REVENGE!!!! Captain Ahab and I are brothers in blood for I too have lost a leg on the journey down the dark path of bloody vengeance. I look out to the crater where my mailbox used to be. I placed that mailbox myself and every day my dear, sweet, child...my little white adventurous dog would become a blur apparition, darting to that mailbox to relieve herself in appreciation. Ah sweet friend, my lovely little daughter, for what parent ever had a child more loving, what parent could be more proud of their own flesh than I was of that ray of fur-covered sunshine.
The total eclipse came when the M1A2 Abrams tank came around the bend of my dirt road and launched a shell from its main turret leaving a crater where the mailbox and my heart had been seconds earlier. I stood on the porch stunned.
My wife was down at the church, not to register her pledge but to play the game of espionage, to see what, if anything could be done to shield ourselves from this full scale invasion of our little village now that the Homeland Agency of Defense was known to be looking for terrorists in our township. We had little hope of protection since I had picked a fight with the local priest over the placement of my flower garden, but hoped that perhaps we could find and exploit some weakness that could aid in our escape.
With no other allies to turn to, I grabbed my grandpa's pistol and headed down the street half-cocked and ready for revenge. Anger, tears and blinding hatred impaired my vision, nonetheless a tank is a fairly difficult target to miss from close range. "HEY YOU DIRTY SON OF A BITCH!!! A life for a life you bastard"!! , I scream. Pop! Pop! Pop!! Pop!!! I fire off shots hitting the Abrams in a scattered fury of shots. One of my bullets ricochets off the hull of the tank and strikes a little girl who was hiding behind some bushes where I didn't see her. I gasp in horror as her little body collapses silently in a heap.
The Abrams turned it's .50 caliber gun in my direction and as the shell went through my leg I could swear I heard laughter. I am thrown twenty feet. A soldier lifts the hatch and begins filming me with his camcorder, then he lights up a cigarette before the tank continues down the road toward the church. Quickly I pull off my belt and strap it tightly at the pressure point above the wound where most of my leg has been blown off. Crawling off to the side of the road, I grab a dead tree branch for a crutch and stagger home. My wife never came home while I still drew breath. I grab some duct tape and try to stop the flow of blood, but its obviously a mortal wound. Hopping into my favorite La Z Boy, I pull the crank to the footrest, attempting to elevate my leg. Hypnos placed his heavy hand over my eyes and my story ended...or so I thought.
REVENGE!!!! Herman Melville, William Shakespeare and all the rest, while talented writers did not understand the meaning of the word. Revenge is in no way related to justice. Revenge is not some fictional character with blood in his heart, hate on his breath and the means to kill whatever specter haunts his or her dreams. Revenge is a motive so strong, an energy so pervasive, dismissive of time and matter, coalescing manifest in an entity eternally bound to itself. I am Revenant! I am terror!!
Sing O' Muses!
Sing a song of my coming.
Whisper my name in the shadows.
Revenant