The Watchman, The Bowman and the Knifeman

This is a longer story, from one of my free short story collections 'Chaotic Dreams.' (Slightly revised.) It is visionary fiction, based on a dream I had. "

They are telling the story in the jungle. Come and listen. The children gather round, the old people sit on fallen logs and the rest of the tribe press forward, peering eagerly over the heads of those in front until they can settle down to listen to the storyteller.

The story starts with a watchman. He sits out in a wooden sentry box halfway down the path which leads away from the Great House. There he looks out for travellers, and thieves, and important guests arriving. He welcomes the travellers and guests and gives them directions to the house, and the thieves he chases away. That is his job as a watchman. Tonight, he is about to receive a new request- to look out for a god.

The people who lived in the Great House had become very much afraid of being attacked by enemies. This followed threats which came from some of the outlying houses, probably inconsequential threats rather like an ape beating its chest, but it was possible that they could be genuine. The leader of those who lived in the Great House was a seeress. Unfortunately, she could not predict how likely it was that there would be trouble from their neighbours. However, she could foretell who would be able to help them, should there be an attack. She told them that she would call The Bowman. He was considered to be a great god, a great protector, one who would give you cover with a shower of arrows both when you attack and when you retreat to safety. They debated the matter and decided to call The Bowman now, so as to be prepared.

The seeress went to her temple and carried out the ritual, while the others waited in the splendid drawing room at the back of the Great House, with its large double doors leading out into the garden. When the seeress came back she told them that The Bowman would be arriving at about midnight that night. She walked across the drawing room and unfastened the double doors and went across the lawn towards the path where the watchman’s sentry box stood. She tapped on the side of the box, and he leaned out.

“The Bowman will be coming here tonight,” she said. “I have called him. He will arrive at about midnight. You must look out for him and let him in.”

The watchman inclined his head and said, “yes, Madam. I will look out for him.”

 Then she went back to the Great House.

They have paused now in telling the story- they seem in no hurry to finish. I have been called The Bowman for a long time. I know these people will eventually reach the end of the story, and then they will tell it again and it will change. Some parts will grow longer, others will disappear; those parts will be lost and will be told no more. The story will branch out into new directions and will acquire new characters, but the same three will still remain at the core: The watchman, The Bowman and The Knifeman.

Centuries will roll by, and the story will still be told, but by then it will have become inaccurate. I know what happened that night: how I shot up a handful of arrows into the air above the garden and said, “This is all I can do. Why do you think I am the one to help? Why do you think I can do so much more?”

 I remember their disappointment, and now the storyteller in the jungle is speaking of that. There has been a meal and a dance and now the storytelling has resumed. The people are moving closer and listening wide-eyed to the events of this legendary tale.

 I do have some use, you know. I am called The Bowman because I am fired off like an arrow to go on my missions, and there is airy symbolism of arrows and fiery symbolism of Sagittarius, all to be woven warp over weft into a twisty tapestry whose pictures give an overview of the legend. The different facets of the story are like buds on a branch within the tapestry design.

But that is not what is happening in this particular telling. It has become a condemnation of the inadequate Bowman, who could not shoot the enemies and could not give cover with a shower of arrows during a military attack. I do not like this. I yearn to edge the legend into a new direction, a tributary that will soon become the main flow of the story. But this is difficult to do. It feels like putty slipping through a potter’s hands as he tries vainly to shape it.

The tribe want their version to be the one that goes forward, and the storyteller strives to ensure it. He marks each exclamation from the audience, each expression on the children’s faces, committing them to memory so that the next telling may be identical, with the same responses in the same places.

There might be a new audience from a more remote part of the settlement. Even if there is not, the present audience will very likely demand a repetition of this story at every major festival, and they will want their every response to be the same, although perhaps this desire is subconscious. So their very instincts are against me, and the version in which I am the wrong answer is becoming fixed. I cannot listen to the rest, and I fly away.

The watchman blamed himself. He felt that merely by letting me pass and directing me to the Great House, he had caused things to go wrong. He should have found someone worthier to let in, someone who would have protected the dwellers in the Great House. But he could only let in the person the seeress had called, so he was imagining his part in the failure.

He was a middle-aged man, his face cragged with heavy lines where he had sat out in all weathers. His hands were always busy with some wooden puzzle, that society’s version of a Rubik’s Cube or jigsaw or a sliding slot puzzle, to keep himself occupied while he sat there. His beliefs were simple. He believed in the gods, and that everything should be straightforward when you call a god. If any unexpected problem was to arise, he must somehow have sinned. I told him that he had not sinned. I said it as I passed him for the second time after saying farewell to the people in the drawing room and leaving the garden of the Great House. He did not hear me, as his own thoughts were far stronger than my voice.

 

***

The story is being told again, amongst traders who carry sacks of grain down to ships waiting in a harbour. At the end of the day after all the back-breaking work they sit down to have a meal, and then a young boy with roughened hands, who wears a pale blue neckerchief around his shoulders, begins to tell the tale. He tells the second part, having already told the first to his companions on the previous night

He tells how the people who lived in the Great House complained to the seeress that she had not helped them against their enemies, and that if there should be a threat of war in the near future, they would have to choose another leader who could better protect them.

The seeress replied, “do not worry. This time I will send for The Knifeman. He is strong against all enemies.”

Once again, she went to her temple and carried out a ritual, and again the people assembled in the drawing room and waited. When she came back, she said, “The Knifeman will be coming here tonight. I have called him. He will arrive at midnight, and we must look out for him and let him in.”

Then she walked across the drawing room and unlocked the double doors, crossed the lawn and went along the path to the sentry box where the watchman sat, and told him the same thing. The watchman was anxious. He hoped that this time there would be no problems, and that he would make everything right by letting in someone who could protect the people of the Great House. He inclined his head and said, “yes, Madam, I will look out for him.”

I watch the traders critically as they listen to the story. They do not know The Knifeman as I do. Maybe it is just as well that I can’t prejudice them by interjecting my feelings about him. It is best that they listen to the tale in its form that circulates among their own people. The Knifeman is of my people, and that affects my viewpoint. I see him as a prototype for horror stories of the future, unsuitable to be a military-style guardian. Their enemies might end up under his knife, but they could just as easily end up under it themselves, regretting their hasty choice of a protector.

The lad continues his story. He tells how there was a sudden commotion while the seeress was still standing beside the watchman’s booth, before she had even said goodbye to him. A savage and strong-looking man came running down the path towards them, dressed all in ragged furs, with long wild hair flying out behind him and a spiky beard that stood out in clumps. In his right hand he held a huge knife. The Knifeman had arrived early, not caring to wait until the time they had arranged. He also did not care to ask for admittance from the watchman but barged past the two of them and carried straight on towards the Great House.

 The watchman immediately sprang from his post and cried to the seeress, “your people are in great danger! I must come with you to the house.”

 “Come with me, then,” she replied. “I can’t understand why he has arrived early- I told him to come at midnight.”

They both began to run towards the Great House.

When they arrived, The Knifeman was standing in the garden looking through the large windows of the double doors and into the drawing room. He was gazing at the people as if sizing them up. The people were cowering in fear and moving further and further back towards the other side of the room.

 He reached for the door handle and let himself into the drawing room. The people huddled together and whimpered. A few of them were children, although not infants, and they began to scream.

He walked across the room….and here, of all places, is where the legend has at last began to diverge into different versions. Not the place where I hoped it would diverge, the point at which I allegedly disappointed everyone, but here.

I remember what happened, for I was watching from up in a tree, my quiver slung across my shoulders and my hands grasping the tapering upper branches. The Knifeman went over to a window at the opposite end of the room, a window with many small panes of glass and thick white wooden frames between them. He reached out and cut a tiny sliver of wood from the edge of one of the frames: it was thinner than the shaving from a pencil sharpener. He withdrew his knife and let the flake of wood flutter to the floor. A few seconds later, the entire window collapsed with a crash, and a drought of cold air rushed into the room.

The meaning of his gesture has been debated numerous times when the story has been told. Storytellers have given a metaphorical interpretation, or a metaphysical one, or none at all and the suggestion that he was aiming to mislead.

But sometimes now, a detail has been changed: the window that was broken has become the long pane on one of the two double doors. People of later times, of times long after this telling among the traders, have called them ‘French windows.’

This change makes a difference. The crash is much louder, the crack much wider. A torrent more air pours into the drawing room. Those who analyse the meaning of this breaking of a veil give a more extreme explanation for it. The fear is much greater, the miracle is much greater. Most pertinent for me is that it is untrue, for it was the smaller window that he broke.

But it is his final action that has been disputed the most of all. As everyone stood frozen, staring at the shattered glass and buffeted by the cold wind, he held his knife straight out in front of him and rushed upon one of the young girls in the room. The seeress hid her eyes under her forearm, and when she looked up again, the girl was sitting at a table signing documents. The Knifeman had changed into a slick conman wearing smart clothes, with neatly trimmed hair and beard, and he was stealing all her money.

Is an insurance policy the civilized version of defence? Is it proof against an enemy? Are all the stories about the gods really at their root Faustian tales? These questions have been asked, and many others too, and sometimes this last scene is omitted from the telling of the legend. Sometimes it ends with The Knifeman running away across the garden while the people weep, blasted with chilly air from outside and needing to mend their broken house.

The storyteller pauses when The Knifeman points his knife at the girl, and the children gasp, “what did the seeress see?” But no-one ever asks, “what did The Bowman see?” I was the most reliable witness, yet no-one asks.

 One day an elderly person among the audience asked, “what did the watchman do?” The watchman was a human being, which is the reason for the placing of the capital letters in the names the watchman, The Bowman and The Knifeman. He did nothing except watch, and after all that was his job, just to watch.

But now times had changed, and there was no longer a perceived need for exactly the same narrative every time, and the same reactions at the same points in the story. New tributaries were welcome at last. The storyteller’s eyes brightened as he saw a chance to keep the listeners spellbound for longer. Also he saw a loose end in the plot, when the watchman had asked to go with the seeress to the Great House, and he was pleased at the prospect of being the one to tie up this loose end.

I know that the watchman asked to go to the Great House because he once again blamed himself for what was happening. Again, it had nothing to do with him. The seeress had only just spoken to him, giving him no time to prepare for preventing this unexpected hitch in her plans. The Knifeman hurried past with supernatural speed and strength and the watchman could not possibly have stopped him.

Yet he felt guilty, and that was why he spoke of danger and of accompanying the seeress to the Great House, which he then entered with her and stood with the others, sharing their fear and horror and helplessness. I saw this just as I saw it all, from my perch at the top of the tree.

But now the end of the story changed to give a new role to the watchman, who became a hero. He saved the girl, or he saved all the people, and in many versions, he fought and defeated The Knifeman. Like the huntsman in the story of Snow White, his role grew and became increasingly romantic. Perhaps a feature film will be made simply with the title ‘Watchman’.

I do not like these latest versions of the legend, because like the detail of the window, they are untrue. I still want the earlier part of the story to be retold and to show The Bowman in a better light. I want the statement I made when I fired the arrows into the sky to be understood. That was all I could do, and it was unsuitable for a military purpose, but potentially fruitful for other purposes that no-one was requesting, or even discussing.

Now that times have changed so much, those options could be debated and made use of. This legend originated in the time of the Vedas, and the Vedic hymns are still sung at times, for example at Indian weddings. However, the beliefs in India have gone through many changes: some of them have favoured strict asceticism, or the approach that the universe is ultimately formless. Those ancient tribes who were perpetually at war have ceased to exist. Yet still The Bowman is the unwanted one, the one who disappointed everyone, whenever the legend is told.al