Had I misjudged him? Had I seen only the bestial mask worn by a lost soul and failed to sense that there would be a human face beneath it? I asked him if I should feel ashamed because I had been reduced to humble circumstances, hiding in the shadows from those who would drive me back into them, and because I had accepted this gracefully, instead of fighting the community's judgement of my fitness to reside in it through loud and boisterous defiance, charging forth into the mass of a humanity which I would vainly hope to see scatter before my foolishly bold advance. Such a world we would live in, if all sought to seize the day and none were willing to surrender it! Such strife would fill our days until there would be no room left in it for anything else! So, thinking of this, some like me will laugh at the foolishness of those who, willing to shed blood for an empty patch of ground, imagine themselves to be the victors because we freely yield that which we never truly desired to possess and yet ... yet as we flitter past like shadows, eluding the grasp of those who push and shove and see the laughter in their eyes, how can we not wonder who is the fool? Are there not wounds that leave no mark, grievances that are thus left unseen and for these, where is the redress?

My experiments in time? Yes, how they did serve me well, and how they might save him, a man of action, I thought. With such intensity he looked at me, as I spoke of vanishing behind the windows of a shop, just to escape my pursuers. In time, I told him, I found that I could simply will myself there, vanishing into my own reflection, as if I were the Chesire Cat, leaving behind only the memory of my final smile of relief as I faded into the darkness. Some bruises, sometimes, would suddenly appear as I materialized, warning me that the process had gone awry, but then, only through our failures do we learn.

Not until I went overseas, though, did I see how Fate had saved me. I found myself in a dreadful place, one built without grace or care. One could not believe that buildings could be put together so badly. Without sign of any cause, the houses would suddenly collapse. The ground, in places, would vanish at times, leaving only the dust behind to mark its passage, while the buildings, astonished by the ground's refusal to do its duty and stay underfoot, would attempt to conceal their companion's neglect by filling the pits left behind with their debris. Wonders these were, but joyless wonders.

Surely, at the very least, one might hope that the ground would be well made? What manner of city would fail in this - and then the question came to me. How careless had I been? Who had I spoken to of that for which they were not ready? Was this my doing? Had I destroyed the faith of too many of those whose trust had sustained the delicate balance of creation? I had to know.

I wandered the ruins, watching mothers tearlessly pull what remained of their children out from under the rubble. "All of this has happened so many times before", I could hear them thinking. "All of this will happen countless times again." I could not say how I heard these things, but they burned at my soul. I was sickened by the thought of what I might have done. But had I done it? How selfish of me to wonder this, while others had concerns that should have touched them far more deeply, but fool that I was, I couldn't stop.

"How could this happen?", I asked of those who shouldn't have had answers. "In this beautiful town? This house was brand new. How could it fall? Five houses today - think of it. How can this be?" Did I expect redemption? By what right? And yet, this I was given, as those on the street nodded silently. Redemption if I had sinned, but no answers.

As I walked along, I wondered how quickly salvation might be lost. More houses fell, and then men and women began to follow, dead as soon as they struck the ground, blood pouring forth from wounds that had no right to exist. Breathing became difficult and I stumbled. Somebody caught me, pressing a hankerchief to my mouth. He called it a "keffieyeh". "Sir", he insisted, "The war ... the dust ... you have to be careful. It will destroy your lungs if you aren't." But I hadn't been. Damn me and all the rest of the unworthy saved. I hadn't been.

I wandered into a day that didn't seem to know that it wasn't night, dark grey skies covering what remained of buildings that were collapsing so quickly that they were gone before I even saw them fall. The people were vanishing, too, in bits and pieces, some of them missing limbs; of some of them little more remaining than limbs, the pools of blood gathered around each turning the dust to a pinkish muck in which I tried not to slip. One, indecisive as to the form that she would take, was skinned as if she were a freshly roasted pepper, heart and lungs shining, glistening in the light of her burning home. I stopped and watched her for a while, for she seemed as if she were about to speak, what remained of her chest rising and falling, but only a whistling sound broke free. No more than that, she wished to say, I wondered? The whistling began to fade, her lungs straining less and less against her ribs, until one could barely see them pulsate. Faint ripples of light danced across the iridescent surfaces that her wounds revealed, dancing more rapidly and boldly as if to tell one that something of great importance were to occur, as it did. She took another breath, a small thing from some points of view, perhaps, but as it was to be one of her last, it had to count for something. It seemed to matter to her. At least, so I thought, though I had to admit that any reading of her features was, at this point, a matter of pure conjecture. I would never know the truth of the matter, for as much as she seemed to want to say something, she never did. I could not understand why somebody would choose to become such a thing, and knew that I still wouldn't have even had I been told, so I moved on, having nothing to say. She didn't seem to object.

Some found hope, in the midst of the chaos of this day. As my keffieyeh blackened, I found a merchant who, for a nominal fee, sold me twenty more. He said that he had sold a great many of these today, and expected to sell many more. I congratulated him on his good fortune, and saw that he had stopped smiling. Begging his pardon for my ignorance of his traditions, I moved on.

The sky seemed to grow more clear, the morning sun finally making itself seen, but for all of that light, the city was no more easily found. Indeed, I searched in vain for any sign that much of it had ever been. Still, some of it let itself be found, a wall here, a doorway there, a few buildings that stubbornly remained themselves, in the midst of this range of hills of rubble that had formed. The rubble, itself, seemed to have doubts about the wisdom of this persistence, judging from the way in which some of the piles leaned up against the remaining buildings. The shattering of a few windows nearby and the breaches in some of the walls signaled the buildings' own admissions of doubt in the matter, but still, for now they stood firm, granting shelter to the corpses being brought through their doors. I respected that choice, thinking it fitting that those denied dignity at the end of their lives might find a little of it in death. I thanked them for this, for they had made right some of what my crime against the minds of these people had made wrong. I wanted to think that in this was to be found part of my salvation, but that was foolish. Salvation was to be found in my own deeds, and in the grace of God. It was not to be conferred through the deeds of others, however noble.

I am ashamed to say, though, that instead of trying to find some good to do, myself, at that fragile moment, I continued trying to exonerate myself, and would soon resort to the most shameful sort of deceit in my attempts to do so.