Niko’s Eye

Chapter 32.

"Set it Off."

Aisha.

"How did you get here? Actually, how did you know that I was here?", said a furious Aisha, steel in her hand.

Sergio slowly turned around and eyed Aisha.

"Are you forgetting that this is one of my properties too? I can come here anytime that I want to. Those angry eyes are your pain untold, and I wish you would tell it, I do. I would be yours in any storm, but there’s one thing baby... you have to keep me safe from them. You have to let me all the way in so that you always trust me and I only ever see your kind eyes, the ones that are my home. Because I want to stay with you, but you have to be good for me too. Put your gun away."

He seemed to think that his story could convince her.

There was something off here. But what if he’s telling the truth? There hasn’t really been any clarity with his movements lately but it’s nothing that suggests that he is an enemy. Just marry the damn man and take everything.

"So why are you here without any contractors or anything?", she asked, with a raised brow.

"Do I need them to drive me here too? Like I’m not the mayor of this town? I mean, you know I don’t like taking them with me everywhere because of the type of businesses we do. And this, is one of them.", he said looking around the mine.

She smiled at him.

"That’s ironic because the mayor of this town does, indeed need to have bodyguards with him, everywhere. Don’t you reckon? Let’s go."

Sergio took the gun from her and put it in his jacket. Then, taking her hands, he said, "We are more complex than the simple bloom, than the plant that stretches confidently into the rays of each fresh sun. Yet after all this time waiting for gold to spill over the mountain peaks, for a new day to come, to feel real warmth once more - I find myself stretching into the direction of your sunny rays. I guess this is trust. It’s been so long that the feeling feels new. Maybe it is. I guess that’s a pretty sad comment on the state of our world, on modern culture and where it takes the human brain. Perhaps it takes this long on your periphery for that trust to come, as a shy kitten from a deep hole, unsure of what the brightness ahead promises. But I have a purpose, and you do too, one that is compatible and unique. I guess it helps that I love you. I guess this trust is developing as a photograph does, needing the light to come when the picture is well formed. I can see it already. I want it already. Yet I leave the timing up to the wisdom of the positive universe. If we only get one shot at this, I want the best one, and though the waiting is killing me, I’ll do it if that’s what it takes to get you and me right."

She cackled and replied, "There are lots of folks who can talk the talk, but show me a man who walks the talk - then I have trust, then I have faith in him because the language of Love is not spoken but lived. I don’t care what you say, I’ll watch what you do. That doesn’t mean I won’t love you or be your friend, but then it is I that will gently lead you and not the other way around. Show me my err and the roles reverse. You don’t have to be perfect and neither do I, we learn together, catch each other, hold more ideals than we can live up to - yet keep walking even though all say the dream is only a dream. Dreams can come true, just dream the right one in the language of Love and know what it means - strong hearts, brave souls, complete and healed minds. Let’s get married and have children of our own. And when you retire, I want to take care of you."

Aisha didn’t know that such things were living inside of her. She surprised herself.

The things that come out of my mouth in the spur of the moment. Tense.

"I always thought that trust must come before love, yet it is not so, for love and trust can arrive at the same moment. When love is given in this way, immediate, no explanations, the trust arrives too. Perhaps that is why people advise caution or call it foolish, but to me it never is. Love is love, always a gift from the divine spirit. This love isn’t physical, it isn’t a "sin" to feel such strong affections; it isn’t an excuse to leave a relationship that has become difficult. Lover, this is a journey; I want to discover who you are. If I try to make you into some ideal given by others, I will never know your heart and soul. That would be a loneliness for us both. So let us drink from the same cup of life yet remain our true selves - two souls joined yet forever unique. This love is a clue to a possible new branch in a life. This new person maybe someone you will one day protect, rescue or nurture. So even though trust is so foundational to all human relationships, it doesn’t always first, it can come as part of a sudden package deal."

"In that case Sergio, help me kill Isis."

Sergio.

Is this woman being serious right now?

A million thoughts racing through his head right now. He had to look like he was on her side.

This is beginning to be dangerous. This is the stop light. A reason to pause and think. For in these times I remain quiet and let my creative problem solving do its thing. What does she mean help her kill Isis?

Every virtue exists on a spectrum with vice at either end, bravery sits between cowardice and foolhardy. In danger we reassess, take time, make no moves at all, and this is the brave choice. This is the right choice.

The paradox of our age is that when we feel the fear we need to educate us about the dangers of a polluted and frightened world, we are pushed down into our primitive brains - the part of us that evolved to deal with immediate danger requiring violent and impulsive solutions. When the fear leaves us, we are able to access our higher brain, the part of us with logic, empathy, self control and steady determination. By this time, however, that feeling of urgent need has passed, biologically we are back in "good times" mode and we fail to act with appropriate urgency. This is the paradox we need to fix. We need to be afraid without being frightened, able to use the higher brain while remembering a sense or feeling of urgency so we make the right choices.

Sergio leaned forward, his warm breath in Aisha’s ear, then he hums the song they used to sing on karaoke nights, in Mexico. His lips, the ones that really didn’t want to smile tonight, creeping into a fake grin.

Sergio keeps on humming until Aisha takes him in a bear hug and kisses him.

I’m sure she swears that I am an expert on keeping her heart beating, without me, I’m sure it would simply stop.

Sergio linked his fingers into Aisha’s hand and she shot him a look that was all love, just the right hint of softness, a crease at the corners of his eyes. Both of them repressed grins as they walked into the mine.

Before the troubles it was a beautiful thing to be lovers, after all, how can two people who love be offensive? Not anymore. The bitterness has grown faster than the sidewalk weeds and the notion of "purity" is brandished worse than any weapon. It is the obsession of the powerful, what we commoners may and may not do. It’s like they fear love itself, like it’s love they want to put in a cage, convict it as an emotion too dangerous for the masses. Especially the Christian masses. So what now?

If fun has to be the "right sort" it isn’t fun. If music has to be "the right sort" it can’t lift the soul. If "love" must be sanctioned by those in power, it will die and leave a hole in our hearts to be filled with hate and depression. It’s no wonder young lovers are caught every week, shamed in the town square, and punished in medieval ways. Love is something we all need to keep us going, those that don’t have any become the monsters of our nightmares, intoxicated on the power of the new order.

I had to try and buy time. I hope Isis doesn’t have to die tonight.

"Killer on the Loose."

Aisha.

Will killing Isis make anything easier for me?

Will it take away the other atrocities that I have committed? Will I be able to live a normal life after killing all these people? Won’t it always come back to haunt me? The answer to all of these questions, is yes. But I am prepared to pay the price. I am Adrijana Aisha Arismendi.

All of us are murderers in one way or the other, killing everyday. For example, government officials in almost every country today can decide that when a city became unproductive and the officials decided the residents cost more to keep than they were worth, they let time limited poison producing bacteria into the air, water and food. They were programmed to die in a few days in a similar way to a radio half-life, leaving the land clean, aside from the corpses of all ages rotting and pecked at by flocks of crows. Drug lords and mafias kill people everyday with the drugs they sell on the street corners.

But, Aisha could’ve easily passed for the worst of the bunch. Killing without reason, killing for survival, killing to obtain immunity from the killing she did and was always about to do.

Killers are barbaric. Legend says their hearts died in their chest cavities long ago, that they putrified and made a heavy slime about their lungs as thick as underworld tar. That’s how they became killers and perhaps why. The witches of the north say their emptiness is their madness, that they take life over and over as if they may possess the hearts and souls, yet never so. So was the case of Aisha.

I have no heart.

To be healed someone pure has to love each of these killers, to reform their heart as if it was the finest of clay, then set it to beating with pure nature’s essence. So until they find such a being to forgive all that they have done, to break the universal scales and set them free to begin anew, the killing goes on.

She wasn’t sure if that person was Sergio. That is why she still had even intentions locked in a cubicle when it came to him.

Just in case.

A tiny voice inside of her was convincing her that maybe he was the one who would set her free from herself.

She looked up at Isis, as she leaned against the wall. Shadowed by the moonlight and the darkness. Into her inky hair she weaved the moon’s light with her hand.

Such a beautiful girl, about to meet her doom.

Black braids hugged Isis’ face, highlighting the beauty of her face. Other than the brilliant white of her sclera and the pink of her lips, she was a perfect blend of browns from her skin to her essential t-shirt.

You beautiful piglet.

If she was going to kill her, she was going to tell Isis the truth and also the reason as to why she was going to kill her, just as she did with everyone she ever terminated.

She started, and moving towards Isis in the process," Darling, I’m going to cut strait to the chase."

She watched as Isis eyed her, unmoved.

"I’m not your mother Isis, and I killed your father."

Shoot, point blank.

Alejandro.

He wished he hadn’t gotten rid of Ignatius.

He thought about what he has sacrificed for Isis.

My entire life.

He thought of prison.

Prison cells had become simple beds with cranium caps and electrodes. Once under the influence of the simulator the prisoner was sent to relive their crimes from the perspective of the victim, over and over. Everything was simulated perfectly, right down to the correct levels of pain. The prisoner could change gender and age in the simulation, not know who they were before... Sometimes waking them up killed them outright, the shock of who they really were, the killer rather than the killed, the rapist rather than the raped. But if they survived they were changed.

Now who the hell is going to give me a ride to where I need to be?

He had cut ties with all of his connections, all of his partners, everyone who he did shady business with.

Sergio.

He stood outside of the hospital gates looking like an i***t of some sort.

A high-class i***t.

As he dialled the number, his mind carried him to what Isis once told him about herself.

I can honestly say I don’t hate anyone, I never have. I guess that makes me a freak in this world. Even in betrayal the mechanism to turn it into hatred fails, instead my mind seeking to understand their behaviour from a compassionate point of view. Why did they do it? What is it about them that lead them to such a bad decision? I don’t keep folks around that hurt me over and over, failing to learn even a little from each life lesson, it isn’t a good idea. The greatest predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. I just hope that in time hatred is seen for the pointless waste of time it is and that when we see it we begin to understand that it is a marker of love misused.

"You don’t deserve this baby, I’m coming to get ya."

In 15 minutes, Sergio had arrived, fuel in his aura.

"Don’t worry, she’s alive. But we have to hurry, she’ll kill her."

Isis.

Aisha had removed the duct tape from Isis’ mouth so that they could have a conversation.

"Yeah, well, your behaviour towards me kind of sold you out so, I can’t say I’m surprised. But dad? That was cold lady", she said.

Aisha sucked her teeth and frowned.

"I should have known that you knew I killed Archimedes. But, he deserved it. What you’re doing now, he did the same, but worse. You don’t know how long it took me to build my reputation, to make something out of myself. I was determined to have it all, without some rich man handing it all to me. My father didn’t agree with my ambition, so I put him out. Your father didn’t either, so I lit one up his ass too, and now y..."

"Don’t talk about my father like that!", Isis spat back.

The laugh that came from Aisha was like a newly sprung leak - timid at first, stopping and starting. She wasn’t done yet though. Isis could tell from the way she rolled her hazel eyes to the ceiling and half bit her lip. From deep inside, her chest came a great shaking motion and her face muscles grew tight. Her laugh robust, cackling and evil.

Her father once said to her, "The evil dark, not the noble dark, will come at you through your primitive drive. Any hunter will go for the weak spot of an animal, and that’s yours, my love. First there will be a trigger to open up the primitive drive, activate it as fully as possible, then will come the impulse to cause harm, one that hurts both others and yourself. Your only protection is to love fully. Love yourself. Love others. Be present in the moment. Question your own actions - own them fully for regardless of the evil force, except in the case of true insanity, they are yours. And long after we have forgiven you, you will struggle to forgive yourself. If an action feels as if it comes from your survival drive, with a feeling of malice, hate or fear - stop. If an action feels as if it comes from your higher thinking mind and with a feeling of love, kindness and compassion - go."

"You know what Aisha? I actually loved you as a daughter and considered you as my mother, and I still do. I’m not going to force myself to hate you just to please you. You did what you did and that’s not on me. The pathway into evil begins as small acts of cold heartedness, yet as with any journey those small steps become more significant as they add up. So, wherever you are on that pathway between love and indifference, start making choices for love while you still have enough soul to redeem. Meditate on love, breathe love in until it is in the very core of your bones and becomes the force that informs your intentions, corrects ills and brings you to a higher resonance with the divine spirit. Redemption comes of a will to see your flaws, to make a plan for amends and see it through in joyous and autonomous sweat and toil. To each is given free will, and so each chooses their own path home. Love, cooperation, kindness, empathy... let these be your lights and may you be strong enough to see what they reveal. Forgiveness and judgement are the twin redundant attitudes of an age that consistently fails to develop the kind of creative problem solving skills that leads to real comprehension of issues and preventative solutions. I forgive you, and I will always remember my father, and I will always acknowledge you as my mother. So, kill me."

Dear God.