The HeartStone.
Jan. 3rd, 2006 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaThis is a story from inside the story that was inside the story that was inside the book that I'm in the process of doing first re-write. I'm just prideful enough that I want to share it. And of course, it's a StoryTeller story:
In the Garden, Edmund Panopolis gathered the children sitting smartly and wearing their yellows and greens and multi-coloreds and jeans and skirts and slacks. He had provided each of them with doodle paper and pens and pencils and crayons and markers, telling them that if they got bored or if they wanted to they could draw or color or write or whatever their minds and hearts and hands would tell them to do.
Then, sitting crossleggedy ontop of the table in the very center of the garden, Edmund Panopolis closed his eyes and took a deep breath that made his jacket seem suddenly two sizes too small. When his eyes opened, they seemed to be looking out from a place where he was, but nobody around him was, and a smile on his face gave a wave and a friendly comealong with me sort of grin. He began to speak.
"Long, long ago, and far, far away, in a valley nestled between two mountains and snuggled in the fork of a river was a small village. Now, this was not just any old village, with it's stoplights, and stop signs, and traffic, and policemen and criminals and sewers and ... well, it was like no village you have ever seen before. It was quiet, and it was also peaceful, which, by the way are two different things all together. It was also a Village of Magic, and it was also a Village of Shopkeepers, with a Capital V and a Capital S.
"There were Shopkeepers that sold shoes, and shirts, and skirts, and buttons, and button hooks. There were Shopkeepers that sold towels and bowls and tools and spools. There were Shopkeepers that sold cakes and cookies and breads and beads and toys and just about anything you might even begin to imagine in the whole of every thing you CAN imagine."
"Even children?" asked one little blue eyed, blonde headed boy, about eleven.
"No. That was one thing they did not sell, because children come from a different sort of magic all together."
"Did they sell doo doo?" asked a redheaded boy, about eight years old.
"Yes! yes they did!"
"EEeeeeewwwwwww" went all the children, as pure as any choir in any tabernacle.
"Oh, but you see, this doo doo had a special name. It was called fertilizer, and it was used to help grow plants, and when the plants were old enough and strong enough, the farmers that lived outside of the Village would gather up the crops of alfalfa, hay, cornstalks and other greens and feed them back to the animals, who, in their own sincere way, repaid the farmers by making... well, what do you think they made when they ate all that food?"
All the children sang as one body "More Doo Doo!"
"Yes, it's true. And so things in the Universe move in a circle, round and round and round it goes. Now, who wants to hear more of this magical story?
The response was a unanimous "I do, I do", and the answer was "Oh? You doo doo too?", which caused all the children to laugh and laugh.
"Very well, then. This was a Village of special folk, Shopkeepers that could make your wildest dreams come true, and some that could make even your worst nightmares come true as well.
"It wasn't always that way, though. In the very beginning, when there were just a very few shopkeepers, and these did not have a capital s at all, the valley was very sad. Not just the people, but the valley, with all it's trees and grass and houses and horses and people. Every thing was sad.
"It was sad because no matter how hard they tried, the things they tried, and the dreams they dreamed.. none of it seemed to work out. The crops they planted in their fields did all right, they did just fine, but they did just enough. The things that the shopkeepers made to sell were all right, they did just fine, but the things were ordinary and nothing special. Trees looked just like ordinary trees, grass looked like ordinary trees. There was something missing, and not one person knew what was wrong, because they had lived that way for so long, it just seemed that ordinary life was just this way. Ordinary. Bleak. Dreary.
"What's bleak?" asked a pretty brown haired girl in glasses. "What's dreary?" asked another one, a boy this time, wearing coveralls with pictures of race cars on it.
"Bleak is... well.. you know when a day is all grey, and it has been gray because the sun did not shine forever and ever and ever, and it was too cold to go outside and there was nothing at all to do inside and you thought you were going to just die because you were soooo bored?
Heads nodded, and a few of them said "yeah.."
"That's bleak and that's dreary are like. You can almost not find bleak without dreary, but if you ever do you will know that bleak is very lonely, because it is empty without dreary, and dreary will be very lonely because it will be very depressed without bleak.
"And that is what this village was like. Grey and ordinary and very very empty. Empty of dreams, empty of magic, empty of color. No rainbow ever appeared after it rained, and in the fall, when the leaves from the trees fell, they were all one color. It never snowed white snow, it just snowed slush, and there were no hills to sled down and no winds enough to even fly a kite in.
"It was just a very sad village, and the saddest thing is that nobody there even knew they were sad.
"One day, a man came floating down the river on his back. He was singing a song that made no sense at all. The song he was singing went:
"One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and rushed to stop the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this story is true,
Ask the blind man.... He saw it tooooooo!"
The children all clapped, few because of the words, most simply because when the Panopolis sang it, he sang it with all the gusto it deserved, from the top of his voice. A few of the library goers pushed a shhhhhh towards the garden, which cause the StoryTeller to put a finger to his lips, not even barely hiding a wide smile. Some of the children giggled, as did Panopolis, and even Emily found it hard to not smile at it all.
"What made it even more interesting was that the man was completely naked! Not a stitch, not a shirt, not even a sock. He seemed to not really care that he was naked, he seemed to not really care about anything at all. He was just floating down the river as if he had nowhere to be, and nothing to do when he got there.
"So here was this naked man, floating down the river, singing. This was something that the village had never seen, and not only had the village never seen it, but the people in the village had never seen it either. And more amazing, when the man floated to where the little village dock was, he turned onto his side and swam, in broad strokes right to the dock, hauled himself and a large red bag out of the river onto the dock of the village, and there he lie, laughing, until he chuckled himself to sleep.
"At first, nobody in the village knew what to do. Nobody wanted to walk onto the dock where a naked man was sleeping. It just wasn't done. It just wasn't proper."
"So... what did they do?" asked the redheaded boy.
"Ah! What they did was this. Nothing. Nothing at all. They left him there because they were afraid. What if he was a robber?, they asked. What if he was crazy?, they wondered. What if he was a Crazy Naked Robber?, they all muttered, fearfully, to each other as the day went on from daylight to night, Why! they could all be murdered in their sleep!
"At night, though, it all changed. The man woke up, and pulled from his bag bright red pants, a bright red shirt, a green hat with a loooooong feather in it, and green boots with pointed toes. He put all these on, started a small fire on the dock, pulled some fishing tackle and a long pole from his bag and sat there, fishing, until he caught two shiny fish, which he than sat about cooking.
"Some of the villagers began to wonder that maybe the man was a vagabond." Seeing the question on some of the children's faces, it was explained, "A vagabond is like a hobo, but not exactly like a hobo, because a vagabond goes from place to place, makes a lot of noise, tells some stories, maybe juggles some balls, steals your wallet and heart and the sneaks away into the night." Ahhhh, nodded the children. That made it all perfectly clear.
"They considered this man, this red dressed man with the green hat and boots that had set up camp on their village dock. Some thought the blacksmith should go talk to him. He was the biggest man in the village, because he was very large and very, very strong. He was so strong he could lift a full grown horse and hold it as if it were a baby. Some thought they should ask the founder of the village, which meant that he was the first person there, and had been there before the village was even a village. He was a farmer, and very old, and very wise. The debate went on long into the night, when most of them should have been in bed, and asleep, and dreaming. Except in this town, nobody ever, ever dreamed.
"Nobody?", he was asked.
"Nobody ever, ever. Not the parents, not the children, not the dogs and cats, not the horses, not the corn or the wheat. Not even the bugs. Nobody, ever dreamed in this village.
"This discussion went long and long, and it was held in a village pub. A pub, in any other place is a place where adults go and talk and laugh and have a good time telling stories that nobody believes, but everyone pretends to, because it makes them all friends. Here, though, a pub was a place where adults went to be ordinary. Laughter was a gray thing, weak as a kittens first meow, and quiet as cotton falling onto snow. Stories weren't told, because there were no dreams to bring stories from.
"The pub was a big place, nonetheless. It had long tables with long benches and a waitress who served the people at the tables without a smile, a nod, or even a good evening how are you this night. The waitress would have been a pretty woman anywhere else, with long brown hair, and brown eyes, but here, her hair hang loose, and she dressed like a man, so nobody could see what a very pretty woman she was.
"On this night, with most of the village people talking in hushed and sad tones about the man on the dock, the front door of the pub opened. It didn't just open, children, no indeedy! It flew open! It burst open! It tore open as if an elephant had grabbed it and puuuuled it open with it trunk. and who do you think it was that walked in?
"It was the Bagabond!" "No, stupid.. it was the Vagabond, with a V" "Don't call me stupid."
"Now children," Panopolis calmed. This spot is a magical spot, for at least a little bit, don't you agree." Nods from the children, even the stupidcaller. "All right. And since we all agree that this is a magical spot for just a little bit, can we agree that right here, right now, no answer is wrong, no answer is stupid, and that all answers are right and true and good."
"How can all answers be true and right and good?" This came from the stupidcaller, an older boy, with a sullen expression. He had shown up late and obviously because his parents had made him. He may have been twelve or thirteen. He may have just been grumpy.
"An excellent question! How can all answers be true and right and good?", Panolpolis repeated. "The answer to this is very simply because everyone has the answer to their own questions, and everyone's question is just the right question for that person at that time. If I ask a question, I already know the answer, so what answer you give me, has to be the correct answer to you. If you ask me a question, I know you already know the answer, so any answer I give you has to be the correct answer for me. And this is true because right here, right now, in this spot, just for a little bit, all the rules you learned anywhere else don't mean anything, because right here, right now, in this spot, magic is the rule, and all answers and questions are right and true and good. Agreed?"
The children all nodded, slowly, though you could see a bit of confusion in their faces. The older boy nodded too, but you could see the doubt on his face.
"I'll make you a deal, young man. If you let the story continue to the end, you will see that all answers are correct, and that there are not bad or stupid quesitons. All I ask is that I tell the tale and you give it a chance. Deal?" And the StoryTeller held out his hand.
The older boy hesitated. Nobody had called him young man before, nobody had offered to shake his hand, and no one had ever offered him a deal. "What do I get if I don't see it?" he asked.
"If you don't agree with me, then I will pull three silver dollars out of my ears and give them to you."
"Then it's a deal." and the older boy and the Storyteller shook hands on it.
"Excellent! And you were both right, it was the Bagabond, who is a Vagabond with a Bag! It was he that entered the pub, all blustery and and windswept and red cheeked and he went right up to the long counter of the pub, sat down on a stool that was obviously not only waiting on him, but was his and his alone."
"Barkeep!" He called out. "I would like some of your finest ale! I would like some of your finest ale for everyone here in the building!"
"The waitress, who was also the barkeeps daughter, went up to the man and said, "I'm sorry, sir," because back then everybody believed you had to be extremely polite to crazy people, otherwise they might do something even crazier than whatever crazy thing they were doing. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but we don't have ale here. All we have is tea and bitters and some rather ordinary stale beer."
"Tea!" the man laughed. "Bitters!" the man cried out. "Stale Beer!", the man bellowed. "Stale beer it is then. But rather than just one glass, I'd like to buy an entire barrel, and I'd like you to bring it here!" Truely and really, he did talk like that, exclamation points and all. He was and excitable gent, it seemed, always with the smile and that twinkle in his blueish eyes and slightly twirled mustache.
The world of the library faded from view to both children and to Emily, listening to the tones of the Storyteller’s voice. The world that replaced it was the story being told. A pub in a village, in a valley, long, long ago, and far, far away.
The waitress looked at him hard, as she was not the sort to put up with any foolishness from anyone. He certainly didn't look crazy. She examined him from the tip of his three foot peacock feather to the tips of his green, green boots.
There was a hint of a tint of red in his hair, and a bit of graying there as well, so he was not a terribly young man. His forehead was smooth and his eyes, bluish she could see, but on closer inspection, she saw specks of gold and green in there too, his eyes were clear and not clouded at all, so he was not a terribly old man. He was not a tall man, nor was he a short man, or a fat man or a thin man. He was, besides his incredible eyes and his constant grin and his overly excited crying out every word he said, rather average. Perhaps a bit shorter than average. Maybe sort of a small average. "Yes," she though. "He is smaverage"."
Emily started at this, as it was exactly what she had though of as being the size of the Panopolis. "Was he reading my mind," she thought, "besides all the other odd things he did?"
"Smaverage he may be, but average he certainly wasn't. She felt, looking at him, her heart beat a little bit faster than was ordinary, and in a town that was very, very, quite ordinary, that was something that she caught right away, as she was a very, very, bright girl. She hid that fact from everyone, and she certainly hoped she had hidden it from this odd stranger who was looking at her, waiting on his barrel of stale beer.
"A barrel, did you say? A WHOLE barrel?" She raised one eyebrow. "By yourself?" She balled up her tiny hands with her long fingers into fists and placed them on her hips. The towel she used to clean the water rings off of tables when people were done was held in her left fist and it flew like a flag of defiance. "And," she asked, "do you have the coin to pay for this barrel by yourself?"
The man hopped off his stool, bowed deeply from the waist and said "My lady fair, and fair you are, indeed it be true and I dare any man to say otherwise. Man? I dare anyone in this entire village to say otherwise, man, beast, woman or child. My lady fair, I have coin enough for this barrel, for this pub, for this village, if only I ask for it."
"Sir," she said, "you are either an incredibly lost, extremely wealthy person, or else you are as crazy as a June bug on a hot summers day thinking it is snowing and the mud pies you are eating are apple."
"My lady fair", came her reply, "I am neither lost, nor crazy. Let me demonstrate myself to you, if I may." He reached down to his side, and pulled up his red bag. It was tied at the top with a golden cord, which he untied and reached in. "Hmmmm..," he hammed. "There seems to be nothing here." and to prove that fact, he turned the bag inside out, and indeed, it was as empty as the hearts of the villagers, who had by now, at least the ones that were in the pub, gathered around the crazy man to see what was going to happen.
"Wait half a second," said the man, "I think I know where the money has gone." He went to scratch his head, then went to scratch his beard, then twirled his mustache, but only the left side, then reached up and pulled his left ear. And magics of magics, coins started to rain out of his ear and into the bag. All the villagers that were watching, stepped back, not knowing if this was a man, a devil, or what. When the bag was almost half full, the coins stopped coming, and the crazy man put the bag on the countertop.
"Here, m'lady. Reach in and count out the coin you wish. When you have taken enough to purchase a barrel, then that will be enough for me. And when that is done, I would most assuredly be appreciative if you would bring me one barrel of your finest stale beer!"
"Oh no, sir.", said the waitress, "It's not for me to be reaching into that bag. For all I know, it might have a devil or a demon or some horrible nasty creature inside just waiting for me to do that so that it could grab my hand and pull me in and then where would I be?"
"I would imagine, fair lady, that you would then be inside of my bag, with my horrible creature, that is what I would imagine." He winked at her. She felt something inside of her melt and snap and crackle like burning ice. "Very well then," and he turned to the rest of the villagers, "since my lady fair will not reach into the bag for coinage enough to purchase my barrel, is there anyone else here that would be willing to do it for her?"
"There was a lot of murmuring, let me tell you, yes there was. Just about everyone dared everyone else to reach into the bag and see what was waiting in side. The discussion went on for quite a while, when the man in green held up his hand and said "Stop! I can see that you all want to, but being the polite sort of folks that you are, you are waiting for the other one to go first. I will solve this for you." He reached inside of the bag and brought out one single gold coin.
"This I give to you, sir" He gave it to the oldest man in the village, who was the founder, who was the first person to ever have lived in the village even before it was a village.
He reached into the bag a second time and brought out another, single gold coin. "and this I give to you, sir" He passed it to the Blacksmith, who scowled but took the coin.
The man in green reached into that bag not once, not twice, not thrice, but as many times as it took to give every man, woman, dog, cat, mouse, rat and bird in the pub one single gold coin. That is, everyone except the waitress, who stood, arms crossed, skeptically looking with her best skeptical look.
"Now then," he said, "please examine your coin. If it seems to be the work of the devil, I will leave and never return. If it appears to be the work of a demon, I will leave and never return. If it appears that it is some horrible creature, then I will leave and never return. Otherwise, if you deem it to be good and solid and worthy, then please would you, could you, place it on the counter for m'lady fair to count, so that I might get my barrel of beer."
After a few moments of discussion, a few minutes of coins being twisted, turned, stepped on, bitten, tossed, flipped and scratched, the general agreement was that the coin was indeed good and solid and worthy, and one by one, each person in the pub put their coin on the table.
I would like to say that every person put their coin on the table, but in truth, some people held onto theirs. It was, indeed a poor and bleak and dreary village, and being very poor and dreary and bleak will make criminals out of the very best of us. It's a sad truth, but then it was a sad village, so nobody was actually to blame, though some were to fault.
The man in green than sat back down on his stool, with the entire pub's populace behind him and watched as the waitress counted the coins, still wearing her skeptical look, one by one. When she had reached, what was in her mind, a fair estimation of the worth of one barrel of stale beer, she said, "Please take the rest back, what I have here will do."
In truth, but no necessarily known, she could have taken the entire amount. Was it magical money? Was it real coin? Did it have worth and value? The answer to those questions is yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. All coin is worth exactly what it is deemed to be worth, not one bit more, not one bit less, and all coin is very much magical, as worth is an imaginary concept, created by folks to say 'this is worth such and such' when it very well might be worth nothing at all. And this is true of so many, many things.
She scooped up the coins she had counted, placed them in the money box under the counter and went into the back for the barrel, which she loaded on a little two wheeled hand truck, and rolled out to where the man was sitting.
"Here you are, sir. Our very finest stale beer. One barrel, as you asked for, ordered, and paid."
Again, the man hopped off his stool and bowed very deeply from the waist. He then took up a mug, bent down to the spigot on the barrel and poured him a full draught of the pale golden liquid from inside.
This he then lifted to his lips, and in one fell swallow, which is not to say that a swallow fell when he was drinking, but that he emptied the mug in one single long unbreathing gulp. the villagers standing behind him looked at each other, nodding and murmuring in appreciation of this feat.
"Oh my! That was incredibly tasty." he said. "But I think you might have been wrong, m'lady. And if not wrong, then perhaps simply mistaken. And if not mistaken, then it could simply be that one barrel of very fine, very, very fine ale had slipped your attention."
"Sir, if you please, and even if you don't, we have never, ever had ale in this pub. This is a poor village, and our crops barely provide the barley for the beer. There exists no means to make ale here."
"That is too bad," said the man, with such a sigh that he might have imploded if it had not been for the smile his face wore. "For I do believe," he explained "that this is ale, though I might be mistaken."
The man in green turned toward the blacksmith. "You there, young man. Would you be so kind as to come here and sample just a bit of this to ensure my insanity? Would loan your talented palette to this golden draught? Might I benefit from your experience and taste buds?"
The blacksmith was no fool. He had seen enough of the world before coming to the village to know flattery when he heard it. He suspected the man in green was an idiot, and not just any idiot, but a dangerous idiot. The type that cause folks to start to think things that might just get them in trouble. Regardless, or perhaps, in spite of his misgivings, he stepped up to the barrel, drew himself a moderate portion of the potion and had a small sip.
Then a larger sip.
Then he refilled his mug till it was full overflowing, but not quite overtipping, raised it to his mouth and matched the feat of the man in green, gulp for gulp.
"Well tie me down, paint me pink, and call me Sally." he said. "This is ale, and not just ordinary ale, this has got to be the finest ale I've had in all my years, and I've seen enough of this world to tell you that I've had a lot of ale in all my years."
And that was that. Every villager stepped forward with their mug outstretched and every villager had, on that night, at least one, and at most as much as they could take, mug full from the barrel, which mysteriously never seemed to become empty, no matter how hard they tried to empty it.
"My friends." said the man in green. For a moment, no one heard him, so he stepped up onto his stool and cried out a bit louder, "My Friends! Tonight is a special night for me. I have been floating down the river for many a day, only to turn up on the shores of your glorious land and to find your beautiful village. This is what I toast to. To Dreams!" he raised his mug to his lips. "To Truth!", he raised it once again. "And to m'lady fair, who is, to my eyes, the loveliest of women", and he drank the third and final time.
The rest of the pub was talking and laughing and joking and some were singing songs they remembered from long ago. Some had been sailors, some had been in the military, and some had simply learned songs from days gone by.
The man in green hopped down off his stool, crossed over to the waitress and said to her in a quiet voice, "M'lady, I thank you for your hospitality, your beauty and your suspicion. If any of the three had not existed, then this night would not have contained the magic and majesty that it had. But now, I must take my leave. I am sorely tired, and am in need of rest. Till tomorrow, dearest lady." He turned to go.
The waitress, blushing as blushingly as any first rose could have dared to blush, called him back. "Sir, wait." she whispered, and she was afraid he did not hear her, but back he came.
"M'lady, your faintest whispered wish is my command. What is it that I may do for you? Move the moon, raise the mountains, rechannel the rivers?"
"No," she said with eyes down turned. "I... I .. wish to know your name."
"Something as simple and as useless as a name? Something as powerful and as powerless as a name, m'lady? Hmmm. I have gone by many names, m'lady, but for you, I will give my true name, but you must not use it unless you truly mean to." He came very close to her, so close she could feel his warm breath on the side of her neck, right below her ear. "My name is Gwion, m'lady." then in a slightly louder voice, he said "You may call me Taliesin, for all to hear, and will bear that name proudly, as proudly as any standard bearer may bear their standard. And please then, may I have the pleasure of knowing yours?"
So quietly that one might have sworn she said nothing at all, especially from the noise of talk, laughter and joy in the room behind her, she said "Rebecca"
Again, he bowed, and with one of his hands, hands that looked strong, soft and rough at the same time, he took one of her tiny, long fingered hands, long roughened by too long a-washing dishes and wiping down tables and drawing stale beer, and kissed the very air above it. Her blushes grew to the point where the very sun would pale in comparison. From where he was bowed, his bluish, greenish, goldenish eyes raised to meet her brown, and it was there that so much was said that words could not contain it and books could not contain it and no library would ever, never ever, even hope to grow large enough to hold the story of what was not said by the things that were said.
After an eternity’s second, after a frozen millennia of moment, he smiled his wide, wide smile and bounced away. He turned to that joyful throng behind him, many of whom were still pouring from the barrel and said, "And I'm away, good people. I shall return tomorrow, but tonight I need meet my dreams, as it is in dreams that I refresh myself. Farewell till we meet again!" With that he danced through the crowd of noisy, happy folk, and out the door, which blew back in as proudly as it had blown out when he first made his entrance. And just when it seemed that he had finally gone for the night, his head poked back in for one final comment. "Good People!" And his voice boomed around the room. "Good people, I thank you for you assistance on this evening. For those of you who put their coins on the counter, you will find two coins in your pockets when you leave tonight. For those of you that kept your coins as mementos of our first meeting... well.. at least you have a coin to remember me by. And again, Farewell!" And with that, he was truly, really gone, in best Cheshire fashion. For those folks that checked their pockets on the way home that night... some had two golden coins, and some had only the one. And so it was.
The waitress, Rebecca, had no idea what to make of it at all
In the Garden, Edmund Panopolis gathered the children sitting smartly and wearing their yellows and greens and multi-coloreds and jeans and skirts and slacks. He had provided each of them with doodle paper and pens and pencils and crayons and markers, telling them that if they got bored or if they wanted to they could draw or color or write or whatever their minds and hearts and hands would tell them to do.
Then, sitting crossleggedy ontop of the table in the very center of the garden, Edmund Panopolis closed his eyes and took a deep breath that made his jacket seem suddenly two sizes too small. When his eyes opened, they seemed to be looking out from a place where he was, but nobody around him was, and a smile on his face gave a wave and a friendly comealong with me sort of grin. He began to speak.
"Long, long ago, and far, far away, in a valley nestled between two mountains and snuggled in the fork of a river was a small village. Now, this was not just any old village, with it's stoplights, and stop signs, and traffic, and policemen and criminals and sewers and ... well, it was like no village you have ever seen before. It was quiet, and it was also peaceful, which, by the way are two different things all together. It was also a Village of Magic, and it was also a Village of Shopkeepers, with a Capital V and a Capital S.
"There were Shopkeepers that sold shoes, and shirts, and skirts, and buttons, and button hooks. There were Shopkeepers that sold towels and bowls and tools and spools. There were Shopkeepers that sold cakes and cookies and breads and beads and toys and just about anything you might even begin to imagine in the whole of every thing you CAN imagine."
"Even children?" asked one little blue eyed, blonde headed boy, about eleven.
"No. That was one thing they did not sell, because children come from a different sort of magic all together."
"Did they sell doo doo?" asked a redheaded boy, about eight years old.
"Yes! yes they did!"
"EEeeeeewwwwwww" went all the children, as pure as any choir in any tabernacle.
"Oh, but you see, this doo doo had a special name. It was called fertilizer, and it was used to help grow plants, and when the plants were old enough and strong enough, the farmers that lived outside of the Village would gather up the crops of alfalfa, hay, cornstalks and other greens and feed them back to the animals, who, in their own sincere way, repaid the farmers by making... well, what do you think they made when they ate all that food?"
All the children sang as one body "More Doo Doo!"
"Yes, it's true. And so things in the Universe move in a circle, round and round and round it goes. Now, who wants to hear more of this magical story?
The response was a unanimous "I do, I do", and the answer was "Oh? You doo doo too?", which caused all the children to laugh and laugh.
"Very well, then. This was a Village of special folk, Shopkeepers that could make your wildest dreams come true, and some that could make even your worst nightmares come true as well.
"It wasn't always that way, though. In the very beginning, when there were just a very few shopkeepers, and these did not have a capital s at all, the valley was very sad. Not just the people, but the valley, with all it's trees and grass and houses and horses and people. Every thing was sad.
"It was sad because no matter how hard they tried, the things they tried, and the dreams they dreamed.. none of it seemed to work out. The crops they planted in their fields did all right, they did just fine, but they did just enough. The things that the shopkeepers made to sell were all right, they did just fine, but the things were ordinary and nothing special. Trees looked just like ordinary trees, grass looked like ordinary trees. There was something missing, and not one person knew what was wrong, because they had lived that way for so long, it just seemed that ordinary life was just this way. Ordinary. Bleak. Dreary.
"What's bleak?" asked a pretty brown haired girl in glasses. "What's dreary?" asked another one, a boy this time, wearing coveralls with pictures of race cars on it.
"Bleak is... well.. you know when a day is all grey, and it has been gray because the sun did not shine forever and ever and ever, and it was too cold to go outside and there was nothing at all to do inside and you thought you were going to just die because you were soooo bored?
Heads nodded, and a few of them said "yeah.."
"That's bleak and that's dreary are like. You can almost not find bleak without dreary, but if you ever do you will know that bleak is very lonely, because it is empty without dreary, and dreary will be very lonely because it will be very depressed without bleak.
"And that is what this village was like. Grey and ordinary and very very empty. Empty of dreams, empty of magic, empty of color. No rainbow ever appeared after it rained, and in the fall, when the leaves from the trees fell, they were all one color. It never snowed white snow, it just snowed slush, and there were no hills to sled down and no winds enough to even fly a kite in.
"It was just a very sad village, and the saddest thing is that nobody there even knew they were sad.
"One day, a man came floating down the river on his back. He was singing a song that made no sense at all. The song he was singing went:
"One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
and rushed to stop the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this story is true,
Ask the blind man.... He saw it tooooooo!"
The children all clapped, few because of the words, most simply because when the Panopolis sang it, he sang it with all the gusto it deserved, from the top of his voice. A few of the library goers pushed a shhhhhh towards the garden, which cause the StoryTeller to put a finger to his lips, not even barely hiding a wide smile. Some of the children giggled, as did Panopolis, and even Emily found it hard to not smile at it all.
"What made it even more interesting was that the man was completely naked! Not a stitch, not a shirt, not even a sock. He seemed to not really care that he was naked, he seemed to not really care about anything at all. He was just floating down the river as if he had nowhere to be, and nothing to do when he got there.
"So here was this naked man, floating down the river, singing. This was something that the village had never seen, and not only had the village never seen it, but the people in the village had never seen it either. And more amazing, when the man floated to where the little village dock was, he turned onto his side and swam, in broad strokes right to the dock, hauled himself and a large red bag out of the river onto the dock of the village, and there he lie, laughing, until he chuckled himself to sleep.
"At first, nobody in the village knew what to do. Nobody wanted to walk onto the dock where a naked man was sleeping. It just wasn't done. It just wasn't proper."
"So... what did they do?" asked the redheaded boy.
"Ah! What they did was this. Nothing. Nothing at all. They left him there because they were afraid. What if he was a robber?, they asked. What if he was crazy?, they wondered. What if he was a Crazy Naked Robber?, they all muttered, fearfully, to each other as the day went on from daylight to night, Why! they could all be murdered in their sleep!
"At night, though, it all changed. The man woke up, and pulled from his bag bright red pants, a bright red shirt, a green hat with a loooooong feather in it, and green boots with pointed toes. He put all these on, started a small fire on the dock, pulled some fishing tackle and a long pole from his bag and sat there, fishing, until he caught two shiny fish, which he than sat about cooking.
"Some of the villagers began to wonder that maybe the man was a vagabond." Seeing the question on some of the children's faces, it was explained, "A vagabond is like a hobo, but not exactly like a hobo, because a vagabond goes from place to place, makes a lot of noise, tells some stories, maybe juggles some balls, steals your wallet and heart and the sneaks away into the night." Ahhhh, nodded the children. That made it all perfectly clear.
"They considered this man, this red dressed man with the green hat and boots that had set up camp on their village dock. Some thought the blacksmith should go talk to him. He was the biggest man in the village, because he was very large and very, very strong. He was so strong he could lift a full grown horse and hold it as if it were a baby. Some thought they should ask the founder of the village, which meant that he was the first person there, and had been there before the village was even a village. He was a farmer, and very old, and very wise. The debate went on long into the night, when most of them should have been in bed, and asleep, and dreaming. Except in this town, nobody ever, ever dreamed.
"Nobody?", he was asked.
"Nobody ever, ever. Not the parents, not the children, not the dogs and cats, not the horses, not the corn or the wheat. Not even the bugs. Nobody, ever dreamed in this village.
"This discussion went long and long, and it was held in a village pub. A pub, in any other place is a place where adults go and talk and laugh and have a good time telling stories that nobody believes, but everyone pretends to, because it makes them all friends. Here, though, a pub was a place where adults went to be ordinary. Laughter was a gray thing, weak as a kittens first meow, and quiet as cotton falling onto snow. Stories weren't told, because there were no dreams to bring stories from.
"The pub was a big place, nonetheless. It had long tables with long benches and a waitress who served the people at the tables without a smile, a nod, or even a good evening how are you this night. The waitress would have been a pretty woman anywhere else, with long brown hair, and brown eyes, but here, her hair hang loose, and she dressed like a man, so nobody could see what a very pretty woman she was.
"On this night, with most of the village people talking in hushed and sad tones about the man on the dock, the front door of the pub opened. It didn't just open, children, no indeedy! It flew open! It burst open! It tore open as if an elephant had grabbed it and puuuuled it open with it trunk. and who do you think it was that walked in?
"It was the Bagabond!" "No, stupid.. it was the Vagabond, with a V" "Don't call me stupid."
"Now children," Panopolis calmed. This spot is a magical spot, for at least a little bit, don't you agree." Nods from the children, even the stupidcaller. "All right. And since we all agree that this is a magical spot for just a little bit, can we agree that right here, right now, no answer is wrong, no answer is stupid, and that all answers are right and true and good."
"How can all answers be true and right and good?" This came from the stupidcaller, an older boy, with a sullen expression. He had shown up late and obviously because his parents had made him. He may have been twelve or thirteen. He may have just been grumpy.
"An excellent question! How can all answers be true and right and good?", Panolpolis repeated. "The answer to this is very simply because everyone has the answer to their own questions, and everyone's question is just the right question for that person at that time. If I ask a question, I already know the answer, so what answer you give me, has to be the correct answer to you. If you ask me a question, I know you already know the answer, so any answer I give you has to be the correct answer for me. And this is true because right here, right now, in this spot, just for a little bit, all the rules you learned anywhere else don't mean anything, because right here, right now, in this spot, magic is the rule, and all answers and questions are right and true and good. Agreed?"
The children all nodded, slowly, though you could see a bit of confusion in their faces. The older boy nodded too, but you could see the doubt on his face.
"I'll make you a deal, young man. If you let the story continue to the end, you will see that all answers are correct, and that there are not bad or stupid quesitons. All I ask is that I tell the tale and you give it a chance. Deal?" And the StoryTeller held out his hand.
The older boy hesitated. Nobody had called him young man before, nobody had offered to shake his hand, and no one had ever offered him a deal. "What do I get if I don't see it?" he asked.
"If you don't agree with me, then I will pull three silver dollars out of my ears and give them to you."
"Then it's a deal." and the older boy and the Storyteller shook hands on it.
"Excellent! And you were both right, it was the Bagabond, who is a Vagabond with a Bag! It was he that entered the pub, all blustery and and windswept and red cheeked and he went right up to the long counter of the pub, sat down on a stool that was obviously not only waiting on him, but was his and his alone."
"Barkeep!" He called out. "I would like some of your finest ale! I would like some of your finest ale for everyone here in the building!"
"The waitress, who was also the barkeeps daughter, went up to the man and said, "I'm sorry, sir," because back then everybody believed you had to be extremely polite to crazy people, otherwise they might do something even crazier than whatever crazy thing they were doing. "I'm sorry, sir," she said, "but we don't have ale here. All we have is tea and bitters and some rather ordinary stale beer."
"Tea!" the man laughed. "Bitters!" the man cried out. "Stale Beer!", the man bellowed. "Stale beer it is then. But rather than just one glass, I'd like to buy an entire barrel, and I'd like you to bring it here!" Truely and really, he did talk like that, exclamation points and all. He was and excitable gent, it seemed, always with the smile and that twinkle in his blueish eyes and slightly twirled mustache.
The world of the library faded from view to both children and to Emily, listening to the tones of the Storyteller’s voice. The world that replaced it was the story being told. A pub in a village, in a valley, long, long ago, and far, far away.
The waitress looked at him hard, as she was not the sort to put up with any foolishness from anyone. He certainly didn't look crazy. She examined him from the tip of his three foot peacock feather to the tips of his green, green boots.
There was a hint of a tint of red in his hair, and a bit of graying there as well, so he was not a terribly young man. His forehead was smooth and his eyes, bluish she could see, but on closer inspection, she saw specks of gold and green in there too, his eyes were clear and not clouded at all, so he was not a terribly old man. He was not a tall man, nor was he a short man, or a fat man or a thin man. He was, besides his incredible eyes and his constant grin and his overly excited crying out every word he said, rather average. Perhaps a bit shorter than average. Maybe sort of a small average. "Yes," she though. "He is smaverage"."
Emily started at this, as it was exactly what she had though of as being the size of the Panopolis. "Was he reading my mind," she thought, "besides all the other odd things he did?"
"Smaverage he may be, but average he certainly wasn't. She felt, looking at him, her heart beat a little bit faster than was ordinary, and in a town that was very, very, quite ordinary, that was something that she caught right away, as she was a very, very, bright girl. She hid that fact from everyone, and she certainly hoped she had hidden it from this odd stranger who was looking at her, waiting on his barrel of stale beer.
"A barrel, did you say? A WHOLE barrel?" She raised one eyebrow. "By yourself?" She balled up her tiny hands with her long fingers into fists and placed them on her hips. The towel she used to clean the water rings off of tables when people were done was held in her left fist and it flew like a flag of defiance. "And," she asked, "do you have the coin to pay for this barrel by yourself?"
The man hopped off his stool, bowed deeply from the waist and said "My lady fair, and fair you are, indeed it be true and I dare any man to say otherwise. Man? I dare anyone in this entire village to say otherwise, man, beast, woman or child. My lady fair, I have coin enough for this barrel, for this pub, for this village, if only I ask for it."
"Sir," she said, "you are either an incredibly lost, extremely wealthy person, or else you are as crazy as a June bug on a hot summers day thinking it is snowing and the mud pies you are eating are apple."
"My lady fair", came her reply, "I am neither lost, nor crazy. Let me demonstrate myself to you, if I may." He reached down to his side, and pulled up his red bag. It was tied at the top with a golden cord, which he untied and reached in. "Hmmmm..," he hammed. "There seems to be nothing here." and to prove that fact, he turned the bag inside out, and indeed, it was as empty as the hearts of the villagers, who had by now, at least the ones that were in the pub, gathered around the crazy man to see what was going to happen.
"Wait half a second," said the man, "I think I know where the money has gone." He went to scratch his head, then went to scratch his beard, then twirled his mustache, but only the left side, then reached up and pulled his left ear. And magics of magics, coins started to rain out of his ear and into the bag. All the villagers that were watching, stepped back, not knowing if this was a man, a devil, or what. When the bag was almost half full, the coins stopped coming, and the crazy man put the bag on the countertop.
"Here, m'lady. Reach in and count out the coin you wish. When you have taken enough to purchase a barrel, then that will be enough for me. And when that is done, I would most assuredly be appreciative if you would bring me one barrel of your finest stale beer!"
"Oh no, sir.", said the waitress, "It's not for me to be reaching into that bag. For all I know, it might have a devil or a demon or some horrible nasty creature inside just waiting for me to do that so that it could grab my hand and pull me in and then where would I be?"
"I would imagine, fair lady, that you would then be inside of my bag, with my horrible creature, that is what I would imagine." He winked at her. She felt something inside of her melt and snap and crackle like burning ice. "Very well then," and he turned to the rest of the villagers, "since my lady fair will not reach into the bag for coinage enough to purchase my barrel, is there anyone else here that would be willing to do it for her?"
"There was a lot of murmuring, let me tell you, yes there was. Just about everyone dared everyone else to reach into the bag and see what was waiting in side. The discussion went on for quite a while, when the man in green held up his hand and said "Stop! I can see that you all want to, but being the polite sort of folks that you are, you are waiting for the other one to go first. I will solve this for you." He reached inside of the bag and brought out one single gold coin.
"This I give to you, sir" He gave it to the oldest man in the village, who was the founder, who was the first person to ever have lived in the village even before it was a village.
He reached into the bag a second time and brought out another, single gold coin. "and this I give to you, sir" He passed it to the Blacksmith, who scowled but took the coin.
The man in green reached into that bag not once, not twice, not thrice, but as many times as it took to give every man, woman, dog, cat, mouse, rat and bird in the pub one single gold coin. That is, everyone except the waitress, who stood, arms crossed, skeptically looking with her best skeptical look.
"Now then," he said, "please examine your coin. If it seems to be the work of the devil, I will leave and never return. If it appears to be the work of a demon, I will leave and never return. If it appears that it is some horrible creature, then I will leave and never return. Otherwise, if you deem it to be good and solid and worthy, then please would you, could you, place it on the counter for m'lady fair to count, so that I might get my barrel of beer."
After a few moments of discussion, a few minutes of coins being twisted, turned, stepped on, bitten, tossed, flipped and scratched, the general agreement was that the coin was indeed good and solid and worthy, and one by one, each person in the pub put their coin on the table.
I would like to say that every person put their coin on the table, but in truth, some people held onto theirs. It was, indeed a poor and bleak and dreary village, and being very poor and dreary and bleak will make criminals out of the very best of us. It's a sad truth, but then it was a sad village, so nobody was actually to blame, though some were to fault.
The man in green than sat back down on his stool, with the entire pub's populace behind him and watched as the waitress counted the coins, still wearing her skeptical look, one by one. When she had reached, what was in her mind, a fair estimation of the worth of one barrel of stale beer, she said, "Please take the rest back, what I have here will do."
In truth, but no necessarily known, she could have taken the entire amount. Was it magical money? Was it real coin? Did it have worth and value? The answer to those questions is yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. All coin is worth exactly what it is deemed to be worth, not one bit more, not one bit less, and all coin is very much magical, as worth is an imaginary concept, created by folks to say 'this is worth such and such' when it very well might be worth nothing at all. And this is true of so many, many things.
She scooped up the coins she had counted, placed them in the money box under the counter and went into the back for the barrel, which she loaded on a little two wheeled hand truck, and rolled out to where the man was sitting.
"Here you are, sir. Our very finest stale beer. One barrel, as you asked for, ordered, and paid."
Again, the man hopped off his stool and bowed very deeply from the waist. He then took up a mug, bent down to the spigot on the barrel and poured him a full draught of the pale golden liquid from inside.
This he then lifted to his lips, and in one fell swallow, which is not to say that a swallow fell when he was drinking, but that he emptied the mug in one single long unbreathing gulp. the villagers standing behind him looked at each other, nodding and murmuring in appreciation of this feat.
"Oh my! That was incredibly tasty." he said. "But I think you might have been wrong, m'lady. And if not wrong, then perhaps simply mistaken. And if not mistaken, then it could simply be that one barrel of very fine, very, very fine ale had slipped your attention."
"Sir, if you please, and even if you don't, we have never, ever had ale in this pub. This is a poor village, and our crops barely provide the barley for the beer. There exists no means to make ale here."
"That is too bad," said the man, with such a sigh that he might have imploded if it had not been for the smile his face wore. "For I do believe," he explained "that this is ale, though I might be mistaken."
The man in green turned toward the blacksmith. "You there, young man. Would you be so kind as to come here and sample just a bit of this to ensure my insanity? Would loan your talented palette to this golden draught? Might I benefit from your experience and taste buds?"
The blacksmith was no fool. He had seen enough of the world before coming to the village to know flattery when he heard it. He suspected the man in green was an idiot, and not just any idiot, but a dangerous idiot. The type that cause folks to start to think things that might just get them in trouble. Regardless, or perhaps, in spite of his misgivings, he stepped up to the barrel, drew himself a moderate portion of the potion and had a small sip.
Then a larger sip.
Then he refilled his mug till it was full overflowing, but not quite overtipping, raised it to his mouth and matched the feat of the man in green, gulp for gulp.
"Well tie me down, paint me pink, and call me Sally." he said. "This is ale, and not just ordinary ale, this has got to be the finest ale I've had in all my years, and I've seen enough of this world to tell you that I've had a lot of ale in all my years."
And that was that. Every villager stepped forward with their mug outstretched and every villager had, on that night, at least one, and at most as much as they could take, mug full from the barrel, which mysteriously never seemed to become empty, no matter how hard they tried to empty it.
"My friends." said the man in green. For a moment, no one heard him, so he stepped up onto his stool and cried out a bit louder, "My Friends! Tonight is a special night for me. I have been floating down the river for many a day, only to turn up on the shores of your glorious land and to find your beautiful village. This is what I toast to. To Dreams!" he raised his mug to his lips. "To Truth!", he raised it once again. "And to m'lady fair, who is, to my eyes, the loveliest of women", and he drank the third and final time.
The rest of the pub was talking and laughing and joking and some were singing songs they remembered from long ago. Some had been sailors, some had been in the military, and some had simply learned songs from days gone by.
The man in green hopped down off his stool, crossed over to the waitress and said to her in a quiet voice, "M'lady, I thank you for your hospitality, your beauty and your suspicion. If any of the three had not existed, then this night would not have contained the magic and majesty that it had. But now, I must take my leave. I am sorely tired, and am in need of rest. Till tomorrow, dearest lady." He turned to go.
The waitress, blushing as blushingly as any first rose could have dared to blush, called him back. "Sir, wait." she whispered, and she was afraid he did not hear her, but back he came.
"M'lady, your faintest whispered wish is my command. What is it that I may do for you? Move the moon, raise the mountains, rechannel the rivers?"
"No," she said with eyes down turned. "I... I .. wish to know your name."
"Something as simple and as useless as a name? Something as powerful and as powerless as a name, m'lady? Hmmm. I have gone by many names, m'lady, but for you, I will give my true name, but you must not use it unless you truly mean to." He came very close to her, so close she could feel his warm breath on the side of her neck, right below her ear. "My name is Gwion, m'lady." then in a slightly louder voice, he said "You may call me Taliesin, for all to hear, and will bear that name proudly, as proudly as any standard bearer may bear their standard. And please then, may I have the pleasure of knowing yours?"
So quietly that one might have sworn she said nothing at all, especially from the noise of talk, laughter and joy in the room behind her, she said "Rebecca"
Again, he bowed, and with one of his hands, hands that looked strong, soft and rough at the same time, he took one of her tiny, long fingered hands, long roughened by too long a-washing dishes and wiping down tables and drawing stale beer, and kissed the very air above it. Her blushes grew to the point where the very sun would pale in comparison. From where he was bowed, his bluish, greenish, goldenish eyes raised to meet her brown, and it was there that so much was said that words could not contain it and books could not contain it and no library would ever, never ever, even hope to grow large enough to hold the story of what was not said by the things that were said.
After an eternity’s second, after a frozen millennia of moment, he smiled his wide, wide smile and bounced away. He turned to that joyful throng behind him, many of whom were still pouring from the barrel and said, "And I'm away, good people. I shall return tomorrow, but tonight I need meet my dreams, as it is in dreams that I refresh myself. Farewell till we meet again!" With that he danced through the crowd of noisy, happy folk, and out the door, which blew back in as proudly as it had blown out when he first made his entrance. And just when it seemed that he had finally gone for the night, his head poked back in for one final comment. "Good People!" And his voice boomed around the room. "Good people, I thank you for you assistance on this evening. For those of you who put their coins on the counter, you will find two coins in your pockets when you leave tonight. For those of you that kept your coins as mementos of our first meeting... well.. at least you have a coin to remember me by. And again, Farewell!" And with that, he was truly, really gone, in best Cheshire fashion. For those folks that checked their pockets on the way home that night... some had two golden coins, and some had only the one. And so it was.
The waitress, Rebecca, had no idea what to make of it at all
