"A Fork in the Road"
Noir fan-fiction by Al Kristopher
As I gaze at this, I am suddenly drawn towards its deeper levels. I know that on the surface it is merely an eating utensil, made out of metal with two prongs, and can be easily found in any shop, at nearly any price. Its surface is common, but like you and I my Kirika, there is more to it than meets any eye. To you, it is a loss: the loss of opportunity more than the loss of a dining tool, for I assume you meant to kill me with it when I paid you and your friend a visit. Did you not think I perceived it to be missing when you escorted me out! When one is raised to kill, one has to take in every detail.
The loss could have turned into a gain, something gained through this exchange that could have blossomed into greatness. One might say that our fates were upon a crossroads, staring down two paths, trying to decide which to take. We can only choose one. The loss of this tool led to a gain—the gain of knowledge, of understanding, of your past and most importantly, of me, of us, of Noir. The other path would've just led to more loss, I'm sure—but who can say what possibilities "could have been", especially if they are traveling down that terrible one-way path?
I was sure I understood everything. This fork was Noir, Kirika, you and I. We were like the two prongs at the end, lethal and sharp, destined only to stab, to rake up the muck of sin, and to hoist it into the air, into our own mouths, to swallow so our Black Hands can grow blacker still. As the prongs are separate, so too were we—but then the prongs converged into one unit, the handle of the fork, solid and strong. Our destinies met together, as the prongs met to form the handle, and we were bound—not by steel, but by stronger cords! And there was no hand that could tear us asunder!
But I see now. I see, at the last horrible moment, when all possible things render themselves into impossible, when destiny slaps me in the face, and when everything I knew came crashing down, suffocating me until I was sick and mad. The two swords of Noir cross, distant at first but soon to converge into a single point, the focus of the blades where they intersect. But the blades soon part, having only met once, and then they repulse, they repulse forever. The two hands of Noir are destined to meet but once, and then…
No, I was wrong. This fork represents us, but I only saw half of it. We were but two prongs destined to meet, yes, but from only one perspective. Now that things have changed—everything I knew gone, in less than an hour!—I can see the other perspective. Our lives were bound unbreakably from the very beginning, as this fork was bound at the handle—we were just two different names for the same thing, you and I. It is then the fate of this tool to split into two beings, the handle turning into the prongs, and these two points run parallel, never meant to cross, only to protrude menacingly. They do not meet.
And so it was with you and I. We both approached the crossroads—the fork in the road, you could say—and we both chose a path. When you came to it, you chose a road that I never meant to go down. I hated that. You split apart from me, cutting strong cords with your own actions. You chose one road because…because why? Why did you do it? I couldn't understand! Of course, I am also fated to choose between two paths, as I confront my own intersection. I could go down either way, one meant for the desperate and the other the despondent, but I cannot choose both. I will make my decision, no matter what the cost.
When I came to the fork in the road, I chose my path, and I did not look back.