Yukimura

I feel a new sort of feeling this day, one like I have never felt before. It isn't the excitement, the adrenaline that courses through my veins. No, that's the kind of pleasure I sought before. This time, there's something better. It's a kind of spiritual high. I feel as though I've transcended my mortal woes, reaching on to something bigger. Looking over, I see Dan, walking on the other broken line. He looks back at me, and there's a deep connection. It's as though we smile inside, and see it clearly in each other. Our expressions don't change though, we are entranced. We are staring death in the eye. We are ascending.

"Ascending," said Dan over the noisy traffic. It is as though he's reading my thoughts.

I feel the heat of each car's exhaust, feeling them pass by as though in slow motion. It's as though all the world has slowed down around me. Very aware of the air around me, I almost feel like I'm swimming through it. The cars are all so busy, so determined to meet their schedules, that they cannot even stop when they pass us. In fact, most of them are honking and yelling. They don't even care that our lives are likely to end. A truck swerves, a half-hearted display of concern for human life.

From the back of the overfilled truck, a large pile of leaves comes flying out. It immediately spreads in the air, carried by the wind of the speeding cars. They seem to swirl around me. I am aware of each one. Every single leaf has a place in my mind. I feel, for a moment, a long-lost feeling of oneness. I do not look over at Dan, but I'm sure somehow he's looking at me. I imagine myself in the eyes of another, barely visible through a cloud of swirling dead leaves, crackling in the wind, scraping on the asphalt.

At one point, each of them was a part of a great whole, a simple extension of a grand form of life. Then, they were separated, or more likely, shunned by the grand being they were once a part of. They were each cast aside as an unnecessary burden, and now they were probably being carried off by men to be used or discarded as trash. They don't breathe anymore. They don't feel the sweet touch of cold rain. They are husks of the life that once flowed within them.

I suppose that's what we are too. All around Dan and I are these leaves, green and glowing, full of life, full of purpose. They all know exactly what role they play, and they go on in doing so, allowing nothing to interrupt them. Dan and I, we've lost our place. We were cut off, and there's no way for us to be attached again. We'll never again know the fullness of drinking in the sunlight. All we know is darkness. All we feel is numb.

Somewhere in the distance, I hear sirens. Another tragedy in a tragic world. Someone's being robbed, someone's burning, someone's dying, and one leaf fulfilling his purpose will try and stall death for them. I see the police car coming in the distance. It's lights flash brightly, seeming to cut through the traffic. It seems as though the tree moves its branches aside, all of the individual leaves pulling over to allow this one shining light to pass through. As it draws near us, it slows, and it stops sideways along the road, stopping traffic. As the officer opens his door, I can't help but smile.

"It looks like someone did care after all."

**Edit: Edited to fit a rule I had forgotten. All better now and ready for brutal critique.**

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Maybe the answer is in the very light reflected off our blades. Maybe that's what it means to be this creature known as samurai.