Ernestina, Eris, Aequitas: to obtain that which is just we must ask that which is unjust.
August 24th
06:00 EST
1900 E. Philedelphia Dr., Apartment 3337
I wake. Angel's eyes are open.
He lays next to me, small and elfin, no longer a boy but boyish.
Plaster dust and powdered glass fragments coat his skin, his hair, his uniform…It has been thirteen years, but his eyes are the same, my Angel's eyes, loving and liquid, dark with gleaming whites. They smile, skin wrinkling up around their corners, their color evanescing into his impossible lashes.
I want to touch his face, run my fingers over the softness of his jaw, trace one, trembling tip down the perfect line of his small nose once more. I reach out a hesitant hand. He is so fragile, so delicate-
The tip of his nose is warm beneath my outstretched finger. His lips part.
A single bead of blood falls like a tear from his cheek.
His face explodes into a mask of scarlet that stains in a spreading sea on the sheets the mattress his skin he is choking drowning I am screaming keening wrapping him in the sheets to staunch the stain as his nails rip flesh from my hands arms pull me away I am screaming AngelAngelAngel—!
I wake. Alone. I am sweating and I retch. I lay my head back down on the bed, my skin clammy and cold. My fingers reach towards the empty side of the mattress, encountering nothing but still, stagnant air. It has been thirteen years since I woke to the sight of Angel's eyes.
I never will again.
August 24th
09:00 EST
Gotham City Bank and Trust
Sounds are muted, colors dull. Blank, animalistic stares are on the faces of the faceless crowd pushing against me. They are colorless, lifeless, devoid of hope and emotion. I'm either in Hell or Gotham City.
My pulse surges lazily in my neck: Gotham.
I see myself from above this mess, stepping purposefully through the curtains of monotony sheering in human waves around me. Perhaps last night's blood is visible in vibrant Technicolor on my hands. Perhaps they know a killer stalks among them.
Perhaps they are too accustomed to care.
I enter the bank. Behind me, in front of me, reflected in the many, mirrored facets of the building's face, smoke and dust rise in a terrible, ominous cloud.
Five days, and the Legacy is still smoldering. There is a scar of sunlight in the city's skyline.
The tellers are gloomy. Accounts are closing, businesses evaporating, investments have stalled. My face is one of hundreds in the long line of fleeing customers that will drive them under. Security is jumpy. Understandably so. Two years ago this September, the that bastard drove a school bus through the wall I am standing against now. A dead body, masked as a clown, would lie not ten feet in front of me. High above us, charred discoloration wreathes the ceiling in sinister, smoky spirals.
I present my ID, and close my account. I walk calmly back across the atrium, under that ruined ceiling, with $33, 577.09. Cash.
There is a small wishing well for change. A gold placard drolly reads 'Proceeds benefit Stop the Violence'. I fish through the envelope for the nine pennies. They will fall like drops of blood from my hand, sending smooth, clean ripples through the waters of this unfeeling irony.
But my groping fingers are disappointed.
$33,577.10. Too depressed, too disillusioned to count nine pennies she handed me a perfect dime. In front of the fountain I pause to reflect with her a philosophical question: what is one penny worth in the light of thousands?
But each is different, each is unique. They were minted in different places, by different hands, with different seals under different Presidents. Some are copper, others zinc, some are worn yet others shine a shimmering pink in the sun. There are no two alike. What is the worth of thousands in the light of one?
The dime sinks beneath the surface, swaying slowly in its descent into darkness.
Collateral.