The Katana.

He prayed that morning. Taking a break from the overwhelming concepts of Sagan, Feynman and Hawking and immersing himself instead in the heady, cloudy mystery of his parents' Bible. Sitting in church as a child, taking in the coughs, grunts and occasional snores around him. The punctuation marks in the fantastic stories living out their half-lives in even the most mundane people. Queing for communion, a mockery of their hunter-gatherer past.

One day he left, ignoring his family and walking out, mid-Eulogy. The light, no longer filtered through stained glass images stung him. That day he stopped believing in god.

Only now he remembers the closure of that story being him running home to finish a letter to Santa Claus. He got the present he wanted, a child's encyclopedia and a lava lamp to read it by.

Long after the filament burned out, and the casing and glass were veneered in a decade worth of skin that he had shed, ideas he had shed, dreams he had shed.

Now he sits in a park, that same light clawing at his eyes, ignoring the $5 sunglasses in his pocket, smirking to himself. He had succumb. All through university he played with the idea he could change the world. Change people's perception and show them light as it should be, light that forces you to turn to face away, and see the world differently. Seeing Socrates as his god, and his paycheck as his scripture.

He watched Kill Bill the previous night. Savoured the violence, the all-or-nothing attitude and he wondered if that could be instinct. He was not Machiavelli; his teachers were not Machiavelli, his girlfriends hadn't been Machiavelli...even Machiavelli wasn't.

He bought a katana. Ceremonious symbol of a civilization masked, if not destroyed by money, consumerism and imaginary power.

He shifts, uncomfortable on his bench seat and kicks the paper bag at his feet. He looks at the bag and closes his eyes. Lets the movie scenes pass through him, as real as they were in Dolby Surround and he smirks again.

Across the park. Oblivious. Caught in their own unfulfilled dreams, three children play.
One was smiling more than the others. He had just been given permission to attend an overnight field-trip with his class and handed the money, an enormous sum to a thirteen year old to pay for it. He was gloating.

In his far-from infinite wisdom he had never been more powerful. Having read about Hercules, David, Alexander, Napoleon and jesus. Invincible.

His counterparts didn't think so, they mocked his self-proclaimed messianic presence. Mocked each other for alluding to follow him. It was this same self-preservation that opened the door to the most important moment in their lives to this date, and in at least one of their cases, their lives to come.

Two youths, opportunistic like Hyenas, giggling like the same with eyes shining like cynical panthers stalking a limping fawn walked towards them. One clutched a stanley knife, the other quickly clutched the eldest child by the scruff of his neck. They demanded the money.

The hostage taker drew his own knife while the circler snapped up the trinkets: the cellphones, mp3 players, small change. They weren't here for those. They had smelled the wallet, snatching the scent like sharks to an injured seal or vultures to a draught-drained Ox. The bearer resisted, struggled against the knife and superior strength. Self preservation became a competition with himself. Would his fate for non-compliance here match up to his fate for relenting as dished out by his parents. He growled through tears. His counterparts shrank, all bravado cast aside, all mockery forgotten. All concentrations placed squarely on maintaining control over their bladders.

The Katana felt light in his hands. Lighter than he thought, he unsheathed it and gestured to admire it with the sun's reflection to find cloud cover as a barrier. No more light.

He stepped toward the confrontation, the epic battle of wills. The hostage taker ignored his approach, the children pleaded without speaking, still too terrified to communicate with their assailants.

"Leave him alone." He roared, baring his teeth and flexing his right arm to flash the blade.

There was no submission, the child was held ever-tighter but his attacker relented by reaching by force towards the boy's pocket. The boy kicked and shook and held onto his wallet like a man would hold a branch on the wrong side of a cliff face with nothing but gravity between him and crashing waves.

"Leave him alone." His shoulders hunched and knees bent he swung the blade in an arc around his shoulder. The second attacker moved towards him, baring the smaller-scale blade.

The sun reappeared. Shining off the katana and into the wallet keeper's eyes. he cried out, and threw his hands to his eyes. His wallet was gone, the attackers ran.

Sirens split the air, a rush of sound. Ducks chattering in the river to their left, crows braying and pigeons cooing at fast-food scraps. Car engines sending tremors through feet in an expanding radius.

The police circled, children huddled, our protagonist stiffened, threw his head back and his eyes to the sun and he laughed, casting his knife aside. He fell to his knees and prayed.

"You have the right to remain silent."