The Torch Bearer

I huddle deeper into the filthy rag of a cloak I am wearing, hiding myself in its thick folds. I picked it up just the other day; I traded a beggar my best winter coat for it. My coat was polymer insulated; this cloak is made of tattered wool and every wisp of a frigid winter breeze manages to find its way straight to my skin.

I have been traveling for days, so many I've lost count, with less food and sleep than one would imagine a person needs just to stay alive. I am burdened under my own weight, yet walk on, not daring to stop even long enough to quiet the protest of my muscles, bones, and stomach. For what I carry beneath this beggar's cloak is far more important than its courier, and I could never forgive myself were it not to reach its destination.

I shuffle along the city streets. I watch the scenes slowly pass before my eyes. Downtown, there is steel, glass, and concrete, nothing more. The buildings are antiseptic and institutional; no hint abides in their facades of the lives and souls of the men and women inside. Every corner is perfect, every surface smooth, every window polished to spotlessness. Nothing on the outside speaks of humanity.

Farther out toward the suburbs, old brick tenements are crumbling. The sidewalks are scarred with cracks and potholes. I pass broken windows, bullet-riddled street signs, occasionally the burned-out shell of a building. Hatred, apathy, despair pollute the air; with each breath I take I can feel the city rush through my blood. The city, the roads and sidewalks and buildings, has taken on its own life and cries out to me in its own voice to save it from the downward spiral it is trapped in. It is frightening, exhilarating, yet also comforting. The cries of this broken world reassure me that humanity is still alive; the current of emotion flowing up into me from the pockmarked concrete I walk upon tells me that there is still a part of the world that the slick cold perfection of downtown has not managed to touch. If I am going to risk my life to save this world, I at least want to know that there is something left to save.

At last, the crumbling despair of apartment buildings becomes the cultivated cheer of brightly painted houses and manicured lawns; unyielding concrete fades into the softer picture of trees, grass, and flowers. The suburbs do not cry out as the city did; its voice is stifled under its smiling face, but can still be heard if one listens closely enough. Humanity has not been obliterated from the suburbs as it has been from downtown. It is merely revealed here in another of its aspects: the drive to pretend, to ignore the darker side of life in hopes that it will simply go away. As I have come to learn, though, darkness cannot be evaded. The only way to drive it away is to confront it, to fight it, and to win.

I nearly pass the wrought-iron gate. It is half-hidden by creeping vines and situated in the middle of a long stretch of lush forest, far away from the company of other houses. I try the rusty latch and the gate opens with a resounding squeal. I receive my first view of the house and am not surprised to see that it fits almost exactly the picture my mind had conjured from the sketchy verbal description my superiors had given me. It is more of a mansion than a house, actually. Its stone facade and Gothic architecture would look out of place here in this suburb were it not set back in the seclusion of the woods. It has the appearance of having been set here by a time machine; some would find it ominous, but I find it a welcome tie to a different world from that in which I live.

In the privacy of the long driveway, trees blocking me from view on every side, even from above, I let the hood of the cloak fall from my head, and lose the posture of a poor beggar. Standing tall, all hunger and tiredness seem to melt from me, and I finally feel as though I am capable of changing the world. I stride to the door, lift the brass gargoyle knocker, and knock three times. I hear footsteps inside, then the turn of a key in a lock, and the door swings cautiously open. Before me stands a man, his pale complexion and dark hair and eyes matching the aspect of the house itself.

"Come in," he says. He stands aside as I enter the hose. Although the sun is barely over the horizon, there seem to be no lights in the house, nothing to welcome my presence but shadows. Apprehension grows inside me; my stomach sinks when I realize, just as the door slams shut behind me, that this man did not ask me the code - or give it.

"I've been waiting for you." I whirl to face him. But it is not him I end up facing - it is the barrel of a gun. Shock hits me a second before the bullet does, and I am on the ground almost before I know what is happening. The pain in my chest and the warm slippery feeling of blood on my hands and face begin to drive my consciousness away; I am briefly aware of his hands on me, searching me for the disk containing the precious information, and of the thought that his are not the hands it was supposed to end up in. Something has gone wrong. I have failed.

But for some reason, I still have hope for the future. Even as the world fades to black, I still can believe that someday light will return ... even as I die, I can still believe that it is not in vain.

Many miles away, hundreds of feet below the ground, a man reads the message coming up on his computer screen.

"The mission is completed," he reports to the other man lounging idly behind him. "The information was delivered."

A relieved sigh. "Thank God." he shakes his head. "I don't know. I still feel rotten about doing that to her. I mean, she really thought she was letting information fall into the wrong hands. Can you imagine dying thinking you've just failed the cause you devoted your entire life to?"

"If you had told her the disk contained false information to throw those creeps off our trail, she might have betrayed us. Yeah, she was a good agent, but we both know that doesn't mean shit when you're facing death. You did what you had to."

"I know, I know." He shakes his head again. "But still .... she died not knowing whether her life actually meant anything ... whether or not the future she gave her life for could ever happen..."

"She knew," says the other, his lip curled into a half-smile and a gleam of remembrance in his eye. "I'm sure she knew."



©2000 Elizabeth Hebert


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