by Cheng D.A
Chapter 9
Permission
That smile from ? remained in End’s face for the longest time.
At the FATs test station, he was still smiling as he failed all of his stations with clumsiness. He peaked at a distance of one centimeter in his Standing Light Jump. He still could not do Emo-chin ups. And, he still failed his shutter speed run. His 2.4km run was not an issue for him because he had previously made the breakthrough using mental strength, but in general, End was still unmotivated and not a convincing passer of the F.A.Ts test.
“Hey! What is wrong with you! Where is your focus?” shouted Arnold. But End was still thinking about ?.
“Come with me.” Said Arnold.
Arnold took End aside and spoke with him.
“Do you think this is a joke?”
“No Arnold.”
“Do you still remember that you will face the Sphere of Influence should you fail?”
End remembered, but he was trying so hard to forget and just feel happy for a while.
“Are you happy? You seem unafraid, why are you unafraid?”
“I am afraid Arnold.”
“No you are not. You are unafraid.”
“No, Arnold I am afraid!”
“Tell me, why you are unafraid right now!”
End paused.
“I just want to forget. I just want to be happy for a while.”
“You can. But then, you will die, and your moments of happiness will stay only as short moments.”
Arnold took a breather.
“Each time, you face something difficult you run away, and you hang on to the small meaningless happiness that will not last unless you work hard to keep it. You have got to stop taking all this tests as jokes. You have got to start wanting to live. You have got to start to give yourself permission to live.”
End kept quiet for a moment.
“Why do you care? You are just a P.T.I”
End knew he should not have said that. His hands instinctively covered his own face for fear of what was to come from Arnold. The usual Arnold would have exploded and got End to do push-ups till the Earth was pushed down an inch. But Arnold didn’t. The huge monster of a man also had feelings. Arnold walked off. Arnold was usually cool, and End was surprised that Arnold would seem concerned about him. Arnold walked a distance and sat down. He seemed to take time to think about something. End was very curious to find out what it was. He was really sorry he said those things to Arnold. Strange enough, End felt a strange glow on his VF. He calmed his heart and mind, felt a kind of connection bridging between his own soul and the soul of Arnold. He peeked into the emotions of Arnold.
Inside Arnold’s emotional memory, he saw Arnold training a young recruit named Jon Corner. He was always angry with this recruit because he was so weak in everything. Arnold was a proud man, and he was much worst in the past. He had no respect for that weak young recruit.
One time, at the Light Grenades throwing session, Jon Corner had miss-thrown a grenade just as End did. Arnold got him into cover. The grenade was a dud and did not explode. Before Arnold could call the specialist to get rid of it, his anger took over and he scolded the recruit with every ounce of energy he had. The recruit had enough.
“Stop shouting at me! Why does everyone have to shout? What have I done wrong in my life?”
“Control your emotions Recruit!”
“It’s not mine. Look at you. You should learn to control yourself!”
“How dare you! Get down! Give me a hundred!”
“No! and why should I? You talk about Emotions Through Strength, but what do you know about emotions? You are just a P.T.I!”
The recruit looked at the dud grenade.
“I can fix my own problem myself!”
The Recruit picked up the dud grenade.
“No!”
Before Arnold could stop him, it had exploded. Arnold never forgave himself since.
End saw all of this in his head. He was not sure how he was able to do so. He tried to summon the energy to do it again, but nothing happened. It all happened so instinctively. End made a strange decision to walk over to Arnold. He put an arm on Arnold’s shoulder. Arnold was about to break his arm, before realizing that it belonged to End.
“No matter what happened to Corner, you are still the best trainer I have ever known. You will move on, and you will become the best trainer in the world.” Said End.
Arnold did not know where to begin, as he stared at End. Where did that come from? Arnold looked at End with much more intensity, shocked to hear what End had just said on so many levels. End turned around and walked away. Why did he say those things? He wasn’t sure himself. Left completely alone, Arnold began to nod his head in appreciation of End. Because he always looked so tough, no one gave him any advice in life. Arnold knew why End was chosen to become a LightCatcher. He brought up a menu page from his VF display. He seemed to be scrolling through names, looking for someone. Finally, he stopped at a particular contact. That contact’s name was “Q”.
When End went back to his bunk, there was a different air about him. It was as if feeling what Arnold had been through gave him a new insight or a new mission. But before he had time to even appreciate the good that he had done, it was the usual Beef and gang treatment all over again. Beef gave End a good punch in the right cheek. End flew backwards. To everyone’s surprise, End laughed and apologized to Beef.
“Sorry.”
“For what?”
Taking the line from Mahatma, End spoke.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t hurt me without my permission.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that! I guarantee that I can, without your permission.”
Before End even had time to react, he was ganged up by Beef’s gang and beaten up much worst than before. Mickey Mallory was extra enthusiastic today, and Guile Wayne was jumping around like madman commentating every hit he saw. The disturbing looking Patrick just stood there, smiling at proceedings. It was a routine beat up session for End.
However, something was different about this beating. Deep inside End, he suddenly felt like everything was just physical pain. It was hard to explain, but nothing seemed to hurt him. End took every hit with such calmness.
“Are you a sadist? Why are you taking all this in?” asked Guile Wayne.
Beef delivered another blow to End’s face. End took it, and did not retaliate. When his mind was in focus, his surroundings seem to lose sound.
“And if you dare to complain to Arnold, I will…”
“Go on. You have nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength.” Said End as he laughed.
“He is going mad.” Said Mickey.
“Then there’s no fun.” Said a disappointed Beef. Beef motioned for his gang to stop. He was getting frustrated at deriving no joy in bullying End.
“Patrick, what will I do?” asked Beef.
Patrick suddenly became the subject matter expert on psychological torture.
“You have to drain the mental strength out of a person slowly. Wound his mind, and hang him high up to dry.”
Beef smiled.
“That’s a great idea. Gentlemen. From today onwards, we will strip him of all his clothes every night, and hang him from the flagpole till morning.”
And so, End spent the night hanging from the tip of the flag pole, completely naked. It was already so late at night, so he was fortunate that nobody looked up to see him. He should be depressed, but he was holding it all together because all he had in his mind was ?’s smile. That concentration kept his mind intact and countered the pain of his embarrassment of being naked and the cold wind that was blowing at him. He shivered and his face looked like it was about to break into tears, but he never did, and he persevered.
In a strange twist of events, just as he was thinking about ?, ? appeared. She was strolling beneath him, unaware that End was hanging above. She walked on to the company line and stood there waiting for someone or something. End�
�s injuries were hurting, but he did not want her to see him like that. Whenever ? was around, End felt that he had to be much stronger in order to protect her. That strange self-promise of finding the ability within to protect her returned. And so, he did not make a sound. He actually prayed hard that she will not look up, that she would walk away and leave him be. Fortunately, she did not look up. She appeared to be waiting for a transport home. ? appeared normal, but something about her expression told End that something was wrong.
Just then a very fancy sports car pulled up before her. Out came her boss, Dr Lecter.
“Hey, need a ride home?”
“Don’t worry, I can take the shuttle bus.”
“Come on, hop in.”
“It’s quite alright. Thank you.”
“No. It’s really fine. Come in.”
“It’s ok. Really, I can wait a while.”
“No, I insist. Sit down before I get mad.”
“I can’t. I am sorry.”
“Sit down now!”
End had never seen ? angry before, but here it is.
“What is the matter with you! My mother just died, can’t you leave me alone?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s ok.”
“Let’s go somewhere to talk about it, I insist.”
“No.”
Dr Lecter gave ? an incredulous look.
“Hey, so what if I told that recruit to stay away from you? When I told him to, he did. He doesn’t think of you as anything.”
“That’s not End. You don’t know anything about him!”
“And what kind of girl are you? You should be crying, but you act so tough.”
“Go away!”
“Fine! But know this. From tomorrow onwards, I will begin to look for some other candidate for your job. I will make sure that you will never work in the ILC or any hospital in the City of Lions ever again in your life.”
Dr Lecter slammed the door.
“I am a man of my word.” Said Dr Lecter. His sports car sped off. As soon as the fancy car had turned a corner and disappeared, ? finally slumped to the floor and broke down crying. Watching ? cry was a terrible sight for End. When ? cried, it began to rain inside End’s heart. He simply could not allow it. He felt helpless being strung up as the woman of his dreams was crying below him. Digging deep into his own soul, he tried to find some power or energy to help him. He wanted to come down now. He simply had to.
In that moment, he mustered up energy to summon the shadow brothers Rob and Bob. Rob and Bob helped him to de-hook himself from the pole. As End fell down, Rob and Bob positioned themselves underneath the soles of his feet to cushion his fall. ? was startled by End’s thud. End walked straight up to ? and gave her a hug. ? hugged back and burst out crying. Both of them needed that hug. Nothing else mattered. It was as if this was the most precious moment in time and history where all the good energy of the universe collided to form something miraculous known as love.
“It’s not that I don’t want to cry. It’s just that she was always my best friend. She wasn’t like other parents who gave relentless pressure to their kids. This is the City of Lions, the toughest place for any kid to live, I know. And yes, I know I didn’t turn out too bright either, that I know…”
“Don’t say that.”
“…But at least I am a good person right?”
“You are.”
“That’s my mum. She lets me be who I am. Even when I was slower than other kids Mama always said one thing. It doesn’t matter what you think you have to become to please other people, what matters most is that you have a good heart.”
Minutes after saying that, ?’s tears stopped. She was not the crying sort, but when she does cry, an entire ocean seem to come flooding out, as seen from the big patch of wetness on End’s chest, the size of Africa.
“I’m sorry, I can clean your chest for you if you like.”
It was only then that ? realized that End was naked. She jumped to face away. She reached out a hand to hand him a handkerchief for his privates.
“Why are you walking around the camp naked at night?”
“Erm, it’s breezy.”
“Are you a pervert?”
“Alright, I was hung up there by Beef and his gang.”
“Why didn’t you report any of this?”
“I just didn’t want my platoon to get in trouble.”
? looked back into End’s eyes.
“Why are you such a good person?”
End could not comprehend what ? just said. He had never seen himself as a good person. He was a pathetic person, or a weak person at best, but never good. ? took a micro-step back and looked at End from a slight distance for a moment. End appeared a little shy as he wondered what ? was doing.
“What?” said End.
Suddenly ? hugged him again and whispered into his ears.
“I don’t have any real best friends anymore except you. Promise me that you will complete your military sentence, avoid the Sphere, and come back to live in the City of Lions with me.”
Those were the most beautiful words End had ever heard. They were simple and meaningful, and meant a lot to him.
“I promise.”
The shuttle bus was coming close. End ran to a corner to hide. ? got on. As the bus drove away, End finally gave himself permission to change. He now knew that he needed to be stronger in order to protect the one he loves. But reality came crashing in just as fast as his good epiphany did. What if he could not live up to what he had promised? Although he had no real idea of how he could survive in the ILC, something clicked in him that night. He wanted to survive. He needed to survive. It was not for himself, but for her. There was a purpose and a motivation. There was a reason. Just as Einstein once said, “Love is a better teacher than duty.” End really prayed for a miracle, because he wanted to live right now. That night, End finally gave himself permission to live.
But he knew he needed some divine help.
