It’s a terrible feeling. You inhale loud and sit up straight, or maybe you feel like you just fell to where you lay. Adrenaline is coursing through you, and you can feel the pulse of your heart as speeds in its rhythm. Your eyes are wide and alert, and there is sweat slick on the skin. There is a breeze and you can feel each hair on your skin and the goosebumps form along your flesh. After this moment you begin to think. It was only a dream, a nightmare. You look around and try to process where you are. Reassure yourself that everything is fine. You are back to your regular life. The problem with that moment of when you regain clarity is that the true horror begins: this is worse.

Every night he shut his eyes to the harsh sound of the lights going out, and locks falling into place; he had been here for seventeen years, and whether it was right or wrong no longer mattered: it simply was. When he dreamed he had a window to look out of, and how he looked. The simple things of grass fluttering in the breeze, or a bird's shadow racing over the ground as it flew above; it would always end abruptly with the artificial light shattering the memory of the sun, and again he found himself lying in his cell. 

    Oh shit! Alan took two steps back, was it repulsion? His pupils were dilated; his eyes wide, alert-nervous. His hands began to tremble and he dropped the wrench. It fell with a clang, cracking the ceramic tile, but Alan didn’t hear it.

    He put his hands to his face, his skin was slick with sweat. He could feel his damp dress shirt, a heavy weight with the sleeves rolled up: a happy accident from working on the sink. Some blood clung to the hairs of his forearms. He stared just ahead at the body of his dead wife.

    She stared too, blankly looking up. Her jaw was broken, teeth cracked. A couple teeth were on the tiles, being followed by small speckles of blood. A larger pool of it was moving in their direction. The red of the blood and the white of the teeth were pronounced by the grey tile beneath them. There was a smell of rust in the air.

    It was an accident, Alan thought as he looked down at the wrench on the floor. Some blood was visible on the side of its head. More blood. Now he was really going to have to get the sink working better. He would need the water to clean this up, the blood. All of it seemed to pulse, radiate. It all seemed like a beacon to Alan, a bright banner of celebration rippling in the breeze.

   It was an accident, he thought again. He said it out loud to himself like a chant. If he said it enough he could believe it. He looked at her body, and he couldn’t stop himself: he smiled. His grinning lip rippled with a giggle, and then he laughed. She had it coming and he couldn’t pretend any different. He didn’t plan this, but he sure as hell wanted it. Now all he had to do was to figure out how to plant reasonable doubt that fact, and fix the sink. At least now he could work in peace.

Money can buy you anything, and my ability to recognize this is my power. It afforded me specialized equipment, cutting edge research, training, and the ability to replace all damaged goods. Money isn’t the symbol that I chose, but it acts as a convenient cover. I needed my enemies to fear me; people don’t fear money – maybe they should. I use my money is my power, and I use it to fight the crime I find infesting my city.

I call it my city because my family has been building a good portion of it for generations. I protect what is mine, and I look after my own. I protect the people from desperate criminals who would prey on them: those others hiding in the squalor, shadow, and refuse. They are unwilling to respect others, and wish to harm all that is good about the community. This country has a strong tradition of removing the dangerous and alien members unwilling to contribute properly and productively to the society. Vigilantism worked for the frontier, and it works for me.

People think I don’t see the big picture. They think I am blind, and make quips about it fitting my image, my symbol. But it is everyone else who doesn’t see. They don’t see the order that I am bringing. They don’t really understand what I am protecting. The outfit covers most things, and most effectively it covers what it simultaneously points to: my privilege and I will not abuse it.

Life was lesson, he hoped he learned.

When the course was complete - he passed.

He was in covenant with all, but congregation with none.

If there is only one thing of him to be said – let it be that he loved until he was dead.