we’ve read the back of the book, we know what’s going to happen. Who: Ophion Barnard. What: Preparing to leave. Where: His home + around Emillion. When: Recently. Rating: PG-13, mentions of premeditated murder. Status: Complete narrative.
A part of him from decades him says: Leave, boy, this is what you always wanted. Time interlocks in front of his eyes, blurring his vision.
There is nothing for him left here. Pick up the pieces of his heart and hopes crushed by a massacre for a frail attempt, for a distant chance. For justice. Revenge.
There is nothing else now. (he sees no future for himself until this is over. until, until--) He had hoped it would come to this: a plan in action at last after years and years of waiting. This must be finished. There is no alternative, he has no other plans.
How long has he been waiting? Twenty plus or minus a few--and it doesn't even matter how much time by the time anger festers for that long--years of his life poured into this one goal. He has always been ready to run, hasn't he? Didn't they all know? The walls around him crumbled if only to turn to a boat to take him away.
A change of clothes, his sword, the newspaper clippings, notes on his brother. A photograph of family, family, family the way the two women shaped themselves around him (and shaped him). He packs the bare minimum into a canvas bag. His feet move without his telling, without his thinking.
Reality slips from his grasp, the darkness inching its way into his peripherals.
He calculates the memories and people he will leave behind, the few goodbye's worth saying. But I will be back, he thinks, when I am done. When it is all over, when he has won.