Frozen Moment A Gatchaman vignette
This vignette is based on the 1972 animated television series 'Science Ninja Team Gatchaman' created by Tatsunoko Productions. The characters are used here without permission, but with respect and admiration. Comments or reviews are welcome!
One moment in time.
An infinity of experience.
He revelled in the sensuality of the instant, every sense enhanced, every stimulus exquisitely painful.
Did everyone experience moments like this? he wondered. Did the man walking down the street, on his way from mundane desk-job to settled home-life, ever know what it was like to be truly alive?
A thousand thoughts battled for supremacy in the instant of frozen time. Memories surrounded and swamped him. His day replayed before his eyes in a flash of near-blinding light. Each decision he had made, each choice that had led him on this path, was revisited and reanalysed.
The moment was half over and already he was certain. Given his life over again, he would have changed nothing.
This was what he lived for; it was what he was. If necessary, this was what he'd die for.
But death was an old friend, a constant companion - to use the cliché he'd read so often in fiction. He'd never seen the black cowled figure that humanity had created to haunt itself, but nonetheless death walked ahead of him and followed behind him, basking in his white shadow. It was only a matter of time before the pitiless gaze turned upon him.
Time. Without time, there was no space. Without space, no movement. Without movement, not even a drawn breath.
His certainty in himself blazed through him, and with it the knowledge that he was doing what was right; if death came for him today, he would fear nothing that lay beyond the veil.
But even as that thought sent a new fire burning through him to strengthen his limbs, another life flashed before his eyes. This wasn't the life of a decision maker or a warrior. This was a life of friendship and laughter. For the first time, he felt the feathery touch of remorse. For his team's sake, he would be sorry to die. For their sake, he would fight to preserve this moment of vivacity and all those yet to come.
The moment ended.
Light and movement returned.
Ken's wings snapped out. His legs flexed, sending him soaring over the heads of the startled Galactor troups. His boomerang's razor wings clicked open in his hands, and Death's dark cloak embraced half a dozen Galactor in a sudden blur of movement. For an instant Ken wondered. Did they pass into their fate through a moment of life so vivid that everything coming before faded into insignificance?
"Ken!" Joe's call was relieved. The rest of the team piled into the room. Ken saw his second-in-command's anxiety for him as the four of them surveyed the circle of downed enemy. He looked up with a fierce passion for life in his blue eyes, and motioned his team onwards.
They had a job to do. He still had a life to live.
One moment at a time.
The End.