”I have great faith in fools — self-confidence my friends call it.” Edgar Allen Poe
The early darkness of December and the thickness of the forest had nearly consumed any light when the Widow approached the group of women. She walked slowly and stopped before reaching them, a small bundle in her hands, her eyes distant, her silence disconcerting.
The stout lady spoke, a slight irritation in her voice. “Well, did you find her?” I watched as the Widow gathered herself and seemed to look beyond the women into the darkness. She nodded. “She’s dead.” There was no gasp, no hands to the mouth, no tears. The women’s expressions were masked by the darkness, but most turned their heads to the ground as they stood in silence. The Widow walked forward and unwrapped the bundle in her arms. The baby was silent and still.
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When he was a younger man, he had one hope for old age - that things would be settled. That he could face infirmity with a peaceful mind. Now that he was old, it was assumed that he had all the attributes of an old man. Wisdom and peace tempered by aches and pains - anger and desperation. All things that come with a long knowledge of the world. Now his dreams came folded and spindled in fits and spurts - full of gaps.
When we become old men, we seek our youth; things that are lost to us. We dream of our childhood - forgetting the pain of little boys. The telling of tales seems to be a favorite pastime of men, finding entertainment in them when their brief existence allows. Men pass from this earth quickly and, as a result, find little interest in anything but their immediate needs and wants; their curiosity bound to those things they can see, touch or feel. Storytelling sometimes provides an escape from those limitations, evoking fantasies of faraway places, damsels in distress, magical and absurd creatures, fierce fiends, and noble heroes.
Since the human occupation, I have experienced a few storytellers: aged men around campfires, women telling old fables to small children as they tuck them into bed, men garbed in black on sleepy Sunday mornings, and such. They tend to be full of vigor and passion, bellowing tales of mixed truth, exaggerations and outright lies. It seems that these creatures possess something they call imagination, a capability that escapes me. Those lies seem to be born from this imagination. I see little merit in it but they seem to place great value upon it and use it to a variety of ends. I think most are in love with the idea of being a writer but not the writing itself. It is a hard thing to love. We love the attention, the possible acclaim, and certainly the idea of being paid. I suppose that is why there is such bad writing today.
To produce a work of substance, you have to be a storyteller; you have to love the words and the pictures they paint. Everything else must be of little consequence. Unfortunately, getting published often depends on who you are, your tribe, your conformity to the mold cast by those who profit. If you begin your story with the idea of making money, you’ve lost. If you write solely for profit, well, let’s just say there are easier ways to make a living. We fired our guns and decided it was best to wait for the others to get there ‘fore we started trampling through them woods. When they showed up, we figured a few of us would stay on the road and keep an eye out in case we flushed anybody out of there and the rest of us scattered across them heavy woods and thickets. We was about two hundred yards into the trees when the creek curved back toward us.
We could see where the horses came through and saw some tracks of people walking- appeared like they was walking in front of them horses. We looked down that creek bank and there they were. A man and a woman – stripped naked, laying in the shallow water of that creek. They was abused and their bodies was in such a state that it ain’t fittin to describe ‘em to a woman. |
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June 2024
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