Jason P. Shaffer

Ethan Voss’s ears rang with the pause and the silence of the room, and the two men sat on worn wooden chairs opposite one another. The chairs were old and the creaks and moans from the weathered grain echoed in bold disturbance to the silence, but the pause retained its dominance over the moment, as if the pause itself was the sound. The room was old, and the aged aroma sat in the still of it. The two men did not know each other’s names—only referring to each other as “sir,” or “brother,” or by nothing at all. They did not know each other’s stories, though, the knowing of another’s story was a claim made boldly, as no story has ever been told in its entirety by either. The world in which the two men lived was one both of veracity and shadow, and the veracity was dishonest—a carefully orchestrated theatrical, performed and presented only to mask, and under the mask the shadow crept and grew, and the growth was unnoticed, except to the few who lived in it.  

The man across from him probed and searched for an alternative which did not reveal itself, and the floor and the walls of the room offered no reason or meaning, and the hopelessness of the tomb in which he was now trapped fanned across his face. The bright blue eyes shone through wide lids and the pupils were wide with the lids in the dimly lit room. His hand attempted to comfort the back of his neck with a gentle rub, and the hand occasionally stroked the well-groomed light brown stubble on his defined chin. His thin legs were long and his torso was thin and he shifted in the chair, which echoed in voluminous creak, bouncing waves of high-pitched tone against the boundary around them. The endeavor for bravery displayed vividly on the handsome face, even if feigned. He controlled his breath, and the panic in his chest slowed. 

“Is there another way?” Asked the blue-eyed man. 

“No, sir.” Ethan said. “This is the way.” 

He nodded, biting his lower lip. The eyes of the two met in stilled gaze, held longer than comfort would normally allow—yet it wasn’t uncomfortable, as much could be said under such silence and an honest stare. Ethan remained still but not hardened, and he could see that the blue-eyed man understood the grand design of the ambitious finale, and his role in it was defined, and the definition was clear. The sacrifice was certain, but the legacy of it was that of a bold signature added to a history that would remember, like a vital brushstroke in a masterpiece only the two of them could ever claim to understand. 

The old room was undecorated. On the far wall of the room, a foam mattress rested on the ground with a single blanket folded neatly at the bottom of the bed and an old green t-shirt was being used as a pillowcase. There was a cutout where a stove should have been in the kitchen area. Instead, a small hot-plate was plugged into the outlet at the end of the counter, sitting under a single pot. Doorless cupboards revealed what seemed to be an endless supply of soup cans and a loaf of bread which appeared to be the sole items supplying the blue-eyed man’s caloric intake. On the table at which the two men sat, there was a single plastic plate, a set of plastic utensils, and an empty ceramic mug, fashioning a logo of a green Labrador-looking canine on the front. It was nighttime in the city, providing ambient white noise to break the tension. The window shades flowed lightly in a modest wind that wafted in an array of aromas organic to New York City. 

“It's odd,” said the blue-eyed man, breaking the silence as he drew a cigarette from behind his ear, lighting it with a metallic lighter he retrieved from the breast pocket of his weathered flannel. “We know what’s possible. We see it across the news and the tabloids. We see the ease with which it succeeds. We know others have answered the Call. Maybe it is our brains protecting us or our need for hope, acting as a feeble shield against an uncertain future, but we never expect the Call to come to us. We expect to grow old, to live, to love, to be loved.” 

He paused again and calmed himself in the way one might in anticipation of jumping into cold water, as if breathing away hope in labored breath that was slow and deep. 

Ethan studied the face, and the face trembled, and then it calmed and tensed once more, and the lips frowned and relaxed in an endless battle between the ears of the man before him. He faced doom, but it was not a doom that was forced upon him, like an execution or the brief seconds before mortal collision. Nor was it doom one walks toward, as a life taken by the self, for those who seek that end already bare the weight of doom and seek relief. This was a different doom—one approached to end a life that needs not end, where the beauty and joy behind is realized and beheld and enjoyed, yet the end still becomes the choice. He would not walk toward his end for the self; he would not walk toward it to escape from the weight of despair. He would walk toward the end for a thing—an abstract thing one could only hope to actually understand. Those in the Call believed in the thing with the whole of heart, but a heart can easily grow smaller in the shadow of certain doom. To walk into that shadow willingly, Ethan thought, what does a man ponder? 

“I’ll do it, of course.” Said the blue-eyed man, still looking down. “I’ll do it because it needs done, but I don’t want to do it. You look around and it’s clear I don’t cling desperately to life or the finer things in it—but life is a fine thing.” 

“I know.” 

“Do you?” 

“I do. Life is a fine thing.” 

“Would you want to do it?” 

“No, I don’t, but I will—just as you have said you will do it.” 

Ethan watched as the blue-eyed man’s neck began to slowly slump, and the shoulders rolled forward with the neck, and the curve of the man’s spine became pronounced in poor posture as he sat on the hard wood of the chair. Ethan did not know him, but, in this, they were the same. He wanted the blue-eyed man to feel heard but had already stayed longer than was safe to do so. After the brief moment, he reached into his backpack to fetch a box of black latex gloves, donning a pair of them carefully—as to not let his skin touch the exterior of the gloves. He bent down and removed one shoe, taking from it the insole which covered a small compartment in the heel that housed a thumb drive stored in a sealed plastic bag. 

“On this drive, you will find everything you need to be successful.” Ethan said while opening the bag and dumping its contents onto the table in front of the blue-eyed man. “We have been watching him for months and he follows the same pattern every day.” 

The blue-eyed man put the thumb drive into his laptop and began reviewing the photos collated into the single document folder on the drive, skipping through them as the other man spoke. 

“Wake up: 0530. Third story of the townhouse, 3rd window from the left as you see it from the main street. Bathroom 0535, then downstairs to the fifteenth floor kitchen—out of sight from the main avenue but visible from around the street around the corner above the two shorter buildings behind. Leaves the building at 0600, almost to the second, through the parking garage tucked under the building that empties onto the avenue. Arrives at the gym between 0610 and 0612 depending on traffic and how many lights he hits. Works out and then always visits the steam room at exactly 0700. 20 minutes in the steam room, showers, leaves the gym by 0730, give or take a few minutes. Arrives at the gate at work by 0745 and disappears until random evening times. It has been unpredictable thus far. After work, he goes to the bar 3 blocks from work, pretends he’s not married and gathers talent for his non-existent work trips he tells his wife he attends. After the bar, he drives drunk back to his building. Rinse and repeat.”  

The blue-eyed man nodded again, playing through the options presented to him in the details, distracting himself—retreating into a thing and forgetting that he existed outside of it. 

“He employs a security detail but there are some parts of day where he’s vulnerable. You’ll see in the photos and videos. You have several windows here, pick your favorite, but make sure it’s noticed. You also need to have this thumb drive with you, on your person, along with some sort of identification. They must think that you are merely a radical citizen and nothing more. We’ve ensured that everything they find about you will support that narrative when they look into your background after. Understand?”  

“Understood,” said the man. 

“Good.” Ethan said, pausing. “Good luck.”  

He removed the latex gloves and placed the wide nylon strap of the bag over his shoulder, then turned to leave—as more detail need not be aired. 

“Can I know your name?” asked the blue-eyed man as Ethan reached the door.  

“No. And I cannot know yours.” 

“You’re the last friendly face I’ll ever see. I’d like to know who’s face it is.” 

“We don’t work this way. You know this.” 

“It’s strange that the last vision I will have will be of hatred,” said the man. “I know why I’m doing this, I do. I believe in it. This place will never look inward unless it is forced to. But I will never see that happen. I will see hatred. I would love to know your name, sir, so that I may remember it until there is nothing to remember. Can you do that for me?” 

Ethan stopped with his hand on the door. He was human after all. He wanted to have an honest, human moment. He wanted to let this scared man find some comfort in his kin whom he did not know. He wanted to show this man trust, but he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. The more one knew about the other, the more one could recount the details if things went poorly, and the minor details are minor if alone, but they add like cinderblocks to a wall, and the many blocks begin to show shape and form of the structure, and structures are vulnerable. The passerby cares not for the single cinderblock laying near a plot, especially when the block and the plot are hidden in shadow. All admire the building of a structure as it is being built and the intrigue in the finished form cannot be avoided. Minor details could not be shared to his fellow man in the old room. We seek to restore humanity, but, in doing so, we can seemingly spare none for each other.  

“You're right,” said Ethan, turning with a feigned hopeful smile. “It's hard to know what this is all for when you answer the Call. You question the worth of both yourself and your task. It's fear trying to protect you from yourself. It's built so deep within you that it cannot be avoided. But this is what we do. We perform on a stage that is real, and that stage shapes what the viewer believes to be reality. Our acts must be as real as the stage on which we perform or else the performance will not be believed, and belief and trust is what we seek to attack. Because our acts must be real, the cost is also real, and that reality is terrifying. We feel the terror, but we follow the path, and we leave our chink in their armor little by little and, eventually, their armor falls off and they tear themselves apart because their armor no longer protects them. Then, there's no more fear for us. There's no more sacrifice.”  

The two men met each other’s eyes, and the blue-eyed man stood, and he was tall. 

“We are rolling a snowball down a gradually steeper hill,” Ethan continued. “We must aid its descent in the beginning, and that requires some of us to go down the hill with it. But then the snowball gets larger, and then it gets even larger, and its mass begins to lose its futile battle with gravity. The snowball speeds up on its own and the lucky few of us simply stand at the top and watch the ball roll to its inevitable death at the bottom of the hill. You, my friend, are helping to push the snowball down the hill. I will be asked to do the same someday—with certainty. We are brothers in that way. We are brothers in a fight against a greater enemy and sacrifice is the only way to win. That is what my name is to you. Brother.” 

The blue-eyed man nodded and forced a meager smile.  

Returning a kind-eyed grin, Ethan said simply, “good luck.” 

With that, he departed, leaving the man with blue eyes to his solitude to ponder, plan, and produce the outcome of his life. 

Ethan stepped out into the New York night. The first step touched the concrete that held the weightless energy that buzzed through at midnight. Seventeen languages taunted and laughed, and the drunk stumbles of best friends poured into and out of the small bar at the corner. The neon reds and blues from the bodega signs flickered against glass and chrome and skin, and the sidewalk pulsed under heels and boots and wheels and dreams. Yellow cabs honked half-heartedly in the distance—sometimes at nothing and no-one. A couple passed by, arms interlocked, and heads leaned together in some private orbit. A man argued into a phone outside a deli, waving a sandwich like punctuation. Sirens moaned blocks away, but no one flinched. Life was speeding. Life was here. 

Hope lingered like a transparent fog that earned its own gravity—pulling, attracting, capturing all the minds, both great and simple alike. It was a hope in motion, in noise, in the shine of buildings that reached like ambition into the sky. Hope, even in the trash bags lining the curb, waiting for morning. Hope that believed it was invincible. Untouchable. 

And beneath it all, Ethan moved quietly. Just a man with his hands in his pockets, watching a city unknowingly carry itself toward an end and a beginning, like a movie unfolding from the inside of its own set. The lights were bright, the streets full, the people electric. And somewhere above it all, was a man, alone in an apartment with a hot plate and a single mug—ready and sure.