MacLeod - Part 6

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Sixth Era - Release

Something had changed in MacLeod since Kaoru died. He couldn't explain why - but he couldn't heal as well or regenerate anymore. He first discovered this whilst using a band-saw. It snapped, the runaway blade sliced through the third and fourth fingers of his left hand. Usually his fingers would grow back over a period of days. This time, all that was left was some throbbing stumps.

He knew he was now sitting in life's waiting room. The anticipation that death was finally a reality gave MacLeod immense comfort. All he had to do was coast through the remaining days, weeks, months or even years.

As per habit he rubbed his finger stumps to ease the pain. They always seemed to ache when he came back to Chicago. He could feel the coarsely healed tips swell with numbness. As this sensation settled he knew it was time to go. He gave Kaoru's tombstone a sentimental nod, and then walked off towards the city. It was starting to get dark, the orange marmalade sky had started to turn black. Street lights came on, the shadows dancing around him as he walked.

He was eventually alongside the metal fencing of a park. The metalwork was old, brittle and rusty and it extended well into the darkness ahead of him. For a split second it seemed infinite, and he almost felt like he was walking along a never ending conveyor of fence. The metal posts were at least two meters high, imposing like the bars of a large prison. MacLeod smirked to himself as he wondered - if a prison was big enough, would you ever know if you were on the inside... or the outside? It reminded him of something Kaoru said when they discussed creativity; that the mind is infinite until it remembers it is trapped inside a skull.

His loss in thought was interrupted by the sound of a whimpering dog. He stopped and looked into the park. Under a flickering street lamp cowered a stray dog. It was difficult to place its diluted breed; it looked like any other Chicago stray. It was nursing an injury to a leg. Circled around it was a group of unruly teenagers. They were holding sharpened sticks and knives.

MacLeod had a sense of déjà vu.

He quickened his pace, turning into the park when he got to the gate. As he approached the mob and its canine victim he became aware of a terrible sense of foreboding in his chest. This insidious, sickly darkness was almost paralyzing. His heart fluttered, the back of his throat became as dry as sandpaper and his knees were struggling not to buckle. Not once had he felt this since that fateful day in the saloon where it all began. He barely recognised the syndrome he was suffering from - Fear. Was this how people felt in the face of danger? It reminded him of all the terrified people he had killed. He shook his head - He was empathising hundreds of years too late.

"Who the hell are you then?" shouted one of them as they noticed him approaching. He was leaning to one side, his arm floppy by his side holding a long blade. They were young, none older than sixteen. This district was 'Outfit' territory, and he was well aware this was the incubating next generation of gangsters. He pitied the inevitability of their rise (or fall) into a life of crime and the lack of insight which accompanied youth.

MacLeod paused before he answered, surveying the scene in front of him. Now that he was closer, he could see that the dog had a nasty cut to his left hind leg. It was bleeding and he was licking it pitifully, struggling to stem the ooze. One of the boys stood a couple of paces away from the dog, his machete bloodied. They fidgeted as they stood, swinging their weapons - his presence made them uneasy.

"Leave the dog alone" said MacLeod gruffly.

"It's none of yer business" seethed the boy. "I'd turn around if I was you"

"I said, leave the dog alone". MacLeod planted his feet firmly in the ground. It felt like a game of chess. MacLeod smirked at the thought of the analogy - a king had to be taken for the game to end. Was this his checkmate?

"What you smiling about eh" blurted the boy, "This ain't funny!" and he reached into his pocket and jerkily pulled out a pistol.

The rest of the boys reacted with surprise. MacLeod could tell none of them had seen this gun before, there was a mixture of fear and shock on their faces.

"Wher'd you get that Gordon?!" shouted one of them. "It better not be yer Father's!"

Gordon didn't respond. It was obvious he had never held a gun before. His hands slipped over each other as they trembled trying to hold the gun still, pointing it in MacLeod's direction. MacLeod saw a boy struggling to justify his place in his own life. The insecurities of a boy crushed by the shadow of his father manifested in the shaking hands and squirming face. MacLeod continued to smile - he saw his own youth in the boy in front of him - There comes a moment in every man’s life that defines his existence. It is no more than a split second. The days leading to it are all in preparation... and the days that follow are remnants of its glory.

"WHAT ARE YOU SMILI-" began Gordon, but he was interrupted by his own fingers pulling the trigger.

There were no cliches and there was no slow motion. The gunshot's sonic-boom echoed into the night. The bullet tore through MacLeod's chest. It pierced through his chest wall, burrowed through his heart and pulverised the lung on its way out of his back, shattering a rib.

This was it - thought MacLeod.

A few seconds elapsed before MacLeod fell to the ground. In that time, the boys shared a look of absolute horror. Gordon froze in position, the momentum of his first murder evident on his face. "It was an accident" was what he was trying to say, but his gaping mouth made no movements. He dropped the gun, his hands remained afloat ahead of him. It was only until MacLeod, whose hand was gripped tight against his chest, crumpled onto his back that the boys ran off, dragging Gordon with them.

Silence ensued. It was interrupted by the occasional chirping cricket. The air was still and it began to feel cold. MacLeod stared into the abyss above him, the infinite blackness of the sky was peppered with stars. He knew he was dying, but he also knew it was going to be slow. His body wasn't going to shake off all those years lightly.

"What a way to die!" thought MacLeod. Living for centuries as a walking miracle only to die trying to protect a stray dog. The dog in question had now come over to him, hobbling and whimpering. It licked his face before settling down next to him, resting his head on MacLeod's shoulder. MacLeod was grateful that the dog was giving him company in his final hours. At that moment, in the context of the universe and its oppressive infinity... its stampeding inevitability, they were equals.

"Equals" he whispered - the word echoed in his brain. Why had MacLeod sacrificed himself for the stray? Was it that he thought the stray's life was worth more than his?

MacLeod struggled to find an answer. "Man's arrogance is in his sense of entitlement - in his belief that he is worthy of more" thought MacLeod aloud, "...that he deserves something. If only we all put that to one side and realised we are not worthy at all - and instead that the people around us are worth it all!"

MacLeod concluded that the only reason he existed to begin with, the only reason he lived so long (too long in fact) was so that the stray could be saved. It didn't feel demeaning or anticlimactic - it felt just right. It gave him solace, that his life wasn't an endless maze of purposelessness. He sighed, and then coughed as he could feel the blood pooling in his airways. It felt warm at the back of his throat.

The realisation he had just come to was accompanied by a Great Wave of emotion and deep feeling, followed by a cooling serenity. All those years of anguish, guilt and self-torment were washed away with a forgiveness he didn't know he had. He had carried that weight, and for the first time he carried it no more.

His breathing was becoming shallow, his heart irregular. He felt a sudden chill and shuddered. The stray noticed this and shuffled in closer to MacLeod. They stayed like this - in silence, for hours.

"It would be any moment now" thought MacLeod. His vacuous eyes gazed at the sky above as he tried his hardest to picture Kaoru's face within the blackness.

MacLeod's body was found the next morning by a man walking to work. A dog was found by his side - it was taken away to be put down on account of an injury to its leg. They say it wouldn't leave until beaten viciously. MacLeod was cremated - his identity was never determined and his killer never found. His ashes were thrown into a plastic box with other nameless ashes. A conscientious man who worked in the crematorium would take these unwanted ashes every week to the Chicago River where he would scatter them whilst whispering a short prayer. The day MacLeod's ashes were scattered was a clear, cool day. The river was docile, and the ashes quickly disappeared within it. The man turned to walk back to the crematorium like he normally did - oblivious to the weight of history behind the ashes he just released.

"Because ten billion years' time is so fragile, so ephemeral... it arouses such a bittersweet, almost heartbreaking fondness." - Now and Then, Here and There (2000)

MacLeod - Part 5

Part 1       Part 2       Part 3       Part 4      Part 6

Fifth Era - Redemption

387 years and 42 days old.

MacLeod was standing by Kaoru’s grave. It stood out not because there was anything special about it, but because hers was the only one in that block which was tended to. It was lined with chrysanthemums instead of weeds and the granite tombstone, although worn and cracked, was clean of any moss or graffiti. Her neighbours were also over a century old but fared less well. 

It was a cool summer afternoon. Clouds had dissipated and the sky was a hollow blue. A light breeze flowed around MacLeod as he lit a cigarette and breathed it in. The smoke he exhaled was dense, silky and sweet - the tobacco tasted of the Chinese village it came from. As he smoked he could hear the cigarette rustle as it burned, the cemetery completely silent save for the occasional chirping bird. 

His eyes rested on the silhouette of the smouldering city beyond the cemetery walls. He never liked Chicago but Kaoru was there, so he was. They moved from rural Japan when they couldn’t explain to the villagers why he wasn’t ageing. They lived there until Kaoru’s death - it was a good life...

MacLeod chuckled to himself. This happened each time he came back here - the inevitable trip down memory lane. The difference with each successive year was it grew into a lonelier, longer journey. When Kaoru died she left behind a hole deeper than the one before they met. She was half of his mind; the answer to his doubts, a vessel to his thoughts and a shelter for his beliefs. 

At times like this it felt like his mind was forever wandering on an infinite moor. In its never ending journey it would brave rain, wind and snow alone. It suffered and endured without complaint - but it was the loneliness, the craving for companionship during the ordeal that was really palpable. There was something so fulfilling about reciprocated understanding - he missed it.

MacLeod remembered how, at the beginning of their relationship, he agonised over the fact he was her father’s killer. He would watch her as she worked on the vegetable patch, imagining all the different ways she would react when he would tell her the truth. He was certain she would disown him, but he was set on telling her despite this. 

“Kaoru - I have to tell you something” he said one day. They were sat by short cliff edge, fishing. She looked up at him and saw the seriousness etched on his face. She turned towards the sea and her lips slowly traced a smile. 

“My father was killed in the war when I was only a baby. They say he was killed by ‘The White Blade’, a ferocious beast of a man. Some said he was 8 feet tall and had fire for hair. Some said he had never lost a battle, that he couldn’t be killed. To some he was a God, and to others he was the angel of death sent by God.”

Kaoru paused. MacLeod dared not move a muscle. She took a slow, deep breath and continued.

“My father’s death at the hands of such a monster was celebrated in our village as the worthiest way to die. He was fêted as a hero, as a martyr. As a child growing up with all this I didn’t see anything heroic about martyrdom. All I saw was my mother’s sadness and all I felt was hunger. I vowed to to find ‘The White Blade’ and get my revenge. I fantasised about how I would do it when I found him, it kept me going as we wandered across the country in search of a future. We suffered unimaginable things. We tolerated more than any human could have. It was years of this misery before we made it to the Ryuku islands... and there he was.”

Kaoru turned to face MacLeod. Her eyes were alight with a restrained excitement, glistening as though they had a story of their own.

“Kaoru...” he said, reaching a hand out towards her.

“He wasn’t the fiery giant the legends described” interrupted Kaoru,”Or anywhere near as old as he should’ve been, but I recognised him nonetheless. I first saw him trading with the blacksmith - I was distracted enough to burn my hand on the metal.” 

She gestured towards him with her hand, a line of discoloured burn visible across her palm. She smiled at him as she did this, not helping the uneasiness brewing within MacLeod.

“I followed him to his cabin. I would often spy on him after that, plotting how I was going to kill him. It didn’t bother me that this man was clearly supernatural - he clearly hadn’t aged and the scars on his body were too many to be sustained by any mortal. He owed me my life and I was there to collect.

Except the more I saw of him, the less of The White Blade I could trace. This was a man who lived in persistent anguish. Everything he did, whether it was meditation or painting, was laden with despair. It was almost like he had lost something he never had, spending his days searching. The White Blade was already dead and I was too late. All that was left was the hollow shell of a broken, self loathing man.

It made me wonder whether there really was such a thing as Redemption. Whether the consequence, the permanence of evil could be cleansed by Time. Whether the Man inside could change into a totally different beast to the scarred, war machine on the outside. Does forgiveness expire like its recipients? Does it get discarded along with forgotten memories? 

I could never forget, and who was I to forgive?

One day I saw him sitting outside, painting. He was copying an old photograph. I didn’t have to see the original to know who was in it. I thought I would be disgusted, or even just angry at how he was trivialising my family and his deed.

Yet there was no ill feeling. 

He applied the paint with grace, his brush glided across the canvas like it had a mind of its own. It was obvious from his expression that this was no ordinary painting, that he had immense respect for the people forming on the canvas. Despite accurately copying them, my parents appeared pure, almost holy. Maybe it was how he contrasted the colours, or how their imperfections - scars, blemishes and marks- somehow helped bring together a portrait of goodness, of perfection. Of what could have been, or should have been. I suddenly became nostalgic for a life I never had.”

MacLeod could see she was getting more animated, more excited as she spoke. Her hands were waving in front of her. Her voice at times trembled, her tone varied unpredictability. The soliloquy was sounding more like a symphony. 

“This deification, this painting - Was it an attempt at seeking forgiveness? Was he cleansing his guilt with each brush? It seemed to be working. With each stroke I could feel my urge for vengeance dissolve into another feeling altogether. One I refused to acknowledge until much later. It triggered immense shame and disgust in myself. It lingered in my heart and lurched each time I saw him, radiating warmth.

I knew he knew who I was. I could see it in his eyes when we met, and felt his guilt echo as he spoke. I saw it in the painting he gave the blacksmith - looking at it was like gazing into a mirror of my own soul. He had read me like a book...”

Kaoru sighed. She tugged lightly on her fishing rod. A light breeze caused her hair to ripple across her face. She didn’t make any effort to put it back.

“You know how the rest of this story goes. I will say one thing though - he owed me my life and he gave it back to me... and more. He is still seeking forgiveness - but it isn’t mine to give anymore. The only person that can forgive him is himself... I hope he finds it one day.”

Kaoru’s eyes rested on the horizon in front of her. MacLeod turned to look across the sea, a small fishing boat hovered silently on the still water. Enough words had been said, and both sat in a silence tempered by the sea air.