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Winter Soldier: The Price of Freedom
The night sky, laden with brooding, churlish clouds, parted its arms like a sick red sea, heaving heavy tears of biblical deluge upon the elegant spires and mossy cobbled back alleys of the restless old city. The spring rains of April were here, sinless as angel's tears, washing away chapped recollections of the harsh, European winter. Prague was a living, breathing history museum. Ancient and contemporary. Refined and polluted. Magnificent and treacherous. Heavy, burdened droplets percussed the slanted window, rattling the terracotta roof tiles with enough grandiose forte to upstage the ornate fountain sobbing in the building's courtyard.
Bezier curves dressed with neon arabesques of storefront signs cast colorful abstracts upon the white-washed walls of the small loft apartment. Beneath a pitched ceiling, hardwood floors harbored no more than bare necessities: A small mattress, simple wood table, kitchen, and bathroom; a minimalist's wet dream. Blankets of fine dust powdered every horizontal surface like antique snow as the air hung stagnant and stale in timeless suspension. The safehouse had remained an untouched time capsule for well over a decade, until it's resident ghost sought refuge there once again.
Tendrils of damp, dark hair spilled over his shoulders. Seated in a meditative pose on urethaned floorboards of pine, each elbow rested on a cross-legged knee in the stark light of the little pawn-shop television perched upon its milk crate pedestal. Regaled by the nearly silent, flickering scenes of current events broadcasts, an elongated shadow pulsed on the angled wall behind him, looming ominous and silent as death itself; a watchful apparition, unwavering with zen-like patience. Pieces of a partially reassembled 9mm semiautomatic pistol lay splayed out before him. Each individual component had been methodically cleaned as a coroner might clean a corpse before a funeral.
Well within arms reach, a bottle of Becherovka either half empty or half full, glistened in myriad hues of yellow and green. The bouquet of cinnamon and herbs lingered on his pallet from the most recent, gratuitous sip.
After the rear and front sights of the pistol were mounted back in their respective places, he lifted the weapon's slide, carefully inspecting the alignment of clean-cut grooves silhouetted against the luminescent flare of the TV screen. Although that glacial stare held steadfast with the unwavering focus of a professional, his thoughts more closely resembled a runaway bullet train careening over a cliff, plummeting down thousands of miles, and reducing an unsuspecting children’s hospital to a pile of smoldering rubble.
Ever since his last mission, that disaster in Washington DC, he had been on the run from what felt like a collective of both his past and his present. Life had evolved from strict servitude into a perpetual struggle to remain at least one step ahead of whoever might be coming to collect him. Hypervigilance seemed as much a blessing as it was a curse.
From the small kitchen, a rapid succession of tapping disrupted the stillness. Every muscle in his body tensed with the sudden motion of an involuntary wince. Clenched jaws held the breath hostage in his lungs as he jerked up his head, listening. Seismic heartbeats rocked his chest like little earthquakes. At the first sign of intrusion, the big, slanted window granted swift access to the rooftop, from whence it would be all too easy to slip away into the tempestuous night. The hypothetical scenario was nothing short of a well calculated contingency plan. It was only when the old refrigerator's worn compressor sputtered to life with a strained, raspy hum, that he allowed his breathing to resume. A low growl of distant thunder harmonized a deep sigh of relief.
' They'll come for me.' He thought, muscles gradually unwinding. ‘Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But they’ll come.’
Monstrous manifestations of fear still prowled the perimeters of his conscience. Circling, swirling shadows of famished vultures, swarming... descending to dine; to gorge themselves again and again on the turgid carcass of his fractured identity. Memories buried in shallow mass-graves, begging to be exhumed, continued slipping through his fingers like specks of elusive dust.
'I remember each mission...every target... every confirmed kill... But where's the rest? ...Who the hell am I?...' Faded, blurred epitaphs on a weathered headstone; no manner of studious diligence would unveil the truth of what secrets lay six feet below.
Some months ago, a brief visit to the Smithsonian bestowed faded afterimages of past events upon his recollection; documented experiences he still couldn't quite confirm as fact or write off as fiction. The tales of brotherly love, powerful friendships, loyalty, and trust had felt ...too good to be true. Nostalgic nuances trickled their way through the recesses of his memory like invasive moisture seeping between the cracks of a damaged foundation and suddenly, there it was: a pristine flashback of the blue eyed, blonde haired man nearly beaten within an inch of his life by hands none other than his own. ' Steve Rogers.... Captain America... My last mission...Whoever he thinks I am...or was... that's gone now.'
A gale-force gust assaulted the angled window pane with a barrage of raindrop missiles whilst the frantic wail of a police siren echoed past distorted reflections on wet tarmac devoid of pedestrian footfalls; a sound that quickened his pulse with a sense of primal anxiety. Without hesitation, he reached for the bottle and washed it away with not one, but two exorbitant sips of the flavorful, pale yellow poison.
'Maybe giving up is my best option.' A new train of thought departed the empty station into the void. Giving up? Giving in?
' Stop running like a damn coward and go back to what's familiar; the parts of my life that I do remember. They kept me alive, after all... If it hadn't been for them...for HYDRA, I would have slowly bled out that day on the banks of the Danube river...' They had saved him, in a sense, so what did he owe them now? Loyalty, devotion, gratitude…? His stomach lurched at the notion that perhaps some part of him felt indebted to those fascist psychopaths, even if it was only a coping mechanism for his present predicament. 'No, I'm not going back... and I’m not letting them take me alive….again. '
The pistol’s hollow slide lay cradled in the palm of his left hand. Reflective, bionic fingers held it in place while dexterous digits of his right hand picked up the well-oiled striker assembly and worked it back into position. Not for another day, another moment, another second, would he serve as their pawn.
'Let them come...' Nearly verbalized thoughts were flushed down with a drink from the green glass bottle. 'I won't be a part of their agenda anymore.' Not one more single time would he allow his mind to be forced into submission, coerced to commit despicable acts which involuntarily thrust his moral compass into reverse polarity.
The countenance of facial topography tensed, barely hinting at the raw volcanic rage laying dormant beneath an otherwise stoic composure. What used to be true North for that moral compass anyway? And furthermore, what was it now; that fixed marker which stopped the needle from chaotic revolutions and brought him back from a long life spent so very lost behind enemy lines? Answers he sought, once again, lay just out of reach. At least there was one thing he could say with certainty: he had finally managed to reclaim his freedom and intended to keep it that way.
With fluid motion, titanium fingers rolled the slide over in his palm as he picked up the barrel and carefully laid it into place like an infant into a bassinet .'Is that really what this is? Freedom? Then why do I still feel so trapped... ?' He thought. Trapped in this toxic affair with a phantom of relentless guilt; a poisonous friend that had crept its way under his skin, made itself at home among shards of shattered memories, and became a lecherous lover to his nightmares. No matter how much he writhed and twisted, tossed and turned, it was the ache that persisted and made it impossible to feel comfortable; the declaration of war with peace.
Whilst a young, well dressed man on the news program sermonized the weather forecast, another long drink was drawn from the mouth of the bottle, head and shoulders pitching backward as though he were utterly parched. Three-quarters of the stuff had been swallowed down over the course of a single hour, yet he barely felt the slightest tingle of mild inebriation. A low grumble of frustration vibrated in the back of his throat as he plucked up the recoil guide-rod and spring, keeping it under tension while slipping the assembly into the lower barrel recess.
The fetters of immense concern for the state of his own sanity also served as a cage that would keep him far from any semblance of a normal life. A cage that would forever separate all of the civilized animals from the feral ones; the unpredictable ones...the dangerous ones. A cage that could be safely unlocked if, and only IF, he were absolutely certain his mind would never return to that pernicious state of fugue.
Guiding the completed slide-assembly onto the frame of the German-made pistol, he pulled it backward until the catch engaged and then released his grip. It snapped forward into place and the now fully assembled weapon was laid down quietly within his reach.
Although he had been hopeful that uncovering some truths of his past might facilitate some form of a cure, nothing seemed conclusive thus far. Perhaps it had been that notion of naive hopefulness which had been keeping him afloat for the past months like a little life raft dragging a very heavy anchor...but that life raft was no match for the massive maelstrom it now found itself orbiting.
Each glimmering round of ammunition he picked up was inspected as carefully as the next, rolling the brass casings between his fingers and checking the primer for any major flaws. As he pushed the third one into the magazine's jacket, the news anchor began discussing the cataclysmic events which had unfolded in the neighboring country of Sokovia just the day before. Curious eyes lifted just in time to catch a brief glimpse of a video clip featuring Novi Grad. The entire city hovered otherworldly in midair, before the announcer declared more details would follow shortly, and the channel cut to a commercial break. Go figure.... Slipping a handful of advertisements between the captivating footage of a horrific world event was... clever. Somebody out there was always shameless enough to capitalize on tragedy, it seemed. After thumbing the final round into the magazine, he grabbed for the liquor bottle one more time, clearing it of its contents at last with a few consecutive, breathless gulps.
He’d made it a point to steer clear of Sokovia. The current safehouse was nowhere near the border and yet, that HYDRA base had felt far too close for comfort. Given the very recent events however, it might be wise to err on the side of caution. With Novi Grad in ruins, who could say what number of those fascist pests might have managed to scatter into the four winds and now sought out places of refuge for themselves. Perhaps he really should be expecting a visitor or two.
Picking up the pistol, he pushed the now full clip into place, listening for the familiar click within the firearm that followed. “Hope they don’t expect the place to be too clean…” He thought, a deep breath pulling into his lungs and releasing it in a sharp, resigning sigh. Curving striations of chromed fingers then racked back the slide to prime the first round before equally practiced digits of flesh and bone brought the weapon home to kiss the cold, clean muzzle against the warm flesh of his temple.
Whilst witnessing jubilant jingles of a colorful mobile phone advertisement, turbulent thoughts clotted with congealing recollections of the past weeks' fruitless efforts. Nothing had relieved the symptoms. Nothing had eliminated the cause. He had grown weary; exhausted with desperation - that supermassive black hole, swirling with such gravity that only those willing to relinquish everything they have ever believed in might hope to escape. A faint trace of a pale scar along the inside of his wrist glared at him from beneath the frayed hem of a charcoal sweatshirt sleeve. It snagged his glance away from the television, taunting his conscience.
Yeah, he'd already tried that number at the last place he’d stayed…
... And woke up the next day, wet and cold like he'd just been pulled out of Cryo again, releasing a sequence of anguished, infuriated wails welling up from within, completely disregarding the subconscious fear of drawing any outside attention to himself. The grueling moments which followed were spent hugging his bare knees to his naked chest, sobbing with utter frustration into a murky, crimson mess of frigid bathwater until he found enough emotional and physical strength to hoist himself ungracefully from the tub and onto the checkerboard of tiles where he lay, panting; an unwanted rebirth after a procrastinated, failed, postpartum abortion. By the time one of the concerned neighboring residents came knocking, he had already moved on.
Eyelids narrowed spitefully into a chilling, scornful glare shot right back at that nearly healed wound like it had just personally insulted him. Another day or two and it would vanish completely. 'Fuck you.'
The week before that it was a cocktail of the dirtiest Ukrainian back-alley heroin and horse tranquilizers he could get his hands on... Alas, three days later he woke, like Christ, except it was neither glorious nor cathartic. Drooling into a makeshift pillow constructed from layers of grungy sweatshirts, entombed within a rudimentary blanket-fort that a 5 year old could have built better, he'd felt like retching... but couldn't even do that.... ' Can't retch if you haven't eaten in days. Not really anway.' Mistakes were made ... At least he didn't dream on those nights…
‘You idiot... You fucking moron…’ he thought. ‘Why the hell did you expect any of that to actually work?! You fell thousands of feet from a moving train into a riverbed at sub-zero, alpine temperatures with your arm ripped off, bleeding out all over the place and still managed to live... Then HYDRA pumped you full of drugs that most modern chemists don't have a clue how to synthesize yet and you thought a little H and Xylazine could put you to sleep for good!?’
Hubris.
But this time... this time it would work. He was 99.8 percent certain of that… and if he was wrong...well, that was a bridge he hopefully wouldn’t need to cross.
Low audio clips of a flickering Czech yogurt commercial faded away to images of the news station's lead anchor, returning with an automatonic sense of enthusiasm. ‘ Shit, when was the last time I've actually tasted a yogurt??’ The thought dissipated just as quickly as it had pricked his subconscious when video footage of a reporter on scene with the Avengers was suddenly cast upon the small screen. He could have just turned it off. The TV was only a few feet away, but the succeeding images of the SHIELD helicarrier touching down with all of the Novi Grad refugees aboard proved captivating enough to string him along for just a few moments longer. Tired blue eyes watched a youthful reporter, microphone in hand, jogging their way up into the flood of terrified Sokovians being escorted from the massive airship. Members of disjointed families cried out for each other in harrowing, desperate pleas. Of course, among the front lines of this mass exodus was none other than Captain America himself, looking a little weathered and winded, perhaps, but otherwise unscathed.
Muscles constricted within his chest as he watched the pre-recorded footage of the reporter flagging down the famed Avenger clad in red white and blue.
“You're Captain America, but why are you here now, fighting for the people of Sokovia?” They boldly questioned in heavily accented English between panting breaths as the camera crew tried their best to steady their view upon the two figures amidst the mass of panicked civilians. The Avenger patted a middle-aged man on the shoulder and pointed him in an unseen direction before acknowledging the young reporter with uncanny enthusiasm.
His eyes burned from the intense focus on the old television screen and although the footage had been filmed the day before, it felt every bit as immediate as the present moment. The gravity of that man’s righteous stare directed straight into the camera lens tugged at his psyche so much so that he had to force himself to look away. Pressing closed the lids of his own eyes, he hoped it would help to shut it all out.
'Just pretend like it's any other mission. None of this matters now. Just finish it already! ' His index finger tensed gradually against the utilitarian curvatures of the pistol’s trigger.
Through the static white noise of his own carcinogenic web of thoughts, Captain America sounded, if only slightly, taken aback by the reporter’s forward question and yet, the answer followed suit with almost no hesitation and in complete confidence:
“Because this was a fight for what it means for all of us to be human, which is exactly what any one of us should always be fighting for. I rescue the helpless and I raise up the hopeless. I don't measure people's lives by the colors of their flags or the color of their skin. I've been alive for a long time...made a lot of mistakes that I have to remember every day... I've watched a lot of good people go off to fight in wars and some of them never came home and... I never got a chance to say goodbye. I haven’t forgotten a single one of their names because, well, I just can't. While I might consider that a soldier's privilege, I don't think anyone else should have to go through that amount of pain. That's why I'm here today.”
Those words leeched every last remnant of color from his already pallid complexion, forced an invasive appendage down his throat, found his heart and constricted the rapidly beating chambers to near standstill. Eyelids fluttered open as a chill raked its claws along the ridge of his spine, shocking his posture to straightening. All that remained in the tempest of reeling mindscapes were desperately clinging echoes of that hauntingly familiar voice and the lingering ghost of the old patriot's name. Lips parted in both bewilderment and awe, like the vast chasm cleaving his memories...and from that cataclysmic site, a confounding sensation gurgled up within its deepest recesses so overwhelming he no longer knew whether he wanted to cry or begin laughing maniacally. It was then, in that very moment of pure emotional ambivalence, he came to realize that he’d been ushered to the brink of mourning the death of a friendship which he couldn't even remember being conceived.
Cold fingers, now noticeably clammy, shifted against the weapon's grip, adjusting and readjusting, like a writhing python tightening its coils to smother its prey. Tears flowed forth, unbridled, down along the contours of his jaws and vanished within thickets of dark facial hair.
“To si snad děláte prdel!” Choked words, hot and heavy involuntarily spilled forth in the language of the Czech newscast he’d clearly been focused on for far too long.
“Ty zkurvysynu...” His voice, barely above a whisper, cracked and quivered with fatigue beneath the weight of emotional cargo.
“Goddamnit, Steve...” Finally he lapsed back into English, drew in a sharp breath, and held on to it as though his very life depended on it. The more he ruminated, the more any equivocal notion began to fade and imbued with a dawning sense of wistful remorse, he felt certain of the decision he now wished to make. It was time.... time for him to go.
From the steadfast shadows of the sprawling landscape, hymns of birdsongs drifted through the twilight hours like unseen heralds of daybreak. The infant day inhaled in a contagious yawn muffled by stale wine, milky spiced coffee, and acrid perfumes on the breath of the cold East wind. It seemed as though the city itself had opened its jaws to swallow the last remnants of night with all its pointed rooftops and jagged chimneys nestled in a gossamer veil of lingering fog. Twinkling reflections dancing upon the languid river looked deceptively enchanting, like a carnivorous plant might appeal to a fly. Depleted, somber clouds parted toward an indigo horizon, setting the stage for fair morning skies.
Blank stares cast in timeless molds of bronze and stone peered out across the renowned Charles Bridge as though waiting for permission to gaze upon the bundled bodies of the living, dappling the monumental structure at the threshold of dawn. They were the taciturn pilgrims, wanting to believe in some truths hidden beyond their own, who came to pay peaceful tribute before the buskers, merchants and tourists would commence their invasive conquest within the next hour’s time. The silence was so pure it felt as though the saints themselves had their breath collectively stolen away; like the earth had stopped turning and time lay ceaselessly suspended in the moment of a single, magnificent sunrise.
The weight of his torso rested upon both forearms as he leaned onto one of the many large sandstone blocks lining both sides of the historic landmark. Pensive eyes stared down on the surface of the ambling waters below. The long dark locks were concealed by a maroon baseball cap, the brim of which jutted over furrowed brows from beneath the charcoal grey hood of his sweatshirt. A well worn leather jacket kept the sharp teeth of the biting breeze at bay as fingers clad in supple, black, goatskin gloves played with a small bundle cradled gingerly within them. At his back, the statuesque likeness of St. Ludmila cast an eternal, chastising stare upon her young, rambunctious nephew. If one held still enough and listened carefully, her reprimanding squalls might yet resonate upon the updrafts of ancient history which wistfully whirled about winding eddies of the Vltava. To his immediate right stood St. John of Nepomuk in all of his baroque splendor, towering above him upon the famed triptych pedestal, depicting scenes of his life as well as his ultimate demise. The river had embraced him much too tightly after a long drop and a sudden stop. The story resonated deeply, although he didn’t know it in its entirety. It was, in a sense, relatable. He too had nearly met his end in this museum of a city, drowning not within these dusky depths below, but instead, the unforgiving undercurrent of his own conscience. Yet here he stood, in a spot hundreds of people flocked to day in and day out, just to touch their fingers against the plaques of this famed sculpture’s pedestal in hopes of what? A blessing of good fortune?... A better future? Maybe there was something to it after all.
What began as a deep, encumbered sigh, evolved into a string of hushed syllables. “I'm so sorry, Steve. I've made one hell of a mess...and I can't undo what I've done… but I know that you'd want me to do better ... in the future.” The gusting breeze stole the words from his lips one by one, rendering them inaudible. Conflicted blue eyes reflected deep lavender hues of dawn as they focused on the German pistol nestled within a scrap of paltry, weathered jersey textiles. On one hand, it could be a means of protection from anyone persistent enough to follow his tracks. On the other hand however, it could also mean certain death for any number of innocent people, or himself, should his mind stray beyond the perimeters of self-control.
Enfolding the weapon within the fabric scrap at last, he shifted a brief, vigilant glance about the surrounding area to ensure no prying eyes, save those entombed in stone or bronze, were watching. Then, his fingers parted and the wrapped bundle plummeted for seconds which passed like decades, eventually rippling the water’s surface before disappearing within the vast pull of the river’s stalwart stream.
For the first time in months he didn’t feel like a complete failure upon his own scale of moral expectations and watching lavender- indigo hues slowly blush with tints of pale pink, it rekindled a barely smoldering notion of faith. Not a religious faith but instead, a more cosmic belief that that which was once born could not simply be buried in the cold earth, but only waits to be born again at the universe’s behest… where in ancient, chaotic starlight, it lays dormant in patient repose until some fateful moment beckons it into being once again.
Pushing his weight away from the stone parapet, he pulled his backpack from the place where it had been resting on age-old cobbled stone and slung it over one shoulder. It was time to move on; to disappear yet again and haunt another place for a while. Still, he felt strangely drawn to the tripartite base of St. Nepomuk’s sculpture and against his better judgement, decided to indulge the whimsical desire. While studying the narrative images with calm contemplation, he pulled the leather glove from his right hand and touched bare fingertips against the cold, moist surface of the monument without truly knowing why. Perhaps it was simple curiosity or perhaps he subconsciously longed to be instilled with the same sense of wonder which blessed so many others before him. As his skin traced curvatures of weathered bronze, he felt that almost foreign sense of naive hopefulness reinvigorated. Maybe he could return to this very place some day should fortune bestow some notion of peace upon his tumultuous existence.
Plucked from the embrace of tender contemplation by the crescendo of nearby pedestrian footfalls, he quickly tugged the glove back over his right hand, shifted the shoulder strap of his backpack, and then cast himself into the slowly swelling tide of moving bodies with a lingering sense of wayward melancholy. That broken moral compass should serve well enough as an ancillary guide as he pressed onward into the unknown.
Living...without anywhere to belong.
Existing...with no true purpose.
Yet, against all odds...
Alive nonetheless.