“Hello, my name is Andrew Garrison, and I’m an alcoholic,” I said to the room of defeated faces that formed a circle around me. The man at the other end, with the spectacles, crossed legs, and rosary dangling over his hairy chest, said, “Thank you, Andrew, we’re all happy to have you here.” No, they weren’t.

“Is there anything you’d like to say? Any thoughts you might have? This is a judgment-free room,” the rosary man said.

“I don’t want forgiveness or nothing like that.” I answered. “I ain’t here because I want this room to convince me that I’m not what I am. Because I’m not confused about that.”

“Very well, Andrew. You can continue.” I disliked this man. The smile told me he thought he was above me. That he believed he was the puppet master of this room. Controlling a bunch of sinners who were looking up at rock bottom, because it was easy, because they were already defeated.

“My daughter died. She was only three months old. I was drinking heavily. I passed out on the couch while my ex-wife was at work. I placed her on my chest, and I came to with the sound of Helen screaming, as she grabbed Annie, who was lying face down on the carpet floor next to the couch. She wasn’t breathing.”

I paused to see if the rosary man was going to interject, but he didn’t say a word. Just waved a hand at me to signify that it was okay to continue. That no one was judging me, even though their faces told a different tale.

“I bet you’d think that something like that would make me put the bottle down? Well, it did, for a little while. But when Helen left, and I lost my job at the refinery, I couldn’t stand reality, you know? The thought of it. The thought of clear consciousness made my skin crawl. And eventually I found myself roaming the streets at night, fighting with myself.”

“What was the fight about, Andrew?”

“The fact that I couldn’t come up with one single reason to not shove a gun down my throat.”

“Well, you’re still with us. Among the living. So, what changed your mind?”

“A bar. Tom’s Bar. I would sit there, me and the rest of the disenfranchised. Silently having the same conversations inside our head. Well, maybe there’s weren’t quite as bad as mine, but they still had their shit, ya know? Their regrets. Anyway, one of them, this guy named Reggie, he’s a small skinny little thing, shaped like a twig. He says, he says, that uh, his sister, her name was Margie, I think, works down at the River Run diner off of Water. Anyway, he says that her man has been laying beatings on her, something awful right. Reggie says that every Wednesday they get together for a game of cards, a few beers, and just to talk about life and shit. So, he tells me, well, he tells whoever’s listening, that she comes over to his place on Wednesdays, all bruised up. One week it’s a shiner, the next it’s on her forearms, her legs, then on one of these Wednesdays, she asks if she can take a shower. Reggie says, yeah sure, no problem. So when he hears the water running, he peeks in. He tells the guys that he ain’t no pervert, or incest, or whatever, but he just wanted to see what it was she was hiding, you know?. He sees her back, and man, he said he nearly dropped dead. There were scratch marks from the top of her back to the bottom. Bite marks, scars, you name it, it was there. So he says, Wendy, this is the final straw. I’m going to go over there and beat his head in. You know what she says?”

“No, I don’t.” The rosary man said. “No, but don’t stop. Please, continue.” Again, he waves his hand in my direction, and I want to go over there and break it off. But I try not to dwell, because my thoughts get all jumbled when that rage takes over, and I want to finish my story.

“She tells him that Reggie will have to kill him. Plain and simple, because if he doesn’t, he’ll kill her. So, it’s either let it alone. Let fucking bygones be bygones or whatever, or go all the way.”

Then this lady, about fifty or so years old, scratching at her wrists, timidly raises her hand like we’re in grade school, and asks. “Well, why didn’t she just go to the cops?”

“That’s a good question. That’s what Reggie asks her too, you see? He says, Wendy, I’ll drive you down to the sheriff’s office right now, and we’ll put the prick away. But she says no. She actually laughs. Not a, this is a funny situation laugh, but a Reggie, how could you be so naïve laugh.”

The 50-year-old woman raises her hand again. “Why did she laugh?” She doesn’t make eye contact with me. She stares at her shoes as she asks.

“Well, she laughs because of society, right? This man, this man, is a pillar of the community. A stand-up guy, you know? Donates to charity, volunteers at the soup kitchen. He’s a reverend down at the Holy Cross too, or at least he was. A man of God. And she says that she was born into a white trash family and lived her life in a trailer park. So she says, what would the sheriff say? The man, who is a personal friend of her boyfriends, what would he say if a trailer trash girl from a trailer trash family tried to condemn a pillar of the community? Well, he’d laugh in her face is what he would do.”

“That ain’t right, man. That ain’t right at all,” A young black man to my right said, and I just nod my head. It isn’t right at all. “This guy should get a bullet in his head.”

“You couldn’t be more right,” I said, as I looked at the man with the rosary. “My daughter died, and nothing will bring her back, but maybe I can balance the world again by getting rid of a piece of shit.” I stood up, pulled the .38 from the back of my pants, and shot the rosary man twice in the head.

Then I turned around and walked out of the meeting, as the circle screamed.

I sit back and stare as the empty bottle rotates around in a circular motion. With every revolution, the sound of glass on wood creating a trance like vibration takes me into a faraway state of mind. Although this doesn't last long, I take in every damn second and try to forget what's occurred over the last 48 hours. Two legs on the ground and two legs suspended in the air, I lean back in this old rickety chair to try and get an eye level glimpse into the now at rest empty vessel. Peering in, I see nothing, I see an empty void that was once full of promise and courage. Hmm, seems all too familiar. My hands gripping the table as I balance this mental act seem to slip, leaving only a dusty outline of what once was. Stability. My back to the floor and face to the ceiling, I was realizing this was it. The screams the violence and lives taken way before their time the money made and the time spent all for what? I knew this wouldn't last, but also couldn't break free of the life of deceit and power. With nowhere to run and only the clothes on my back, I slowly put my ear to the floor, hearing the sounds of footsteps racing up the stairs. I frantically reach for my pistol but quickly give up, this was a new unwelcoming feeling as I've fought my way out of many battles, but this felt different. I've always listened to my inner feelings, and yet this is what my gut told me. I still want to live. Eyes closed and heart steady, I wait for my demise. SMASH!!! The old frail door flew off its hinges and a burst of lights flooded the dark grungy atmosphere. I hear muffles of yelling, but my mind holds quiet. I don't move. With my eyes held tightly shut in darkness, a warm red glow starts to flood my pinched inner sockets like a warm sunny day at the beach. I was absolutely mortified of this day coming and now that it has I feel a sense of clarity and level handedness like a weight being lifted off my crumbling shoulders. As the days turn to nights and my feelings of being alone now sit content in my body. Being in isolation has never been foreign to me. Throughout my criminal career you are taught through harsh reality's that being alone is what keeps you alive and look I'm still alive. Days turn to months, and hatred turns to compassion. Although, no matter how much you try to reconcile the past, it will never leave you. The only thing you can do is hope to change the future. Looking down at the concrete floor in my new dwelling, I hear the cold metal door slowly squeak open. Back facing the door, I feel the all too familiar cold sensation of metal grasping my wrists. The feeling never goes away. I knew the next steps of this process can drag on for what seems to be an eternity. Dressed like my formal self in a lavish three-piece suit felt like going back in time, although who I was then isn't who I'm now. Looking to my left and to my right, my ever so confident advisors give me looks of promise and hope for a second chance. The opportunity to be free rushes in my mind, as this was the goal from the beginning. Lastly, I look around the room at all the broken faces looking back at me, only to find myself in a state of questioning everything. The thought of possibly being free floods my mind, but so does the thought of being in a state of mental prison for the rest of my life. Making those already suffering have to relive the nightmare and torment again hit me like a ton of bricks. Enough fighting the pain of guilt. I know I can't go back in time and right my wrongs, however the outcome of this journey is all in my hands I thought. I slowly stood up with the feeling of the guard's hand on my shoulder, I proceeded to repeat over and over... Guilty your honor. I change my plea from innocent to guilty. It was silent in the room, and so was my struggle for physical freedom.

Tired.

So tired.

Completely, utterly, totally exhausted.

Even the cheers of the crowd are no longer enough to convince me that what I have done was right.

My people call me a hero. I have slain generals, trampled armies, even destroyed entire nations for that which my people call holy justice.

Somewhere, deep in the recesses of my mind, a memory rises up. What do you believe? I hear the director ask. Did they wrong you? Did your actions help anyone? The soft recollection morphs into a nightmare of disappointment, an emotion I never saw the director show but can still somehow picture so clearly. Who have you become? I don't remember teaching you to hurt people.

I swallow and try to shake myself out of it. The next group of people lining the parade street cheer extra loudly, and I force myself to smile a bit. I glance at my hands to make sure they're not clenched into fists, but get slammed with the memory of the same hands being coated in blood not a week prior. Looking at the fancy open carriage in which I'm seated reminds me of sitting on the pile of bodies at the end of the last war, slumped over from exhaustion. I close my eyes, but the flashbacks only get worse.

Finally, the parade ends. I suffer through another audience with the emperor, where he praises me for things I am increasingly less certain are praiseworthy. I eat at his feast, stand around feigning interest at his ball, and suppress the niggles of doubt that eat at me.

Two weeks. A month. The emperor announces another war. The fifth Holy War in my lifetime, the seventh in his reign. Upon the declaration, I suffer another bout of flashbacks, struggling under the weight of the knowledge that more people will die by my hands.

I can't. No. Not again.

I cannot voice my cries. My dissent would lead to abandonment, to execution.

But neither can I stay. To participate yet again would break me. I am not sure I am not already broken. If I break further, I can do nothing to atone, to understand what I have destroyed.

So I leave. Cloaked, under the cover of night, like the criminal I would be if they knew. Like the coward that for the first time in my life I wouldn't mind being but cannot convince myself that I am. Like the man who cannot face the brilliance of dawn without questioning his entire existence that I have become.

I need to see what is whole, but first I need to see what I have destroyed.

My journey takes me through many places. A small village, starving after the army I led stole their stored food. A large city, in ruins after our onslaught. Entire forests burned beyond recognition, rivers polluted with ash and death. Everything that remains of the child the director taught cries at the destruction my actions have wrought.

Small things surprise me. Before I left, everyone was trying to use me, to take things from me no matter how little I truly had. Now, in places where people have barely enough to survive, all I find is kindness.

An elderly woman who shares her blanket. A child who offers half of her last loaf of bread. An expecting mother who invites a stranger twice her size to share her roof for a night. A farmer who asks for three hours in the fields in exchange for not handing me over to the soldiers now hunting me.

I cannot understand it. I cannot comprehend how those who have almost nothing will share what little they have with complete strangers when those whom I have known who have everything continue to take whatever they can from even those they know well.

It hurts some part of me that I didn't know I had to know that I was the one who caused their suffering.

They tell me that they know me. That they knew who I was before they helped me. That they haven't blamed me.

Their words confuse me. I destroyed their lives. I caused them to lose nearly everything they had, to be reduced to barely surviving. How can they be so forgiving?

It is not forgiving, the village elder tells me. You are not the monster you think you are. Every place you have been, we all agree. You do not seek to harm us, were not cruel to us in the war. You are not to be blamed.

I object. It was the soldiers I led who destroyed the fields, who stole the rations, who harassed and harmed the people. It was I who eradicated the armies, who slaughtered the villagers' fathers, sons, brothers, husbands. I cannot be absolved.

You are not innocent, no, he agrees. But neither are you to bear the blame. The soldiers who survived all told the same tale: a man of great size and immense strength, who stands alone and unsupported. A general with no loyal soldiers. A warrior who cries as he kills. No monster would show regret as you do.

His words strike me deep inside. I had thought the wetness on my face was always blood. It brings a creeping sense of peace to know that those I slew knew I took no pleasure in it, but it does not mean I can be forgiven. I have hurt too many.

That you believe that is exactly the reason for which we can forgive you. Very well. We of the lands you have freed from the control of the tyrants who owned us, we who you believe you have wronged, we who have seen the man of gentle, fractured soul who believes the façade of a monster which he wears, we now charge you thusly: continue your travels through our lands. Learn of us, and let us learn of you. See our darkness and our beauty, our destruction and our wholeness in equal measure. Seek your atonement in any way offered; help any who ask.

Though you may never believe that you have atoned, though you may never believe that you deserve forgiveness, though you may never feel absolved of the weight of your actions, we who have seen your heart thus far and will see your actions in the future will be satisfied.

So I travel. I fight each day with the knowledge that all around me is evidence of my crimes. I fight with the knowledge of the monster inside. I fight with the knowledge that the only crime my empire has pinned on me is that of deserting, not those I committed or allowed my soldiers to commit during war.

In one village, a father asks me to teach his daughter swordplay. When I depart, I have come to a decision. My sword will remain sheathed. It needn't see any more bloodshed.

The people of the five nations I destroyed begin to see my visits as a natural occurrence, nothing to be concerned about. I feel for the first time that I have a home, though I am always moving. One day, I stumble on a pair of babies, the only survivors of a bandit attack.

The village elders say I should raise them.

Though my first instinct is to protest, I have learned much in my travels. Guilt. Resolve. Absolution. Forgiveness. Acceptance. Perhaps the elders are right. I am human now, not a monster, and my sins may be lessons of warning.

Yes, I believe I will raise them. I have a very large home and many family members now, after all.