The Chasm of Extremes

Opposites attract each other but never face in the same direction. 

Together, each wears down the other with their juxtaposition of contrasting beliefs and beauty. Yet when separated, the beckoning forces of attraction and fate instil a fascinating longing for reconnection. 

Spin the compass and turn the hourglass. What is North without its South? What is up without its down? Each represents the contrary of the other; an extreme on its own means nothing without its counterpart. One loses its purpose when the other ceases to exist.

When combined, the excesses become more alike than you think. Suddenly, you have a collapse of similarities amid the differences, and it becomes difficult to tell one from the other. 

So what length does one go in order to prove who he truly is?

Two opposites sat together on the rooftop, watching the busy night below them. The two extremes were united by the chains of attraction and fate, forcing one last encounter beyond the contradictions of ideologies.

——:——

Heath was born into a world of injustice and violence. 

A world so ugly, that people poison themselves to forget. They would rather destroy what’s inside than see the destruction around them. 

Curiosity flourishes in a place where the noticeable don’t notice but is only gifted to those who truly see. In a world of masochistic ignorance, watching eyes are rare—given to those who would rather look around than look away.

His father was the first person Heath saw, literally and spiritually, and the first thing he noticed was that his Jesus Christ really enjoyed his wine. 

But curiosity came with a cost: you can’t erase what you have learnt without giving it all up.

Heath truly saw, yet was too scared to act.

Early on, his mother’s arms were the sanctuary and poison was the threat. But the more he saw, the worse it got.

Heath had learnt that we were all made in God’s image. Fathers, therefore, became the figure of God to look up to. 

But what kind of deity would rain fists and bring tears of pain and suffering? This one was all-powerful, therefore not all-loving.

And one day, sprawled on the bloody wooden floor and cowered in fear, Heath watched God beat his mother to death.

Running away meant betraying his father; treason became the forbidden fruit that he longed to taste.

So, at the age of fifteen, Heath ditched his curiosity and left his God behind for good. 

——:——

Butch was born into a world of forgiveness and peace. His home was his church, and his father his God. 

For Butch, everything was a closed box; he ventured to open every box to reveal the potential beauty hidden inside them all. His eyes and smile dazzled in awe at a world of fascinating delicacy and purity. 

If we were all made in an all-loving God’s image, Butch was the proof. His abundant respect for others and empathy could be perceived from afar—he was the embodiment of the son any parent would want.

His parents raised him in their house of God, bestowing him with all the values a perfect son would have. However, as good as their intentions were, they made one dreadful mistake: they left out the other side.

With every value comes its sin, and Butch’s first encounter with immorality was when he met Heath.

——:——

The two counterparts sat side by side on the roof’s ledge. A man embodying death and forced to walk among the living, and a man surrounded by the dying compelled to gift them life. 

Once upon a time, they considered themselves best friends—a duo bound by fate and the mysterious beckoning of curiosity. Now they found themselves in complete disagreement with the other, with only their past linking them together.

“What gives you the right to decide one’s fate?” Butch asked in revolt, picking up a cement pebble and throwing it over his shoulder, where it landed onto the concrete.

“It is not about having the right to, it’s about what one deserves,” Heath answered, throwing a pebble ahead that fell down to the city.

“And who are you to define what one deserves?”

Heath sighed, watching his breath condense in the cold air. “Do you believe that figures of evil get what’s coming to them?”

“I believe that, eventually, they do,” Butch said, picking up another pebble.

“Then consider me the Grim Reaper.”

Butch could muster no reply. He couldn’t comprehend Heath and promptly rejected his philosophy. 

Living, to Butch, meant seeing the world around him. This understanding was bordered with two extremes: an excess of light that blinds you, and a complete absence of light that hides what’s around you.

To him, this meant that any kind of extremism reaches a limit which buries any sense of recognition or understanding—it becomes unseen, therefore incomprehensible. 

Butch did not understand Heath because he was a man completely veiled in darkness, hiding in a chasm of inconceivable desires and thoughts. 

Long ago, Butch felt it was his responsibility to pry Heath from his chains of darkness and show him the world through his own eyes. He didn’t feel that way anymore.

His teeth clicked shut in the silence. Tears began to fill his eyes and, after a moment’s hesitation, he threw the pebble at the city below them. 

“I lost my daughter,” he said. 

Heath lowered his head, full of shame and guilt—and regretting his own words. “I’m sorry.”

“She was shot,” Butch sniffed, his voice cracking. “Do you understand me? I lost her from my sight for a couple of seconds and she was shot!” He shouted with growing despair. Meanwhile, Heath kept his head lowered. “Do you know how old she was? Do you?!”

Heath slowly shook his head. 

“Seven! She was only seven! Now tell me, Heath, did she deserve it?”

No reply. Butch trembled in the silence.

“Did she deserve to die?!”

“No!” Heath answered with a mixture of infuriated sadness. The single-syllable word echoed in the night as they turned to face each other. 

Butch’s anger recoiled immediately in shock: tears were spilling out of Heath’s eyes. Butch had never seen a face so sad, so beaten and distressed. He looked away, ashamed at his anger.

Heath picked up another pebble, this time throwing it ahead with determined rage, shouting as he launched it.

——:——

It was a smile that reignited a forgotten curiosity inside of Heath. It was a smile so convincing and innocent, void of sin and corruption, and—what most shocked him—it was genuine, there was no facade. 

The smile’s owner was a liked person by all the students in their school, but Heath couldn’t understand the reason behind the boy’s popularity. In Heath’s world, kindness was not something to look up to—it was weak and made you vulnerable. Yet, something in that smile contradicted Heath’s world and it filled him with awe.

He watched with curiosity at the popular boy looking up at the sky with the true smile.

Suddenly, they locked eyes and an unknown sense of longing and admiration rippled through Heath’s body, making him shiver despite the heat of the day.

In their matching gaze something inside him clicked, so it didn’t surprise him when he noticed the boy walking straight towards him.

——:——

The hitman with nothing to lose and the doctor who had lost everything hunkered together on the hospital rooftop. They had been sitting in a silence that seemed eternal, both absorbed in their own thoughts and waiting for the other to speak first.

“I lied,” Heath finally said. The words cut through the tension and Butch relaxed. “I lied about always giving delivering death to those who deserve it.”

Butch hesitated, then swallowed and asked: “What happened?” 

He left the question hanging. Silence quickly engulfed them as an inner turmoil erupted within Heath.

Finally, he cleared his throat and whispered in the cold: “I missed.”

Butch nodded, albeit not fully understanding. Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder what Heath had done.

Butch had been a medical practitioner for years, operating and saving thousands of patients over his lengthy career. He had rapidly developed a blind eye towards every client and viewed them as honest blank sheets: innocent or corrupted, every human deserved a second chance at life. 

At first, every patient was a new challenge. Each was a new battle of deep wounds and courage with a mysterious finale: will he be saved, or will he perish?

Now, having worked there for so long, he could tell if a patient had a chance or not. 

Butch visualized the dying as men balancing a thin tightrope of willpower that they must cross to be saved. He could see that balance in the eyes of his patients—a man with no hope is a man with no balance. 

Butch wondered if in his eyes one could see his own pain and loss.

Looking deep into Heath’s eyes, Butch saw a great deal of misery and suffering. He also saw that Heath was walking on the same tightrope of the dying, and he desperately searched in his gaze for a sliver of resolve, but all he could see was a determination to slip and fall.

——:——

The sun shone down with brilliance onto the concrete floor outside the school. The rays were cutting through the clouds, vanquishing the chilly air and immediately warming it like a homely fireplace in the winter. 

It was recess time. Butch stepped outside the building and couldn’t help but look up and smile at the sunny day that was greeting them all with a kiss of warmth.

Suddenly, as he lowered his gaze, he locked eyes with a student sitting alone in a corner. It was the new student: a shy, quiet boy with a cold appearance and an indecipherable personality. He wasn’t liked by many of the other classmates, but he provoked an odd curiosity in Butch. Born from an image of perfectness, the contrasting aura of mystery and the damaged soul coming from the new kid greatly intrigued him. He felt a strange connection of aspiration that pulled him towards the boy; so, succumbing to his deep desires, Butch began to walk towards him.

——:——

Years before, their bond had been broken through their own choosing. They split up and ventured down opposite paths, knowing deep down that—one day—they would meet again. Now, sitting beside each other once again, they both knew that it would be their last time together. 

Neither knew why, but they each felt it. Both understood that they were incompatible, despite their friendship.

“Will we meet again?” Asked Butch—knowing the answer, but hoping that this time he was wrong.

“No,” Heath responded with a tinge of longing. Butch stood up and began walking towards the rooftop entrance.

“Butch?”

He turned and they locked eyes. Heath was standing dangerously close to the ledge.

“I’m sorry,” Heath croaked, tears filling his eyes again. Butch slowly nodded, finally understanding everything about the man veiled in darkness.

“I know,” he responded before opening the door and disappearing into the building.

——:——

Every time Heath set out to kill a target, he always made sure that the person deserved death. 

He became an urban legend amongst the criminal network. They called him “Spider”; you knew exactly when you fell into his web, and once he was onto you, there was no escape. 

For Heath, it was a game. The criminals would be notified days before they were going to be murdered—and he loved to see the pigs cower and squeal in fear as they tried to hide from him. But “Spider” never missed.

However, he wasn’t a true demon. A small flake of compassion remained within him: his faith in love. To those who were to be killed, Heath allowed one last visit to a person of their choice: a final trip to see the one individual closest to them before their demise. It didn’t matter who—the wife, the lover, the kid—and he respected those who carried it out. Sometimes, they obliged and did as he said, but the pigs Heath hated the most were the ones that refused.

His new victim had refused his order: a sly paedophile that avoided jail as well as he avoided Heath. It was his hardest target yet, a slippery snake of a man that jumped out of his grip every time he thought he had him. His devious techniques made Heath’s blood boil and he slowly began to wander into obsessive recklessness.

In Heath’s eyes, the man deserved death. No one should be able to hide from the Grim Reaper, especially while knowing he was after you.

——:——

The two instantly got along and moulded an intimate connection that baffled all those around them. They were an inseparable pair that did everything together, despite their constant philosophical arguments that astounded the rest. 

Early on, both figured out that they were from opposite worlds, but they did not let that affect their friendship. 

Until, one day, their ideologies transitioned from simple thoughts that provoked debate, to actions that silenced them.

Someone had begun to pick on Butch, pushing him in hallways and throwing things at him in class. 

At first, it was meaningless playing, just simple things that would be distracting. Then it began to escalate: personal things started disappearing, and heavier things were being thrown.

Butch, having never been in a situation of physical conflict that he didn’t understand, stayed quiet and gave the bully no attention. He couldn’t comprehend why he was being picked on but was too proud of himself to ask. He would suck it up and call it a mistake because there were no sins in his world. But, soon enough, it reached a peak where there was no looking away from.

He never told Heath; he knew exactly what he would say. 

One day Butch came face to face with his bully in the bathroom. Trembling with an unknown fear, he asked him: “What is your problem? Why are you doing this?”

Suddenly, his head was rocked to the side and his jaw burst in pain—and that was when he saw Heath walking in.

Butch had never seen someone become so engulfed in rage before. It was a revelation, the forbidden fruit that he dreaded. 

Heath became his own father, stooping over the cowardly and beating them to death. His knuckles and the bathroom floor were covered in blood before Butch managed to pull him off the bully.

Understanding is an agreement between the senses and the mind. The senses capture the world around us and deliver information to the brain, where we create an association. Recognition and understanding come from the world around us. But all our senses come with limits. Now, panting and bleeding before him, Butch was looking straight into the eyes of someone he didn’t understand.

Heath ran away, never returning, betraying his friendship and leaving Butch behind. Despite their differences, though, he knew that—deep down—they would unite again.

——:——

He finally had him; he finally had the revolting snake in his grip and this time he wouldn’t let him go. 

Heath was lying on a rooftop, watching him through the scope, and aiming the bullseye straight at the target. He could see the pig sitting next to his van on a busy street. He was waiting, ready to kidnap another child. 

It filled Heath with disgust yet, no matter how much he wanted to shoot him, he kept his cool and waited for a clear view.

A child was walking towards him, a little girl of seven. This was it; he had to do it now before it was too late.

She had probably wandered too far from her parents, and now the snake would try to grab her and shove her into the van.

He was calling to her, beckoning her to his van. Heath saw that she was going to comply. He quickly rested his finger on the trigger.

Suddenly, the little girl smiled. It was a smile so convincing and innocent, void of sin and corruption. His finger recoiled in shock.

He missed. 

Suddenly, he knew exactly who that little girl was, and he watched in despair as her father ran to her and collapsed by her limp body.

The snake had gotten away, and there was nothing Heath could do but watch and hear the cries of a father who had lost his only daughter.

——:——

He was a murderer. A killer of the innocent. 

So Heath allowed himself one last visit to the person he loved. It took all of his willpower and courage to sit beside him one last time.

Butch closed the door behind him and disappeared into the building. With their last glance, Heath knew that Butch understood.

He stood on the ledge, looking at the city below.

Deep inside, he was walking along a thin tightrope—but he lacked the strength to carry on. 

Heath forced a loss of balance, and with it, he showed the world what North is without its South.