Prompt: People only see what they are prepared to see. (09/27/08)

So, I looked and looked, but could not find a prompt! About to go crazy, I finally found a good quote site, and at random, chose one. Hence the "People only see what they are prepared to see."-Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Anyway, I do think that since I haven't written in a while, it'll take me some time to get back in shape. I wasn't even going to post this-it's so bad-but I thought I should. Enjoy. (ha!)
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(September 22, 2008)
Prompt: People only see what they are prepared to see.
Time: 15 min.
Words: 679

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed, my heart beat starting to sped up. “Won’t they-oh I don’t know-see the freaking demon that is five inches from their face!”

His face, infuriatingly calm, turned to face out the window.

“What are we supposed to do, fight them all ourselves?” I could not calm my voice, could not keep the anger out of my mind. This shouldn’t be happening! How could people just be so ignorant?

“You knew what you signed up for.” His voice was soft, and when he turned to face me, I saw the sadness in his eyes.

“But-” I stopped, trying to find the right words. How can we let people die, I wanted to scream out. I wanted to pound my fists on the table like some three year old, yelling.

“How can we just-“

“We won’t be doing nothing, Sieryn!” His voice was curt, and he let out a tired sigh.

“Zoe,” he resumed, using my name rather than my title this time. “We won’t be doing nothing, can’t you see?”

I closed my mouth, unwilling to explain that I didn’t see. That I didn’t understand.

“People only see what they want to see.”

“And that makes them perfect targets!” I jumped in, one fist poised above the table. I was glad we were alone, if we were out in public I would have to watch both my words and actions-something that I felt I was unable to fully do right now.

He gave a soft nod. “Yes, they are the perfect targets. They never see them, they never can fend them off-“

“Which is where we come in, right?” I asked, my voice tired. To work and work, to never stop, to never breath; to fight and fight with all that is within to protect people you’ll never know, people who will never know you.

“Zoe, it isn’t easy-I understand! But this is our job; we are protectors, we are the guardians.” He ran one hand through his golden hair, his piercing grey eyes locking onto mine. “This is our job.”

“They’ll never know us.” My voice had gotten weaker, as the energy died out, acceptance taking its place.

“We’ll fight-perhaps even die-for people that don’t even know us,” I whispered, my gaze shifting to the table, my fist slowly falling down upon it.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked, looking up at him. “Why can’t they see?”

“Zoe, people aren’t ready-aren’t prepared. They are unwilling to see what is real, what is right before them.”

“So it’s our job, our job to help them.”

“Yes.”

I nodded, finally accepting what he had been trying to get across the whole day. I realized what was ahead of me, and realized that I could never back down. I would die, I knew that with a sickening certainty, and most likely I would die in some dank, god forsaken alley. Perhaps, just perhaps, the police would find me the next morning; perhaps they would attempt to find out who I was.

Strangely enough they would find no record of me anywhere- the dental records would show nothing. Whatever I had on would give them no clue to who I actually was. There would be no identification.

I would die alone.

The life I had chosen was not what I had thought it was. I had thought it was glory, saving people from death. I had not realized the hardness of it. There was no glory, nothing scared, nothing holy.

I would deal with death, and worse, every day, and I would do so until I died- my death being the finally escape from horror. For I was chosen, cursed or blessed, to protect. Protect people from themselves, as it would seem.

I glanced up at him, seeing for the first time to lines around his eyes. Looking straight into the steely gray pools, I saw in them years of weariness. They were the eyes of someone much older than he, someone who had seen much more than they were supposed to.

They were the eyes of a guardian.