The price to choose

Three days had passed, apparent only by the small stream of sunlight he felt on his bare legs. He was naked except for a leather hood which was stifling through the day and constrictive at night. His legs and arms were bound to the metal chair. The chair was bolted to the floor. He had no idea how he ended up here or who his captor was. It had been expertly organised; he had been walking quite happily in the crowded high street and barely felt the tip of the syringe as it entered him. The drug had been instantaneous; he didn’t even remember hitting the pavement. When he woke up he found his entire body and head shaved. The air felt cold on his body now. All he could hear was the sound of his own blood coursing through his veins and the scuffle of the leather over his ears; all he could smell was the odour of his own body; the sweat and excrement that pooled around him.

He was unafraid though. All this life had led to this point; he knew this as he had always known. He was unafraid.

Time passed.

He heard sounds; the first since he had first woken up; sounds from outside: keys grating in a rusty lock, the door protesting as it scraped open; a lone fox screaming. It must have been night outside because the air now smelt cold and sweet; the peace interrupted by the man walking in. The door was shut and now the footsteps sounded dull; each step measured, planned. He was a man who knew how to use his body.

The hood was taken gently off and he was now able to breathe unencumbered. He said a silent prayer and felt the air cool against his sweat encrusted, stubbled face.

“Brother.” The man said, and caressed the top of his head as if he was a child. It was still dark in the room but he could make out shapes and shades of grey and gloom. The man had found a chair and now sat opposite him. He could feel the warmth of his body just feet away.

“I know who you are.” The man whispered. “Your name is Job.”

“It is as you say.” Job replied calmly.  “And what is your name?” Job asked, although he knew deep inside.

“You can call me… Simeon.”

“I can see you have a sense of humour.” Job replied. His hands and feet were numb, useless now as he had been tied up for so long.

“It helps in my line of work… but you already know what my line of work is, don’t you?”

“I have heard of you through your reputation.” Simeon mock bowed as if he had been complemented. “I know more about you then you may realise.”

“And let you are sitting here, remarkably calm even though you fully understand what will happen to you… and that there is no chance for your leaving here alive.”

“I am resided to that fate… it is my…”

“Karma? Yes.. that is something that you know an awful lot about, I’ve been told. You see, you may have an understanding about what I am, but I know all about you. Before I tell you why you have been brought here I will tell you more about myself. Isn’t that what one does in these situations? Maybe that will help you understand more about what will be happening to you later. They say that anticipation counts a lot towards any experience. They call me the Witness.”

“I have heard the name.”

“My services are available only to a chosen few; those that can afford me. I am like any other businessman; I provide a simple service. I do one thing and one thing only: I torture people; and for the forty years I have been on this Earth I have learnt all there is to know about the human mind, body and spirit.” Simeon smiled benignly as if contemplating his lot in life. “I have two sorts of client: business and personal. Amongst the businessmen are governments and corporations. Their needs are quite specific: interrogation and confession. On the whole payment is dependent on results and speed –to illicit a confession without killing the individual is a rare skill. Many people fail because they become emotionally involved. It is also a skill to tell lie from truth; but I am a master of understanding a person’s body language as well; I know when I am being lied to. You need to understand that… I will know if and when you are lying.

“The other, more personal side of my business, is among the more surprising and.. rewarding. You would expect the criminal element to feature in this area but, on the whole, they are motivated by money as well. There are others that have revenge in mind, but they tend to use hitmen rather than connoisseurs as myself.

“This is a burgeoning industry; I find that more and more people are heavily into revenge, whether this be as the result of rape or murder of their loved ones. There are others that simply enjoy seeing people tortured but lack the will or understanding to do it themselves. I offer a safe avenue for them to explore for I am a professional and thus completely untraceable in my activities. Some people will have a victim already marked, some will already have them ‘gift-wrapped’ prior to our meeting. I have known some people to select their victims purely at random –often in crowded, busy streets (similar to the one I caught you in).” Simeon paused at the irony. Job just looked at him. He was under no illusion what was going to happen. “The most interesting ‘engagement’ was of a man who wanted to die by my hands, would you believe? He said he was already dying and paid me twice my normal fee to convince me to take him on –as if I needed convincing. He wanted his death to be a work of art, but there were three conditions: The suffering should be as intense as humanly possible, as protracted as possible and under no circumstances should I stop, regardless of how much he begged.

“This was my opportunity to finally indulge in my art. I used him to refine my techniques. His suffering lasted three months and every second he spent in exquisite agony. I was never bothered by his protestations, having severed his vocal chords at the start of the experience. Suffice to say..  the look in his eyes told me that he had not thought through his request and by the end he was truly begging for death. So much for atonement…”

“Some people feel they have a lot to atone for.” Job replied.

“Atonement has never been something that interests me. I have nothing to atone for. But I am interested in Karma. I consider myself an agent of Karma. I am not a simple murderer; people seek me out. I am hired only if people deserve it –or I am paid enough… but even then ‘good’ people are rarely my victim…”

“What of those random people you have picked off the streets?”

“It is not always my choice; but you have asked a relevant question and can only answer it with one word: karma.  Now that does offer an unpleasant truth to ponder, hmm?”

The witness stood up and walked across the room and wheeled over a small table. On it were various surgical implements.

“Now…. you will tell me what I wish to know.”

Time passes. Minutes or hours, such terms had no meaning for Job could only measure it in pain; and yet at no time did he cry out. Simeon had never witness such control and was reminded of the Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War; immolating themselves, sitting calmly in place whilst the flames burnt their mortality away.

This was something Simeon was witness to. He was no sadist; he took no pleasure in what he did, but for the first time he felt…something. He sat down facing Job again.

“Let me tell you why I have brought you here. I have no capacity to feel on an emotional basis; I have never had this. I lack even the most basic empathy – I feel neither joy nor sadness in myself; I am myself, emotionally unencumbered… or so I thought.

“There is one other thing that is remarkable about myself: I have almost perfect recall over my past lives. I am aware of almost every life up until the present; and in one way or another I have always been a witness. This is remarkable, is it not? Am I not proof that Karma does not exist? For if it did would I not have paid dearly for all I have done?”

“You have…” Job tried to say through the pain, “you have no idea of the true nature of Karma.”

“And that is why you are here. Through the years I have heard of a man possessed of a gift that could help release an individual’s Karma. I have heard this through a hushed reverence, similar to my own reputation and not thought much of it… until last month when your presence was finally revealed to me. It is a strange circumstance indeed.

“You recall the man who hired my services for his own ends? His own torture? He had found you but a month before after almost a years search. He had been a businessman; unscrupulous, callous, viscous even; trampling on everyone until he reached the top and he had felt nothing but triumph until that fateful day when two towers crumbled and his empire with it. He lost his wife and daughter who had been his one saving grace; the light in his otherwise dark, soulless life. Somehow he survived but his guilt overcame him; he could not escape the darkness of his deeds and could not understand why his wife and daughter suffered whilst he escaped. In the years since he had travelled around the world trying to understand how he could atone for his past life, and it was during that time he found out about you.” Simeon smiled as if all had become clear.

“The rest you know, or have been able to piece together. I have sought you out to restore the missing piece of my puzzled memory –I can no longer live with this gaping maw at my centre; I must be whole. I am not doing it out of selfless means or atonement.. Therefore I knew that you would not willingly give me, for I have nothing to atone for. However, I have now taken the choice away from you. Only death awaits you now; you have shown great resolve up until this point but how much longer can you last? You must tell me what I need to know; give me my missing past.”

“It has always been thus,” Job replied after some time. “I can free you of your uncertainty and would always have done; but there will be a price. There is always a price. The gentleman you spoke of before? He understood. But do you?”

“I do. And I am willing to pay whatever the price.”

“Remember that I offered you the choice – the same choice we are all given.”

“I understand and accept.”

“Then you must kneel to me and I will kiss your forehead. By this alone I will restore your past to you.”

Simeon knelt before Job; something he had never done before in his life –he had no fear of reprisal but felt calm as he awaited his absolution. He felt compassion flow from Job.

“You are forgiven, my brother.” Job said. “But I fear that will not be enough. Now you will understand what Karma truly is. Until we meet again.” And Job breathed his last; his final task done.

Simeon knelt there as his mind reeled from the memories that were now finally revealed to him. He looked up at the serene lifeless eyes and realise that Job had called him by his true name, brother, as he had done at first meet.

He understood the truth behind the memories of who they really were; they had always been brothers, but Simeon and Job in this life only. Simeon had been the first witness to man’s inhumanity to himself; the first to kill, to murder his own; to sully the name of the one true creator. Job had become the first victim released from his Karma and the first to reincarnate and thus be able to free others. But freedom always came at a cost: repentance and understanding of the suffering inflicted on others.

And now Cain felt as no other, or would ever – the pain inflicted from all his previous lives felt as one. His whole life now, and from that life on, would be that as victim in atonement; part of him always knowing the reasons why.