Balance
Content
Balance The clash of blades rang throughout the small hall. It was a dark and rather dank room, normally it would be said that there was a soft light just breaking through a small window bathing the room in a cheery glow. However, this window was so dirty as to be opaque and the only thing likely to break through it was a brick. Indeed, the room was completely devoid of worthy descriptors to really make it worth anyone’s time. The fact that it was a space with four walls, a floor, and a roof is the only one worth mentioning. Also, it smelled of mold. The remarkable thing about this room was not what it was, but what it contained. The sound of blade on blade ran together so quickly that it became a single pure note. In the dank, and somewhat gloomy, room, two figures danced a lethal set. They were in constant motion. Their movements were so quick as to be a suggestion of a flicker, the sketch of a technique. Had there been any spectators that battle would have lived on for eternity, retold and passed down from generation to generation. It was a dance of the likes the world sees only a few times in the span of creation. This was a battle between gods. There was a pause. A breath. Dust settled and the room became absolutely silent. The two forms stood still as statues. Both had the faces and bodies of young men, one had eyes of pure silver, the other gold. They were gods by name only, though they were older than the gods. They had existed since time immemorial. There was the One, and the Other. They are opposing forces that have existed since…ever. Diametrically opposed: yin and yang, love and hate, dark and light, good and evil. As soon as they had become aware, they had been in constant opposition. 1
One’s hand tightened on the grip of its silver blade, Other’s foot shifted in the dust. In a sense, their conflict is what all of life was built on. There was a thump on the door. Both turned toward the sound in an eye blink. There was another thump, a gentle chime sounded and the two figures were gone, a third thump on the door yielded results. The latch burst from the frame and two giggling figures collapsed into the room. There was a decidedly feminine shriek as they hit the ground and proceeded to scramble about in a moment of confusion. The young man was lean and had a mop of brown hair that had a tendency to curtain his view of the world. The young woman, and there was no way she could be confused as anything but, especially in the state of dress she was currently exhibiting, was a classical beauty with ebony skin and shockingly red hair. Both of them were more than slightly drunk. The young man propped himself up on his elbows while the lass laid crosswise across his back and tried to bring her breathing back to a more normal rate. “This isn’t my bedroom!” The statement drew a new gale of laughter from the girl and the boy joined in. For a moment they lay there laughing on the floor, quieted down, and then started up again. Finally, they managed to climb to their feet, and stagger out the door. Giggles and snorts sounded for a moment down the alley and then faded into the night. A gentle chime sounded and the two figures returned. For a moment One looked out the door in the direction the two had traveled. Other watched in silence. With a gentle smile creasing its face, One turned to Other, gave a small bow, then
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looked back down the alley. An understanding was reached. One walked out the door and Other disappeared with a chime. The game was on. ** Rick woke suddenly. Light shafted in through the inexplicably open window and the hustle and bustle of the street outside made him think it was a bit later in the day. His mouth tasted as if something had died in it the night before and as he sat up daggers of pain lanced through his temples. He closed his eyes and counted to 10. Placing his hands on the covers in preparation for the final push to standing, he stopped. His right hand had landed on something soft…and warm. Looking over, he saw a mass of ruby tresses sprawled across a pillow, a bare shoulder peeking out from under the covers, and a hand that curled around his. His jaw dropped as last night’s adventures finally lined up in his consciousness and started filling in details. Oh. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but grin at the crazy absurdness of it all. She was Farah Day, only the prettiest girl in the area. And apparently, as details started filling in from the previous night, there was some mutual attraction. Hell, he hadn’t even thought she knew who he was. He had been wrong, so very wrong. With a silly grin plastered on his face he tried to slip out of bed as quietly as possible, grabbed some pants, and made his way out of the bedroom and into the minikitchen. Wandering past the table, he started to make coffee. He was quietly bustling when he heard a faint chime. Turning away from the counter where he had been grinding
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beans he saw a silver blade on the table. He stopped dead. That definitely hadn’t been there last time he checked. It was about two feet long and sharpened only on one side, the straight blade tapered to a needle-like point and the entire thing had an almost organic feel to it. There wasn’t an obvious transition from hilt to blade, it almost appeared that the blade had grown from the hilt. It was a masterpiece of curves and edges. It may have just been the light at that time, but the thing seemed to glow, it seemed almost otherworldly. Rick stepped toward the table and reached a hand toward the metal hilt. There was a spark and then the blade jumped into his hand. It was like sticking a finger into an electrical socket. The blade was old, it had been formed at the first light of the universe, and would finally rest after its last fading glimmer has been snuffed out. It had been wielded by a force older than the gods, older than time. It had spilled the blood of millions, had pierced stars, had ended entire civilizations. It was the tool of Armageddon, of Ragnarok. Rick didn’t realize that he had fallen to his knees, but he had. The blade lay in his open hands and he looked at it with awe. There was nothing he could not do with something like this. He stumbled to his feet in a daze, coffee forgotten. He stumbled into the bedroom. He had to tell someone about this. He looked up and saw Farah sitting up among the wreckage of the blankets and pillows, holding a blade that, but for the golden hue, could be the twin of the one in his hand. As incredibly arousing as a beautiful, naked, black woman holding a blade with the power to end stars is, it
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paled in the sudden knowledge exploding into his brain that she must be ended, that she was the antitheses to everything that he was, that he would ever be. The blade sang through the air before he realized what was happening and its golden twin met it with a musical chime. The note hung in the air and seemed to reverberate oddly. Farah’s eyes were wide as she slammed her free hand into his bare chest. Normally the blow would have staggered him if anything, now it sent him flying back through the air and slamming into the wall. Picking himself off the ground Rick heard a shrill ringing in his ears and felt the flickers of an aeon old fury kindle in his chest. He moved faster than he had ever thought possible. His blade arrowing for Farah’s heart. She spun like a dancer and slapped his blade out of line with her’s as her foot came around in a ribcracking blur. Rick twisted his hips and felt her heel graze along his stomach, as he sped past, he swept her plant foot out and she landed on the floor in a heap. Rick kept his forward momentum and ran a step up the wall, jumped off of it, and soared through the air at the fallen girl. The silver blade glowing brightly as it descended in an overhead strike. Their eyes met midair. The absolute focus in Rick’s mind shattered. Farah rolled backwards and pushed off the ground in a graceful back handspring as the blade in Rick’s hand sank into the floor. He staggered to his feet. “What the hell?” He left the blade in the floor and took a step towards Farah. He stopped short as two feet of golden metal seemed to materialize at his throat. Farah looked down her arm at him. Her eyes seemed…different: cold, heartless, old. Rick put his hands up. “What are we doing Farah? When the hell did we learn to fight like this?”
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She blinked, confusion flickered across her face, Rick pressed on, painfully aware of the razored metal pricking his throat. “Why the hell are we even fighting? Where did these swords even come from? What the hell is going on?!” He held a hand out to her. “Please Farah, come back, we need to figure this out.” Farah blinked, then recognition blossomed in her eyes. She looked at the sword in her hand and blinked again. “Either I had the most peculiar dream or we just did some crazy shit.” She dropped the blade to the floor. Rick felt his heart start to beat again. They grabbed Farah some clothes and took a seat in the kitchen, they left the blades where they lay in the bedroom. Rick put a mug of coffee on the table with a gentle knock of ceramic on wood. He cupped another in between his hands. “So.” Rick nodded and took a sip of coffee. “So.” Farah looked in her mug for a moment, then looked quizzically at Rick. “How exactly did we just manage to do all of…” she waved a hand vaguely “…that. I didn’t have to think, I wasn’t even myself. I mean, I was me, but I wasn’t me.” She looked back into her mug. “God, that makes no sense.” Rick looked at her thoughtfully, and took another sip. “No, I know exactly what you mean. When I picked up that sword I was still me. But it was like all this stuff just poured into my head. I was there, but there was just so much…” “…more.” Finished Farah.
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“Right, more. There were all of these things that I knew, that I understood, that I needed to do. And when I saw you I didn’t even think, it seemed the most natural thing in the world, the only thing in the world I could do, was to try my damndest to kill you.” Farah’s mouth quirked in a grin. “Well, I didn’t think last night was that bad.” She waved her hand. “Sorry, bad taste. But, I know what you mean. I felt the same way. I rolled over and you were gone, but this gold sword was there. My hand touched it and it was like…electric.” She shivered and cupped her hands around her mug. “It’s so old. And so powerful.” “Yeah, terrifyingly so. So, what do we do with them?” Farrah looked at him for a moment, then it stretched to two. Then she smiled. “Hell with them, we’re gonna make breakfast, then we’ll think with full stomachs. What are they gonna do? Disappear?” Rick smiled and lifted his mug with a smile. “Sounds like a plan.” ** “They disappeared.” Rick toed the split on the floor that had last been seen with a silver sword sticking out of it. “Looks like.” Farah walked a little farther into the room. “Does that mean that, they’ll never come back?” “Let’s hope so.” Rick took Farah home, and over the course of the next week life continued as normal. They met up a few more times and no magic swords appeared or anything
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extraordinary. Though, they did have an awfully good time. One week turned into two, then into four, then before it seemed they could blink it had been six months. Farah had moved in, and they were doing well. She was starting a new job and Rick was still part timing at a couple of different places, nothing too great, but enough for now. Life seemed to be following a normal course. So when the two of them went for an evening stroll, they didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the entire episode, at times, seemed like it may have never happened. They were chatting about some guy they had seen on the street when Farah stopped short. “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?” “Like a…chime or something?” Rick shook his head and grabbed her hand. “Nope, let’s keep going.” They rounded a corner and walked into silence. Streetlights dotted the way to a small park a few blocks ahead. There were absolutely no people around. Everything was dead quiet. “Farah, what the hell is going on?” “I have no idea.” They walked another block, there was a big tree in that small park, there were two figures standing under it. One held a gold blade, the other a silver. As Rick and Farah walked closer the two figures faced each other, bowed, then began a slow dance. It seemed choreographed, the blades rose and fell in what as approaching a steady rhythm. This continued for a few moments, then the rhythm sped up, silver and gold blurred together into a monochrome, and the blades made a single pure
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note in the air. Beside Rick, Farah gasped, she remembered that sound. The night she and Rick had gotten drunk, the night they had stumbled into that weird warehouse on accident, she had heard this sound. At the time, she hadn’t though much of it, she’d been rather preoccupied with Rick and the general hecticness of the evening, but now. Now it seemed to make more sense, things started clicking in her head, she had heard that noise, then the next morning those blades had appeared at Rick’s apartment. She frowned, but why disappear and show up now? The two figures fought beneath the tree, at times one or the other would seem to gain an upper hand, but only for a moment. In fact, the more Farah watched, the more she realized that the duo were perfectly matched. Next to her, Rick mumbled something. “What?” “I said neither can win, they’re equal.” He frowned as he said that. “I…remember that.” She felt realization bloom in her brain. “So do I.” She whispered. Under the tree the pair had locked blades and stood straining against each other. For a moment there was a stillness, then they broke apart and just stared. The feeling in the air was different, less menacing. Rick and Farah moved as one toward the two figures. “Who are you?: Rick asked. “Well, I guess ‘what are you?’ may be a better question.” The figures stared at them in silence. Farah noted that they did not blink. The one with the golden eyes spoke first. It was a little surprising, she had expected something…weird. But, he spoke just like a normal person.
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“We are what has always been, what will always be.” The one with the silver eyes spoke. “We are the conflict, the essential opposites.” Gold eyes flashed. “We are what the universe is built on.” Silence greeted that statement. Farah spoke up. “The conflict? What conflict?” Gold regarded her, and the blade in his hand twitched. “The essential conflict inherent in all things: light and dark, hot and cold, male and female.” Rick started to speak up but Silver held up a hand. “We represent none of these things, we are the conflict that occurs between them, that must occur. At the point where two opposites meet, that’s where we exist.” “But why did you pick us for, well. I don’t know what. Why did we have your swords?” Silver and Gold both turned to Farah, the combined force of their gaze made her take a step back. Gold answered. “We respected the opposites you embodied.” He gestured to her. “Dark skin…” and then the Rick. “…light skin. Male and female, and your personalities, your emotions, opposite in so many ways but…” Silver pointed to their clasped hands “Yet there is unity, togetherness. Indeed, we have always found humans…what is the word?” “Fascinating.” Gold said. “Either one of us is essential to the others existence, with out one, the other will fail. And all that is around us would fall. We cannot exist without each other, yet we cannot ever be united, together. Humans are full of dichotomies, indeed, defined by them. Your lives are a mass of contradictions and opposites.”
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Silver took a step forward. “We gave you our blades to see what would happen, to see if those contradictions could be rectified. They cannot. Somehow you can exist, though we don’t know how.” Gold turned toward Silver. “You embody the conflict we sustain, and we find it…reassuring.” Silver’s blade sang through the air as Gold leaned back and snapped a foot out. Silver leapt back and paused. A ghost of a smile crossed its face. “Thank you.” There was a chime and the two figures were gone. The city bustled around them. Dogs barked, a car alarm sounded in the distance and wind scuttled leaves across the street. It all seemed very loud. Farah leaned against Rick. “Let’s go home.”
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One’s hand tightened on the grip of its silver blade, Other’s foot shifted in the dust. In a sense, their conflict is what all of life was built on. There was a thump on the door. Both turned toward the sound in an eye blink. There was another thump, a gentle chime sounded and the two figures were gone, a third thump on the door yielded results. The latch burst from the frame and two giggling figures collapsed into the room. There was a decidedly feminine shriek as they hit the ground and proceeded to scramble about in a moment of confusion. The young man was lean and had a mop of brown hair that had a tendency to curtain his view of the world. The young woman, and there was no way she could be confused as anything but, especially in the state of dress she was currently exhibiting, was a classical beauty with ebony skin and shockingly red hair. Both of them were more than slightly drunk. The young man propped himself up on his elbows while the lass laid crosswise across his back and tried to bring her breathing back to a more normal rate. “This isn’t my bedroom!” The statement drew a new gale of laughter from the girl and the boy joined in. For a moment they lay there laughing on the floor, quieted down, and then started up again. Finally, they managed to climb to their feet, and stagger out the door. Giggles and snorts sounded for a moment down the alley and then faded into the night. A gentle chime sounded and the two figures returned. For a moment One looked out the door in the direction the two had traveled. Other watched in silence. With a gentle smile creasing its face, One turned to Other, gave a small bow, then
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looked back down the alley. An understanding was reached. One walked out the door and Other disappeared with a chime. The game was on. ** Rick woke suddenly. Light shafted in through the inexplicably open window and the hustle and bustle of the street outside made him think it was a bit later in the day. His mouth tasted as if something had died in it the night before and as he sat up daggers of pain lanced through his temples. He closed his eyes and counted to 10. Placing his hands on the covers in preparation for the final push to standing, he stopped. His right hand had landed on something soft…and warm. Looking over, he saw a mass of ruby tresses sprawled across a pillow, a bare shoulder peeking out from under the covers, and a hand that curled around his. His jaw dropped as last night’s adventures finally lined up in his consciousness and started filling in details. Oh. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but grin at the crazy absurdness of it all. She was Farah Day, only the prettiest girl in the area. And apparently, as details started filling in from the previous night, there was some mutual attraction. Hell, he hadn’t even thought she knew who he was. He had been wrong, so very wrong. With a silly grin plastered on his face he tried to slip out of bed as quietly as possible, grabbed some pants, and made his way out of the bedroom and into the minikitchen. Wandering past the table, he started to make coffee. He was quietly bustling when he heard a faint chime. Turning away from the counter where he had been grinding
3
beans he saw a silver blade on the table. He stopped dead. That definitely hadn’t been there last time he checked. It was about two feet long and sharpened only on one side, the straight blade tapered to a needle-like point and the entire thing had an almost organic feel to it. There wasn’t an obvious transition from hilt to blade, it almost appeared that the blade had grown from the hilt. It was a masterpiece of curves and edges. It may have just been the light at that time, but the thing seemed to glow, it seemed almost otherworldly. Rick stepped toward the table and reached a hand toward the metal hilt. There was a spark and then the blade jumped into his hand. It was like sticking a finger into an electrical socket. The blade was old, it had been formed at the first light of the universe, and would finally rest after its last fading glimmer has been snuffed out. It had been wielded by a force older than the gods, older than time. It had spilled the blood of millions, had pierced stars, had ended entire civilizations. It was the tool of Armageddon, of Ragnarok. Rick didn’t realize that he had fallen to his knees, but he had. The blade lay in his open hands and he looked at it with awe. There was nothing he could not do with something like this. He stumbled to his feet in a daze, coffee forgotten. He stumbled into the bedroom. He had to tell someone about this. He looked up and saw Farah sitting up among the wreckage of the blankets and pillows, holding a blade that, but for the golden hue, could be the twin of the one in his hand. As incredibly arousing as a beautiful, naked, black woman holding a blade with the power to end stars is, it
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paled in the sudden knowledge exploding into his brain that she must be ended, that she was the antitheses to everything that he was, that he would ever be. The blade sang through the air before he realized what was happening and its golden twin met it with a musical chime. The note hung in the air and seemed to reverberate oddly. Farah’s eyes were wide as she slammed her free hand into his bare chest. Normally the blow would have staggered him if anything, now it sent him flying back through the air and slamming into the wall. Picking himself off the ground Rick heard a shrill ringing in his ears and felt the flickers of an aeon old fury kindle in his chest. He moved faster than he had ever thought possible. His blade arrowing for Farah’s heart. She spun like a dancer and slapped his blade out of line with her’s as her foot came around in a ribcracking blur. Rick twisted his hips and felt her heel graze along his stomach, as he sped past, he swept her plant foot out and she landed on the floor in a heap. Rick kept his forward momentum and ran a step up the wall, jumped off of it, and soared through the air at the fallen girl. The silver blade glowing brightly as it descended in an overhead strike. Their eyes met midair. The absolute focus in Rick’s mind shattered. Farah rolled backwards and pushed off the ground in a graceful back handspring as the blade in Rick’s hand sank into the floor. He staggered to his feet. “What the hell?” He left the blade in the floor and took a step towards Farah. He stopped short as two feet of golden metal seemed to materialize at his throat. Farah looked down her arm at him. Her eyes seemed…different: cold, heartless, old. Rick put his hands up. “What are we doing Farah? When the hell did we learn to fight like this?”
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She blinked, confusion flickered across her face, Rick pressed on, painfully aware of the razored metal pricking his throat. “Why the hell are we even fighting? Where did these swords even come from? What the hell is going on?!” He held a hand out to her. “Please Farah, come back, we need to figure this out.” Farah blinked, then recognition blossomed in her eyes. She looked at the sword in her hand and blinked again. “Either I had the most peculiar dream or we just did some crazy shit.” She dropped the blade to the floor. Rick felt his heart start to beat again. They grabbed Farah some clothes and took a seat in the kitchen, they left the blades where they lay in the bedroom. Rick put a mug of coffee on the table with a gentle knock of ceramic on wood. He cupped another in between his hands. “So.” Rick nodded and took a sip of coffee. “So.” Farah looked in her mug for a moment, then looked quizzically at Rick. “How exactly did we just manage to do all of…” she waved a hand vaguely “…that. I didn’t have to think, I wasn’t even myself. I mean, I was me, but I wasn’t me.” She looked back into her mug. “God, that makes no sense.” Rick looked at her thoughtfully, and took another sip. “No, I know exactly what you mean. When I picked up that sword I was still me. But it was like all this stuff just poured into my head. I was there, but there was just so much…” “…more.” Finished Farah.
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“Right, more. There were all of these things that I knew, that I understood, that I needed to do. And when I saw you I didn’t even think, it seemed the most natural thing in the world, the only thing in the world I could do, was to try my damndest to kill you.” Farah’s mouth quirked in a grin. “Well, I didn’t think last night was that bad.” She waved her hand. “Sorry, bad taste. But, I know what you mean. I felt the same way. I rolled over and you were gone, but this gold sword was there. My hand touched it and it was like…electric.” She shivered and cupped her hands around her mug. “It’s so old. And so powerful.” “Yeah, terrifyingly so. So, what do we do with them?” Farrah looked at him for a moment, then it stretched to two. Then she smiled. “Hell with them, we’re gonna make breakfast, then we’ll think with full stomachs. What are they gonna do? Disappear?” Rick smiled and lifted his mug with a smile. “Sounds like a plan.” ** “They disappeared.” Rick toed the split on the floor that had last been seen with a silver sword sticking out of it. “Looks like.” Farah walked a little farther into the room. “Does that mean that, they’ll never come back?” “Let’s hope so.” Rick took Farah home, and over the course of the next week life continued as normal. They met up a few more times and no magic swords appeared or anything
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extraordinary. Though, they did have an awfully good time. One week turned into two, then into four, then before it seemed they could blink it had been six months. Farah had moved in, and they were doing well. She was starting a new job and Rick was still part timing at a couple of different places, nothing too great, but enough for now. Life seemed to be following a normal course. So when the two of them went for an evening stroll, they didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary. In fact, the entire episode, at times, seemed like it may have never happened. They were chatting about some guy they had seen on the street when Farah stopped short. “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?” “Like a…chime or something?” Rick shook his head and grabbed her hand. “Nope, let’s keep going.” They rounded a corner and walked into silence. Streetlights dotted the way to a small park a few blocks ahead. There were absolutely no people around. Everything was dead quiet. “Farah, what the hell is going on?” “I have no idea.” They walked another block, there was a big tree in that small park, there were two figures standing under it. One held a gold blade, the other a silver. As Rick and Farah walked closer the two figures faced each other, bowed, then began a slow dance. It seemed choreographed, the blades rose and fell in what as approaching a steady rhythm. This continued for a few moments, then the rhythm sped up, silver and gold blurred together into a monochrome, and the blades made a single pure
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note in the air. Beside Rick, Farah gasped, she remembered that sound. The night she and Rick had gotten drunk, the night they had stumbled into that weird warehouse on accident, she had heard this sound. At the time, she hadn’t though much of it, she’d been rather preoccupied with Rick and the general hecticness of the evening, but now. Now it seemed to make more sense, things started clicking in her head, she had heard that noise, then the next morning those blades had appeared at Rick’s apartment. She frowned, but why disappear and show up now? The two figures fought beneath the tree, at times one or the other would seem to gain an upper hand, but only for a moment. In fact, the more Farah watched, the more she realized that the duo were perfectly matched. Next to her, Rick mumbled something. “What?” “I said neither can win, they’re equal.” He frowned as he said that. “I…remember that.” She felt realization bloom in her brain. “So do I.” She whispered. Under the tree the pair had locked blades and stood straining against each other. For a moment there was a stillness, then they broke apart and just stared. The feeling in the air was different, less menacing. Rick and Farah moved as one toward the two figures. “Who are you?: Rick asked. “Well, I guess ‘what are you?’ may be a better question.” The figures stared at them in silence. Farah noted that they did not blink. The one with the golden eyes spoke first. It was a little surprising, she had expected something…weird. But, he spoke just like a normal person.
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“We are what has always been, what will always be.” The one with the silver eyes spoke. “We are the conflict, the essential opposites.” Gold eyes flashed. “We are what the universe is built on.” Silence greeted that statement. Farah spoke up. “The conflict? What conflict?” Gold regarded her, and the blade in his hand twitched. “The essential conflict inherent in all things: light and dark, hot and cold, male and female.” Rick started to speak up but Silver held up a hand. “We represent none of these things, we are the conflict that occurs between them, that must occur. At the point where two opposites meet, that’s where we exist.” “But why did you pick us for, well. I don’t know what. Why did we have your swords?” Silver and Gold both turned to Farah, the combined force of their gaze made her take a step back. Gold answered. “We respected the opposites you embodied.” He gestured to her. “Dark skin…” and then the Rick. “…light skin. Male and female, and your personalities, your emotions, opposite in so many ways but…” Silver pointed to their clasped hands “Yet there is unity, togetherness. Indeed, we have always found humans…what is the word?” “Fascinating.” Gold said. “Either one of us is essential to the others existence, with out one, the other will fail. And all that is around us would fall. We cannot exist without each other, yet we cannot ever be united, together. Humans are full of dichotomies, indeed, defined by them. Your lives are a mass of contradictions and opposites.”
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Silver took a step forward. “We gave you our blades to see what would happen, to see if those contradictions could be rectified. They cannot. Somehow you can exist, though we don’t know how.” Gold turned toward Silver. “You embody the conflict we sustain, and we find it…reassuring.” Silver’s blade sang through the air as Gold leaned back and snapped a foot out. Silver leapt back and paused. A ghost of a smile crossed its face. “Thank you.” There was a chime and the two figures were gone. The city bustled around them. Dogs barked, a car alarm sounded in the distance and wind scuttled leaves across the street. It all seemed very loud. Farah leaned against Rick. “Let’s go home.”
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