When they played their game of trust where one child would fall back into the arms of another, he would always let the child fall.

  “Trust is not earned” he would say “by the closing of one’s eyes. Now get up and rejoice cause love is blind.”

  It was when Donal was At War that he truly shone. He fought like a bear broken free from its cage. When he sparred with other Sons, his violence would only stop at the behest of several much larger Fathers who would spring upon him and pin him to the ground while he thrashed about screaming vulgarity at his combatant who nearly always lay still and unconscious in a mat of loose soil and dried blood.

  In their study of physics; the mathematics of War, he excelled beyond all of his classmates. His mind was sharp and eclectic. He learned very quickly and in a very short time he became very dangerous.

  In the class, The Behemoth took Donal aside. The rest of The Sons continued with their morning Kenpo. He lowered to one knee and kept one hand on the young boy’s shoulder. He had never attempted feigning empathy with another living being before and wondered for a brief moment if he was doing it right. Donal looked him in the eye apathetically.

  “Tonight you will hunt as a Father. We collect at the fall of the sun. Prepare yourself” he said to the stern eyed boy.

  “Yes sir” replied Donal, still without any animation in his tone or any change in his being.

  Before leaving the room The Behemoth turned to the boy and said, “Displease me and I will make an example of you.”

  The Behemoth left abrasively and Donal ventured back to his fellow Sons as they drilled threat scenarios. Some of the other boys and girls looked over to Donal inquisitively, wondering in open stare as to what a Grand Father could want of him; a mere ill-tempered, capricious twit. Other Sons maintained their discipline and albeit aware of the happening, chose instead to focus on their counter-strikes.

  The Sons trained and sparred through to the late afternoon. When they were done, five of the boys approached Donal in a semi-circle. They were much older than he and of much larger size. Donal was very small for his age but his knowledge of his body far surpassed even the eldest of the Fathers. Thus when the five boys approached him aggressively pushing their chests out and endeavouring to force him back against a wall, Donal did nothing but calculate silently in his mind, the greater part of which, sub-conscious.

  The biggest Son, of seventeen years and maybe four times Donal’s size stepped forward and thrust a finger into his chest.

  “You’re not with the fairies any more, boy. What did he want with you?” he asked.

  Donal said nothing. He simply looked at the boy and in his peripheral sight, at those in his wake.

  “You think you´re fucking special” yelled the biggest boy, this time thrusting forward to grasp at Donal’s neck.

  Donal parried the boy’s hand, gripped the back of his wrist, pulled his elbows to his side, pivoted his left leg, flipped him onto his back, twisted slightly and broke his wrist. The boy screamed in agony, writhing on the floor while Donal quickly returned to a striking stance.

  The other boys backed away immediately. All had subscribed to the courage of the biggest boy who was now rolling back and forth holding a floppy limb and crying commiserably. Donal stepped over the boy and into the change rooms where he ran a cold shower and dressed into his black attire.

  Donal had only been studying as a Son for a short period, only weeks to be exact, though there was something in him that stood to account. His ability to adapt and supress made him the perfect weapon and his absence of emotion made him the ideal prodigy; sufficient to one day take over from Marcos and lead the Collective into the Forever New Dawn.

  Donal thought nothing of this as he strapped on his black boots. In his mind he envisioned an orange sky; the new dawn breaking over The Collective. This was all that the boy ever envisioned. Until sleep stole him away, he was forever At One, At Being and At War. He finished changing and walked over the fractured Son still rolling about on the floor.

  Nobody had come to his aide and in all likelihood, nobody would. Donal stepped his tiny frame over the young boy’s body ignoring his plight and broke the class’ focus as he barged through the door. The other Sons for a moment were more like Children, in wonder and amazement.

  Their Father was not impressed.

  “Focus” he screamed as the class wandered into distraction.

  Donal walked heavier; with greater threat in each stride, making his way, up the spiralling staircase, to where the Fathers were now gathering.

  0011000100111000

  “You´re so distant” The Woman said as they left The Nest, walking once again through the maze of concrete structures and passing the hordes of people invested in queues or hope of some sort whose numbers dwindled by the end of the day.

  The sun was still sitting high but it was leaning towards its descent into zero; shining bright through the grey and stinging their eyes as they walked along the path lining the outer wall. To their left, an old man sat covered in his own filth, pulling a spotted blanket up over his shivering body.

  The old man watched Marcos and The Woman walking together and thought to himself how nice that must be; having someone who may not understand, but even through mankind’s prolonged prosaic descent to the lower rung of the universal food chain, by your side, still, she stood. It was something to dream, something to want and much more than what he had. The old man retreated under his blanket, closed his eyes and thought of things that were warm and cosy while he shivered his way through another night, prolonging the inevitability of his molecular subtraction.

  As the sun shone its brightest passing through the grey sky and their worn bodies like a river of light, their shadows stretched out far onto the path behind as the night in their souls crept out of their bodies. From above, they appeared as shaded giants, as men perched on the tips of buildings, leaning their sight over the edge, watching the two leave the complex. Their eyes fixed on the pair of dark shapes as they slid along the path until they crossed the town square and then vanished into the cover of the cavernous maze of towers encapsulating the centre of town.

  The eyes retreated into the forlorn faces that with their creeping hands, pulled back from the seeing ledge and into the asylum they fashioned for themselves to wait out their growing hunger, thinking until the morn, when the men dressed in black brought more news.

  A sharp stabbing emotion wrecked at Marcos’ well-being, his state of one; his ethereal balance. He took upon himself a breath and held it in his thoughts and when he exhaled, so too removed, was the discomfort in his being.

  “Why am I distant? I’m not distant, I’m thinking” he responded with slight frustration begetting his state of calm.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Nothing” he said coldly.

  The Woman breathed out heavily in a show of unacceptance and as Marcos continued in his stride, she reached out to his hand pulling him closer.

  “Do you still love me?” she asked.

  “Oh god, here we go. Of course I love you. Don’t be stupid” he said bluntly.

  “I know, it’s just... You don’t touch me anymore. Not like you used to. Do you even find me attractive, I mean, are you still attracted to me? I know I’m ugly. My skin is bad, the sores, they’re horrible and my hair. You used to love my hair. I’m so ugly” she said.

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me” he said under his own disheartened breath. “Yes you are attractive. You’re beautiful ok. To me, you are beautiful. I love you, isn’t that enough?

  “You don’t desire me” she said.

  “We just had sex” he said fuming.

  “Six weeks ago” she said.

  “A day, a week, whatever. Do we have to do this now; here on the streets? Can’t this wait?” he pleaded trying not to lose his rationale and base with anger.

  “It can always wait, can’t it? Fine, forget it, forget I said anything” she said.

  “No. It’s not fine. Tell me, what’s really the matter? Tell me, I promise I won’t be irrational. I’ll listen to you and we can resolve this. What’s wrong?” he asked slowing his pace, facing The Woman and discoursing in a gentle attentive tone.

  “Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine. Forget it” she said.

  “What’s wrong? Please, tell me. If you don’t tell me how the hell am I supposed make things right?” he said, anger rising with his tone.

  “It’s nothing” she said.

  “Fuck it!” he screamed swinging his head back to the front, clenching his fists, squinting his eyes and feeding destruction through every fibre in his being, willing someone or something to come out of the darkness so he could rip its head off and just get this woman out of his veins.

  They walked for a few blocks in silence, Marcos drifting like the sun, from a violent bright star set to explode, back to the shadows of exhausted acceptance; unable and unwilling to keep up the fight. When his anger retreated, The Woman once feeding on his energy, lowered her guard and pulled closer to her lover.

  “I just want to know that you’re not running away that’s all. I love you” she said before pausing. “God, you’re so warm” she continued; holding his arm with her two hands and pulling herself to his body; she, forgetting of the day’s tumult and repressing the concern that had erupted between them. He, painting in his conscious mind a single white dot on a black background; focusing on the dot and returning his state of one; calm, right, rational.

  She wanted to speak of the incidents, of the distractions, of the uncontrolled and deluded dreaming in day, and of the sickness that baited in her gut, but she let the urge subside and instead settled into his stride.

  She didn’t want to upset him further. He didn’t need this extra stress, not now, while things were so bleak at The Nest. What she logically thought he needed or at least would suffice somewhat would be for her to do what he needed her to do; to fulfil her role and to not make any mess of his mind or his matter.

  Marcos wanted to tell her about what he had seen, of his growing concern and of the visions of desire and despair that played to his conscious mind. Instead, he too settled in his stride and said nothing.

  The two made their way through the sprawl of hope and desperation and arrived at their dwelling, a twenty five storey building on the east bloc of the town centre. The Woman cursed her partner’s choice every time they made their way through the heavily gated entry and passed the open doors of the elevator shaft where time after time, a haunting cold draft snaked its way through her clothes and inside the thick of her skin, chilling her to the bone and frighting her sub conscious.

  Every time she passed those doors she felt a little death; the ghost of the past age inching its way inside her and tightening its grip on her lungs commanding her to shortness of breath and state of alarm. The elevator itself sat idle between two the floors, although they didn’t know which. Marcos fared not to open the doors and set light into what preferred to stay in the dark.

  Before its occupation by Marcos, the building had been the vice of idle play. Children would race through the lobby and burst through the stairwell doors feasting their childishness; their primitive play, with competition; running as fast and with as much strength to arrive first at the top of the building.

  They would at first restrain from barging, building upon their will to power, an impotent and destabilising state of emotional urgency and frustration at a lack of continuity. They would then barge, running over one another, focusing only on their direction, their force, the bend in their knee, the planting of their heel, the spring in their step, the ending in their sight and one pure focused streamlined emotion; one.

  When they reached the top, they would thrust their arms into the air shouting like savage beasts over the railing, into the core of the stairwell, their voices flowing like a waterfall over the edge and filling all of the floors as it travelled down to the bottom where the slowest and weakest of The Children still sat idle defeated by their own self-disgust.

  Then they would race back to the bottom, their hands gripping the railing as they thrust upwards and soared through the air, over the steps and over the children coming upwards who then cowered to the floor under the impending force of their hyper confident alpha stated downward momentum. And when they got to the bottom, they would race back up again.

  By accident; as coincidence and the labelling of luck hath been described many a time, Marcos had just taken flight from a violent tumult that had erupted on an underground train platform not far from where they stood; a place now that was ruled by savage dogs and no man dared to venture.

  He had taken with momentum; The Woman who shared his life and ran from what would become just another incident, but in reality, for those unable to adapt to flight, would be a bloody violent end to their desperate plight for a return of something fair or common; like sensibility, decency or simple abiding rule.

  He had put himself in front of several blows and taken the brunt of the attack, pushing The Woman away from the tracks, back up the steps, putting himself again in front of her, pulling her close to his back and holding her tight with his right hand low to his back while with his left, he extended into a fist and lunged forward against a flow of people herding downwards toward the commotion, splitting a path right through the middle by the sheer force of his will, his focus, his state of one.

  Marcos had taken his direction far from the erupted chaos and made rest through the doors of this grand centrepiece of The City. When he was inside catching his racing breath, he heard the ruckus coming from the open stairwell. Upon inspection, from the foot of the stairs, he looked upwards following the spiral of steps to the ceiling, and watched in learning as a horde of children raced to the ground floor, their eyes unnerved, their emotions charged.

  He saw there in that moment, the natural innateness of direction and propulsion in an uncompromising environment and the children´s disconnection from self and the physical and psychological interplay of defeat which was ubiquitous everywhere in this decaying city, everywhere except here; in this stairwell. He saw the simplicity, of one; the core of his philosophy.

  It was here that a new rationale was born. It was on this very first step, that a seed was sown and from it, an idea; and unto it, a strategy and from that, the building of a new empire, The Nest and the children who awoke him to this logic, the first new philosophers, and of whom would become, the first of many Fathers to the new dawn.

  These stairs bore the ingenuity of progression. They were the catalyst for what would be, their only hope. From the innocuous play of child was born the future of mankind.

  With one in their mind they moved up the spiral staircase and when they reached the final floor, they were greeted by a guard at their door who ushered them in. Marcos moved straight to his throne, the grand window which overlooked The City and The Nest. There he stood in pensive stare, looking out at what he alone had created and the work that still had yet to be done. The Woman crept up on him with distraction in her step.

  “Can I finish what I was trying to say earlier? Without getting yelled at?” she asked.

  “We’re back here again are we? Earlier, when, what, finish what?” he responded.

  The approaching conversation sent him into vocal and mental dissipation. Only she could unglue him and maybe it was her nature to do it, or maybe she knew and she just wanted to pick at the frame, take it apart piece by piece, so that later, when she desired loving, she could mend her misgivings and piece it all back together again and it would look better than before, but every time, it would get just a little bit weaker and one day, maybe soon, maybe long into their future when they are old and still bickering, when they least expect, the frame will collapse under a lifetime of maltreatment and subconscious nit-picking.

  Maybe it was the former and maybe the latter; one could argue a case for either but one thing was for sure, when she started on this, Marcos always consciously felt like a wet cloth, a little bit less intelligent than what he really was.

  “The class, The Children, the method. It’s not working you know. I mean, I don’t know if it is and I don’t know if it isn’t, it’s just it doesn’t feel right. And I don’t know what right should feel like, but things feel different recently and I know I know, visualise only the result and equate only what is equitable to achieve the result. I get it. I get your logic. But it’s not that simple. I nearly got hurt today. Look at this; I have cuts on my arms. What the hell was that anyway? Did they really have to smash the windows? I think it was too much Marcos. It was too much” she said.

  “What was the result?” he responded.

  “The result? The result? The result was I thought I was going to have a fucking heart attack. Those kids, I don’t know what hell they endured but that is not what we have been working on. You said that the loving condition would work, it just takes time. You said that, you, no one else, you. This was not you; it was not your philosophy. It’s not what we agreed was right” she said coming to tears. “We lost one” she said blubbering.

  “Only one?” he said laughing. “They seem like good numbers. You shouldn’t invest your emotion on footprints, there’s no logic in mourning a memory” he said.

  “Numbers? You didn’t see this boy, his face, the emptiness in his eyes. Have you ever felt the true weight of emptiness in a child? Have you ever even witnessed one your experiments? It’s not right” she said.

  “One should give for the good of many. It doesn’t matter if we lose one, two, ten or a thousand, as long as in the end we cure this Famine and we find a way to repopulate this planet; to keep our blood warm, to father our ideals and to no longer be less than a fucking earth worm in this forgotten shit of a city. Being human should not be a curse, not anymore. It’s not fair that these fucking dogs can breed as they do, can scavenge with such might as they do and can take our claim to this city. It is our right, to be in control. We shouldn’t have to be ashamed of our race. We shouldn’t have to feel inferior every time those beasts whose backs warm the sun pass us on the street. Do you know what it’s like, having those mongrels look at you, sneering? We are human, the sun warms our minds. It is our universal right to be above everything, to father this fucking planet and if I have to sacrifice a million ugly children to make one beautiful again, then so be it. And if anyone wants to stand in the way of my saving grace then do so knowing that my will and the love in my heart will knock you down, one by one. Now, you want to tell me that one child was affected. I ask you, how many were unaffected? We lost one, how many did we save? We are so close right now, I can feel it in my skin” he said, his voice quietening in the end as he leaned back against the edge of the table where they had eaten so many meals over so many nights over the past ten years.