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It's cloudy and in the mid-fifties this evening in Downtown Philly, and Independence Hall is hopping, relatively speaking. Earlier today there were rumors that there would be Proud Boys showing up to make a fucking stink, so there's been a lot of people mulling around, ready to respond.
And there are cops here, too. Lots of cops. Lots of them.
Mei really hates protests. It's fair to say that Mei doesn't really like large crowds on the best of days, and any time you're dealing with protests it's not the best of days. Being around crowds of people full of negative emotions is misery to the sensitive psychic.
But some things have to be done because they're right, even if they're not easy.
What are the Proud Boys even making a stink about this time? Who knows. Some racist garbage. Mei's going to be there to let them know they're not welcome, regardless.
So here she is walking up toward the crowd of people already milling about, wearing jeans and her leather jacket, gloves on her hands so she doesn't accidentally bump into someone and start picking up whatever things she might not want to.
Nothing brings Aaron to the streets quite like the Proud Boys. He's set aside his suit jacket and tie in favor of a black long sleeved t-shirt that reads in white block letters 'MANY NATIONS / ONE PEOPLE'. His rainbow yarmulke is as conspicuous as ever as he makes his way from City Hall to Independence Mall armed only with his cell phone and a whole lot of earned confidence. If he gets arrested two more times, they'll induct him into the Chai Recidivism club at the URJ!
And oh there's a lot to pick up on as a psychic whose brain is just tuned to the world and a Rabbi tuned in to problems that people have. There are burbling little knots of inter-leftist tension, as always, and everyone's really keyed up. People dressed in witch garb with heavy veils that conceal their faces are getting sneered at by the Black Bloc masked-up kids who posture like they're tougher than anyone, despite the fact that they're all maybe twenty at most and all rode the train in from Bryn Mawr.
And then there's the really affable-looking mid-twenties white guy wandering through the crowd who's just a little too content to be where he is. His hair's cut short and is currently spiked up all messy, but it would be real easy to imagine it slicked over to one side with a hard coating of gel, and his leather jacket is just a little too new, a little too 'I bought this yesterday to fit in with the cucks.'
Mei's good at picking up on things, so the difference in attitude sticks out to her like a sore thumb first, and then details surrounding the figure. She starts drifting a little closer, while watching him for signs of trouble. Indications of concealed weapons, anyone in the crowd he's watching a little too carefully, or anything else that might give her an idea about specific intent, without actually going into his head to find out what it is. Her study of him is probably why she hasn't noticed Aaron yet.
First things first, Aaron pulls out his cell phone, flips it over to video mode, and starts the video. In the doing of it he shouts to the crowd in general, "YOU ARE ALL BEING RECORDED. PLAY NICE WITH OTHERS." And let me tell you, the Rabbi has a set of pipes on him. He can pro-ject. If he happens to take a few stills of Captain Kek over there, well. That's just happenstance. Camera still recording, he makes his way into the general crowd, aiming for Richard Spencer's sith apprentice. "Shalom, friend! I don't think I've seen you at one of these before." Aaron's smile is broad, affable, warm, sincere. Totally trustworthy in every way. And then he extends his hand, "Rabbi Cohen, welcome!"
The Rabbi's voice carries, to be sure. There are plenty of people here, and undoubtedly some of them didn't hear him -- perhaps those police all the way over there on the cordon, starting to kind of rope off everyone inside the Mall area between Independence Hall and the Visitor's Center?
Hunh. Well that's a thing. Though Mei doesn't notice whether this guy's got fuck all on him.
"Hunh?" He turns toward Aaron as his purposeful avoiding of listening to the Rabbi -- like he was trying real hard to ignore him -- sort of melts away once he's addressed. "Uhh. Yeah. I mean I just moved here so... I'm just -- going home from work?" It turns up into a question mark, like he's not sure if that actually carried across, or he doesn't want to be bothered? He takes a quick step away from Aaron, heading vaguely toward the police on the 6th Street side of the park.
Mei definitely knows Aaron's there now, as the bellowing rabbi announces his presence, so she turns to look his way before glancing around at what's going on with everything else. The person who definitely didn't belong wandered off, so she watches him go a few moments before moving toward Aaron. "Any idea what they're doing over there?" she asks with a look toward the police.
"If you're new, you should know we shake hands as a form of polite introduction here in the US," Aaron informs the man's back. Just to make sure the guy knows he got dimed out. Aaron shakes his head in wry amusement, then swings his phone back up to resume scanning the crowd with his camera lens. Keeping the crowd on their best behavior the only way he has at the moment. "I have a city hall ID. I might be able to bluff with it and get an answer from one of the uniforms. Looks like they're setting up a cordon on the Proud Boys side of things. They did this the last time, too. Want to watch my back while I cross the street and ask?"
Oh yeah, he knows. He disappears into the crowd as quickly as he can, over near where his buddies the police are.
The crowd has started to notice that the police are forming a loop around them. It's a nicer word than 'noose,' but perhaps not as accurate. People are starting to get a little antsy.
"I can do that," Mei agrees, as she starts to slide her hands into her jacket pockets as is habitual, and then realizes that looking like she might have a weapon or something is a bad idea and she makes herself stop. "It seems like people are getting a little uncomfortable with getting penned in, so if we know what's going on it will probably help." Maybe. With cops, who knows.
"Get your camera out. Start recording. I'll see what I can do." Aaron keeps his in hand, then fishes his City Hall ID out of his wallet, carrying it in his other hand. He holds both up as he starts to work his way through the crust punks, socialists, antifa, anarchists, and Bryn Mawr Black Bloc. He checks the traffic and starts to cross, heading for the nearest set of uniforms with ID and camera raised along with his hands. "Aaron Cohen. I'm with Mayor Kinney's office. What seems to be the trouble, officers?"
The officer turns to answer Aaron.
he does not have a face
there is only black smoke
his mouth opens like a furnace door, a blast of heat like a desert
his voice a thousand angry hornets living inside celestial trumpets, lo kadosh, lo kadosh
Mei is a few steps behind Aaron, phone coming out of her pocket and being flipped over to recording. She isn't unobtrusive about it. Nothing wrong with recording the police, right? She's recording Aaron too.
Not that the police are necessarily going to take kindly to the situation.
As they cut their way through the crowds and come into open area she looks around them again for other signs of trouble, and then she turns back to look at the officer that Aaron was addressing and comes to a stop. For a moment. And then she's taking a few quick steps forward, to try to get in front of Aaron and put herself in between him and whatever the fuck that is. Can she kick its ass? Probably not. But she'll try, if it comes for them.
"Any idea what that is?" she asks over her shoulder.
Aaron's eyes widen in shock at. Well. That. Being face to face with hornet-horn-smoke-face making very nasty declarations about his ritual purity. Mei doesn't really need to step forward much, because that has Aaron backpedaling more than a few steps out of pure adrenal surprise. He empties his hands into his pockets and raises both hands towards the line of encroaching police, pulling his other ace out of the hole. "You're seeing it, too? I'm not hallucinating?" He begins willing the line backwards. Or, in this particular instance, willing them to remain where they are and advance no further.
The sky cracks, like thunder magnified forever and ever, rolling over itself, cracking through the universe and down to the base of Aaron and Mei's brains.
crack like a baton to the base of the skull
crack like an egg breaking open, your mother's hands hold the shell and the yolk drops into the metal bowl, shining like the sun
crack like the herald of celestial trumpets
crack like a door opening
And from south down Independence Mall, someone screams, and brilliant ivory wings open across the heavens.
"Yeah, I'm--"
That's as far as Mei gets before the cracking sky leaves her reeling, if not physically, at least mentally. She's trying to absorb that impact and shake it off when the scream breaks out across Independence Mall, and she starts turning that way to figure out who was the source of it, then back to the thing behind her, and then up at the sky above. It's a lot to process all at once, and she lets out a slow, "what the fuck."
"...y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya. Yitbarach v’yishtabach, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnaseh, v’yithadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha, b’rich hu, l’eila min-kol-birchata..."
This seems like a good time to be sanctifying the Holy Name. And despite this very thing being decidedly in his professional wheelhouse and, technically, the field in which he holds a doctorate from Hebrew Union College, all he's got is Kaddish. He does grab hold of Mei's shoulder from behind and give it a firm squeeze. "Be not afraid."
"...oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol-yisrael, v’imru: amen.”
The scream turns into a second and then a third, and a lot of shouting voices from down the line. Pushing and shoving has begun.
Humans are really just panicky cattle in a moment like this, they both know. The stampede is soon. Soon. Soon, this will be out of control. It's not about 'good behavior' or 'best behavior', bad behavior is already happening and everyone is afraid.
but wait, shouldn't they still stay calm? Aaron's nature has always held people calm before.
Down the line to the south, a baton rises and falls, and in the middle of its arc downward, becomes a claw, becomes a talon, ripping the air apart.
Down the line to the north, the trumpet sounds. The wings unfold. Wings and eyes and wingsandeyesandwingsandeyes the wheel turns forever and ever v'imru: amen.
"Amen," Mei echoes when Aaron finishes, and she steps back toward the hand on her shoulder before tearing her gaze away from the skies and starts looking around for how she can help. Even if she doesn't understand what's happening, exactly. Or why, more importantly. What's important to her is that justice is done, and this is not justice, so the thing her mind needs is to figure out where things are broken so that she can fix them. She starts moving toward the was-baton, now-talons, and whoever it is that they're being wielded against.
Aaron doesn't see that it's his buddy. He doesn't know who it is. He can see that talon rising and falling, digging into the earth, dragging blood out of stones. Mei, on the other hand, probably recognizes the Imam -- he's about Aaron's age, a Plain and genial man -- as he puts himself between others and the police, and the baton comes down.
Blood splatters. The imam's white cap comes spinning off across the crowd, and Aaron sees that.
Aaron's prayers are all well and good, but those metaphoric sounds of swinging batons connecting with human meat are now becoming literal batons connecting with human meat. Perhaps they always were. God's name has been sanctified enough for one turn of the wheel. "I can't-- my powers are-- We have to do something, Mei!" He's depended on the blessings of HaShem for years now to stop fights before they start, to bring peace where once there was war. That blessing has been taken from him? So be it. "No! NO! HE'S A PEACEFUL MAN!" Aaron takes off at a run, in a very inadvisable course directly into the melee of heavily armed police.
"Hey!" Mei shouts as she dashes for where the Imam is getting clubbed by things that were police, but now are not. "Get the fuck away from him," she shouts in a warning tone, like if the thing doesn't she's going to come over there and make it. She might not have any idea what the hell it is she's looking at, but does that matter? Not when innocent people are being beaten down. At the same time, can you reason with things like this? She's not expecting it to work.
Aaron has no idea what he's doing. Aaron knows exactly what to do. There's a flare of Supernal energy, a suffusion of potentia in the air, and a crackle around his balled fists. This may as well be Masada. Jerusalem looking out on Josephus. The sewers of Krakow. The forests of Belarussia. He goes charging into the melee, screaming at the top of his considerable lungs the most base and gutteral howl he can produce, and he hurls himself bodily on one of the officers and their swinging batons.
The police no longer appear as police to either Mei or Aaron: they have become a single sinuous stretch of black shadow and pulsing, rotten flesh, a river of sulfurous bad intent moving as one. It's a little like the way the engine room of the stealth ship in The Expanse looked when all of the people were glued together by the molecule, but... rotten.
Behind them, they are either called back or cheered on by the trumpets. And now there is another choice:
To the left, the falling bodies of the injured. To the right, the attackers, moving as one horrific, hungry mass.
Aaron has -- for the moment -- already chosen. What will Mei choose?
If anyone had asked Mei whether between her and Aaron who would be throwing fists and who would be stopping to look after the fallen in this situation, Mei would have said that she'd be the one working violence, and he'd be the one going to the fallen Imam. She runs to the Imam, where she crouches down beside him so fast it's almost a slide, and then she realizes she has no idea what she's doing. "Fuck, fuck," she says as she starts looking for where he's been hit. Head injuries? That's probably the biggest fear, right? So that's where she starts, with just a glance up at the line of malignancy. Can she get him up and moving away to safely, even if she has to support him, or would she have to drag him?
HA HA TAKE 5L DARKNESS.
Aaron collides with the rotting wall of putrescence, heart soul and body. It's like someone flipped a switch in him. He hauls back one massive fist, one that is more given to holding the yod than the capacity to harm, and brings it down like the very hammer of Judah. The impact is impossibly heavy, beyond all scope or reason for what this peaceful, God fearing man seemed capable of even three minutes ago. He screams after the blow, in defiance and righteous anger, "NO MORE! NO FURTHER!"
Mei can't tell if the Imam -- the Angel of the Almighty, kadosh kadosh kadosh -- can get up or not. She can't tell anything about his condition. She's never been the one who was able to figure out what the fuck was going on with people medically. Is the Angel dying before her?
Aaron is used to getting stronger when he's hurt, being able to take the damage and roll with it. Now? It just fucking hurts. The claws are blunted, are batons, and while he lands one good punch -- and oh, it's a good punch, he can feel the satisfying crunch of bone and feel the spray of blood -- it's followed by hit after hit after hit, the darkness literally beating him down. It's little by little until the last hit slams into the back of his skull
lo kadosh, lo kadosh
a thousand choruses, his head hums with anger and sound
Oh, it hurts. It hurts so much.
She has no idea what she can do to help the angel, other than knowing that you shouldn't move people who might have head injuries. Or is that neck? Fuck, does it matter, this isn't even a person? She's getting nowhere trying to figure this out, and aren't there usually medics hanging around at things like this?
Why would there be medics here, of all places?
She rises to her feet and looks around, sees Aaron being torn into by claws, and shouts. "Hey! Get the off him!" As she surges forward to try to push the darkness back, to pull Aaron away.
Oh, pain. Sweet familiar pain. Aaron's been here before, just not quite so acutely. No quite so quickly. Not like this. The armor of his faith isn't blunting the blows. The power of his compelling presence isn't keeping the blows at bay. And that last one, that rung his bell but good. He keeps on his feet, however, staggered but not defeated. He straightens himself up, spitting a gobbet of spittle and blood right back at those bloodying him. And then he sings, loud and clear, "SHEMA, YISRAEL! ADONAI ELOHEINU, ADONAI ECHAD!" If he's going down, he's going down like a mensch. Back swings the fist, crackling with potentia and promise.
--ema y'israel
y'israel
adonai eloheinu
baruch shem
ruch shem
k'vod
The darkness folds over them both, grabbing hold of both of them. Mei struggles free once, but the second time, her hands are grabbed, pulled behind her body. Three dark tendrils grab hold of Aaron, and the third one gets hold of him enough to start wrestling his hands behind his back.
Mei, struggling against the darkness that's trying to restrain her, lashes out with a knee at what's right in front of her. To her, that's just more of the same darkness. In reality? Maybe it's the groin of the cop that's standing there. She doesn't know, she just knows that she's going down fighting, if she's going down.
Aaron's brief flirtation with the powers of the Aether crackle and fade with that last blow. His hands, once reinforced with the power of his being, now are just ... two hands. One bleeding from a split knuckle, already swelling from the injuries of an unpracticed punch. That conjures tears to his eyes more than the absence of what he believed to be the gifts of his God. His frustration redoubled his conviction to keep struggling, moreso when he sees Mei succumb as he is. "LET HER GO!" Elbows, knees, teeth. Whatever weapons he has, he employs them.
Mei's solid blow against the darkness around her only spurs her on, and she makes a fierce, forceful surge backward and smashes the back of her head into the face of the officer-darkness behind her, then when the grip on her slackens she's all spinning elbows and flying fists, connecting with the darkness all around her like someone in a kung-fu movie, unsurprising since she's been practicing since she was four years old.
Finally she breaks free, as the darkness backs off from her a bit to lick its wounds, or regroup its strength, and she steps away to face it. "You can't have this world!" she declares in defiance of it. "This world belongs to us, so fuck right off back to wherever it is you crawled out of!"
Then there's another deafening crack of sound, and that's all that she remembers as she gets shot in the head by a bean bag round by a cop that's probably going to claim later that's not what he was aiming for, even though it was. Without another word she crumples to the ground, unconscious.
Aaron is on the very ragged edge of consciousness. He's pouring everything he has into this, all of his willpower, all of his faith, all of his blood and bone. As his arms are wrenched around behind his back, he summons his last reserves of strength and defiance, releases a bestial roar that is decidedly unlike him and wrenches his limbs free. A shove this way, an elbow that way. A kick with one stone pillar of a leg. All these years spent in passive resistance has wasted a body built to be a weapon. And once he's free, he staggers towards Mei. As though she were somehow the one in need of saving, here. As though he could.
He staggers forward a few steps, and his subconscious must somehow be aware of the weapon leveled at his face. Because he locks eyes with the cop who seems to him to be nothing more than a malignancy on the flesh of the world, spreads his arms wide, and mutters a single contemptuous word, "Hineini."
There's a loud report, and Aaron's head catapults backwards, along with the rest of him, collapsing onto the pavement in a pool of his own blood.
hineini, hineini
magnified, sanctified
kadosh, kadosh
hineini
He wakes (she wakes) in a vessel of light. She wakes (he wakes) in the embrace of angels. He wrestles (she wrestles) with angels.
She wrestles (he wrestles) but her arms (his arms) are held. Are strapped down. Silver threads stitch him (her) into place.
there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in
there is a crack in every
hineini, hineini
He stands (she stands)
they stand, together
they stand together before the altar
the angel with his white cap stands before them both
hineini, hineini
and the tablet is offered, but their arms are held fast
and the angel bends, and the tablet is
and the tablet is held to their hands, and the angel whispers, "are you ready?"
and behind the angel is all the light in the world
and behind the angel
Mei isn't sure what question is being asked -- but she's sure, at the same time. There are times when you don't, can't, fully understand what's going on, but you know what the right answer is anyway. It doesn't matter of Mei knows what she's saying she's ready for, here. Whatever it is that the angel requires of her, in whatever fight she was just fighting, she's prepared to meet it.
Especially now, in the wake of what came before.
She thinks about the question for only a moment before taking an action she didn't know was the right one, in the circumstance. I just feels right to etch her name into the tablet with her fingers.
Everything hurts. Exquisite, searing pain. He is a man built to take punishment, and he's a man accustomed to receiving it, too. But this is something else entirely. The hardest thing he has ever done is this, pushing himself to his feet with a tank on empty. With nothing left to give himself or anyone. Stripped bear of everything he knew of power, laid low by injustice. But he finds his feet and limps his way towards the angel. Which eye do you look at, anyway? So many eyes.
"Since the day he died I've been ready. I've been waiting. Praying. Teaching. For this? To be asked if I'm ready?" Leave it to Aaron to get uppity with an angel in the closest thing to heaven he'll ever know on this side of living.
He reaches out in time with Mei, perhaps aware, perhaps not, that they move as one, to scrawl his Hebrew name onto the tablet. In Hebrew. Just as a flex.
hineini, hineini
The tablet is held, the angel stands silent, and Aaron tries to find a set of eyes to make contact with. There are so many eyes. There is so much to look at. There are
there are his brother's eyes, dark brown and gentle
and Mei knows them, too, and in the moment when she signs her name with his, she sees through Aaron's eyes and he sees through hers. She knows those eyes are his brother's, she knows the blood on the streets of South Philadelphia, she knows a plain wooden box and a Plain life lived thereafter. And he knows what it feels like to look into those eyes and feel nothing but curiosity.
There is a crashing sadness and a deep relief, and Mei shares Aaron's pain, and Aaron shares Mei's strength.
hineini, hineini
and the chorus sings
now the bells toll
and the light is brighter
brighter
and their name is understood
and their names are written together
and the chorus rises
and the chorus of a million celestial voices
becomes the steady beep of hospital monitors
and the silver threads which sewed their arms still
becomes the handcuffs holding them to their hospital beds
time to wake up
Mei groans as consciousness starts wedging its way into her mind, spiderwebbing through like cracks in an icy pond. Eventually the surface breaks, and she slides down into the agony of awareness on the other side. One eye slowly crack open, but the other is swollen shut from the swelling caused by the bean bag that took her in the cheekbone. She starts reaching up to rub her head with a hand only to have it come up short at the end of the handcuffs she's wearing.
She makes a soft noise of confused annoyance, tries to lift her head to look around, and drops it again when the world starts spinning, and she starts processing the situation. "Where am I?" she asks, like anyone might be listening.
The nice thing about your soul hurtling to and from the Supernal through the expanse of the abyss? You don't have to give one fig about what your body is doing. Where it is. How it feels. You just get to enjoy the ride and contemplate the experience. But unconsciousness is a brief respite for Aaron Cohen. The pain seeps into his mind before the light does. And when his crusted eyes slowly creep open, even the light is a cause of pain. The splitting headache he's got makes him shut his eyes tight against that light at first. He tries to lift his hand to shield his face and the rattle of the cuffs makes it clear both where he is and how much trouble he's in. Sighing in frustration, he lets his arm drop to the bed again. Head? Bandaged. Hand? Bandaged. Body? Broken. Or at least a couple of ribs. He then croaks the magic word:
"Lawyer."
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