Code of Laws

It was in the mountains, in the mountains of Western Asia, that I was found alone. Alone I walked through countryside, one moment occulted and obscured by patchy and voluptuous white clouds, one minute clear, and illuminated by light, by warm sunshine which was welcomed to cold arms and hands and cheeks.

I came shortly across a man with a large rounded nose with dark sandstone like skin. He addressed me as a subordinate, as a younger man, and asked me who I was and what I was doing in his town. I replied that I was a refugee. He said his name was Marfic. Dressed in thick white trousers and an old jumper of varied pattern and a pocket filled waistcoat he had the appearance of a hard working man, whose shoes were almost as worn as mine. Rocks strewed the ground where he squat.

When he spoke I stopped. His authority made me stop and fear him, for his voice was deep and stretched by his experience. He told me at once that this place welcomed me though I ought not to stay. He said that the lord of this place was a man of great power and violence and that should I be known to be walking through his field of unholy flowers and weed, I might be shot on the spot or taken and held for Ransom. It was unwise to stay to linger.

I spoke to him despite my fear, and asked him about his life in this place. He answered that his life was forlorn and miserable and that he was in his last days, having seen the best washed away with the sweeping wars and pestilence of the various kings and lords who one minute friend, one minute foe would take all his winnings in years of plenty which were numerous more than 7 years ago. He told me in his ramblings that he had seen barbarity and that it was no place for me, that I didn´t have even a stick, never mind a weapon to defend myself. I replied that I seeked no harm and had nothing to lose, he said I had bread and water in my pack, I had clothing and I had my innocent face to lose.

His assertions were that of a man who has fought. They were not of a deceitful man, but one who was distrustful nonetheless of the human species. He asked me about women. I replied that I had known a few. He replied that of all human beings these were the ones I ought to keep my guard against. But then advised me that there was a beautiful young woman, a girl really in a house half way up the mountain pass and that should I see her I should be instantly her slave. Nonsense I said. But in my head rose a wave of curiosity, the image of myself kneeling before an angelic beauty, radiating light, or a courtesan all in red with seducing voice and scent, was intriguing. I said I had known women, but that my quest for the moment was alone. That women would certainly complicate my life with demands and desires for families, for wealth and material comforts which I for the moment was unable to give.

The man looked to the ruined wall. It was covered in Sunshine in the Afghan Autumnal stillness which heated and then turned into the slightest of breezes and then stilled again, before blowing again in a most pleasant way. He looked at the ruined wall most deeply. He stared and penetrated it for a while, I had all the time in the world, and he had asked me to stay for the while, so I complied, and we squatted on the barren ground staring at the wall.

The wall seemed to block him. He was a man of age, older than the ruined wall. But it was an edifice which kept him concentrating. At last though he looked up, over and beyond the wall towards the trees in the distance. He said that he had been married seven years ago. But seven years ago his wife had betrayed him to the lord. The lord had taken her, beaten her and forced her into a kind of political betrayal of which he could not explain in exact words only to say that he fled the scene and never returned. I asked if she had been unfaithful. No, he replied she was faithful. I asked him what happened. He looked at me now and motioned towards his dirty clothes and state of being poor.

I pointed out to him that life was full of opportunities. He said that he was old. I didn´t argue with him after that. I accepted the wisdom he offered. But I said I must carry on walking. Before I went though he imparted to me one more thing.

Look at me boy. He said. I didn´t know what to think. He talked for a while, as I tore some bread and drank some water, offering some to him as an incentive to talk. He spoke of corruption, he spoke of culture, of values, of all the typical things that aging people worry about. And I listened eagerly. He spoke of some malignant disease sweeping people in all countries. I said I had heard about it, it was transmitted through birds. Ah, he said, birds with words, those that are unseen above us, we don´t even know they are there and they spread the disease. Those are the birds, he said, those birds, emphasising the “those” in his monologue.

His implication was lost on me, who are “those” birds…pigeons I hazarded, but I knew full well that avian flue was caused by migratory birds spreading it through turkeys and chickens. His face went sombre and I became afraid once again. I realised my vulnerability, with no weapon as such, because now I felt I had offended and I didn´t know why.

“Those birds” he raved, standing and gesticulating violently. I offered more bread and water and he calmed down, but I wanted to leave at the next opportunity without offence. The birds he explained were the spreaders of disease through the air. They were making people sick, disturbing the world with there noise, with there freedom, with there flight and with there bustle. Birds he said ought to be shot, for bringing death. I agreed, that something indeed should be done. But that we ought to look for some kind of vaccine to keep the birds but to cure them.

My words were unappreciated. The birds were evil. And probably part of the reason for his wife´s betrayal. “The birds, they are up there” he said in a voice of gravity and experience, like a teacher imparting hidden wisdom. “they are up above us and all around us, and we don´t see them. You, my son, don´t see them yet they are whispering in your ears as we speak right now.” I concluded that he was mad. His laughter at my supposed ignorance, further confirmed my conclusion. He is as mad as a hatter.

But I let his speak a while longer, before he gave me leave and offered me some lentils which he has freely in a plastic carrier bag. I declined. But not before taking away some more of his code. He kept rambling about values. About the world, about evil and good, about madness, about the abuses of the lords of the people, to which I agreed by nodding my head and making agreeful sounds, while maintaining cool composure. What else I asked. What else is there wrong? Why? I asked. He replied that it was obvious that there was a world emerging which would make all people slaves to it. And how would this come about, I asked? He said, “it is upon us, we already are slaves, all slaves, except the free, you are free because you carry no weapon and no valuables. I am free because I am a poor man with nothing on this Earth except that ruined cottage and that tiny field of dried out clay.” This sounded like a statement I could agree with and so I did. But then he went on to say that it was all brought about through the birds which were controlled by the lords and were darting around the shoulders of all, spreading diseases invisibly, using sounds which were unheard and unknown to convince people to become sick and to die. I thought this was mad. He seemed coherent and interesting, a man of gravity, of strength, reliable, of old fashioned values, one who could not betray or hurt a harmless stranger, yet one whose anger and ignorance was frightening.

I wished him well. And I left. And as I left I headed towards the mountain which he had pointed to earlier, without knowing why exactly, and although it looked ominous and dark, impassable, hostile and full of perhaps unkind people, robbers, terrorists, or the like, I nevertheless headed that way. I walked miles, it took several hours and darkness set in before I had even began to climb even the foothills of the mountain. On my way I saw children playing on their own, with no adult in sight, I saw dangers for them like the rocks they threw at each other, the trees they climbed and the rapids they again threw stones into. As a child once myself, I sympathised with their fondness for throwing stones, only one of them nearly hit me in the eye. But I climbed a fruit tree and picked some apples for them and soon the gave me fresh bread hidden beneath a rock in return. Their freedom was guaranteed. They had no lord it seemed… But then I met a matriarchal woman, built like the door she came out of, solid, square and splintered.

She offered me shelter too, which I accepted with hesitation, but i accepted. It appears that for her life prospered at the foot of the great mountain, with nothing more than a couple of trees and the fast flowing icy water cascading next to her house. I offered her bread and apples, which I admitted were both her own. And she gave them to me as an offering back. It became clear that she was afraid of me. She was alone and didn´t see people pass through here that didn´t have weapons or power to kill. I assured that I was not going to kill her or take anything. She had a table and chairs. She had one or two books on the floor, she had some ancient plates and no cutlery. Only a knife, which was not very Sharp, but which she compensated for with brute force.

The children came in, it was dark. She made me tea on a fire, which I blew on to help raise it up from embers of her flint. The glow and warmth of the water, the smile from this woman was a morale boost. She was an old woman though and as such decided to mother me. I played the lost child. But she knew I was not lost, she knew that I was on a voyage. I was a free spirit. I was on a journey, just taking notes, not making my way through the world, but simply passing through, ephemeral, transcendent like the flame under the pot. All the same the fire was reassuring, it always was, and it had been days since I had had the luxury of its warmth and healing spirit. Water which was warm and full of leaves was also a great comfort to me, for in a tired state the mind turns hard and cold like its surroundings. These surroundings and her hospitality soothed me a great deal.

I told her I was heading to the mountain. She said “why?” I said for the gold. She said there was no gold, only rocks, only ice and death, and the odd goat, who would occasionally be blown right off the peaks and bring her food in a kind of a windfall. She liked that, when it happened, but said that even the goats were dying off and not falling anymore. She said that the “birds” were carrying the goats off away whole. She said the “birds” took them, and left nothing. The birds caused the goats to die, and left her to starve. I thought she was mad. I tried to think back to a similar conversation I had had recently with someone which reminded me of this but I couldn´t put my finger on it exactly.

I didn´t say she was mad, but I comforted her and said that I was sure that another goat was bound to fall into her back garden any time soon, it was just a matter of the wind picking up and carrying them to her. I reassured her and told her what she wanted to believe, though I knew full well that goats had a great sense of balance and no wind ever knocked them off their crevices or cliffs no matter what the weather. Goats are all weather after all; I thought to myself. I thought in the light of the fire deeply about the goats falling off the mountains and concluded that they would indeed be old and possibly diseased goats that would succumb and fall, and that this woman was nothing more than a happy vulture. Albeit a kind and welcoming vulture all the same, more like a pet dog, being fed by its master nature, and death.

In the morning after 12 hours sleep half of them uncomfortable, as usual, I got up and began walking again towards the mountain. It got hard all of a sudden, it got hard, it got impossible. I had to rest, drink water and take sweets, in form of dried apples. I looked up the mountain, I saw no trail going further. But then I saw something move up there, like a glimmer of light, like a mirror, flashing the sun at me. In my mind strange fascinations took gold of me and I wandered onwards towards the light. I imagined something wonderful, up there, something beautiful, I imagined a beauty, and a serenity up there and indeed the higher I climbed the quieter the air became and the softer the sounds. I climbed and climbed and as I climber I hypnotised myself with the rhythm of my feet  touching the ground, with the sound of my voice talking all the way, in my head telling me strange things about what might or might not be up there.

Eventually though I run out of water, I ran out of water and light, and I ran out of bread and dried fruit. I was cold indeed I was cold, the moment the Sun disappeared I was cold, I was delirious and afraid. I was alone and unbound, I was free, but I was at the mercy of death. I was not free, immediately the worst fears came into my head. The cold was shaking me, and I was panicking and afraid, I was praying and singing I was shouting for help then collapsing only to hear my own calls for help reflected back at me from the other side of the mountain in one eternal echo reaching out to infinity with only myself to hear it. I was free, yea I laughed to myself, totally free and on the verge of the ultimate freedom, I shall be free of this mortal frame, I shall be free of my body and the I will wonder eternally not just over land but everywhere, starting with the precipice down there. In my delirious state I closed my eyes smiling.

I awoke in darkness. Well not in darkness. I awoke in light. There was warmth, fire, water. I was in an airy cave. I opened my eyes, but I was still delirious. A most enchanting girl with blue drapes approached me in slow motions, her lips touched mine for a second, and I closed my eyes again and felt that paradise was already here. When I fully awoke, she was real. She laughed at me and mocked me, and then I knew she was real. But all the same she was beautiful. I wanted her instantly. But I was in bad shape. I was bleeding and still shocked from the exposure of the glacial air of the night. Mortal I was, and I realised that at that moment. And mortal she was, for although a beauty, she helped me and saved me and castigated me with enslaving me with her self.

It was a strange new sensation, emotions were overwhelming, fear was overwhelmed with love, and although she laughed, it was a laugh which contained no rejection or pain at all, it was that dreamful kiss over and over again… “did I dream that?” I thought to myself. I didn´t dream it I felt the warmth of her lips on mine still. I asked her who she was. She said she was herself, and she asked me who I was. I replied that like her, I was my own self and that I was exploring the land. That I was my own , self and a free man, slave of no one, master of no one, just a man, and myself, with no dreams, no fantasies, just what was in front of me and a desire to commune with it.

She laughed yet again. But this time her laugh echoed right into my brain, it was not the laugh of a vain or silly girl, it was the laugh of knowledge, of love, of lust of that intense semi-conscious kiss in the first place… she blurred into nothing and I found myself out on the peak, down in the cottage by the fire, in the stream of freezing water, then with the old man staring at the sun drenched wall for an eternity, then I awoke from that quasi mental stupor and found myself staring into a pair of the largest most beautiful green eyes dark skin, dark red hair almost black but red and thick, and I was consumed by her.

The Traveller 03

Life for Jim on the boat was placid. The journey was sweet in its abandonment. The ocean was a simple place with simple demands. Either it was upset, windy, cold, stormy, or it was warm and still and easy to get along with. All that was needed on a daily basis was a matter of adaptation. Jim although a lone traveller, ate and spoke with the people aboard, while maintaining that distance which was needed in order to keep the equilibrium within him.

Jim would eat and speak with his co-travellers and crew, on the most basic subjects, because this is what they chose to speak to him about. But on the other hand some nights, the ones which didn´t demand any attention to the rigours and violence of the sea, the nights in which idleness took over from work, from keeping balance on the Southern Star, because there was a lack of movement from within the sea, and the Ship´s people would create there own movement through singing and dancing, on those nights, Jim preferred to stay outside, to avoid the drinking, avoid the smoke and the mayhem.

It was on such a night that Jim had his peaceful thoughts disturbed. His aimless remembering of images of the past, of his once loved girl, of his life before his voluntary exile, was interrupted. A figure appeared on such a night of pure stillness, out of the smoke emerging from within the Star. A figure of a woman. She was someone he had noticed before, on the boat, but had avoided more so than the rest of the people on board, simply by the fact that he found her face appealing, interesting, beautiful even, considering that he had not seen it up close. The Star was a big enough vessel in order to escape from a person if you really wanted to, and such had been the case for the days in which he had been travelling.

He had avoided her, because he didn´t want his memories to be shaken up. He didn´t want to risk making a mess of his past, which he had become fond of, by playing with an uncertain present and an indeterminable future, which she represented. But now she approached, and Jim knew, or thought he knew, anticipated what was coming. And there she was, in an instant. Jim greeted her in the same disinterested way he greeted everyone. What was she? He thought. Was she vain, was she crude? Was she old? Was she married? What affliction was in this wanderer like himself? When he saw her eyes close up though there was nothing that afflicted her, no disease, no sorrow, nothing, his sensation of her was mixed now. She spoke. Her voice was calm, it was easy to hear, it was clear and natural, it had nothing artificial in it. He felt as if his resistance was down now in her presence, hiding behind the wall disinterestedness was now not possible. His interest in her was real and true. It was a reflection of her interest in him, but still, Jim had to control his movements and tone of voice, the caution that had taken years to learn was not to be thrown into the sea at the first glance of a pretty mermaid.

She asked him nothing about himself. Which he appreciated. She spoke of places she had seen, lands which were under conquest and occupation, lands which were warm and fertile but whose people were afraid, places where there was a steady flow of filth running out from its foundations in Northern towns. Places built high in Mountains in thin air, up in the sky. Jim´s eyes fixated on hers as she spoke of these miraculous and dreamful marvels. And she seemed to delight and become giddy in the telling of them. To the point that Jim had to turn his back on her in order to let her know that she was overstepping some line, some ineffable barrier which was not to be crossed.

What was she then? She had worked for her family in the family business, turning raw material into cloth, turning dank Earth into fresh food, in her youth. But now through the profits of that enterprise she had gained for herself an ounce of freedom and a pocket full of gold, on the conditions that she returned. But had she returned, after three years? She was on her way to something greater she had explained. She explained this all in perfect natural movements and with no hidden reservations or doubts expressed in her face.

At that moment a drunkard opened the door and stepped out oblivious to them. But it was enough to disturb the meeting. They separated and did not speak again until the next day. During the night Jim thought of her stories, of her voice. He tried to criticise her existence, but couldn´t find anything. “nice eyes” he thought. “Nice body” he thought too. But he then thought, that he hadn´t really looked, only on the other hand, he hadn´t noticed anything that was out of place. Where was she going though? he thought. He thought about this “greater” place, greater even than the amazing places she had seen and been to. Where was it? Maybe he thought, it was exactly where he was going. Maybe, he thought, they could share in that greatness, in the slanting Sunlight that illuminated that part of the world with its golden rays and morning dew, with its soft and easy landscapes, with its friendly and honest people?

The next day he went looking for her.