Present

Today is another day.

Dante and I put on our masks; his is old, so the smooth surface is stained by smoke, scratched, dented, battered. He's earned the charcoal smears. Mine is still plain, pale, untouched. I have not been anointed yet.

It is winter; the cold bites, the snow covers the ground, and we approach the couple all bundled up and cozy, walking arm in arm. The houses here are nicer than where Dante lives. There are also less police, which Dante likes, because the police are false. They're hypocrites. They hate just as much as everyone else, but they pretend their hate serves a higher authority when they unleash it. They claim to walk above the rest while throwing the same mud. There is nothing worse than hatred made dishonest by politic.

So Dante says.

Our hatred is honest when we surround the couple in the cold dark beside the neat little laneways. We're flanked by tall houses that still have their Christmas lights up. Almost every lawn has a tree, barren branches blanketed in sparkling white. Under these branches, Dante draws his machete. I heft my crowbar.

Dante gives the stunned white couple two choices, a single turn of his blade cutting through the air, slashing the throats of whatever cries of help that would've rose. He says they can either give him their wallets, jewelry, or they can give him an excuse to use the blade. He says he'd just love an excuse, he begs them to give him one.They are shivering, now, and not because of the cold. Their coats are better than ours.

I am warm, though. I can feel the anger, the rage, the hatred, I can feel it boiling up every limb, simmering in my core. There are holes in my jacket that don't matter any longer, the wind doesn't matter any longer.

I know Dante feels it, too. He taught me how to feel it. The others feel it as well, but not like Dante. Not like he's shown me.

The couple give Dante their wallets, a watch, some bracelets and a necklace. I want to hit them, I want release, I want to bring the hatred to the world outside me, but Dante backs off. I grip my crowbar and back off too. I do not want to. I want to turn around and hit them. When we've walked four blocks away, and my feet ache from the cold but the fire inside still roars, Dante directs me towards a tree.

Breaking the bark makes the crowbar shudder in my hands. It is almost painful, but at least I feel relieved while I swing.

I walk home in silence with Dante, our masks removed and weapons stowed. As I am on the very urge of asking him why yet again we didn't make the choice for someone, why we didn't let the rage out, he taps his chin and removes the wallet, a wry smile on his lips.

Dante says that we now have enough gas money for the trip. The beat-up grey sedan in his garage has gathered dust for as long as I've been there, though.

I ask him, what trip? Where are we going?

His smile fades. Dante tells me we are going up north. He tells me we are going to visit the Wall, and that he will place me on the Ashen Path anointed.

I am ready.