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chapter 3
The Ghost sat on the cliff’s edge. As he always did at this time. This time of year. At this time of day. It was his favorite place.
No one saw him. Even on the few times they happened to wander by.
Tonight the weather was violent. Lightning crossed the sky like the creases of Thor’s hands. The Ghost just looked on. He was not getting wet. But that was no wonder. He was so long dead. He could not remember his own name.
As the rains bore down. Something began to happen. He felt something.
It was power. A power to exist. It was short. He knew. There was only one thing to do. He laughed. He shouted. He heard his own voice echo in the rocks.
For no reason he threw his hat in the air. It fell to the ground again. But this time with a clang of metal.
Existing in a place, in time, was the delight the eternals gifted him every now and again.
The rain fell in a roar with his laughter. The echo filled the valleys below. His joy was complete. He tears was the joy of the rain. All was worth it for a moment. But he could not remember why.
“Hello?” A voice called out from the darkness.
The rain ceased very suddenly.
The Ghost turned to see a young man walking down the mountain to his stoop. He seemed to be looking for someone.
“Hello.” He called aimlessly.
“There is no one here.” Another voice called down.
“I heard it clear as day.” said the man.
“We all did.”
“I tell you he was close by!”
“It wasn’t real. It was the voice of the mountain. Everyone knows that. The devil’s work.”
“The devil ain’t got a voice box.”
The Ghost froze as the lightning again lit up the sky. The power of its light seemed to vibrate through him. The man stopped: he had seen him.
Oh the time was passing too quick! He had not been ready for so short a moment to explain! What could he explain? He had forgotten so long ago!
He grinned a confused grin, and waving: faded into the cold mist.
The village of Keythos was a small and insignificant collection of people. Nestled into an uncomfortable geographic oddity. Being below snow capped mountains the nights could get very cold. But also being on the southern edge of a mountain range where the persistent trade winds blew most all precipitation North and Westward. And somehow, not that far South of Keythos, were lush grasslands full of wild game. And yet somehow people had settled in Keythos and had a proud tradition in desert living. Provided for, in good measure, by imported goods and foods, despite the high population of farmers to any other profession.
Most members of this society descended, by claim, accident or infidelity: from three families who had laid claim to the land going back at least three generations. Those landholders held this place as their own as if they had always been there, and that before them there had been no people, at least no one that anyone spoke of. Which, I can say, no one wondered at the arrowheads laying in the dirt or gave a second thought on whose hands it was that lifted the obsidian and threw it down to find the right piece to turn to use. But somehow in the passing of land from those people to these present ones came the curse of dry land that they held as their provincial pride and heritage. The shadow ghost of the old inhabitant did not rejoice either in the loss of the land or the treatment of it. For the understanding of it had passed away with their living on it. The trees were taken for shelter. Leaving the cactus to grow and the grasses to die.
To this town few came - none stayed. Travelers felt the eye brand of ‘stranger’ upon them; even those of amiable business connections desired no extra time or expense on it or its inhabitants. Treatment whether civil traveler, vagrant or criminal, most folk from the outside were lumped altogether in the latter categories.
This idea of stranger let go the usual aversion to guilt and made way to legitimize their inflation of prices, their dirty looks at them, increasing their natural desire to spit in public; and, on the whole, inspired a collective absorbed together in comraderie of uncreative jokes and malicious heckling. Indeed I could have written ‘un-Christian like behavior’ but then you would have read that to mean whatever you wanted. But like all children of religion, they read their Old Testaments with the perspective that they were ‘the chosen’ and everyone outside could not be. If only by segregation of dress and mannerism. Nevermind that they did not have a clear idea of what a Jew really was because who really believes in slingshots and giants? Particularly when you have carte blanche from Deity and gunpowder? Ignorance and Religion take long walks on the corpses of the hopes and dreams that only Love and Understanding caretake. But if love is meant by “spare not the rod”: then beatings is what you give your child. If you know shepherding, however, the rod is a tool for guiding...
No one saw him. Even on the few times they happened to wander by.
Tonight the weather was violent. Lightning crossed the sky like the creases of Thor’s hands. The Ghost just looked on. He was not getting wet. But that was no wonder. He was so long dead. He could not remember his own name.
As the rains bore down. Something began to happen. He felt something.
It was power. A power to exist. It was short. He knew. There was only one thing to do. He laughed. He shouted. He heard his own voice echo in the rocks.
For no reason he threw his hat in the air. It fell to the ground again. But this time with a clang of metal.
Existing in a place, in time, was the delight the eternals gifted him every now and again.
The rain fell in a roar with his laughter. The echo filled the valleys below. His joy was complete. He tears was the joy of the rain. All was worth it for a moment. But he could not remember why.
“Hello?” A voice called out from the darkness.
The rain ceased very suddenly.
The Ghost turned to see a young man walking down the mountain to his stoop. He seemed to be looking for someone.
“Hello.” He called aimlessly.
“There is no one here.” Another voice called down.
“I heard it clear as day.” said the man.
“We all did.”
“I tell you he was close by!”
“It wasn’t real. It was the voice of the mountain. Everyone knows that. The devil’s work.”
“The devil ain’t got a voice box.”
The Ghost froze as the lightning again lit up the sky. The power of its light seemed to vibrate through him. The man stopped: he had seen him.
Oh the time was passing too quick! He had not been ready for so short a moment to explain! What could he explain? He had forgotten so long ago!
He grinned a confused grin, and waving: faded into the cold mist.
The village of Keythos was a small and insignificant collection of people. Nestled into an uncomfortable geographic oddity. Being below snow capped mountains the nights could get very cold. But also being on the southern edge of a mountain range where the persistent trade winds blew most all precipitation North and Westward. And somehow, not that far South of Keythos, were lush grasslands full of wild game. And yet somehow people had settled in Keythos and had a proud tradition in desert living. Provided for, in good measure, by imported goods and foods, despite the high population of farmers to any other profession.
Most members of this society descended, by claim, accident or infidelity: from three families who had laid claim to the land going back at least three generations. Those landholders held this place as their own as if they had always been there, and that before them there had been no people, at least no one that anyone spoke of. Which, I can say, no one wondered at the arrowheads laying in the dirt or gave a second thought on whose hands it was that lifted the obsidian and threw it down to find the right piece to turn to use. But somehow in the passing of land from those people to these present ones came the curse of dry land that they held as their provincial pride and heritage. The shadow ghost of the old inhabitant did not rejoice either in the loss of the land or the treatment of it. For the understanding of it had passed away with their living on it. The trees were taken for shelter. Leaving the cactus to grow and the grasses to die.
To this town few came - none stayed. Travelers felt the eye brand of ‘stranger’ upon them; even those of amiable business connections desired no extra time or expense on it or its inhabitants. Treatment whether civil traveler, vagrant or criminal, most folk from the outside were lumped altogether in the latter categories.
This idea of stranger let go the usual aversion to guilt and made way to legitimize their inflation of prices, their dirty looks at them, increasing their natural desire to spit in public; and, on the whole, inspired a collective absorbed together in comraderie of uncreative jokes and malicious heckling. Indeed I could have written ‘un-Christian like behavior’ but then you would have read that to mean whatever you wanted. But like all children of religion, they read their Old Testaments with the perspective that they were ‘the chosen’ and everyone outside could not be. If only by segregation of dress and mannerism. Nevermind that they did not have a clear idea of what a Jew really was because who really believes in slingshots and giants? Particularly when you have carte blanche from Deity and gunpowder? Ignorance and Religion take long walks on the corpses of the hopes and dreams that only Love and Understanding caretake. But if love is meant by “spare not the rod”: then beatings is what you give your child. If you know shepherding, however, the rod is a tool for guiding...
