Tall Man continued
Jebediah moves through cypress and long pine, his morning walk having taken him north, away from the small hill of the village and into the rising steepness of the foothills that rise like vertebrae into mountain territory. He has never made it farther than a few miles past his current point, always stopping where the fertile, peaty ground begins to harden into red clay.
He senses that something important has happened at home. Something immense. A branch snags his shirt, adding one more tear to many and scratching his skin. A few drops of blood well to the surface.
He worries that the hole will get him a beating.
The ground is soft, and he jumps back and forth, leaving footprints in the peat.
Sitting down, he crosses his legs and uses his right hand to explore the grooves of his foot’s passing. Something about this is unsettling to him, as if some transgression has been made, some forgotten law broken, and he covers the footprints with straw, reticent to leave his mark.
A voice emanates out of the shaded wood, seemingly from all directions: “And how does this day find you, lad?” And there he stands, his back straight but not rigid, his body angled slightly to compensate for the ground’s downward slope, wearing a Quaker’s black suit and hat, his bare feet sinking into the moist clots of moss littering the ground.
The Tall Man comes and goes as he pleases.
The Tall Man can cause you grievous harm.
The Tall Man can save you from the rending.
“I don’t know,” Jebediah mutters, his voice a feeble and brittle thing. How do you talk to a Myth, he wonders. “It’s felt different than most days, I guess.”
“You’re right about that, youngling,” The Tall Man intones, “You’re right indeed.”
“Something bad happened. I can feel it. My stomach twisted up and my mouth went dry and I just know that something has been broken. I just know it.”
Sitting down and resting back against a wide live oak, the Tall Man stretches his arms and sighs. “Yes, something was broken. Two things; a man and something more implicit. A Law—vital and abandoned.”
“What happened?”
“You need not concern yourself, Jebediah. It is passed, and you are better for not having been there.”
“Well how do you know what happened?”
“I watched from the tree line.”
“Weren’t you worried He would see you? He has a fierce hate for you.”
“I am seen only when I wish to be seen. You should know that by now.”
The boy looks up, feeling a rush of warmth over his white, arched arms—his skin prickles and his head is buzzing.
“Can you teach me?” he asks.
The Tall Man leans back, and strands of hair cover his face but fail to obscure the glow of his eyes. “Some things take a long time to learn.”
Jebediah shivers, the air is still and thick with chords that he feels he could reach out and pluck, creating sounds that shimmer and hum. He wishes that he could play the air and make it sing for him; such are the things he wishes to learn.
“How long?” he asks.
“You wouldn’t believe me.” From his pocket the Tall Man produces a stone, river-worn and smooth like a discus. His slender fingers move gracefully: the stone flips, tumbles, and dances across his knuckles. It dances, and then it disappears.
“That’s no reason not to tell a person. Why don’t you tell me, I’ll debate its merit myself,” urges Jebediah with boldness that surprises him.
The Tall Man smiles. His teeth are yellow and slightly crooked, but not ugly.
“Listen child, I’m a different sort of man. Not many of my kind are left.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the old ones, the ones old like the rocks you walk on. Worn by Time’s flow.”
“Daddy said a man can’t live pass a century.” And though Jebediah voices this objection he doesn’t feel anything unnatural is happening and is not afraid.
“Did he now?” The Tall Man stands, unfolding his limbs, and throws back his hair. His face is long, with a square chin and a crooked nose. Cracks spread like spider webs from his eyes. “I saw the verdant age begin, and I watched as man began to learn and speak. I saw the birth of art and the birth of war. With law and religion I watched them draw the line between one man and another, creating an eternal Other to forever hate, battle, and blame.
"I spent millennia hidden away deep in the earth, deciding what was and what wasn’t. Emerging, I walked the fields of Northumbria; I hiked through that green for ages. I saw men destroyed beneath Saxon steel.”
Jebediah frowns; he doesn’t know history—and so it is for all wandering in the dusty barrenness of the End. History swallows fact and Time consumes itself and men search in vain for some way to halt that villainous erosion and men fail, time and time again, befuddled and lost with no breadcrumbs and no cord to mark the pathway back home.
The Tall Man’s talk marches its way through centuries: “I came to this place, rocking on a soap box of a ship, and I saw a country build itself as the future’s great hope, and then I watched that country become a grotesque parody, leering and crazed, and so may it be for any who dare build with the bones of those trampled underfoot. I saw scalp hunters prowling New Mexico’s waste, and I watched as the silver cities of man’s arrogance decayed into feral nothingness. I’ve seen the Pale Horse ride. He rides over the past, present, and future, on and on and forever and again. I’ve seen it boy, I’ve seen it all. History’s landscape writhes like a snake before my eyes.”
Jebediah sits in silence for a moment, staring at his feet, his head fit to burst with excitement from the knowledge that there is indeed more to it all, that existence is not solely dominated by ramshackle huts perched in the mud on an ugly and barren foothill.
“In dawn’s sermon yesterday He preached against you. Said you were the devil’s agent. Said people shouldn’t listen to you.”
“He says many things—what do you believe?”
“I don’t put no faith in what He says.”
“Good lad. So you say you want to learn? Learning’s a tricky thing. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” Jebediah nods as he speaks, feeling forceful and determined, his face stoic and his slouch gone. He digs his fingers into the earth that he no longer shuns.
“That will take some wandering.”
Jebediah nods, his brow furrowed, bottom lip jutting outwards, serious and defiant. “So I just leave? When? Now?”
The Tall Man stands, and rests his hand on Jebediah’s shoulder. His eyes look of stars and diamonds—interstellar coldness, firework playfulness, the harshness of vacuum, the joy and panic of love—all of these things and more are hidden there.
“I have something to take care of,” says the Tall Man.
“But you can’t go see him! He hates you! Don’t do it, it’s too dangerous. People say He has holy powers.”
A deep laugh, rumbling and joyful. “Holy Powers! Hah! He has nothing but the powers of a charlatan, shiny baubles and fool’s games, carnival tricks and tawdry illusions. But I have powers that are real, that have been forgotten -- thaumaturgy, alchemy, magick, and others older than names -- powers that can shatter mountains and bring down the sky and make the world dance. He has nothing that can hold me in fear. Stay here, this won’t take but a passing moment. And then we will walk. And then you will begin to learn.”
He turns and leaves, his stride long and purposeful, but unhurried and leisurely. The trees bend in agreement as he passes through them. Wind hums and the leaves rustle in excitement.
The Tall Man is coming.
He senses that something important has happened at home. Something immense. A branch snags his shirt, adding one more tear to many and scratching his skin. A few drops of blood well to the surface.
He worries that the hole will get him a beating.
The ground is soft, and he jumps back and forth, leaving footprints in the peat.
Sitting down, he crosses his legs and uses his right hand to explore the grooves of his foot’s passing. Something about this is unsettling to him, as if some transgression has been made, some forgotten law broken, and he covers the footprints with straw, reticent to leave his mark.
A voice emanates out of the shaded wood, seemingly from all directions: “And how does this day find you, lad?” And there he stands, his back straight but not rigid, his body angled slightly to compensate for the ground’s downward slope, wearing a Quaker’s black suit and hat, his bare feet sinking into the moist clots of moss littering the ground.
The Tall Man comes and goes as he pleases.
The Tall Man can cause you grievous harm.
The Tall Man can save you from the rending.
“I don’t know,” Jebediah mutters, his voice a feeble and brittle thing. How do you talk to a Myth, he wonders. “It’s felt different than most days, I guess.”
“You’re right about that, youngling,” The Tall Man intones, “You’re right indeed.”
“Something bad happened. I can feel it. My stomach twisted up and my mouth went dry and I just know that something has been broken. I just know it.”
Sitting down and resting back against a wide live oak, the Tall Man stretches his arms and sighs. “Yes, something was broken. Two things; a man and something more implicit. A Law—vital and abandoned.”
“What happened?”
“You need not concern yourself, Jebediah. It is passed, and you are better for not having been there.”
“Well how do you know what happened?”
“I watched from the tree line.”
“Weren’t you worried He would see you? He has a fierce hate for you.”
“I am seen only when I wish to be seen. You should know that by now.”
The boy looks up, feeling a rush of warmth over his white, arched arms—his skin prickles and his head is buzzing.
“Can you teach me?” he asks.
The Tall Man leans back, and strands of hair cover his face but fail to obscure the glow of his eyes. “Some things take a long time to learn.”
Jebediah shivers, the air is still and thick with chords that he feels he could reach out and pluck, creating sounds that shimmer and hum. He wishes that he could play the air and make it sing for him; such are the things he wishes to learn.
“How long?” he asks.
“You wouldn’t believe me.” From his pocket the Tall Man produces a stone, river-worn and smooth like a discus. His slender fingers move gracefully: the stone flips, tumbles, and dances across his knuckles. It dances, and then it disappears.
“That’s no reason not to tell a person. Why don’t you tell me, I’ll debate its merit myself,” urges Jebediah with boldness that surprises him.
The Tall Man smiles. His teeth are yellow and slightly crooked, but not ugly.
“Listen child, I’m a different sort of man. Not many of my kind are left.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the old ones, the ones old like the rocks you walk on. Worn by Time’s flow.”
“Daddy said a man can’t live pass a century.” And though Jebediah voices this objection he doesn’t feel anything unnatural is happening and is not afraid.
“Did he now?” The Tall Man stands, unfolding his limbs, and throws back his hair. His face is long, with a square chin and a crooked nose. Cracks spread like spider webs from his eyes. “I saw the verdant age begin, and I watched as man began to learn and speak. I saw the birth of art and the birth of war. With law and religion I watched them draw the line between one man and another, creating an eternal Other to forever hate, battle, and blame.
"I spent millennia hidden away deep in the earth, deciding what was and what wasn’t. Emerging, I walked the fields of Northumbria; I hiked through that green for ages. I saw men destroyed beneath Saxon steel.”
Jebediah frowns; he doesn’t know history—and so it is for all wandering in the dusty barrenness of the End. History swallows fact and Time consumes itself and men search in vain for some way to halt that villainous erosion and men fail, time and time again, befuddled and lost with no breadcrumbs and no cord to mark the pathway back home.
The Tall Man’s talk marches its way through centuries: “I came to this place, rocking on a soap box of a ship, and I saw a country build itself as the future’s great hope, and then I watched that country become a grotesque parody, leering and crazed, and so may it be for any who dare build with the bones of those trampled underfoot. I saw scalp hunters prowling New Mexico’s waste, and I watched as the silver cities of man’s arrogance decayed into feral nothingness. I’ve seen the Pale Horse ride. He rides over the past, present, and future, on and on and forever and again. I’ve seen it boy, I’ve seen it all. History’s landscape writhes like a snake before my eyes.”
Jebediah sits in silence for a moment, staring at his feet, his head fit to burst with excitement from the knowledge that there is indeed more to it all, that existence is not solely dominated by ramshackle huts perched in the mud on an ugly and barren foothill.
“In dawn’s sermon yesterday He preached against you. Said you were the devil’s agent. Said people shouldn’t listen to you.”
“He says many things—what do you believe?”
“I don’t put no faith in what He says.”
“Good lad. So you say you want to learn? Learning’s a tricky thing. What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” Jebediah nods as he speaks, feeling forceful and determined, his face stoic and his slouch gone. He digs his fingers into the earth that he no longer shuns.
“That will take some wandering.”
Jebediah nods, his brow furrowed, bottom lip jutting outwards, serious and defiant. “So I just leave? When? Now?”
The Tall Man stands, and rests his hand on Jebediah’s shoulder. His eyes look of stars and diamonds—interstellar coldness, firework playfulness, the harshness of vacuum, the joy and panic of love—all of these things and more are hidden there.
“I have something to take care of,” says the Tall Man.
“But you can’t go see him! He hates you! Don’t do it, it’s too dangerous. People say He has holy powers.”
A deep laugh, rumbling and joyful. “Holy Powers! Hah! He has nothing but the powers of a charlatan, shiny baubles and fool’s games, carnival tricks and tawdry illusions. But I have powers that are real, that have been forgotten -- thaumaturgy, alchemy, magick, and others older than names -- powers that can shatter mountains and bring down the sky and make the world dance. He has nothing that can hold me in fear. Stay here, this won’t take but a passing moment. And then we will walk. And then you will begin to learn.”
He turns and leaves, his stride long and purposeful, but unhurried and leisurely. The trees bend in agreement as he passes through them. Wind hums and the leaves rustle in excitement.
The Tall Man is coming.
posted by David at 6:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home