On Balance Weighted- All Walls Asunder

We emerge from a storage shed. I turn and give my brother a highly suspicious squint. With a bit of a smirk he then glances away, busying himself with some geographical feature in the distance. I chuckle a bit at the familiarity of it all, and hope fills my mind at what all this might mean. I fashion these senses into a poem, to christen our arrival.

"Walk paths familiar

From each our own perspective

But seen in new ways

Like a pair climbing

A tree large enough to hide

Each other from view

A pair emerging

From the same storage shed here

But still worlds apart

Two multiplying

The blessings each will receive

With every line spake

I am curious

How does my brother see this

Journey on the page?

From this apartment

From just beyond this threshold

I wonder the same

Anchored in some way

Of this there can be no doubt

Anchored all the same

Yet tethers differ

So we both carry our loads

In company shared."

He turns back to me, and we each stop staring out the window. There is a fire of determination in his eyes and, though our immediate surroundings tell tales all their own, like lightning my quicksilver tongue inquires "What you wanna do?"

With a still determined smile he simply opens the door to this otherwise vacant room, and we emerge into the hall. We walk down the sterile halls, with the faintly bitter scent of antiseptic hanging in the air. The counterpointing presence of bright hopeful murals on the walls amplify my memory of the mission at hand, and I clench my fist. I feel something changing already. The latent bothers and worries of the day which have filled my mind with topics, now seen as meaningless by contrast, I realize have primed the engine and increased my capacity for rapid thought, for rapid agreement, in a scenario just like this one. I can already feel the maelstrom of thoughts ceasing to collide aimlessly with each other, drawing to a keen edge of unparalleled size and strength instead: The Storm Harnessed. I can tell a similar process is underway in my brother as well, though, by his eyes, it seems that the paths by which we reach these crossroads where we might stand and strike an accord, as well as the weapons we each bring, differ greatly.

He turns and meets my look of smoldering rage, his eyes conveying a sharp blueflamed sadness as if a forge primed. He does not turn away. He says "With the right preparation, this part is a snap. This feels long overdue. Kick us off." He holds his hand up, finger to thumb, like a man wielding eternity's key as if it were a paltry bauble by light of his visage. My words are both carefully laid and erupt vigorously, for on this level brought forth they have been building and shaping for years.

"See my fist clenched and bespoke Sword of Truth

Know I'd rather have a night of nonsense

Than see tiny coffins fitted for youth

Let critics squirm, I'm not on this fence.

To each their own thread, say when it's enough

To each their own corner, dancing alone

Till rainbow rafters vault, road will be tough

Till Starry Night's seen by all, empty throne

So shatter golden, to orange if need be

So tune radio till every scream's heard

So shred veil till their pain is all we see

So all break and stitch all night undeterred

By dawn cancer in every child healed

By dawn chains on every angel unsealed."

*SNAP* With a simple gesture my brother confirms, despite what I felt was more venom in my words than first intended. "This is not a war won lightly, nor will it be in parts. You've already seen this end, time and time again, but this time we will see it together."

I take a deep breath, but the air feels different, charged. As oxygen enters my lungs I feel as if it sprouts intangibly from my back as something like a pair of wings, coalescing with the atmosphere. A scene flashes in my mind, these last ~6 years seen in but a few moments, but my fist remains clenched. "There is fine, here is fine, but my waking world is where my sites are set. Take aim, reload, and pull the trigger when ready. I could not care less how many out of place 'storage sheds in children's hospitals' this results in; I could not care less if the whole crowd reconciles this miraculous nonsense illogically into the category of easily explicable. Can a man grow so tired that exhaustion simmers to rage and erupts as an inferno of healing? Can a fire burn along such lines that it restores what makes reality beautiful? Can paths be known to be valid, even if it is equally known that their twists and turns can never be fully mapped? I believe this can be accomplished, and I am willing to be as broadly uncanny as necessary to see it through. If I have been judged and my structure stands, why was she not waiting for me when I woke up?"

Of all my questions I can tell the last leaves a mark. I take a deep breath and begin again. "I recognize that, given the stance I have taken here, I have no right to say where we should go next, and that perhaps I am not even in the position to suggest one." I hang my head, this victory somehow feeling paper thin even as confused children filled with hope begin shuffling into the hallway en masse. "I would save the whole world, for your sake." is whispered beneath the growing din. I look back up at my brother, who still smiles and says "You needn't suggest a thing, let's go." We exit through a much more reasonable storage closet, into a moment already earmarked as a favorite.