a short story
Jan. 2nd, 2002 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saint_monkeyThe Seven Truths
(A three page fable with an extra page.)
There was once a girl who lived by the sea. For some reason that I am not sure of, the fact that she lived by the sea is important, but that doesn't really matter right now. The girl lived alone, well... alone with her father really. Long ago her mother had disappeared while hanging the sheets to dry and to all who told the tale anyhow, was considered as good as dead. Hauled off by marauders and ravaged and marooned on some uncharted rocky shore, or something to that effect. (No marauders had been seen before or since, but the elderly ladies that told the story in hushed tones in the tea circles around town continued to hold onto a shred of hope.) Her father was a clockmaker and a "Rag-and-Bone" man, known well among his peers for being able to obtain and mend all manner of things. He wasn't very well suited to care for a young girl by himself, but he managed in a humble, unassuming way.
Now that we've established things, we can tell you about the really important person in this narrative. Children are to some extent, naturally inquisitive, but Polly (for that was her name,) was even more curious than most. She was a regular scientist, always investigating the odd end of earthworm or chewing on the strange bit of discarded clockwork, and this led her through all kinds of adventures and accidents, many of which led to visits from grumpy doctors and have no bearing whatever on our current tale. However, one day a very strange thing happened, and afterwards, Polly's life was never quite the same again. It is that adventure that I am going to relate to you today. It all began on the beach behind her home.
Polly was busily attempting to determine a way in which stones might be made to float, (so that the best ones could be easily retrieved when they missed the sea-gulls,) when she was distracted by a most dreadful racket. It sounded as if a less than savvy crowd of children were attempting to play badminton with a real "birdie" through some strange misinterpretation of the rules. A short investigation revealed that the commotion was simply a cat about to begin dissecting a large crow that he had caught.
Most little girls, at this point, might have taken the bird away in some fit of sentimentality, but Polly was not that type. On the contrary, she was actually quite interested in seeing the inside of a crow, and discover how it compared to the outside, with which she was already pretty well acquainted. If one or two crows had to be sacrificed for the good of science, well... one can not make an omelet without vivisecting a few crows.
It was at this point that through a miraculous plot device, the crow began to speak. Which brings us to this rather unnecessary aside. Now this isn't the type of tale where animals talk and tell amusing anecdotes and sing old pub songs and no one thinks any worse of them. I do not know how it is where you are reading this, but here where I am writing, it is quite an odd thing if animals speak out of line, or at all for that matter. So in order to convey this odd little fellow's croaking, rasping, coughing voice, a little liberty is required with the text. I do hope it is not too distracting.
"What a perfectly AWFUL little girl you are!" Squawked the crow. "Reign in this cursed cat and I will grant you a great favor! CAW! I have POWER. Were it not for my wing! It is within my AUSPICES to grant you any desire! Please, child, know mercy!"
Polly debated this for a moment, having never met a talking crow before, she was intrigued by this oddity, but it was almost not enough to overcome the wish to see him torn in two (which was growing... if this bird could speak while under duress, what wonders could be produced under some real stress?) In the end this line of thought led to some pretty serious potential outcomes, and in the interests of safety, Polly began to think it prudent to do as the bird had asked. So taking up a piece of driftwood, she shooed away the cat, who retired to a safe distance to witness the goings on, and perhaps stalk moodily in for the kill should Polly relent in her reprieve. The cat wasn't particularly impressed by a talking crow, because cats do not particularly think that the skill is worth acquiring, and prefer inscrutability. To each his own.
"THAT is BETTER! Now, little girl, WHAT would you have of me? You have, however reluctantly, done me a service. I will, true to my WORD, grant you a FIRST CLASS favor, your heart's desire. Free of CAW~CHARGE absolutely. No GOOD deed goes unpunished. But we must hurry, for I must away from this beach BEFORE the tide rolls in, for afterwards my POWER here wanes."
"Please Mr. Crow," Polly said, "Can all crows talk? Or are you special in some way that you can speak and grant wishes?"
"Number ONE. I am NOT a crow, I'm a raven. Number TWO. Not ALL ravens can TALK, in fact, aside from the odd mindless mimicry, I've only heard of ONE raven that TALKS, and that is ME. Number THREE. Of CAW~COURSE I'm special. EVERYONE is special. Or at least, that is what mothers tell little children. Number FOUR. I'm not REALLY a raven, not in the strictest sense. I'm really a GOD. Some kind of trickster god I think, like Loki or Hanuman or something else entirely, but I'm not too clear about that, and that brings us to number FIVE, which is, that I don't GRANT WISHES like some dusky DJINN from a flask, I will do you a FAVOR, your heart's DESIRE, in return for your MERCY. Isn't there something you WANT, that you have ALWAYS wanted? Because you have spared me, I will give you THAT thing. But time is SHORT, the third WAVE approaches, I MUST be AWAY by the seventh!"
Polly began to think about all the times she had been warned not to take gifts from strangers, men in raincoats and the like. The grown-ups who advised her thusly were never quite clear about the outcome, but Polly assumed it was something repressed and perverted, because grown-ups were always thinking that way. Since she couldn't see how any of that applied to taking FAVORS from talking trickster crows, she rather brashly came to a conclusion that perhaps you and I might have avoided through some careful thought. (Oh my, have I let the cat from the bag? I don't think so, after all, the story wouldn't be any fun if she said "no thank you," now would it?)
"Then Mr. Raven, I will take my favor. Can you help me find the ability to see how all things in the world go together? To solve all the riddles? I have always thought that this one thing would be my task in life... and that I would seek forever to find it, never resting, with only a burning desire to KNOW in my cranium until I could find out all the answers to all the puzzles. It does seem like an awful lot... But one must aim high."
The Raven looked at her with a red eye, and said "INDEED." Or at least he started to, what came out was more like "IN* ACK! ACK! choke*" and a tiny ring carved from a shell flew from his beak and landed beside Polly's shoe. "See that RING?" He said, once he recovered his composure, which took a few moments. "It WAS made long ago by a SHAMAN on these very shores, when MEN took wooden BOATS to the waves to bring in whales, and MAGIC men were buried among the STARS. CAW! He blessed it with his hands, and ASKED ME that it become wise in the ways of the world. In doing so, he gave it and it's wearers to me to GUIDE. A FAVOR for a FAVOR, as it is ALWAYS done. And then he gave it to his son, who went east to the great cities with Happy Jack, and saw the DEATH of his people. He then went over the LARGER WATERS with Bill Cody and saw the hive that is Europe, and THERE he gave the ring to a LADY he met, who was a CAW~CURIOUS girl, like YOU. THEN he went HOME. From THERE the ring traveled all over the world and because of the blessing placed upon it by it's creator, the KNOWLEDGE of those it met, and those it touched, became TRAPPED in the pores in the shell. ONE man with ONE life will go through this WHEEL of existence and gather a FEW simple truths, or maybe one or two of the seven GREAT truths. To acquire all seven is to know the whole of the universe. This RING has seen and stored all SEVEN, and since acquiring the SEVENTH great truth, it has not been worn. If someone takes this ring and places it upon their finger, they will KNOW the great truths, and they will SEE into the CAW~CASINGS of the blind watchmaker. Is that close enough to your FAVOR? Is THAT worth my life?"
"I am not sure." Polly answered truthfully. "But it is good enough. I will try your ring." And she picked it up and put it on her finger.
At this point, trying to describe what Polly saw and knew would be pointless. We have no frame of reference really. But I can come as close as I can. In an instance, she knew the answers to countless technical problems that had plagued her, and that was an immense relief. It was charmingly simple, really. Nothing to it. But then she became aware of the futility of these problems, as they unfolded into vaster, greater problems, an endless kaleidoscopic explosion of riddles and answers, and yet somehow inconceivably, she could see to the end of it, and her role in it, at once the mysteries were laid bare, and she was at once terrified. She could see how everyone she knew would die, how she would live on beyond reason, and how she was powerless really to effect any of it. Furthermore, she knew about me, writing this tale, and she realized that her fate was sealed, as soon as I put pen to paper, for my will as writer is incontestable. She knew about you reading this tale, and your amused reactions, and she smiled at the way ytou are being manipulated. And what is more, she knew about the writer of your tale and mine, and the reader of it, and she was amused by the irony. But even with all that she knew, she could see no way to continue with her quiet life by the sea, knowing what lay in store. Life could never be the same, because there would be no more puzzles. No more questions. Just a dreadful sort of certainty. No more joy at solving, unraveling, finding, discovering. She realized that it wasn't the solutions she loved, or even the knowledge. She loved the simple mystery of it all. Without mystery, her life meant nothing.
In horror she tried to remove the ring, but it stayed greedily on her finger, gently chiding her. She soon became obsessed with it, fidgeting with it, fretting at it, and attempting to pull it from her hand. She became so absorbed that she completely missed the end of the story until it was too late. But since I'm an omnipresent narrator, and you are the gentle reader, so we need not stay ignorant.
Raven, father of man, creator of the Universe, for it was he, sighed at the picture of Polly wrestling with her ring. They never ceased to amaze him, these little children of the clam. He spread his wings to leave, no sense sticking around with Moon Woman showing up... (you see, since the beginnning of time, the governing of this stale disc of earth has been split between two great powers, the sun, who cares nothing for mortal men, and the moon, who having once been mortal, watches and cares for all children, especially inquisitive girls by the sea. Raven has been around since the beginning of time, having accidentaly created the universe, and man, feels he has the right to screw with them as often as he likes. During the day, he can reign unchecked, but at night, he has a much harder time of it)
"Raven, What have you done to my daughter."
Raven turned to face Moon Woman, a sort of guilty look on his beak. (A curious look, one not well suited to Ravens.)
"I thought that she might benefit from a lesson or two. She was naïve, untested, not ready for the challenge. She's almost ten you know."
"Perhaps I wanted her to learn about things on her own. I am an old Woman now, when she walks the sky I'll have her heart light. Treading the dusk with the weight of a thousand years is a hard enough burden, but doing it with the knowledge of a thousand souls in addition will drive her mad. Men will kill each other, their pressure will rage through the narrow tunnels in their minds, and they will be mad with bloodlust and ruin. Have you forgotten my sister?"
"Ah, I hadn't thought that far. A fault of mine, I must confess. But there is nothing to do now, the ring has claimed her, and though I may guide her, by our compact, none but the old shaman can release her, and his bones were plundered from his high totem and sold as aphrodisiacs long ago. In addition, there is paradox, she can not be freed from a future that she realizes, even our attempts are transparent, she will always remember, as long as the Seven Truths are within her."
But Moon Woman wasn't listening. It wasn't really her strong point. Long ago she found that doing the impossible often requires that one simply fail to realize that the impossible is ... um... impossible. In those cases, she fell back on ACTION. So she raised her hand and the light reflecting from her body onto the waves of the sea rose into the air in thin silver strips, and washed between the ring and Polly's finger, and flowed over the top of the shell ring as well, sealing most of the shell in a delicate case of moonlight, which tempered in the autumn air into cold silver. The seven truths could no longer escape, except perhaps as little truths, maybe even half-truths. In relief, Polly fell down, exhausted.
When she woke up alone on the beach. It seemed like a strange thing had happened, but she couldn't remember just what it was. She just knew that it was late and she needed to be home soon, or her father would begin to wonder if some pervert had abducted her. From then on, things went normally for Polly. Pretty boring really. She staggered through life with a light heart and no idea of her true nature. She was always suspicious of any "truth," but she never knew quite why, and for some reason, the only thought she never doubted, from then on, was that she was very special.
(A three page fable with an extra page.)
There was once a girl who lived by the sea. For some reason that I am not sure of, the fact that she lived by the sea is important, but that doesn't really matter right now. The girl lived alone, well... alone with her father really. Long ago her mother had disappeared while hanging the sheets to dry and to all who told the tale anyhow, was considered as good as dead. Hauled off by marauders and ravaged and marooned on some uncharted rocky shore, or something to that effect. (No marauders had been seen before or since, but the elderly ladies that told the story in hushed tones in the tea circles around town continued to hold onto a shred of hope.) Her father was a clockmaker and a "Rag-and-Bone" man, known well among his peers for being able to obtain and mend all manner of things. He wasn't very well suited to care for a young girl by himself, but he managed in a humble, unassuming way.
Now that we've established things, we can tell you about the really important person in this narrative. Children are to some extent, naturally inquisitive, but Polly (for that was her name,) was even more curious than most. She was a regular scientist, always investigating the odd end of earthworm or chewing on the strange bit of discarded clockwork, and this led her through all kinds of adventures and accidents, many of which led to visits from grumpy doctors and have no bearing whatever on our current tale. However, one day a very strange thing happened, and afterwards, Polly's life was never quite the same again. It is that adventure that I am going to relate to you today. It all began on the beach behind her home.
Polly was busily attempting to determine a way in which stones might be made to float, (so that the best ones could be easily retrieved when they missed the sea-gulls,) when she was distracted by a most dreadful racket. It sounded as if a less than savvy crowd of children were attempting to play badminton with a real "birdie" through some strange misinterpretation of the rules. A short investigation revealed that the commotion was simply a cat about to begin dissecting a large crow that he had caught.
Most little girls, at this point, might have taken the bird away in some fit of sentimentality, but Polly was not that type. On the contrary, she was actually quite interested in seeing the inside of a crow, and discover how it compared to the outside, with which she was already pretty well acquainted. If one or two crows had to be sacrificed for the good of science, well... one can not make an omelet without vivisecting a few crows.
It was at this point that through a miraculous plot device, the crow began to speak. Which brings us to this rather unnecessary aside. Now this isn't the type of tale where animals talk and tell amusing anecdotes and sing old pub songs and no one thinks any worse of them. I do not know how it is where you are reading this, but here where I am writing, it is quite an odd thing if animals speak out of line, or at all for that matter. So in order to convey this odd little fellow's croaking, rasping, coughing voice, a little liberty is required with the text. I do hope it is not too distracting.
"What a perfectly AWFUL little girl you are!" Squawked the crow. "Reign in this cursed cat and I will grant you a great favor! CAW! I have POWER. Were it not for my wing! It is within my AUSPICES to grant you any desire! Please, child, know mercy!"
Polly debated this for a moment, having never met a talking crow before, she was intrigued by this oddity, but it was almost not enough to overcome the wish to see him torn in two (which was growing... if this bird could speak while under duress, what wonders could be produced under some real stress?) In the end this line of thought led to some pretty serious potential outcomes, and in the interests of safety, Polly began to think it prudent to do as the bird had asked. So taking up a piece of driftwood, she shooed away the cat, who retired to a safe distance to witness the goings on, and perhaps stalk moodily in for the kill should Polly relent in her reprieve. The cat wasn't particularly impressed by a talking crow, because cats do not particularly think that the skill is worth acquiring, and prefer inscrutability. To each his own.
"THAT is BETTER! Now, little girl, WHAT would you have of me? You have, however reluctantly, done me a service. I will, true to my WORD, grant you a FIRST CLASS favor, your heart's desire. Free of CAW~CHARGE absolutely. No GOOD deed goes unpunished. But we must hurry, for I must away from this beach BEFORE the tide rolls in, for afterwards my POWER here wanes."
"Please Mr. Crow," Polly said, "Can all crows talk? Or are you special in some way that you can speak and grant wishes?"
"Number ONE. I am NOT a crow, I'm a raven. Number TWO. Not ALL ravens can TALK, in fact, aside from the odd mindless mimicry, I've only heard of ONE raven that TALKS, and that is ME. Number THREE. Of CAW~COURSE I'm special. EVERYONE is special. Or at least, that is what mothers tell little children. Number FOUR. I'm not REALLY a raven, not in the strictest sense. I'm really a GOD. Some kind of trickster god I think, like Loki or Hanuman or something else entirely, but I'm not too clear about that, and that brings us to number FIVE, which is, that I don't GRANT WISHES like some dusky DJINN from a flask, I will do you a FAVOR, your heart's DESIRE, in return for your MERCY. Isn't there something you WANT, that you have ALWAYS wanted? Because you have spared me, I will give you THAT thing. But time is SHORT, the third WAVE approaches, I MUST be AWAY by the seventh!"
Polly began to think about all the times she had been warned not to take gifts from strangers, men in raincoats and the like. The grown-ups who advised her thusly were never quite clear about the outcome, but Polly assumed it was something repressed and perverted, because grown-ups were always thinking that way. Since she couldn't see how any of that applied to taking FAVORS from talking trickster crows, she rather brashly came to a conclusion that perhaps you and I might have avoided through some careful thought. (Oh my, have I let the cat from the bag? I don't think so, after all, the story wouldn't be any fun if she said "no thank you," now would it?)
"Then Mr. Raven, I will take my favor. Can you help me find the ability to see how all things in the world go together? To solve all the riddles? I have always thought that this one thing would be my task in life... and that I would seek forever to find it, never resting, with only a burning desire to KNOW in my cranium until I could find out all the answers to all the puzzles. It does seem like an awful lot... But one must aim high."
The Raven looked at her with a red eye, and said "INDEED." Or at least he started to, what came out was more like "IN* ACK! ACK! choke*" and a tiny ring carved from a shell flew from his beak and landed beside Polly's shoe. "See that RING?" He said, once he recovered his composure, which took a few moments. "It WAS made long ago by a SHAMAN on these very shores, when MEN took wooden BOATS to the waves to bring in whales, and MAGIC men were buried among the STARS. CAW! He blessed it with his hands, and ASKED ME that it become wise in the ways of the world. In doing so, he gave it and it's wearers to me to GUIDE. A FAVOR for a FAVOR, as it is ALWAYS done. And then he gave it to his son, who went east to the great cities with Happy Jack, and saw the DEATH of his people. He then went over the LARGER WATERS with Bill Cody and saw the hive that is Europe, and THERE he gave the ring to a LADY he met, who was a CAW~CURIOUS girl, like YOU. THEN he went HOME. From THERE the ring traveled all over the world and because of the blessing placed upon it by it's creator, the KNOWLEDGE of those it met, and those it touched, became TRAPPED in the pores in the shell. ONE man with ONE life will go through this WHEEL of existence and gather a FEW simple truths, or maybe one or two of the seven GREAT truths. To acquire all seven is to know the whole of the universe. This RING has seen and stored all SEVEN, and since acquiring the SEVENTH great truth, it has not been worn. If someone takes this ring and places it upon their finger, they will KNOW the great truths, and they will SEE into the CAW~CASINGS of the blind watchmaker. Is that close enough to your FAVOR? Is THAT worth my life?"
"I am not sure." Polly answered truthfully. "But it is good enough. I will try your ring." And she picked it up and put it on her finger.
At this point, trying to describe what Polly saw and knew would be pointless. We have no frame of reference really. But I can come as close as I can. In an instance, she knew the answers to countless technical problems that had plagued her, and that was an immense relief. It was charmingly simple, really. Nothing to it. But then she became aware of the futility of these problems, as they unfolded into vaster, greater problems, an endless kaleidoscopic explosion of riddles and answers, and yet somehow inconceivably, she could see to the end of it, and her role in it, at once the mysteries were laid bare, and she was at once terrified. She could see how everyone she knew would die, how she would live on beyond reason, and how she was powerless really to effect any of it. Furthermore, she knew about me, writing this tale, and she realized that her fate was sealed, as soon as I put pen to paper, for my will as writer is incontestable. She knew about you reading this tale, and your amused reactions, and she smiled at the way ytou are being manipulated. And what is more, she knew about the writer of your tale and mine, and the reader of it, and she was amused by the irony. But even with all that she knew, she could see no way to continue with her quiet life by the sea, knowing what lay in store. Life could never be the same, because there would be no more puzzles. No more questions. Just a dreadful sort of certainty. No more joy at solving, unraveling, finding, discovering. She realized that it wasn't the solutions she loved, or even the knowledge. She loved the simple mystery of it all. Without mystery, her life meant nothing.
In horror she tried to remove the ring, but it stayed greedily on her finger, gently chiding her. She soon became obsessed with it, fidgeting with it, fretting at it, and attempting to pull it from her hand. She became so absorbed that she completely missed the end of the story until it was too late. But since I'm an omnipresent narrator, and you are the gentle reader, so we need not stay ignorant.
Raven, father of man, creator of the Universe, for it was he, sighed at the picture of Polly wrestling with her ring. They never ceased to amaze him, these little children of the clam. He spread his wings to leave, no sense sticking around with Moon Woman showing up... (you see, since the beginnning of time, the governing of this stale disc of earth has been split between two great powers, the sun, who cares nothing for mortal men, and the moon, who having once been mortal, watches and cares for all children, especially inquisitive girls by the sea. Raven has been around since the beginning of time, having accidentaly created the universe, and man, feels he has the right to screw with them as often as he likes. During the day, he can reign unchecked, but at night, he has a much harder time of it)
"Raven, What have you done to my daughter."
Raven turned to face Moon Woman, a sort of guilty look on his beak. (A curious look, one not well suited to Ravens.)
"I thought that she might benefit from a lesson or two. She was naïve, untested, not ready for the challenge. She's almost ten you know."
"Perhaps I wanted her to learn about things on her own. I am an old Woman now, when she walks the sky I'll have her heart light. Treading the dusk with the weight of a thousand years is a hard enough burden, but doing it with the knowledge of a thousand souls in addition will drive her mad. Men will kill each other, their pressure will rage through the narrow tunnels in their minds, and they will be mad with bloodlust and ruin. Have you forgotten my sister?"
"Ah, I hadn't thought that far. A fault of mine, I must confess. But there is nothing to do now, the ring has claimed her, and though I may guide her, by our compact, none but the old shaman can release her, and his bones were plundered from his high totem and sold as aphrodisiacs long ago. In addition, there is paradox, she can not be freed from a future that she realizes, even our attempts are transparent, she will always remember, as long as the Seven Truths are within her."
But Moon Woman wasn't listening. It wasn't really her strong point. Long ago she found that doing the impossible often requires that one simply fail to realize that the impossible is ... um... impossible. In those cases, she fell back on ACTION. So she raised her hand and the light reflecting from her body onto the waves of the sea rose into the air in thin silver strips, and washed between the ring and Polly's finger, and flowed over the top of the shell ring as well, sealing most of the shell in a delicate case of moonlight, which tempered in the autumn air into cold silver. The seven truths could no longer escape, except perhaps as little truths, maybe even half-truths. In relief, Polly fell down, exhausted.
When she woke up alone on the beach. It seemed like a strange thing had happened, but she couldn't remember just what it was. She just knew that it was late and she needed to be home soon, or her father would begin to wonder if some pervert had abducted her. From then on, things went normally for Polly. Pretty boring really. She staggered through life with a light heart and no idea of her true nature. She was always suspicious of any "truth," but she never knew quite why, and for some reason, the only thought she never doubted, from then on, was that she was very special.
