Everything that we had built was undone. All our efforts were in vain.

I saw the truth that had been concealed and, in the state of my emended sight, filled me with unbridled rage.

Rage potent and dire.

This is how I end. How everything ends, and I feel everything, then nothing.

On an overcast day, I stand upon marbled stone, surrounded by the opulence of a system called justice. I see the sobering truth in a singular moment. I am a speck of dust on a pale dot drifting through the space and time of an uncaring universe. Surrounded by sheep in human form, the predators lurking amongst them, pretending to be sheep themselves. Herein this mental space, I see the world as it is, a grayed-out plane of black and white, so vivid it feels like a dreamscape.

The courthouse hums like a dropped hornet’s nest around me. I feel eyes upon me, and I only gaze up at the back of Lady Justice. She faces away from the portico of the ostentatious courthouse, beyond pristine white pillars of this building lies the world and it will go on without me when I die. And I will die. It is a certainty. I am overdressed, too; my grandfather’s old business suit stands out amongst most people who have never seen business suits. Most people wore gray overalls and t-shirts. I looked like a power broker securing a hostile takeover of a helpless company, not an ordinary criminal sentenced and consigned to his fate.

I feel the horror of it all at the back of my mind, tapping its foot and waiting for me to address the mental state I am in or submit to its whims. That terror is scaled evenly on the scope of unreality. It is relegated to the background as I gaze at Lady Justice, and soon, it fades entirely for a space of time. A sense of strangeness grips me; how did this even happen? What fate guided me to that moment four months ago? Was it a cosmic joke played off by a pack of gremlins? The questions multiply, becoming more outlandish with each passing contemplation.

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I walk forward, impulsively, past the line of courtroom clerks, lawyers, armed guards, police, and my mortal enemies glaring at me who stand in front of a line of reporters. I walk past them all, and into the rain-slicked morning, I see a mass of swarming humanity. The lenses of camcorders from the lesser press line and their drones hover around in the sky, cameras mounted to their bellies, looking for the perfect picture of me. When all have seen it, my face incited a flurry of activity, mouths open in exclamation, arms extended, and fingers pointing—the flashes of cameras and cheers from the hosts of people. The sky thunders above us—bleak sky, overcast and angry. I smell the rain and its dry tang.

The protestors dare, I think, to call them allies, stand along the sidewalk and street, blocking the road. They stood on the rooftops or leaned out from windows, voices raised, hands waved, and tears spilled. From the height of the raised marbled steps leading into the building, I see the embodiment of amassed imperfection. Breathing, kindled humans, heaving themselves onto an emotional tidal wave to be swept away for my plight. I do not hear, see, or know them. My mind is elsewhere and in an elevated fugue state of diverged intent. I feel like a singularity, but I know I am not. I think that is too much for that to be true. My imperfection reflects, and I think I am the lesser of all present. And that doesn’t bother me. Strange.

I maneuver around the groups of police facing the host of people who see me—some laugh, cry, mock, and cheer. Most only wish to see me. They watch me walk by them, startled but unsure what to do. Finally, I reach the angle I seek, turning my back from the crowds, I gaze up at lady justice who faces us all.

I see her for the first time in my life through fate or luck, a thunderclap with a flash of light in the overcast sky. The intricate webs of lightning arcs over the surrounding buildings, and a few drones drop from the sky. And then it begins to rain, I cannot help myself, I smile and turn to the crowds. I hear the crowd gasp and fall silent, shocked at the coincidence and perhaps now superstitious.

I see another opportunity, I give them all my swan song, I raise my hands into the sky forming them into the two Vs for victory. The host roared my name at that moment, knowing and believing I would never be defeated.

“Max, the Brave!” They cried, and the sky agreed with thunder.

The rain fell, washed away all my fear, and I fell into solemn reverie. I fell back to that time when all this drama had begun. Back in a life that I thought I should only endure and now realize I had never truly lived.

Little did I know, this was only the beginning.