The Cautious Seldom Err

Prologue

Confucius says, "The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."

Raphael says, "Confucius was a wordy old blowhard."

I don't know what I say, and that's probably why I left.

Central America is beautiful. I would say that anything could be beautiful after living in a sewer most of your life, (and anything truly natural is a real shock if you've never left New York), but that wouldn't do it justice by a long shot. It really is a beautiful place. There is a deep and ancient majesty in every misty jungle and every moss-covered peak. Everywhere I looked there was something new and green, or something vivid and fragrant. The animals were exotic and powerful, the people (most of them) hard-working and soul searching. It was a place like no other.

I felt encaged.

Not in Central America. It became a second home, a place of tranquility and personal discovery. No, I was trapped by my reasons for being there and my inability to, no matter how I faced them, overcome them. Every demon inside me was like acid, gnawing at my gut until I had to go running at night to exhaust myself enough to sleep without dreaming.

Tonight the stars are out. I can see them clearer than ever before without the smog and bright skyscrapers to obscure them. It's so pristine that I can even make out the fine sprays that you only ever see in picture books. When we were kids, my youngest brother used to amuse our father by renaming all of the constellations to things he could recognize more easily, like television remotes and skateboards instead of Orion's Belt and the dippers. He was always creative like that. My middle brother would have told us all about the trajectory paths of them, what elements they were made of, and how the light we were seeing was actually in the past since it took so long to reach Earth.

My other brother…I don't think he was ever one for stargazing.

And there I go again, defining my experiences through the eyes of my brothers. Until I came here, I don't think I could have said for certain how I would react to watching the stars.

Tonight I view them with a kind of veiled nostalgia. It feels like so much time has passed…so many rotations of wheeling stars above me, and then me with my damned cautious inertia.

My campfire crackles and pops, jolting me back to the present with a racing heart. Now I remember why I don't stargaze – I can't afford to lose focus. Things can catch me off guard then, and I am i nothing /i when I'm not on guard.

My dried meat dinner is tasteless, as is the small packet of pale white beans that I boil. I think wistfully, as I never thought I would, of burnt microwave meals and cereal in the New York sewers. It doesn't matter – I'm not hungry. I'm exhausted, but I'm not tired.

I hug my knees to my chest, staring into the fire. Tonight I have camped in the middle of a remote part of the jungle that borders the village I have sworn to protect. As fast as I ran to get here, I was careful not to leave a trail where I could help it. My thought process behind this was that it might detract from the untouched natural beauty of this place, but as the night grows darker it seems kind of pointless. Out here, it's nearly impossible to see anything but my small cook-fire and the strange glittering of many eyes. The semi-circle I've built for myself is like the white side of the yin and yang against all of this black, and I am the dot in the middle of the yang. Out here, if I focus long and hard, I can become master of my own chi. I can relegate my positives and negatives, be one with the energy flowing through me at all times…

But nothing, not even Central America, can take away that darkness. There is a part of me, the shady side of my hill, which keeps me from succeeding. I can't put a name to it; it's an elusive thought, a strange and contorted feeling that's been inside me for as long as I've been old enough to realize the dangers of losing my true center.

I can't put a name to it, but I can give it a color. Inside me, the tranquil representative of cool water and peace, my blood runs hot and i red. /i

Confucius says, "If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."

Yes, well.

Maybe I'm forming my own opinions after all.