The Traveller

A story of unspoken love.

Long, long ago, back in the mists of time there lived a traveller. Now he was no ordinary traveller; no, he was a traveller through time and space and in his mind he held all the secrets of creation and of the universe.
You would think would you not that one such as he would be highly valued in the world yet this was not the case at all. Instead he was scorned and named a madman; alas such is the capacity of the human mind that even when faced with the truth of all he seeks, he will still arrogantly hold fast to his traditional beliefs, oh man, what a stubborn fool you are.

Now it so happened that the traveller, whose name was Namuk ton Kahslo, son of the night stream in his native Plutonian tongue , was taken with an illness, the agent of which he had picked up on his way past Neptune yet which now chose to manifest as it mixed with the Earth’s atmosphere. This illness was a threefold terror in that it first became a mild irritation of the skin around his eyes, then progressed to become an all over body rash but worse still ended up as an acute bout of Carrantonaja which those who are in the know know is an internal rash which attacks the subepidermus layer of the human skin when infected with the Carranto agent and exposed to Earth’s atmosphere.

This illness had the effect of rendering Namuk, who chose the Earthly name Benjamin while he travelled here on Earth, unconscious because his alien mind could not take the stress of having not only to assume a human form but now to be infected and have a rash that he couldn’t scratch and so it shut down.

He had the good fortune to reach the door of a small woodland dwelling just before he completely submitted to his mind shutting down.

The dwelling belonged to Frauline Mesamina Hocken who had lived at the foot of the great mountain Santa Rosa in these Alpine woods for the past twenty years. Never had she seen such a poor fellow as this man who fell down at her door and never had she had to take anybody into her home, for any reason, let alone to nurse someone back to health. Yet this is exactly what she did. She had no choice really, she had no idea where the nearest other person may be to ask for help. She had not left the woods since her arrival twenty years hence and had no idea where anybody else might live. Once or twice throughout the year the goat herder came by, driving his goats and sheep through the woods on his way to sell them at some market she had heard him speak of, but she did not know where that market was and it would be a long time before the goat herder passed her way again. So she picked up the fallen man who lay at her door, took him into her home and put him to bed where he stayed for a very, very long time.

Now as it turned out, Frauline Mesamina was a very good nurse. She developed a method of feeding her unconscious guest and bathing him and taking care of any sores that would appear from time to time with herbal poultices she made from the herbs that grew wild in her beloved woods. She spent many hours over many weeks caring for the stranger and often she would cry from the sheer futility of her situation in not knowing if he was ever going to wake up again.

For six weeks in total Benjamin was unconscious and for six weeks he could not have received better care than that which he received from Frauline Mesamina.

When he finally woke, Mesamina was out gathering nuts and burdock root for a desert dish she was fond of making. When she returned she found him standing over at the back of the dwelling, naked, perplexed and scared. She soon soothed his worries and wrapped her quilt around him to preserve his dignity.

She sat him down at her table and while singing softly to herself, she went about preparing her dinner as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all. He watched her move around and he enjoyed the soothing tone of her singing. He had no idea who he was or how he had got here but his fears were leaving him and he developed a sense of trust for this woman who was ignoring him.

He tried to speak at length, yet no sound came out from his mouth. He tried to hum a tune like the Frauline was doing but only managed a tuneless croak. He had not lost the power of speech, he had lost the knowledge of speech.

For a few days more, he slept when he was tired and during the day he would sit and contemplate his existence in an effort to remember who he might be and what he might be doing here in these beautiful woods with this strange but loving woman who fussed over him without words of her own but sang with the voice of an angel.

Days became a week and then two and he finally ventured further than a few steps away from the tiny dwelling. He took to helping the woman find firewood and trap small animals for their supper. He learned from her which herbs and other plants were safe to use. He helped her pick mushrooms and spent some time with her just walking and admiring the Autumn colours of the trees and the gentle fall of the leaves while all around them birds chirped and sang out in praise to mother nature.

Weeks passed and not a word was spoken between the two. Autumn became Winter and Winter became Spring and still they gently coexisted with each other and with the natural world around them. When they needed to eat they ate, for the woman had much knowledge and skill in the ways of trapping and foraging. When they needed heat they built the fire higher and when they needed to sleep, they simply climbed in beside each other and curled up together into a loving embrace and slept. It was the most natural thing in the world for both of them and never a question was asked.

The man’s memory never did return but eventually he refound his power of speech, but since as it turned out the woman was deaf, he no longer had a use for this skill. The woman never questioned the man’s appearance nor the fact that he was now her lover or that they went on to spend the rest of their lives together.

A long, long time ago, back in the mists of time, there lived a man. He knew nothing from whence he came and felt no urge to ever leave. Now, he was no ordinary man; no, he was a man who had found true love in the comfort of the only woman he had ever known, he was a man who held the secret of creation and of the universe and that is, to simply be.

© 2009 Created by Blackcrow

Author's Note

I am serching for an image that will work well with this to lend atmosphere.