Public Defender

The man once known as Public Defender now fully embraced his moniker for darker and far more intimate purposes. I was, all at once, fascinated and disturbed by just how much he had changed. More than the remarkable physical transformation or the stark changes in his manner and speech he was different in ways I had not seen before. Something in his, dear I say, spirit was markedly different. Why wouldn’t it be?

I know that I too have been changed and my own spirit altered, in ways that I refuse to acknowledge, but I still carry the distant memory of my own mortality with me and aspire to what must now be romantic notions of a humanity all but lost.

In quiet moments I see him struggle with sudden flashes of emotion, residue from a former existence, memories from his own life. But it was hard to tell what was left of the man I had grown to know through his eloquent expression and passion for his people. He was now an avenger and he was quite passionate about his work.

That first night he steadied his resolve with the memories of the horrors that he had witnessed and quenched his new thirst with the blood of our own kind. What was more remarkable was how cunning and elusive he had become. This was a man who had some experience with violence but, who, had never thought about taking a life. Near dawn he returned with blood on his hands and soaking thru his shirt. All he said, before going upstairs to the bath was that we should not worry, the blood was not his. Later, after Ngozi acquiesced to fatigue, he told me that he couldn’t believe how easy it was to pick them out. Strangely enough they couldn’t pick him until it was too late. He had lost count after seven.

As he spoke I listened to his new tone, his choice of words. I studied his mannerisms. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing a different kind of darkness reflected. He had acted, without much thought of consequence or care for his own ‘life’ such that it was. His only concern was in the reckoning that they had undoubtedly brought upon themselves.

As the sun began to peak over the horizon he grew silent, shut his eyes and did something that I have had little success with in far too long. He rested. I sat listening to the sounds of the house and Ngozi and of life stirring just outside. Enjoying the clam…