The final battle
When I arrived at the coordinates I was taken aback, the view was breathtaking. A small glacial lake lay still and serene just beyond the clearing below. An emerald meadow surrounded the lake and a waterfall posed frozen, eternally filling the calm waters. White and pink flowers littered the meadow, a bamboo forest swayed rhythmically with the wind just beyond. My eyes sparkled and mouth held agape when suddenly I heard my opponent’s voice quietly behind me.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
“It-it is magnificent.”
“My mother brought me when I was young, I spent some of the best summers a boy could dream of, right here, until she was taken.”
My eyes lowered in grief, knowing the rest of that story all too well. I asked cautiously,
“Why would you choose this place for our fight?”
“What better place is there to die?”
It wasn’t said as a threat or with any malice, but with genuine love, longing, and compassion. He gestured with a hand toward a small wooden table and two knobbly chairs, carved from a fallen oak and well worn smooth over a millennia.
“Sit with me and have some tea. When the sun touches that peak we can begin.”
We sat in silence admiring this eden below. At one point he reached over to refill my cup and we caught each others eyes, misty with the pain of despair. In that moment I wished to command the giant star to cease its descent and allow us to abandon this futile cycle.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s out of our control.”
“You’re wrong,” I replied simply as I laid my weapon at his feet and stood to leave.
I could see the battle waging inside him; vengeance begging for justice while his fractured soul cried for peace. He filled my cup again and he once more gestured for me to sit.
“The moonrise is just as beautiful,” he said with a calm contentment.
I sat and took the cup, his hand began fading as mine pulsed with a new glow. Tears fell freely as I felt his smile return and heard his faint whisper echo,
“well done.”
💚