The Only Circle There Is (The Longest Arrows: Story One)

I arrive at the home of Ed Benson, whose course needs correcting.

The Only Circle There Is

        

I stood at the bottom of the driveway. Its borders and cross-sections were outlined by tangled weeds, sprouting after half a summer left to thrive. The house was as modest as any in this neighborhood. A two-car garage was standard for these suburban homes, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find a single, dust brushed Sedan inside this one. The remaining half of the structure had dual doors serving as the entrance. A faded white wooden one was shut behind a dirty full-windowed one that hung just slightly crooked on its hinges. A symptom from years of staying closed to serve no greater purpose than to provide a sense of extra protection for Ed Benson. I knew it was mostly for his comfort, and It knew that first, then filled me in during one of our brief exchanges.

 

My stance was that of a casual bystander. Nonchalant and looking at the house as if I'd visited it before, but just wasn't all too eager to be back. That last bit was true, in pretty much all cases really. Though I had never been to this place before, and I would never return. It would know if I did, so when my business was through with whoever resides in or are attending any of the places I appear at, whether it’s a Suburban America construct, a Russian wedding, or the Crossroad, I leave it and never look back. This has garnered me the reputation of being quite an elusive figure. Rather impressive when entire cultures, ancient and current, live in constant fear of what I am. Or at least, what they believe me to be.

 

My pitch-black button shirt and matching slacks contrasted the dominantly stone beige of the houses that lined this street. Clutched in my left hand was a standard briefcase, dawning a blank black exterior, no bronze corners or handle to make it stand out. They were all black as well. Its contents were of a personal sort. Not to me but to Ed. What I believed stood out the most of all my attire was my footwear. A pair of black as my slacks and shirt on my back Converse. A choice in style I made myself, since it doesn't matter to me how I appear to people with my physical clothing. I rather let people's impressions of me be formed by the way I express myself to them through words and actions. A kind of outlook I passively encourage others to adopt. I say passively because I could give f**k-all what people ultimately did with themselves. At least after the business I had with any of them had been taken care of.

 

I’ve considered this even though it seems most everyone’s inherent thoughts of me are ones of agony, torment and disdain. I’ve also considered how these same people often inflict that kind of damage against others, themselves and this world in the name of It and all the unfathomable glory It bestows upon them. Or so they think It does. These people lend more to those thoughts and feelings of anguish out of the blind belief that they’ll be saved from it all. Such a self-destructive methodology. One that I play no part in. Instead, my role is to mitigate the erosion that occurs when people of this sort, or any sort, find themselves in a rut that they’ve trudged around and back into itself. A cyclical carving into the soil of their lives that may very well become their graves. It doesn’t intend that for them though. It has devised its own cyclical pattern. A circle that a clever fellow many centuries ago divided into nine distinct ones. He overcomplicated it, for they all tied into the same wheel, one that is turning ever onward as life continues.

 

Examining this short spread of developed land further, I was able to paint the figure of Ed in my head with every passing look between the house and yard. It was an unkempt mess, susceptible to unwanted and unflattering letters from the neighborhood counsel of fuckwits so insecure, the untidiness of others property is enough to push them to putting fingers to keyboards to write up a "well thought and organized list of complaints", that does nothing to persuade the owner of that property to do anything more than throw that s**t away and carry on with their indifference to the upkeep of their little piece of Nirvana. A strange thought for something that doesn’t care for the squabbles of people, but I’m still able to interpret those sorts of things and form my own opinions. Issues of that sort should be resolved in person between whoever has the problem, and who ever may have or can suggest a solution. That was my method.

 

For I functioned as a counsel of none. No, I act as I want, and what I want is to ensure that people of this sort, of Ed’s sort, know that It does not intend this for them. What It intends is for the circle to be closed. I may not explain that verbatim to anyone I visit, I instead convince them of it by what it is I have for them. I value the truth, like with the whole impressions based on conducting oneself ideal I also valued. The truth is what kept everything and everyone on Its path. Most all people have strayed away from this, and I merely serve as a means for course correction.

 

I started up the driveway. Flattening a portion of the weeds that lay in sprawling piles over every crack in the pavement. Every step I took emitted a brittle crunch that, even to something like me, was oddly satisfying. Gazing over the lawn, its excessive growth cascaded like waves, brushing against the concrete shore that was the driveway. Rounding the small corner and stepping over the single stair onto the porch, I stood in a more upright position than I had when observing the house from the sidewalk. The window blinds were drawn, likely to keep from outsiders peeking in, and for the insider to not pay mind to the grime accumulating on both sides of each pane. Much of the external appearance of the place was unpleasant. Like with people, when physical degradation occurs over time, it’s often the result of some inner, decaying quality that reveals itself in the form of abundant ugliness on the outside.

 

No valuable possessions were on display, except for a single potted plant that was set on a square table, placed in the right-hand corner of the door. The value of this sorry a*s organism had greatly depreciated. It had wilted to the point of appearing to recede back into the soil from whence it sprouted. Nearing the end of its cyclical existence in a manner so pathetic, it leads one to ask, 

 

'Why plant it in the first place?'

 

I wasn’t likely going to get an answer to that, since my business wasn’t with the state of this organism, but with the lack of responsibility taken on by another. I came within a foot of the swing door in three steps. I knocked on its dusty window, only four rasps with two of my right-hand knuckles. Each impact was equal in volume and clarity. I quickly blew on my knuckles as I returned my arm to my side. 

 

I glanced at the 'no solicitors' window sticker in the top left corner of the door. I had noticed it when coming onto the porch, but it didn't apply to me. What I had was something Ed would, if he had any sense to him at all anymore, want to obtain from me. This thought took a few seconds, but it would take another eight or so for there to be acknowledgement of my thumping on the dirty glass. A figure had approached the door from inside the house. An ever so slight shadowing of the peephole confirmed that. I stared back through it. There was that clever phrase about gazing to long into the abyss. The abyss was patient and would remain forever gazing back into whoever happened upon it. It helps that the abyss was a manifestation of man and could wander the world alongside them. Another moment passed, then the slow turning of a lock and the release of tension from the door made me lift my chin slightly,

 

 'There you go, Ed.' I thought.

 

Half his face appeared from behind the door that he pulled open less than a foot. Its hinges squealed mildly in that short turn. The exposed half was lined with wrinkles. They drew crude semi-circles around his eyes, which were slumped in sagging bottom eyelids. It appeared as if It had turned the big hand on the clock of Ed’s life a few thousand rotations, but I knew It ran no such interference. As young as Ed is, his appearance was owed entirely to his neglect of responsibility. Spending much of your early thirties letting your eyes, cheeks, and entire head slump like the swing door that did nothing more than suggest you take security seriously would do that to even the most crimson of chins. His chin had a five 0’clock shadow that was about seven hours early. He pulled the door open another inch, exposing his plain nose and equally sagging right eye to me. The two spheres he looked at me through were bloodshot under his unkempt, furrowed brow. The hair on his head was a forest of what grew out that brow, swooping and curling in on itself. Each broad, thick strand like rollercoaster tracks disconnected from each other at different points. A rollercoaster he appeared to be the passenger of for quite some time now.

 

Our eyes met the moment his were visible to mine. Neither of us blinked for almost ten seconds. He didn’t examine me quizzically, as most would when something like me appeared before them, at their humble abode no less. Instead, he looked on like I was one of much company he would just pass off and inform them they happened upon the wrong house. He wasn’t going to do that, because I happened upon the right dominion. That’s what many refer to my place of origin, but if I bothered to tell it, those same many would probably be let down by my actual background. We looked at each other for almost ten seconds, and the only orifice to move between the both of us after that time was his mouth.

 

“Can I help you?” The parting of his lips registered a faint “MM” before he spoke. The spittle that lined them stretched apart like the least appetizing frosting drizzle on the most vomit inducing doughnut you would never want to see. His volume was minimal, and his voice sounded like it scathed out his throat like it the words were dragging brittle glass up with them through his gullet. I paid no mind to it though, to either his greeting or the five-dollar sucky sucky state of his lips. I responded with a single word and gesture,

 

“Ed,” I said in an indifferent tone. The purple baggage of his eyelids somehow parted further away from his eyes. He shifted himself to be standing more upright. Even after this, and with the aid of the elevated threshold, he still only looked down at me from a two-inch increase in height. I pointed to the handle of the glass door. His eyes clicked towards it, then back to mine. I reached for the handle, turned it, and pulled the door open. It creaked in the name of neglect. Taking a half step back as I did so, my eyes never left his. He swiftly inhaled through his phlegm plugged nostrils. Half stepping back himself, but he held the wood door in the same place. I let the glass one sit at ninety degrees to the opening. It propped itself due to it slanting downward on the hinges. We returned to our staring contest of exhilarating proportions.

 

“Ed what are you doing?” I asked. Not expressing myself more than the movement in my face as a result of me speaking. He held my stare and didn’t seem to register I was now talking to him. Fear wasn’t what rooted firmly in the entry way of his disgusting home. Rather, it was startled intrigue at my sudden utterance of his name. It was the first and only to have left my mouth, and he was already at attention for what else may past them. This was a good sign. He stared at me, and I knew I just had to be patient (a virtue that truly was) and he would come around eventually. Eventually was sooner than I thought.

 

“Nothing.” He answered. He didn’t sound careless or casual, but slightly alert. His face echoed that faint alertness with a deepening in his brow squiggle. His mind didn’t race with suspicion of what I was planning on doing. My bet was on it was combing all the possibilities of why I was there at all. What had brought me to this forgettable slice of the world he’d inhabited. 

 

“That was rhetorical, Ed. I know what’s become of you.” I spiced my tone with an ever so slight dash of friendliness. It was so slight it was borderline being fake friends with him on a parody show ‘Fake Friends’ where instead of the plot being six dumb-go-lucky 30-somes getting along comfortably in Manhattan, it starred two stranger a******s, one with a problem, the other with the solution, all in the name of completing the circle It had conceived. Rhetorical or not, the questions I had for Ed are ones he’d pondered over already, no doubt. The look he gave me when answering the first one was defensive, with trace amounts of curiosity glinting in his sad-sap eyes. He settled back into the slumping stance he was in when first revealing that much of himself from behind the door. Stained white tee and black basketball shorts meant for those at least a foot taller than him or even I, he appeared to be overdue for some shock to his system. A shock I was more than able to provide.

 

“What were you doing?” I asked. The cadence of the questions would lead him to believe I would ask ‘What will you be doing’ next. Our eyes were locked, like we were connected at the face by two fluorescent light tubes that ensured we would remain in a state of constant watch of one another,

 

“N-Noth-,’

 

“Nooothing,” He began to repeat his answer, so I saved him the effort of wasting our time.

 

“I know. For how long?” I was sounding slightly more inquisitive with each question.

 

“I-I guess for a while.” He kept looking at me like I may make some sudden movement, I wasn’t going to, and I was pretty certain he knew that. The look was a cause of that pesky fight-flight bullshit that’s gotten people out of, and even into jams since the dawn of their ludicrous existence. He wouldn’t flee, I was pretty certain of that too, since curiosity kills more than cats. While it’d be easy to make the joke of calling him a p***y if that were the case, this was a matter I knew not let stray into toying territory. Where he’d break down into complete hysterics as I towered over him like a taunting bully who’d just gut punched him during a round of groundies. I knew the reason for encountering him, was to correct his course. But that didn’t mean I’d stop him from maybe pissing himself at least, out of helplessness or shame or any of the detractions of having full-spectrum emotions that people do. Again, it was a good sign he showed some response to my hair-raising actions of speaking his name and opening his door.

 

“Yeah, awhile and a year or three. I’ll fill you in on something, Even a path as monotonous, pointless, as DEPRESSING, as you’ve made yours, has a destination. A destination you actually have a choice of when to arrive to.” My burst in volume made him tense like a startled feline, one who appeared to want to disengage from whatever made them so curious in the first place. He did not. He’d unhanded the door, straightening his shivering arms to his sides. The motion of his hand coming off the handle pulled the door open inward another half foot. His entire figure now in my full view. His limbs lightly trembling as he remained affixed on me.

 

He was now physically arrested, just from the uptick in my voice. No sudden movements, none from me, and certainly none from him from this point on. I looked intently at him, his eyes reeled back into his skull, and I carried on with my non-rehearsed, but attention getting spiel. 

 

“You’ve led yourself down such a barren waste of life, that that’s the only word worth using for your treatment of it. Wasteful.” Sudden harshness would retain his shaken but fully present focus.

 

“All because you can’t bear the thought of doing what’s necessary.” My grip on the briefcase, that had hung idly in my left hand, tightened a bit.

 

“If all it was going to do was make you wilt and retreat into a void of self-fulfilling uselessness, why plant in the first place.” He darted his vibrating pupils at the still, defenseless and dying plant that lost any distinction of what it even was when first laid in the dirt. His eyes returned to mine. They welled with the forthcoming tears of a realization that his carelessness to address certain matters, had brought me into the fold. Me, the thing people personify as a punisher, which isn’t the case. I was here to ensure that Edward Frank “Ed” Benson, was at least aware of his predicament. And that he need not be chained to the belief that there wasn’t a way out.

 

“I k-know…,’ He said. I was mildly surprised he did. It seems he had been making more considerations mentally than I was willing to credit him for. I lifted my chin slightly at this.

 

“I know what… you’re here to do,’ Ah. It seems he was more worried about the threat I posed than what I had to offer him. Or to him that was the threat. Another conception of my behavior that, although amusing, doesn’t align with my intent at all. My intent mattered not, Its did. It would see to the completing of the circle, regardless of what I saw to gain from it. 

 

 

“Just p-please, just do it.” He said this not pleadingly. The leaks had sprung in his ducts, but he wasn’t bawling. The tears just streamed along single channels flowing down the inside of his blemished, wrinkled face. He seemed to believe that whatever he thought I was going to do would be done by me specifically. No, that’s not what It wants. It wants those responsible, to own up to what they’re responsible for. And Ed had neglected his responsibility for too long.

 

“I can’t, stand it here…,’ He shook his head back and forth as he spoke.

 

‘it’s become a void. Not j-just, here. But out t-there,’ he gestured not, the outdoors we’re the only place he could be referring to.

 

‘I never believed, s-such suffering could, come from it.” It was fascinating, I’ll admit, just how easy such a disease riddled existence can sneak up on some. It’s as if life itself was what all those people who believed me to be. The destroyer. Entropy was inevitable, but apathy, that could be corrected. Different approaches can be taken when one is faced with a seeming insurmountable challenge, especially one trying to determine if they should even still live or not. If they didn’t, it must be by there own hands that they saw that through. Right? I don’t believe so. Not that it mattered, and I wouldn’t tell him that about me, I knew I could get through to Ed about that, get him to see it as I do. See it the way the one all believed to only see to the suffering of people, was a way to undo that suffering.

 

“Ed,’ I said, glossing over his words and pitiful try at handing over the burden that was his existence.

 

“It isn’t me who’s going to see that this happens. It’s all on you.” I spoke matter-of-factly. His wallowing while yes annoying and demoralizing to him, hadn’t surprised me, unlike his abrupt words following the glance at the potted plant. What it showed me was that perhaps he had some fleeting traces of spirit. To follow through what It intended him to. Ed’s head dropped, planting his chin against his stuttering chest, as it rose and fell. The break in our long, world record staring contest left me thinking it was now best to finish our interaction completely.

 

I stepped towards him. Not suddenly, and no more than half a foot. He brought his head back up. His shivering had also stifled, as if it had fled at the notion of me approaching, expecting I was going to obliterate Ed’s being by the very act of it. I didn’t and wasn’t going to. We locked eyes once more. In a smooth motion, I lifted the briefcase from beside me. I held it in front of and close to my chest. Ed’s eyes drifted to it. I placed my right hand on the side facing him and tilted the up facing latched edge towards him. It was like I was presenting to him a relic of holy proportions, one with which he could use to do the Lords work. In a very misconstrued by people’s existential ignorance kind of way, he was.

 

 I undid the left latch. The metallic click made Ed inhale nasally. Other than that, he was silent and still. Unlocking the opposite side, the tension of the case being clasped shut was released, and a parting in the lined opening appeared. Ed motioned liked he may turn his back and run, like he expected the classically accepted version of what people perceive me as to spring forth from within the confines of this mysterious black box I held before him. The mystery was unveiled, as I pulled the top half open. Ed appeared to stand taller than he was as I did so, like his skeleton was being pulled from the top half. What was inside him would be revealed to me as I revealed to him, the one and only thing he would ever need for the rest of his life.

 

He stared into the case. His mouth had been ajar for most of the time we had spent here in his little piece of “Heaven”, but it rose back to where his lips almost touched. His trembling eased, and he squared his shoulders in my direction again. Tilting his head as he considered what he was looking at, he slowly raised his right arm. The curl of his fingers and speed at which his arm traveled indicated some still present reluctance. He glanced back at me, his expression of shocked dread was replaced by a small combination of surprise and Awe. He pointed at the case interior. I nodded.

 

“Take it,’ I said. Not demanding. Not forcing. Just telling him.

 

“This is all it is, Ed.” And it was. He reached into the case, his hand disappearing below my line of sight, but when it returned, he held it, so it was in both our views in full.

 

A single syringe. It had resided in the case in a slot cut out in its exact shape, like it was a pistol or something fragile and of great value. In some cases, that is exactly what a pistol could be. But in Ed’s case, this would do. He eyed it. It appeared to be completely translucent, as if it had yet to be filled. But its contents were all there, the perfect amount, to undo all that Ed had wrought. I shut the case, clapping both ends back together. This was as sudden a movement I had made this entire time, but Ed had remained holding the syringe, unwavering. He tilted his head to the left now. Staring at the medical instrument with more wondering eyes than the ones he granted me. After re-securing the case and returning it to my side, Ed finally brought the syringe closer to himself, holding it by its entire back half in a loose fist. Turning his hand over and unraveling his fingers, the most peculiar detail of the needle revealed itself.

 

“It, has… feathers?” He stared at the answer to that question, but I spoke to break him out of his small trance in the wake of receiving such a blessing in an unassuming form. And fashion for that matter.

 

“Think of them as fletching’s,’ Certainly a unique feature for a hypodermic, but after all, It had commissioned it. And It had ways of expressing itself not common amongst anything else in existence.

 

“The longest arrows,’ Ed looked at me.

 

“Take forever to strike.” I closed the distance between he and I by another foot. I came within six inches of the decadent b*****d, but he did not retreat. Nor did he flinch or fight. He just looked. Almost relieved. But the true relief now lay in his hands, in that very un-assuming cylindrical capsule. Dawning identically colored, almost as clear in appearance feathers.  

         

          “At least, they seem to. But what people don’t realize, is that they can wield them. They have the choice to guide those arrows. And yours Ed, has been delivered unto you. Now, I will leave you to guide it where it must go. May your hand and mind be true as you do.” In his eyes, his ducts had dried. His face, while still damp, had appeared somehow slightly rejuvenated. He covered the syringe with his other hand. Embracing his responsibility, ready and willing to carry it out.

 

“I will see that it is.” He uttered. Not confidently, but not cowardly either. There was a dash of understanding in his still strained, but slightly livened voice.

 

 It was the most convincing thing he had said, probably in years. Even after the pitiful display that was him flooding externally, the way he spoke now had me certain that he would not wait any longer. His time had come, and my time to leave him be, had come as well.

 

          Or so I thought.

 

          I stepped back from him. Still facing him as he remained in the open doorway. I began to commit a rare courtesy, that being shutting the glass door I had helped myself to opening when he first appeared. But I stopped before my hand reached the handle.

 

          Because then we heard her.

 

          “E-EEED,’ The distant voice called. Creaking laced each letter as she seemed to exhale his name rather than say it. Ed tensed once more. The look of distraught anguish crossed his eyes again. They widened as he hands closed tighter around the needle. Accidentally injecting himself wasn’t my concern. My concern was that she had awoken. I stepped firmly back towards him. He swayed slightly, like my approach would have him topple onto his back. But he kept standing, and staring, at me. I dropped the case, clutched both his wrist in each one of my hands, and brought his in front of his face.

 

          “THIS, Ed,’ My tone was shrill, but my volume was muffled as I spoke through my teeth and to him.

 

          “Is your salvation.”

 

          “EEEEED,’ Her lungs depleting of breath. Mine we’re full and pumping.

 

          “This is the end and beginning. You have been trending in the direction of the former for too long. For reasons you know you should have dealt with for so long but HAVEN’T.” I placed my index finger on his left ring one.

         

“Whatever was here is gone. But the part that matters in all this, you have allowed to carry on. It will not have it to any longer. But It made sure that you would be equipped to do it. By granting you one of Its longest arrows, It will know that you were not the waste after all.”

 

“Ed, please. I need, I-I need water.” I plunged my right hand into the potted plant and tore from it the disgusting remains of whatever the f**k it had been. I clutched it before his eyes. The ones that had wept at the sight of me calm, now were threatening to leak again at the sight of me leaving him. Leaving him to do what he needed.

 

“Why plant it in the first place, when all you would do is have yourself wilt away along with it?” I throttled the dry, brittle spine of this piece of s**t.

 

“Uproot her from the soil of the Earth.” I released his other wrist. My right hand falling beside me. The flaking remnants of this s**t was sticking to my fingers and palm. I stood still. Watching intently as Ed looked over his shoulder.

 

“E-ED.” He returned his eyes to me. They were lax. He lowered his hands and parted them, keeping the needle facing down to the floor. It ran up his wrist about an inch, the capsule being no longer than two. He dawned it like a hidden blade, one which he would deploy with a swift, unflinching confidence. It was when his eyes came back into view this last time, that I was in fact now, certain of that. Even in the wake of her abhorrent sounds, he looked as if he were starting down the path, he had meant for himself since before ever hitching himself to the longest arrow that she turned out to be. At the sight of this, I dusted my hand off. Brushing it together against the other. Like the classic gesture of ‘the job is done’. Mine was, as for Ed, his would take but a fraction the time mine did. Unlike me, his obstacle wasn’t anything that needed convincing.

 

I picked up the briefcase. Our eyes caught one final time; he gave a slight nod. We reached for each of our respective door handles and closed them in unison. I wasn’t paying attention to it, but the faint sound of ‘EEEEEd’ faded as he sealed her in with him. Pulling into her final-destination with the closing of the doors. I turned to face out towards the open air of the neighborhood. I stepped my way off the porch, in the same manner I had when first approaching the home of Ed Benson. Soon to be his and his alone. Walking down the slant of the driveway, I swiftly kicked at the weeds parting the cracks in the pavement. Ed would get to them; I just felt the need to assist in some way. My business with him was done, but his business with life had just begun.

 

The Longest Arrows seem to take forever to strike. But they always hit their marks. It’s better to spend less time worrying how to avoid them and learning how to wield the bow.

 

The Longest Arrows Story One

 

Author's Note

All contractions are on purpose.