Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, tomorrow you will hang me, and perhaps, befittingly so too. But then again what matters if my head shall be dread locked with a noose? No… I will not let that destiny concern me. Neither shall I write now to incite heavy hearts or diminished chords in swell hangmen. Rather, my humble purpose, simple reason, is only to retell the incident as it unknotted; unadorned of hopes of divine absolution or of the devilish murmurings of philistine lawmen; bedecked with just absolute beauty, truth. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you do not do so already, I hope you will when I am done realize, that not every kill, a murderer makes.
It was the last winter, and dusk has set in when we ambled back through the wailing pines of Lethe. The streams were bloody, as if the mud beds had swallowed all the light and the evening, and were still ravenous enough to slither and wind in hope of an unnatural breakfast. I too was hungry, but more weary than hungry. Lumbering behind, I somehow strayed from the straight path, losing my friends of that fruitless evening’s hunt, getting mired in the damp, and the dark, and the pining smells of the undergrowth. I must have slumbered off then. When I came to, I had been picked out by a pack of wolves. They gave me chase for three days and three nights, till I came to a clearing that was brooked by unusually large apple trees, all barren, and some dying, except for one. Underneath of that live tree, there was an emaciated old man, on a much meager, paler horse.
I went up to him, and he rasped unto me, “Son (for I am made in your father’s likeness) I am such since I do not feed. Nor do I drink, nor sleep, nor seed; but am moved only by that which sifts through as righteous. Hence do I now ride forth to murder him who is vile and evil; and who in his greed and his villainy strives to deprive this land and to destroy. Hearken with care, you are but half-dead and I am yet half-alive. Let us go then, you and I, to seek and to struggle this time, for truth, and to glory create, but never to cursed meekness yield.”
I though the old man untrue, and denied him at once. Violence howsoever carefully guided by the right runs counter to my principles. I set off again, even hungrier, with the occasional wild berry and mushroom to keep me starving still. I was now meandering through the Ysian plains of Spain; all barren, and unyielding, starving even hoary frost from his hunt and ritual kill. Three more days and nights passed by before I caught up with life: a small boy was walking towards me, carrying a big dead hog over his shoulders, inexorably going where I was desperately trying to escape from. In my destitution, I mush have incoherently begged him for sustenance. He cut out some meat from the pig’s fat thigh, and let me have it; and then he said
“Princely poor am I driven by revenge
For what is mine by law and lore divine
Was stolen this lecherous time; hence do
I plead, my gentle uncle, to make good
Your recompense due, join my humane coup
And catch the serpent to chase out his ghost.”
I thought the boy mad, and this second time denied him as well. Violence is not in my nature. I exhorted him to change his dangerous disposition, but it was in vain. Hunger subsiding, I proceeded towards the twin cities, from whence he had come. Three more nights and days went by, and I came upon a house burnt to the ground and an old woman in a red robe sitting outside a makeshift hut. Her name was M, with the oily hair. I could smell sulfur on her breadth. I sat down with her, and she gave me some milk, and started talking to me in a ghost of a voice, almost whispering
“I’m going after me husband and son I am it might all be very good for them to go blood thirsting as and when the good lords pleases themselves but here I am poor me left all alone bored to death and me oooh aching bones dear why I tell I remember a time when I was so pretty like I had no time to be bored say the husband wouldn’t leave me side for more than half the day and afterwards it was the governor who smelt so genteel and wrote to me like flowers out of the pocket diary he stole from his wife and the gardener then in the summer house who wore muddy shoes but brought me roses knelt on the floor and the daisies stuffed in his pockets squished and he was so strong but so rough then afterwards why one night I was bleeding and lied with me husband about aunt’s health. Now… why now… I have nothing to do. Might as well join them. Say you could come too after all well it might be fun to get the chap they be all raving for and then why it is nothing more than draining a rabbit for soup and I make such a delicious one I do”
I denied again for now I hate violence. I bid her adieu and started homeward, walking along the river bed. I had been lost for so many days that I could not afford to be even later. When I was hungry again, I saw a rabbit pop into its hole. I ran after it, but the ground gave way suddenly, and I fell, and crushed the poor creature. When I rose, I saw that it was no poor rabbit that was crushed by my weight in sand: it was father time, and he was dead.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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