Wall

It is made of crumbling bricks and withering mortar, bits and fragments of red, grey, black, brown all flake away in the whining wind that keens its frozen cries.

There are gaps between the bricks which house hundreds of little containers; some film canisters, some small tupperware boxes, some little glass vials. Some are labelled, and some used to be labelled, and some never were. All are clear, and all hold the same thing. Ash.

The patchwork stone is stained by smoke, lesser ash, blood, spit, sweat, piss, puke, mud. It is sacrilegious and sacred at the same time, its very standing is a testament to nothing more or less than pure hatred, and its spawn, its twin, its sister and its bride: destruction.

Dante had told me stories about the Wall, but being near it was enough to awaken an angry throbbing in the back of my head. My jaw tightened reflexively, fingers clenched, teeth ground. It was wondrous.

A fire burns in a pit at the Wall's base, constructed from the concrete remains of a walkway. Before it, Dante and the others stand. The only commonality among them is a grey cloth of some kind tied around their left arm. Dante stands in a long grey coat, dark brown skin, hair sticking up at odd ends. Graves is another who I know; he wears a thick red vest, skin pale save his face (which is ruddy), bald save for a few wisps of stubborn hair. People of all colours and sizes, not a mob, but still a large group, all wearing the grey. All standing in the field before the Wall, arrayed around the ruins of whatever building once stood there (the root of the hatred does not matter, only where it grows). They are Smoke. Though I stand behind them, soon I shall join them.

It took Dante four hours to drive out of the city and reach the field, but we are still early. As the faded sunlight wanes behind the clouds, other trucks pull in through the line of trees that ring the property. People get out, dressed in yellows and oranges of every shade. Though they are not exclusively female, they are Brides. They work with the others, sometimes (never Dante, Dante stands apart, even from Smoke; they call him an apostate, he says he prefers to work alone). One of them pauses to regard Dante as he gazes into the fire; I've seen her before, though I could have sworn last time she was male. Maybe she fluctuates, as the flames do. Dante taught me some people do that (although why he did, I do not understand). Her neck-length black hair is cropped at a jagged angle, her skin is tanned, and though she is of Asian descent, I do not know if she is Chinese like me. I do not ask. It does not matter.

The Brides stand with Smoke in silence, and watch the fire flicker. The sun sets before Dante and Graves step forward, and drop little pouches into the flames. They stand for another moment, watching the air just above the wall until it turns to grey. A solemn ritual. Making sure. A shorter, stockier bride in a deep orange coat then steps forward, and places a little clear cylinder of ash into a gap in the Wall. The three stand there for another moment, before finally turning away.

The Brides and Smoke head towards an outbuilding I glimpsed on the drive in, at the furthest edge of the property. Between the throbbing in my head and the bottled rage in my veins and the burning question on my tongue, I find I can no longer hold back. I jog to catch up with Dante, and, walking beside him, ask when I will be anointed.

It will take place later, Dante says. After the wake for Phoss. I ask whom Phoss was, seething that in death, this man bars my entrance to the Path.

A good man. A good friend. So Dante says.

I am forced to drop it. It is not right to demand now, not when Dante has done so much for me. Not when the others are my family. I join them in their trek to the outbuilding.