Le Petite Noir

I took up smoking two years into the job. It wasn’t the stress. God’s no. The rush from the work was enough for me. I did it because it gives you a good excuse to hang around places, a way to start conversations with strangers, and a place to eavesdrop. I wasn’t a regular smoker, just an opportunist. I always had a pack in my pocket ‘cause you never knew when a proffered smoke would open a door.

I hadn't always done this work either. It wasn’t an aspiration of mine. I had wanted to be a lawyer growing up. I got my first taste as a personal vendetta. Not out for blood mind you, but I had a bone to pick with some corporate shills, and it turned into quite the dinner show. But that’s for another time I suppose.

The real question is how I ended feet up on the wrong side of a fire escape with a dead man’s wrist watch and blood stains on my shirt. It’s a fair step sideways from corporate espionage, but like all thing in life it started with a dame. Dame Marissa Richards of Lourdes, Curator of the Grand Museum of Modern and Classical Art.

The Mockingbird Men

Let me tell you the tale

Of the mockingbird men

Those strange half-man creatures

Who dwell on the hill

Let me tell you the horror

Of whence they began

Where they will be going

And where they are still

‘Tis often forgotten

That there are two kinds

The ones who began thus

And those who became

Yet both find their home

Upon mockingbird hill

And all they encounter

Are never the same

The feeling is eerie

Their presence uncalm

Their feathers are ruffled and trite

A miasma of sadness

Regret is their balm

They lament for their loss in the night

Those who began birds

Forget how to fly

And take on the shapes

And the bland songs of men

Those who became

Sprout feathers and wings

And forget the deep magic

Of spirit and pen

Some choose their fate

While others do not

And others still, argue that

Nothing has changed

But man and bird know

That their voice is all wrong

And their features have been

Most unkindly arranged

Their gaze is most eerie

Their candor uncalm

Their clothes are all ruffled and trite

A patina sadness

Denial is their balm

They dream only of darkness at night

Some can return

To their natural form

But most will remain

Thus maligned

A mirror of ill fortune

Made forever to mock

All of us who remain

As designed

Let me tell you the tale

Of the Mockingbird Men

Who in feats of brave daring

Defied natures will

Let me tell you the horror

Of being bird-man

A design and a purpose

They’ll never fulfill

Their sing-song is eerie

Their nests are uncalm

Their petticoats ruffled and trite

An opera of sadness

Mockery, their balm

They lament for our loss in the night

The Coinmaker

      There was a coinmaker, well versed in his art. He fashioned delicate dies and cast them well. Each coin he made with such perfection and care. He would sit in his work room, day after day making coins for the kingdom.

      One day his young son asked whose face was on the back of the coin.

      “My son,” he replied, “Everyone knows that the face on the coin is the face of the King.”

      Years passed, and his son was now grown, had fallen in love, and a child of his own. The kingdom to have grown, it seems, and the nobles fought over petty things. And when the King passed they clambered and jockeyed, each with designs to become the new King.

      Lords and Ladies sent their stewards to beseech the coinmaker to cast in their image, for everyone knows that the face on the coin is the face of the King.

      So he minted these coins, and for some was well paid. For others he was held at the honour of the privilege. But each and all soon forgot the coinmaker, none honoured his art or remembered his name. But he minted his coins and now with no model made his changes here and there, and perfected his art.

      One day his young grandson came into the workshop and asked his grandfather of the face on the coins.

      “Dear grandson,” he replied, “everyone knows that the face on the coin is the face of the King.”

      There was a knock at the workshop door and the old King’s stewards and guards entered.

      “Sire,” they said, “the pretenders have fallen on each other’s swords, will you return to your duties?”

      “No,” said the coinmaker, “I am too old for such things. But my grandson, my heir, will soon be of age. I will regent in his stead until the time comes.”

      “Very good sire,” the stewards replied, “how soon can you have the new dies ready?”

      “Tomorrow,” the coinmaker answered, and they bowed and left.

      The coinmaker winked at his grandson and tossed him a silver coin from the bench.

      

      For everyone knows that the face on the coin is the face of the King.

The Last Daughter of Ruan

      The trees sang as the violet sun rose. Amber fields awash with tendrils of sunlight. It filled Tehnar with warmth and brought tears to her eyes. She let the sun wash over her and breathed it into her very being. It hollowed her out and took her pain, leaving only a sense of vastness as though she was a shell for the universe.

      She kneeled to the earth and took clumps of it in her hand. She smelled the dirt and spread it through her hair. She took more and washed it on her clothes. She rose and wandered to the brook and there took mud from the banks and masked her exposed skin. She was full with purpose now and rose to head towards the sea.

     The sun was higher now but the sea still blinded. Tehnar followed the narrow winding path down the bluff to the beach. The sand was not yet hot and the roar of waves was deafening. She took two small vials from her pocket, filled one with sand and the other sea water.

     Among the charred ruins of boats that lined the shore was one that escaped the fire. She searched the others and salvages what food and supplies she could, and filled the water barrels from the stream just before it met the sea.

     Pushing it into the water she walked along with it until the water reached her knees and then climbed into the boat. It would take time to fashion a sail from the scraps she had recovered, but the oar was intact. She sculled the boat away from shore and did not allow herself to look back until the sun had passed its zenith.

     The shore was small now, as was the feeling of loss that sat within her emptiness, but Tehnar returned to the way ahead and drove further from those lost shores. She thought of the vials and the mud and the dirt, and the life within her. She placed a loving hand on the small bump of her belly and sang a soft lullaby for the last daughter of Ruan.