Reformed: Life of Edward Seymour

Reformed: Life of Edward Seymour(Wall Hermitt) The sun had already set in the town of CluttersVille, in a night like any other. Endless office buildings, low and high, grand and diminutive, file at both sides of the busy two-way road congested by vehicles polluting the vicinity with unceasing horn honks, and regardless of the expensive commercial edifices, one’s sight is bound to be drawn to the town’s slovenliness, the result of endless litters and graffiti predominantly comprising of the word ‘equality,’ but more dominantly, the bands of protestors with banners and boards advocating the same ‘equality’ situated at different parts of the town are inescapable to the naked eye. Edward Seymour, an able-bodied, top class accountant barely in his forties, emerges from one of the ginormous firm buildings in a sumptuous suit, holding a small briefcase as he scurries across the road between the stationery vehicles in the traffic as thunder rumbles above the town. He gets to his immaculate black SUV sitting on the other side, on the parking strip bordering the busy road and notices a Halloween poster placed behind the windshield wiper. It reads ‘Celebrate with us in the CluttersVille Arena’. Indeed it is a night like any other, except it ought to have the semblance of Halloween, which, in this side of town, seems to lack. Edward removes the poster from the windshield and throws it inside an adjacent trashcan, gets on the driver seat of his beloved car, fires the engine and merges with the distasteful motion of the gridlock.

The traffic isn’t as burdening in this side of town that is monopolized by residential houses and parks, and convenience stores, but here the slovenliness is far more conspicuous. The road paths are obstructed by trash and ring-shaped car tyres and rims scattered on the general surface of the tarmac, houses and other building fences and walls soiled and cluttered by appalling graffiti. And amongst the graffiti the words ‘burn the wealthy’ stands out which disheartens and slightly scares Edward.

He stops his SUV outside a bakery and steps out, ambulating toward and through its ajar front door. It is not just a bakery for the fresh baked bread loafs waiting on shelves to be purchased by neighbourly consumers; there are other stands and display counters occupied by fresh baked cookies, doughnuts, croissants, homemade cakes, cupcakes, pie, custards and cheesecakes, and since Edward is not focused on either one of them, the whole bakery interior just appears polychromatic to his eyes. Behind the cash register placed atop the main display counter is Judy, the runner of the bakery that’s been in operation for as long as the town people can remember. She is old and feeble and walks with mobility forearm crutches, but in spirit her strength awes. She knows everyone in CluttersVille and everyone knows her.

“How can I help you Seymour? Should I get your special or do you want to improve on that obnoxious cholesterol of yours?” Judy says to her only present client.

“I’ll just stick to my usual Judy,” Edward says politely, heeding the eruptive noise of rumbling thunder and acknowledging imminent downpour.

“How’s your wife and that sweet kid of yours? It must be two years since the adoption,” Judy asks while putting fresh bread loafs, three, into a brown paper bag. “She was so little and had the most adorable eyes.”

“She still owns them,” Edward says and looks at the muted television screen mounted on the wall behind the register. It broadcasts the outlaw protestors of CluttersVille vandalizing the town and preaching ‘Oneness’. A news anchor comes into the frame conducting a report. Judy lifts the remote control beside the register and raises the volume until the broadcaster becomes audible.

“The Halloween today marks the 300th day of the prevalent and violent outrage that has to this day claimed the lives of thirteen civilians who’re victims of the attacks against the middle and upper class. The outrage took form in response to the death of an underprivileged youngster who was denied surgery by the CluttersVille Hope Hospital because his family couldn’t afford ER treatment. The demonstrations, conducted by the large and illegal lower class activists by the name ‘Singularity’, are intended to continue and invoke havoc that has presently cost CluttersVille millions. On the account of these events we again remind all citizens to remain indoors at all times between nightfall and sunrise.” Judy switches to another station only to happen upon another news shedding light on the same turbulence that has its arms wrapped around the town’s neck.

“Some things never change,” Judy says in reference to the broadcasts.

“There are other ways to protest against the healthcare concerns and controversies. Violence should never have to be an option. And certainly harmless civilians shouldn’t die because of it. Goes against everything they’re fighting for,” Edward says and rolls his eyes from the news. Judy places his order on the counter.

“They’ll have a far worse fall than they’ll ever bargain for,” Judy adds. Edward pays in cash.

“See you around Judy,” Edward says and walks toward the ajar door.

“If this town doesn’t clap its chaos on my precious little bakery.”

Edward leaves the bakery and realizes it is drizzling. He puts the bread loafs on the front passenger seat in standing positions and fastens a seatbelt around them. He jumps into the driver seat and drives away, disregarding all manifestation of the infamous demonstrations.

Minutes into the drive home heavy drops of rain begin colliding and splattering onto the windshield. The wipers are merely of little help, and hence the darkness nightfall has showered upon CluttersVille Edward knows he has to drive gently and unhurriedly. He makes several turns at junctions, all intersections leading to distinct neighbourhood streets embellished with darkish ornaments on trees and homes that scream Halloween, but in neither one of the routes does Edward perceive a soul wandering. No youngsters trick or treating, and the downpour isn’t entirely accountable. It is like the night is stripped of its soul, crippled and incapacitated.

Edward advances toward yet another junction a hundred yards away when his eyes catch a glimpse of a mysterious illumine in the rain directed at what seems like a violent commotion. It emanated from within a narrow alleyway at the side of the street he’d almost driven past (between the elevated fences of neighbourhood houses planted at its sides) which, considering the inadequacy of the yellow sodium streetlights, would have been imperceptible in the night if not for the mystical light source that gave away the commotion to begin with, whose nature Edward is still yet to uncover. He slows the vehicle down further and turns toward the light. It is a component of a camcorder to which it is adhered to, operated by a thug documenting the malicious assault on a middle-aged man clad in a tattered suit that seems once well-formed and costly, whom three of the thug’s companions are attacking. Edward grows panic-stricken, and knows he can’t wait by and allow another innocent man become bereft of his life in the town’s preposterous outrage. He reverses the SUV, turning the wheel around to bring the front of the vehicle and its blaring fore lights to the faces of the assailants and the helpless victim, and then accelerates the car toward them, skidding to a halt in front of the pavement that separates the alley from the road. But this is not enough to alter the gruesome undertaking, and neither is the prolonged honk that follows. Edward knows he has to physically intervene and that following such act of heroism he will perchance end up like the victim himself and included in the documentation of the perpetrators that assumedly is bound to hit national news.

He heeds a small cut picture of a woman entrancing to him stuck to the rear-view mirror. The woman is holding an even more attractive subject - a little girl of two. Edward then crosses himself in fear and retires from the car, gaining more distinct sight of the prevalent onslaught and victim. Soaked in the downpour, his attention is suddenly captured by a plain dark Halloween mask lying on the pavement beside him, and for a reason he is unconscious of it captivates him, as if transmitting a message that his mind hasn’t fully deciphered yet. There is something uncanny about it, its thick and leathered laser-cut surface with grey crisscross marks on the overall exterior, and thick dark ribbon ties, untied, lying around it. It sits on the edge of the stone pavement, facing Edward as if deliberately, with eyeholes beyond which Edward sees nothing but the darkness of the alley ground. The cries of the victim attacked in the pouring rain win back Edward’s full attention.

“Get away from him!” he shouts, but disregarded by the assailants. The perpetrator with the camera looks at him and turns his eyes indifferently toward the victim whom he is more interested in.

“I said get away from him!” Edward repeats desperately with a growth of rage that surprises even him, and more astonishingly it diverts all the attention of the so-called activists to him. The inspired camera operator turns the lens toward Edward and then looks at his fellow diabolic colleagues.

“Another rich guy in a suit. Could make a better story,” he suggests to his colleagues. The three attackers then match toward Edward who’s harvesting that newly found rage within him. He’d never had any combat training of any kind, nor had he ever engaged in a physical encounter that required him to defend himself or someone else. All he has is his sense of duty to the CluttersVille people, righteousness, and rage.

The first blow on the abdomen comes like a bolt from the blue, and it forcibly throws Edward off his feet. Groaning in agony, he can feel the taste of blood in his mouth, and with the way the front of his face impacted the tarmac ground his nose began bleeding also. He lays eyes on the blood splatter on the ground, distorted by the splattering rain drops and drifting with the stream of the liquid. He then lays eyes on the other victim lying on the same alley facing downward, assailed to the verge of unconsciousness and enduring a far more agonizing affliction. One of the three thugs lifts Edward up with both hands and yanks his body near the other victim whose eyes never left the ground, and who probably isn’t conscious enough to acknowledge his victim counterpart.

The thug that threw Edward to the ground walks to him with his two accomplices, whilst the other captures the action on footage. Then Edward recollects the mask on the wet pavement. He encounters a sense of enlightenment, like the mask elicited an epiphany for something imperative. The indecipherable message is now fully decoded, and he knows what he has to do, what he has to become.

A new identity becomes assumed, and with it he throws himself at the first assailant with a heavy punch on the jaw, ducks the fist of the second assailant and cracks his ribs with an elbow strike, strenuously kicking the side of his leg to dislocate his kneecap. He waits vigilantly for the third approaching assailant, evades a couple of his intended punches and blocks the third with his own hands. The assailant slips and descends on one knee, the subsequent rise of his face met with heavy blows by Edward’s firmly contracted knuckles, enough to render him out cold. Edward has all three perpetrators, two of whose groaning cries superseding his, to stare down upon, with another perp standing behind him holding a recording device directed at him, his feet shivering, his mouth open in wonderment and loss for words, his face consumed by a look of petrification. The man drops the camera and runs toward the distant opposite alley end. Edward vigorously stumps on the camera and wrecks its body with enough deformation to destroy its function, then notices the other victim achingly rising to his feet. He reflexively hides his face before the victim could see it, and upon his abrupt action his sight lands on the dark mask on the pavement. The other victim barely stands upright with a somewhat unrecognizable face misshaped by swellings and blood, and through the strain in his eyes his attackers inflicted on him and the rain water partially obstructing his vision, all he sees standing before his own self and his incapacitated attackers is Edward’s figure standing in between the two blinding front lights of the SUV car, his face hidden from them.

“These savages are taking over the whole town – branding themselves activists for the underprivileged. I reckon people make all the ludicrous excuses to bring out the evil in them,” the attacked victim angrily utters with a voice as sore as he anticipated. “So who are you supposed to be, the night watch?” the man asks. Edward recollects the sight of the woman and child in the rear-view mirror of his car. He realizes his heroic battle against the thugs was more than the result of adrenalin, but a transmogrification of character and sense of duty, and righteousness. And rage. And that that sense of duty is yet to divulge its full promise. It is the beginning of something whose profundity he is yet to complete exploring, and he knows he is bound to make adversaries through his newly self-assigned venture; he has to protect the people closest to him. He contemplatively lifts the wet mask on the ground and wears it. The onslaught victim stands barely with his partial vision, gazing reverently at the gallant stance of his guardian angel.

“You are not a social one, are you?” The afflicted victim asks him. “Maybe what this town needs is someone like you. A man behind a mask. Unrestrained by the incompetence of law enforcement that’s hiding behind the side-lines. A vigilante hero,” he says, allowing a brief moment as his words ingress into Edward’s consciousness. “So what’s it going to be? Are you going to put a name to that face?” Edward cannot concur more. He perambulates to his car behind him with a sudden ferocious gait, jumping into the driver compartment. He intensifies the front lights to reinforce his own invisibility, blinding the other victim who uses his arm to shield his eyes from the brightness which vanishes with the car and the hero that doesn’t appear to leave behind even the most meagre trace of himself, not even a recognizable face, and this alone is enough to shower upon the assailed victim the name he seeks – The Ghost Vigilante. That’s who saved his life. And for a reason patent to him, he knows the turbulent town will all in good time be familiar with the unsung mask.

And just when he thinks the vigilante has fully dematerialized he espies a little shimmer on the ground where his car waited, and upon arrival he beholds a small business card shinning in the coalescence of rainwater and yellow streetlights, dropped accidently only for him to chance upon. After all, why would a man conceal his identity just to give it away afterwards? He looks at the distinguishable logo which he’s assured belongs to one of the town’s corporate firms. He gazes at the name on the paper. The identity of a hero whose venture he’s grown a keen interest in.

“Edward Seymour.”