Wolfwood:
Sermon Six: Redemption
By
C M Forde
As the sun eased its way above the horizon there was nothing left, the world was a bleak expanse of endless desert stretching out before him, a hopeless length of dust and loneliness that stretched on forever, with no end and no chance for peace. The heavy winds blew the sand around in a wild frenzy, disturbing the tranquility that was the only solace of the dry expanse, the only beauty this world allowed. "Mr. Wolfwood?" The words burned their way into his ears and he wanted to force them out any way he could. How had she found him? It wasn't fair, not to him, not to her. He couldn't be who she wanted him to be, "You did it didn't you? You killed Knives." He was silent, his silence saying everything that he couldn't. An apology, an explanation, none of them could be forced from his dry throat. He didn't deserve a second chance, he wouldn't taint her with more lies, she didn't deserve that. Warm arms embraced him tightly and he couldn't breath. Tear filled eyes locked onto his and he couldn't speak. "Mr. Wolfwood please... Don't leave me again." Sometimes, in the still of the morning, as dawn breaks into the new day, redemption can be given without thought or consequence. Sometimes, there is love.
Sweat poured down his face as he sat silently beneath the sun, watching the distance be still and quiet. He couldn't tell wether the moisture on his cheeks was the sweat or the tears anymore, and he didn't much care. His life should have ended a long time ago. It should have ended when that boy pulled the trigger, it should have ended even before that. He should have never met Vanessa, never met Knives or The Priest. His whole life had been filled with choices that he should have made differently, paths that he chose not to take. But the past was over, and he would have to live with his own mistakes until someone made him die for them.
On cold night sometimes, he could remember the gun in his mouth, the cold steel between his teeth with the single chambered round ready to explode from the barrel and put an end to the sinning, but it never did. He couldn't do it, he was a coward. So he did what he could to give others the chance to finish what he couldn't. But instead of relieving him of his sins, they just became a heavier burden he had to carry with that cross.
The cross, even now it pressed down upon his back, threatening to crush him under the weight of the lives it had stolen, that he had stolen. He wished it would, that it would force him to sink down into the sand and disappear forever, to never been known of again. Who would miss him? Not Knives. And Vanessa? He tried not to think about Vanessa, about the things she had tried to give to him but that he had shunned. She had been his chance at redemption, she had been the only hope left in his empty void, but even then she had been what hurt the most.
Everything about Vanessa had been an affront to his sins, a man like him couldn't be loved, not after what he had gone through. Not after what he had done. He didn't deserve her love, no matter how much he cherished it. No one should love a man whose life was nothing but death without consequence or remorse, though she had truly been no better than he. Her sins didn't weigh so heavily upon her, she was a devil in the deepest sense, but he loved her just the same.
Maybe that was why he loved her, because she was a companion to his darkness. But he didn't think so, he believed that he loved her because she was so different than he, not because she was so alike. She lived apart from reality, she lived where sins didn't matter, where life was nothing but a game to play. She didn't see his sins because she didn't believe in them. That she could kill in one moment, and care for the children in the next. That was why he loved her, because she was everything he couldn't be, and because she saw the good in him that didn't exist.
The tears were mixing with the sweat again, but he didn't dare wipe them away, she wouldn't have. In the far distance he watched a bus weaving its way through the sands, a pillar of dust floating up behind it to mark its travels for al of eternity. On this bus was the man in red, Vash the Stampede, the man whose life was in the priest's hands. The man whose sins far outstretched his own. They would spot him, he was sure of it, and even as he thought it the bus turned and started heading towards him. Maybe this was the man who would finally bring the sinning to an end. He dearly hoped so.
Footprints stretched out into the distance behind Wolfwood, back far beyond the horizon where the sun went down every night to sleep, casting the world in darkness once more. There at the end of those footprints, was a motorcycle, turned over on its side, forgotten as the sand slowly began to cover it up. And next to it was the body of a woman, blonde hair stained red with blood. Her face seemed infinitely sad as it stared up at the empty sky. Her name had been Vanessa, and she had once loved a priest who didn't believe in love.