante para ahora.”
Temp nods, kissing the crucifix-on-a-chain he wears and crossing himself. He continues walking, approaching the last side of the asylum.
“We both have loved and lost, Sephiroth. We both had our loves taken from us for foolish reasons. We both were denied our proper vengeance upon those that took them from us. But we are two sides of the same coin, two forks of the same road. One of us became a better man from our loss, tried to become more than we were. The other lost everything and descended into madness. From one sinner to another, from one who has lost to another...I am sorry. I wish I could say more, but...that is all I can do. I can offer my condolences and humblest apologies for what happened to...her name was Tabitha. I, after all this, can find it within me to offer a hand once more to you. You can BE that man again. You can reclaim that feeling of worth. As long as you hold the memory of that loved one to you, you can still fight for them.”
He taps his chest, just over his heart. The camera's light illuminates that they have returned to the front of the asylum. Tempestad walks back over to the gravestone he started at, where it's revealed there is a second one. This one bears a more informative inscription: “Karolina Martinez. Born 29 April 19 1985, died 13 May 2005. Loving daughter and friend. Mosca alta, Fénix.” Tempestad pulls a white rose from under his coat, laying it on the headstone. He looks to the camera.
“We both fight with loss in our hearts, Sephiroth. Only one of us will be able to salve the wound, however temporarily. I am confident it will be me. But in any case, may God be with you, Sephiroth. May you find the light...somehow, someway...find the light.”
Tempestad walks away as the camera focuses on the headstones, fading out on that last shot.
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
Tempestad's head is bowed in prayer outside the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, late at night. He kneels before a simple wooden cross, speaking a basic prayer for the fallen. The name of Sephiroth's departed loved one, Tabitha, can clearly be heard amongst the words. He stands, revealing that the cross stands atop a gravestone, simply engraved “To one who fell too soon.” Tempestad leaves a copy of the Bible leaning against the grave, walking away. The camera follows him as he looks up at the imposing structure of the asylum. Tempestad closes his eyes, looking down.
“You were once a good man, Sephiroth. You loved, you laughed, and you were happy. You had people that loved you in return. And you lost it all because of one selfish man. You had everything taken in that one moment. I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been. To see the one you loved so callously taken from you in the blink of an eye, and to be helpless to do anything about it. I feel your pain, Sephiroth. I know what loss can be like...”
Tempestad sighs. The faint sounds of gunfire and screams can be heard in the background.
“I was not always a virtuous man. In my youth, I was part of a small-time gang in Arteaga that dealt in drugs and firearms, including being a distributor of cocaine and marijuana. I did things I am not proud of. I shot at rival gang members, wounded them. I was wounded myself. In my left leg, there is a scar. I was shot there with a nine-millimeter bullet. If I focus I can feel the pain shooting through me again, vivid as the day it happened. Have you ever been shot, Sephiroth? Do you know what it is like? I doubt it. For four years, I was part of this gang. From the ages of seventeen to twenty-one. Then came that day...that day that changed my life.”
He looks up slowly, continuing to walk around the perimeter of the asylum.
“My girl at the time...mi amor...Karolina. Karo Martinez. She had mouthed off to the head of the gang, Angelo. Slapped him, too. Apparently he had been disrespecting her and calling her a whore...which she technically was, but never let it be said that facts got in the way of a story. In any case, Karo was walking home from her day job as a clerk at 7-11...and Angelo stepped out of an alley...and he brought friends. Four other men, all men I was to that point proud to call mis carnales, my blood brothers. We would have died for each other...and I wanted them to die for what they did.”
A tear rolls out of his mask. Tempestad's voice gets choked as he recounts this heretofore untold dark passage in the Book of the Luchador.
“The police called me from her cellphone. They found her in the alley with her throat cut and tongue sliced out. The coroner said she had been brutally beaten before she was finally put out of her agony. I was going to propose to her the next day. Karo...she was a good girl. She was kind, and sweet, and beautiful...and Angelo, a man who I loved like my own blood, killed her for nothing. I spent a year hunting Angelo like the dog he is. He knew better than to stay in Arteaga with me out for his blood. That year took me places I had never been before. Places I do not want to go again...and at the end of it, I was no better mentally or phyiscally. To this day, Angelo runs free. He was never caught and presumably his warrant still stands in the state of Coahuila. So you see, Sephiroth. I have lost too. Unlike you, however, I have not had the pleasure of exacting vengeance upon the one that wronged me. It makes me think: how many more like me will there be? How many more will Angelo harm? It weighs upon my soul each day. I think, 'What if I had done something differently?' What if I could have been there for her? What if...what if...”
He shakes his head, walking through the overgrown rushes around the asylum.
“I lost as well, Sephiroth. The difference between us is that while your loss made you lose faith in not only the Lord but humankind, my loss let me truly understand what God is. He is loss and he is gain. He is sadness and he is joy. He is everything and everyone around us. God is in me, in Angelo, and yes, in you. Losing Karolina led me not to the bottle or the needle, but the Bible. Sephiroth, I AM your past. But I am also what could have been. You could have stayed resolute, a force for good. Instead, you took the easy path. You took the path of darkness and destruction. I stayed strong and chose the path that requires self-control. I worked for my salvation. For five years I have been a man of good, of righteousness, of piety. Hearing your story brought me back to the days of guns and drugs...and darkness. Would I give anything to have her back? I would go to Hell itself and back to be able to hold Karolina in my arms one more time. I would do anything to have her back...but I know that it cannot be. I will meet Karolina in Heaven when I finally pass on from this earth. That knowledge, that she is in Paradise, free from the ravages of this mortal Earth, comforts me.”
Tempestad smiles again as he thinks back to those days, when he was happy and had both his brothers and his love to comfort him. Echoes of laughter and the clinking of glasses can be faintly heard in the background as Tempestad remnisces. He smiles as the warm feeling he got when with Karolina spreads through him from his heart. Tempestad wipes another tear from his face.
“Te amo, Karo. Te amo y yo fáltele. Le falto tanto. Deseo usted estuviera aquí conmigo, capaz de animar me en… pero me sepa que usted está mirando de cielo, y ése tendrá que ser bastante para ahora.”
Temp nods, kissing the crucifix-on-a-chain he wears and crossing himself. He continues walking, approaching the last side of the asylum.
“We both have loved and lost, Sephiroth. We both had our loves taken from us for foolish reasons. We both were denied our proper vengeance upon those that took them from us. But we are two sides of the same coin, two forks of the same road. One of us became a better man from our loss, tried to become more than we were. The other lost everything and descended into madness. From one sinner to another, from one who has lost to another...I am sorry. I wish I could say more, but...that is all I can do. I can offer my condolences and humblest apologies for what happened to...her name was Tabitha. I, after all this, can find it within me to offer a hand once more to you. You can BE that man again. You can reclaim that feeling of worth. As long as you hold the memory of that loved one to you, you can still fight for them.”
He taps his chest, just over his heart. The camera's light illuminates that they have returned to the front of the asylum. Tempestad walks back over to the gravestone he started at, where it's revealed there is a second one. This one bears a more informative inscription: “Karolina Martinez. Born 29 April 19 1985, died 13 May 2005. Loving daughter and friend. Mosca alta, Fénix.” Tempestad pulls a white rose from under his coat, laying it on the headstone. He looks to the camera.
“We both fight with loss in our hearts, Sephiroth. Only one of us will be able to salve the wound, however temporarily. I am confident it will be me. But in any case, may God be with you, Sephiroth. May you find the light...somehow, someway...find the light.”
Tempestad walks away as the camera focuses on the headstones, fading out on that last shot.