Free The Cause by Roderick Vincent Page B

hoping for change.
    The voices continued their arguments and left me without definitive answers, for Seee himself framed himself as an enigma. Pelletier had told me little about the man. I wrestled with my own intellect, and inside my head I wobbled, questioned everything, felt immersed in a ground-and-pound between duty and belief.
    I thought about how my battle with Seee so quickly transformed from victory to defeat. I believed I would float to triumph as easily as a hydrogen airship. He simply struck the match and watched the flaming Hindenburg plunge from the sky. Perhaps this was the whole lesson? He allowed the takedown, casting it as bait for a fish that couldn’t help but strike. Once the hook sunk in, he showed the men how easily it was to reel me in. The David, inside the grip of Goliath’s thunder, able to not only fight through incredible odds, but also wind up on top, the victor. A lesson on turning disbelief into belief, amicrocosm of what was to come, but at the time, the clue buried itself under a hundred other misconceptions I had about him. The man plucked himself into our subconscious, an inception planted there as a seed to grow a belief, supplanting our fears and doubts, not only in ourselves, but what we could achieve together, united in brotherhood. In the months to come, we would truly find roots, and Seee would take us there, shining light on our branches, pruning them until we became the young saplings that could once and for all grow into giants.
    The next day Seee came again, and once more we spoke in the darkness. He spoke of why he had beaten me. He said that a mean dog had to understand the club. He talked about Buck and the red-shirted man in
The Call of the Wild
. He said I was still in a phase of bewilderment, maddened and enraged, and the club would probably have to come down again. He said I had the potential to be cunning and shrewd, but that I had to use my pent-up anger in more constructive ways. I listened, but I did not hear.
    Then, perhaps two or three days later, he came again, and feeling starved for company and hurt about his negligence, I said, “You’re coming so frequently the guys will start thinking we’re lovers.”
    He exhaled deeply. “Perhaps I was wrong about you. You should ask yourself if you really want this. It will only get harder.” The metallic sounds of a key shoved into a latch echoed in the darkness.
    “Just who are you, Isse Corvus? A trophy of a man who has conquered other men at sport? Is that enough for you?” His steamy breath was now close to my chin. He was stepping toward the cage, so close to the bars that I sniffed him in the darkness beyond the stenches of myself that reeked up the room—sweat, the smell of fire, the blood of something slaughtered. Perhaps there was a club in his hand. I anticipated a blow, but it didn’t come. “Warriors of the past would have cut off yourhead without thinking twice. Ask yourself what invisible force is holding you captive. You’re here aren’t you? So why don’t you know?”
    The cell door slid open. “There will be a group leaving in three hours who’ve called it quits. You can join the other cowards if you wish. If not, stay in this room.”
    I didn’t move.
    “I should also disclose that two men have died.”
    “How?” I asked.
    “Training.”
    “But how?”
    “How is not important. I warned everyone people would die here. More will follow.”
    I heard him reach down and leave something. Then the sounds of his steps drifted away. I fumbled around the dirty concrete floor until my fingers bumped into the pages of a book. On top of it, I felt a glossy photograph—my Earth photo—and a large box of matches. I took out a match and lit it, shining its crown of light above the photo. The Earth was still, unwavering, static. Calm and tranquil, the color of an eye deep in space, wrapped in the blink of a tiny instant of time. A tear came to my eye. I moved the match toward the ceiling until my