Old and Wise
Track 10
An idyllic location, something of a cottage or a well-tended shack. It lacks any grand imposition on its environment. It is functional when used as a refuge or respite. Odd only in that it is unremarkable.
The environment surrounding this lodging shares some similar and distinctly average qualities. Trees of average height shed fall leaves. Leaves consisting of the typical autumn palette and shaped strangely, like leaves.
The Sun is setting as it has done and will continue to do. Warm pumpkin and soft pink mix in with the nimbus clouds—a familiar and comforting swirl. Banal in appearance despite the fantastic mosaic of nature, science, and spirit. It is a spectacle reduced only by the expectation of occurrence.
An Autumn wind blows just hard enough that one would know it is there. The temperature of this wind is not cool enough to repel or shrink its victims. I say victims as a compromise between the target and the reveler. Either word would imply intent, and this breeze, of course, has none. So, its victim is not chilled or stunned, nor is it blasted or scorched by any remnant of summer heat. The victim feels the change, registers it, and continues.
Inside the lodging, shadows stretch with normalcy, no bending or reaching, nothing to hint at any anthropomorphism or enlivening. Just shadow due to light being blocked and gliding around edges, seeking an end into which it naturally pours itself. The light is also natural and fades into the coming dusk. As ambient light diminishes, electric light glows warm with acceleration and energy.
What the light illuminates is a couple, one male and one female, the light does not evoke, conjure, expose, or shed—it illuminates. The form of the Female is more clearly shown, and the male, as inverse, is further back; only a head and face are visible.
The female, or Missus, exists exactly as one would imagine an older woman. Not frumpy or doughty, neither stoic nor frail, not sleek or statuesque. Her skin is not jade, ebony, ivory, or the hue of any gem or stone. Her skin is only skin and carries with it all that word implies.
Her hair is not woven, strewn, bundled, bunched, or wild. It is not flaxen, silver, moonbeam, white, auburn, silken, or web. It is gray and it is combed into a style befitting her. Her clothes are plain and fit well, and their color follows the season and time.
The lone remarkable distinction is an undercurrent of something bovine. Not as an insult or connotation, but in appearance around the jaw, lips, eyes, and forehead. Nothing that would be perceived in common interaction, but a whisper earned through bond and closeness.
What is visible of the male, or Mister, is obscured by the nature of illumination. His characteristics mirror those of Missus, but only in the ways that they do. What is visible of his face and head is typical of his age. Slight aging around the forehead and temples, some darkening beneath the eyes. This darkening would be considered distinguished by some and not considered at all by others. His pate is bare, and where the hair begins is losing pigment. This hair loss follows a natural pattern. His eyes, when less excited, carry the residue of surgical reserve, but not enough to notice. His distinct facial features are also animal in nature, but his are more falcon-like. However, they are neither hawkish nor craven. They are sharp enough, angular enough, with a heavy enough proboscis. His features are forged by subtlety. Mister’s mouth is drawn and arched with thin lips, but at this moment, his mouth is covered by a dark pool of liquid. The liquid is nothing too sinister, mind you, just water. This pool reaches the base of his philtrum. Leaving just enough space for oxygen to enter and exit through his nose.
The placid pool of water just under Mister’s nose is displaced only by slightly elevated breathing. The breath wavers between fear and rage, stuttering with the intent to control and the loss of that intent. There is no other movement from the pit where Mister is nearly submerged. The implication of this stillness is some type of restraint. Possibly a rope, a paralytic, or something else entirely. Ultimately, these guesses are just that—unimportant to anyone not involved directly.
The parameters of those directly involved have been set by Missus. She is seated across from the pit where Mister Breathes. She momentarily stops writing in her plain notebook and briefly chews her yellow pencil. She stops biting and places the implement lengthwise down the spine of the notebook. With a poke of her middle finger, she adjusted her glasses to sit firmly on the bridge of her roundish and broad nose. She glares at Mister’s strained eyes and begins:
“I have a few thoughts for your…
Obituary?
Eulogy?
Suicide note?
Nothing formal as of yet, but we have time; I’ve never quite had time before.
Strange to ponder, but besides the point.
The point! (she picks up the pencil and playfully pokes her cheek with the sharpened end)
The point is that you will die, and I will control the narrative of that death.
So, we need a direction, a way to go, a path to take.
I have written this, and I enjoy it, but we can mull, so to speak.
Indulge me—imagine this in your voice.
There are shadows around me now. To those I leave behind, I wanted you to understand something important. You’ve always been blanketed with my deepest thoughts.
Possibly too much…
Class?
Earnesty?
Caring?
We—meaning you and I—are in quite the bind.
How does one write in the voice of someone…..
Like you?”
With this, she placed her pencil between her teeth and clamped gently down. The goal here is simply to hold the pencil while she scans her notebook. An unintended result is that it contorts her countenance into a—-well—a mask for lack of a better term. Exposed teeth, retracted lips, but neither a grin nor a grimace. Under normal circumstances, Mister would see this as something like concentration or maybe a maternal devotion to fairness, but in his current state, it serves to drive home an unfamiliarity, a mistaken assumption he has made repeatedly. He had mistaken this face. His perception and wisdom were clouded by a constancy or certainty of his correctness. Missus begins again,
“Oh, so my need for reference has driven you to distraction, it seems.
Well, I am sure what I have located will hold your attention, because its subject is you.
To capture your voice, I need a bedrock of understanding, an understanding of the man that is you.
Certain adjectives come to mind, but what use are bitter words now?
They have always blown right through you.
You have subverted emotional culpability through logic.
….culpability is wrong….
Not in any real way, because you are responsible, but not the fit I need.
Dead, emotional death is appropriate but cliché.
Emotional pit is maybe the best I can do.
And I’ve already done it.
Placed you in a pit and surrounded you with water.
Do you perceive that irony?
Or is it more flights of fancy or passion, an inclination of my birth?
YOU’RE VERY GAZE IS CONDESCENSION!
YOU STINK OF WITHHOLDING!
I could forgive these things if they had been mistakes.
But they are choices.
UNFORGIVABLE!”
With this, she clears her throat and fixes her glasses again.
“Here, dear Mister, is what I will do for others when I pretend to miss you,”
She opens her notebook again.
“I’ll smile and say you were a friend of mine.
I will say it with no sadness in my eyes.
I will say it as a rehearsed act, and those who are unfortunate enough to witness this charade will be assured I have no sadness.
I HAVE NO SADNESS!”
With this sentiment, a rupture occurs; it is something mild but still perceivable. A lock of hair, untouched by the pattern of age, drifts slowly out of place, as if some internal pressure had nudged it loose. This lock is raven black and thick with youth. It cascades across her broad forehead and lands outside the rim of her glasses. She adeptly brushes it behind her ear.
Mister is now feeling wounded; this talk of withholding and emotional death brings to mind all of the sacrifices and steps he had taken to ensure comfort, stability, and praise. He was not free to indulge emotion in that sense. Tasks required him; nothing is handed freely in this world they shared. Of all he had given, his legacy would be only of what he did not. The shelter, the children, the world made small and kept safe, was never seen as a gift, but as an affront. An affront to what? He pondered. To passion? To Lust? To struggle? She desires an unending whirlwind of romance and heartache. His indignation boils, and a lone feather disturbs the stillness of his pool. Several small circles ripple from the feather and vanish before reaching any edge.
Missus begins again by shifting her feet forward and balancing on the edge of her chair. A clack or smack accompanies this movement. Something made of bone or cartilage had struck the wooden floor.
“And you retreat to self-pity, a modicum of truth in the ocean of your dismissal.
You regress because you always had that option.
I suppose being born perfect allows no room for growth.
But I will admit that without your aid, things would be different.
Not worse!
Because that is untrue; different is the correct word.
And with this admission comes a request.
Not a request you will be able to accomplish, not now, because it’s late, and we are tired.
But try to think as that final curtain falls before your eyes.
What would all of Mister have been without me?
Without this imperfect eruption.
What metric for restraint would there be?
Balance is a moment, not a state of being.
Mister lowers his head, dipping his nose into the water, removing his pocket of breath.
Missus sees and reacts with a scornful outburst of laughter, and continues,
“It descends, perhaps looking for a fish?
It could never be resignation, but if it is
Let’s honor this churlish act with a poem
A rough draft, of course, but perhaps that is all your epitaph is worth.
And to those I leave with my death, I want you to know that you’ve always shared my joyful hours.
Someday, when we find ourselves together again in the mist of time, please remember that we were once friends.
Not perfect, I will work on the order of words.
But to seek perfection, that is for the gods.
And we—we are mere mortals.
We idle away until we are old.
We fret and mistake it for wisdom.
So, I shall make haste.
I will give you one more favor.
I will transmute your cowardice into my murder.
These feet will hold your will below, and the myth of your wisdom will bubble to the surface.
Popping under their pompous weight.
Gone from this coil forever.”
With those bitter words, Missus calmly folds her yellow pencil in her notebook and stands up. She places the book neatly on her seat and walks towards Mister in his pit. She puts the heel of her beige mule on the peak of his bald pate and pushes down gently until she feels the cool water on her toes.
“I will count this game complete.
I will wait for the bubbles to stop
I declare the lesser emotions victorious over a keen mind.”
She did what she said she would do. She waited for A period of time, long for some, but short for others. The bubbles did stop, but another movement began. She lifted her foot, and the shoe fell into the water. Following closely behind were flesh colored bits of clay or stone. Flecks at first, but soon chunks, shells of toes, the side of an ankle, and the plunk of a calf.
“Oh, we have done it again, dearest Horus. We have reached the end of this match.”
Where the foot and lower leg had fallen was now a delicate onyx hoof. The remainder of the costume persona cracked and crumbled away, and in moments, a beautiful Cow was spotted in a most becoming pattern. The cow’s face displayed its regal goddess lineage. Its long, slender black horns blazed an orange glow. The light from this glow sped towards the walls of the lodging and splintered the wood outwards. Each plank of wood embedded itself in the ground, instantly rooting and flourishing into all manner of trees and bushes. The pool of water the cow stood above grew and swelled to a glorious, clear, pristine pond, rampant with aquatic wildlife.
“We are home, dear Horus, time to rise.”
With this call, a shining light appeared at the bottom of this newly formed pond. The light had a green hue and took the shape of a falcon’s eye, sharp with distinct arches and patterns. It began rising slowly and increasing in brightness and size. Quickly, it shattered the surface of the water from below and rested mid-air in front of the cow.
“WE ARE HOME, MY SWEET HATHOR, THANKS TO YOUR WICKED GUILE.”
The eye reverberated these words with a warmth of tone and smirking humor rarely heard from a god.
Hathor turned and walked to the edge of a large green pasture. She turned back with her horns slightly down, then waved them, bidding Horus to follow. Horus did, but no longer as the eye. He flashed for a moment, and when the light dispersed, Horus was a Falcon. Glorious and large with flecks of gold and deep blue speckled perfectly amongst the lush and full feathers. He soared majestically into the air, spinning and looping as the beams of Ra bounced off his gilded accents.
The cow and the falcon stood facing each other on an idyllic field of mint green clover and grass. Each was waiting for the other to speak first, but with patience and admiration. Ra continued his trip, and the full bloom of day softened, casting intimate shadows on the nearly vacant field.
The cow, satisfied with the moment, began first,
“Well, you started it off very firmly this time, so no sulking, had I been less lucky, you would be choosing the next game. I admit I was persistent, deliberate, and terse with some of my barbs, but I feel justified. You implemented some new tricks, added some type of awful constructs, or viewing statues. So, yes, I was rough with my words and deeds, but I will not draw out your embarrassment any further. Since victory was mine, the next game will be the end of Ra’s rule, but no beer or ochre this time! I will see it coming.”
Horus nodded his sleek falcon head, and his eyes flashed green. He angled his neck slightly as if to speak, but silenced himself. He gazed at Hathor; the orange light of her orb bathed them both in the Ankhet’s shade.
Hathor and Horus now took their least animal forms and locked hands. Hathor spoke again, saying,
“Remember, dear Horus, judgment without Love and passion is only digging a pit beneath your own feet. Let’s enjoy this tranquil respite and each other’s company for a while. There is no need to rush.
No need at all.”
A gentle hum could be heard along the banks of the Nile. It started as a trickle or a heartbeat. It was quiet at first, but it became louder with attention. A young man noticed a bright star rising from the riverbank and gazed down at his reflection on the river’s surface.
Short Story Collection
Eye in the Sky: The Horus Cycle
The best place is 👇
