River Rock

I

Each heart was a tiny drum echoing, answering the rhythmic throb of spring that vibrated in the air. Giddy feet glided, skipped, danced along to music no one could hear, but everyone could feel. The annual spring festival always drew large crowds, and the grassy field on the outskirts of the small town was already busy with throngs of merrymakers wandering around in the cool, early evening air. Colorful lights were being lit here and there, lending the place the look of a self-enclosed miniature galaxy with myriad tiny, twinkling stars. People everywhere were looking at the wares of vendors, bargaining, haggling, arguing, snacking on delicacies, or sipping on a bottle of fine local beer. 

 

Stefan Brent was in the crowd, but not of it. People in town joked about his tall and lanky frame, but Stefan didn’t mind much. As long as he could remember, he was like a mountaineer that reaches a peak, smiles, and immediately feels an overwhelming sense of loneliness having taken in all that such a vista may offer, but having no one to share it with.

 

That man of loneliness and mystery,
Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh…

He knew himself a villain but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did…
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt.

 

“Hiya there, Crow!” someone hollered. This nickname suited him on account of his long, thin, birdlike legs, and black hair that came down to the top of his crooked, beaklike nose. With his hands in his pockets, his arms looked like two enormous folded wings.  

 

Stefan tried to remember the rest of the lines about Byron’s pirate hero, but couldn’t. Thus woken from his reverie, he halted and stood as the crowd flowed around him as if he were a rock in a slow-moving river. He blinked, squinted, and grimaced observing the curious looking tent in front of him.

 

Madam Zefroni

Fortune Teller, Palmist & Clairvoyant

Sees All

Knows All

 

Stefan studied this information for a while. He was being pushed and bumped into by the single-minded crowd that didn’t seem to take notice of the curious sign. True, it wasn’t being advertised by loud music or a catchy slogan, nor was there anyone entering or exiting the tent. 

 

Stefan was about to walk away when a gypsy woman emerged from the tent. She looked like a pirate out of a children’s picture book with her red headscarf, eye-patch. To complete the picture she had a crow sitting on her left shoulder. Again, Stefan blinked, squinted, and grimaced, and looked at the people in the crowd for confirmation that she was actually real, but the river of people kept on parting and flowing around him undisturbed. 

 

“Whoever said that no man was an island…?” Stefan wondered. “They were wrong.”

 

The gypsy woman looked at Stefan with her singular eye and held his gaze for a while. In that brief moment, all the sounds and noises of the market fair went silent - as if time and everything in it was suspended, frozen. As quickly as this sensation came, it disappeared - along with Madam Zefroni who turned and retreated into her tent. 

 

The chaotic noise of the market flooded Stefan’s ears again, and in spite of himself - perhaps in an attempt to escape the crowd, this hydra-headed creature that grinned, and gorged and drank and laughed, and hooted and hollered - he ran into the tent, covering his ears with his hands. He stood still for a minute in the dark, narrow passageway that lay behind the entrance to let his eyes accommodate to the dark interior. This was made difficult by a blinking neon sign that apparently greeted all that ventured to enter there:

 

To be blind is not miserable; not to be able to bear blindness - that is miserable.

 

Stefan heard music coming from the inner recesses of the tent. Exotic, Middle Eastern melodies rose up like smoke from an unseen fire and slithered slowly, silently around Stefan’s mind, entrancing, hypnotizing him. The music was thick, sweet honey dripping slowly into his soul; it was a soft touch on his tense, weary shoulders; it was a whisper inside his head saying, 

 

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 

Stefan felt foolish thinking of these lines there and then, and almost laughed out loud. In an attempt to stifle the laughter, he put his hands over his mouth. 

 

“This is ridiculous,” he thought with a smirk, and turned his head around to look back toward the way he came in. He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a small, flat flask. He carried it at all times to “calm his nerves” - which he was in frequent need of. He lifted the flask to his lips. The liquid went the wrong way, and Stefan started choking and coughing uncontrollably.

 

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

 

His body was convulsing, but his mind didn’t care. It kept throwing these second hand thoughts onto some internal projection screen for its own amusement. Stefan kept coughing; he was bent double now, and felt utterly ridiculous and pitiful. He finally cleared his airway, and using the sleeve of his shirt he wiped away the tears that sullied his face, and the sweat that wet his forehead. 

 

“Only a person who has passed through the gate of humility can ascend to the heights of the spirit,”

 

someone whispered. Stefan froze, and listened, trying to ascertain in vain whether the sound came from within his own mind or from an outside source. Maybe it came from inside the tent; maybe it was part of the music that was playing; or maybe it was…

Stefan’s musings were interrupted by a whooshing sound, and he could sense rather than see something fly toward him through the darkness. It brushed against his face, touching his ears, ruffling his hair. 

 

“Crow!” 

 

Stefan screamed and again he felt foolish. It must have been the gypsy woman’s bird he had seen earlier.  There was softly glowing light ahead in the center of the tent. Incense smoke was hanging in the air making Stefan think of Indian yogis in loincloths, meditating under ancient Bodhi trees; elephants walking slowly through the jungle, and dark skinned women in saris carrying exotic fruits in baskets on their heads. Stefan felt that his sanity was a passenger on a runaway train where a crazed stoker was shoveling fuel into the boiler's firebox laughing hysterically and screaming at the top of his voice,

 

“We are stardust on the frayed ends of the fabric of the universe toying with the idea of letting go and falling into the abyss...” 

 

He turned his head and looked at the doorway again. He could just leave, stick his hands back in his pockets again, let his hair cover his eyes like a black veil, get lost in the crowd, and continue gliding through the noisy market-fair of life as he had been doing since he could remember.  In his mind’s eye, he saw the grinning faces of the merrymaking people at the market again: whiskers dripping with beer, mouths full of food, howling, hollering at him, at each other, saying nothing. 

 

“Crow, hey Crow,” no one ever said anything more than this to him. No one really knew him, and he really knew no one. He was indeed a crow moving through the dark void of life alone and barely noticeable. 

 

“Answers; I need answers,” 

 

he thought, and now he didn’t care anymore how ridiculous or outlandish it might’ve seemed to anyone - even to himself - that out of all the places he had come to Madam Zefroni’s dark tent for enlightenment. 

 

What do you wish to know?

 

Stefan spun around startled, but saw no one. Sweat trickled down his back, and he chuckled nervously a little in spite of himself. 

 

“For God’s sakes,” he muttered, and in his embarrassment he faked courage, and began decidedly to move toward the center of the tent, toward the source of the light, toward the source of the hypnotic music, toward the place where the sweet scented smoke came from, toward the place where he hoped to find...what exactly, he didn’t know. 

 

He went through several doorways, each of which was covered with a light veil.  The tent that didn’t seem too large from the outside felt surprisingly spacious on the inside. As far as he could tell, he was moving through a labyrinth of concentric circles.  When he arrived at the center, he saw Madam Zefroni sitting at a small round table with her back turned to him. There were paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and about a dozen candelabra positioned in a circular pattern around the center. Madam Zefroni said some words without turning to look at Stefan:

 

“One to be buried

One to be born

Darkness heralds

A new day’s morn’”

 

There was an empty chair across from Madam Zefroni. 

 

“Should I greet her, go sit with her, or should I just walk away?” Stefan hesitated again, not knowing exactly what to do next. 

 

Madam Zeroni’s crow appeared out of nowhere, flew over Stefan’s shoulders, and perched on the backrest of the empty chair. 

 

“Crow, you have come back to me at last,” the old woman said. 

 

Stefan felt uneasy as he wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to her bird. She still wouldn’t look at him, so he went and stood in front of her. He nervously cleared his throat, and a few seconds later, seeing that Madam Zefroni remained hunched over her crystal ball, he lowered himself onto the chair very slowly and carefully - trying his best not to disturb or agitate the crow.

 

Stefan stared at the Madam’s long, pointed, bright red fingernails, the various rings that decorated each of her fingers, the wrinkled skin on the back of her hands, the bangles on her wrists, the colorful sleeves of her loose-fitting dress, the necklaces adorning her cleavage, the old, yet timeless face that had qualities of both an angel and of a witch. All of these contradictions were wrapped up and held together by a red headscarf and framed by long, uncombed gray hair that cascaded down to the old woman’s waist. 

 

Finally, she raised her head and scanned Stefan’s face with her one eye that had a youthful twinkle and mischievous playfulness in it. 

“So, what will it be? I can ask the stars to reveal the past, present and what’s to come; I can read your palm and tell you what you might not want to hear; I can consult the Arcanum of the Tarot, and see that which you might not want me to see; I can gaze into this crystallum orbis and see you more clearly therein with my one eye than you ever have or ever will with both of your very good but very useless eyes though you may spend the rest of your life in front of a spotless mirror.”

 

“I want to know…” 

 

Stefan started, and suddenly realized that there was nothing he really wished to know about his path leading through the marketplace of life. He knew that there wasn’t any treasure worth finding out there. The crow behind him cawed, and Stefan suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of loss and self-pity. He closed his eyes tightly to stop the tears from flowing, but it was too late: he was gasping and drowning in a sea of melancholy. How long ago was it that he had left the world of the ten thousand things behind? Was it really just a few minutes ago? Time lost its relevance inside this tent, inside this labyrinth. The gypsy Madam in front of him could’ve been a goddess, a devil, or a trickster. The music he had heard when he first entered the tent started playing again. It seemed to come and go - or, perhaps it was always there, but the noise inside his own head prevented him from hearing it. The melody comforted him, and when he managed to steady his nerves, he said,

 

“I want to know…who I am.” 

 

The sound of his own voice rang unfamiliar in his ears. Who said these words? Who willed this request into existence? His sense of self was disappearing, dissipating in the air like the smoke of the incense sticks burning on the table, like the sound of that wondrous music that was being swallowed by the thick fabric of the tent.

 

“Are you sure?” Madam Zefroni asked. “I can tell you the hair color of your future sweetheart, and how many children you will have together.”

 

“That’s silly stuff,” Stefan blurted out. 

 

 “It is knowledge that won’t change you,” Madam Zefroni replied. “It is knowledge with which you can walk out of here, and continue your life undisturbed, unchanged, unchallenged. That’s what most people want: a bit of entertainment, a cheap thrill, and most definitely no change. I can read cards and tell people what they already know but have no courage or faith to articulate or accept. They need to hear it from me; that makes it ‘official.’ Then, they go on their way,” she said pointing to the doorway Stefan himself had come through earlier. The crow perched behind Stefan cawed as if in agreement.

 

“I’m not like most people,” Stefan said, and immediately regretted it. 

 

“That I know,” the old woman said. She was smiling and Stefan wondered if she was mocking him. 

 

“A human being has many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart - thirty or forty skins, each as thick and hard as an ox's or a bear's. Are you ready to be skinned alive?” Her face lost its angelic quality. It was now a wrinkled, old leather mask, a figurehead from an ancient totem pole carved and aged by the hands of Time itself.   

 

Neither of them spoke for a while. Madam Zefroni studied Stefan intently, and then clapped her hands twice. A young boy of about fifteen came in by way of a side entrance Stefan hadn’t noticed earlier. The old woman whispered something to the boy in a language Stefan didn’t understand, after which he left and soon reappeared with a glass of dark liquid that he balanced on a small, circular tray. He placed it in front of Stefan and left. 

 

“Bottoms up,” Madam Zefroni instructed. She sensed, or perhaps knew exactly, what doubts, fears and questions Stefan was grappling with, and she spoke to him in a much softer voice now. 

 

“How pathetically scanty our self-knowledge is compared with, say, our knowledge of a town, a mountain, a forest path, or a landscape before our eyes when we sit atop a hill. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world - unless…” and she pointed at the drink in front of Stefan. “I am not interested in poisoning my customers,” she said with a smile.

 

“It's choice, not chance, that determines your destiny.” With that she went silent, and Stefan knew she wasn’t going to say more. He moved in his seat, uneasily shifting his weight this way and that. He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, twisted his fingers into fists in an attempt to find much needed strength and courage, then reached out for the glass and lifted it to his lips. 

 

II

The drink had the color of strong, black tea, but smelled and tasted acrid and bitter. With a foolhardy determination, Stefan forced himself to empty the glass. With every gulp he swallowed he felt as if he himself was being swallowed by darkness that was frightful and welcoming at the same time. He felt nauseated, got on his feet, staggered, and looked at Madam Zafroni questioningly, but she showed no sign of worry, excitement or alarm. She was mouthing some words - incantation, prayer, or curse, Stefan couldn’t tell. With his hands on his stomach now, he was bent double, retching. He was like a wounded animal that couldn’t go on running from the inevitable end anymore.

 

Somewhere, deep in the dark forest of his mind, Stefan caught sight of a stag. The forest had a quiet murmur, a sleepy buzz - like a beehive at dusk. The stag was a picture of beauty, grace power and innocence, looking Stefan straight in the eyes. Its gaze was deep, all-knowing and utterly unbearable as only a god’s gaze might be for we see ourselves reflected in it much-much too clearly. A shot rang out, the buzz of the forest became a shriek, a roar, a scream, and the stag leaped and ran. It seemed at first that he might go on like that forever, prancing majestically through the woods, but, the secret springs in its knees snapped one by one, and little by little it was brought down to its knees, and soon lay on the ground panting weakly.

 

Witnessing the destruction of something so noble and magnificent was unendurable. Can one be the hunter and the hunted at the same time? He would never…could never…but he did…somehow he knew he did…There were no words to clothe, to cover, or to hide the recognition, the stark nakedness of something so monstrous. Multitudes of orgiastic revelers moving to the rhythm of their danse macquabre were the unholy feet of humanity trampling on the desecrated remains of their own divinity. Stefan wanted to weep, but he hadn’t the strength. He lay on the floor of the tent, down in the dust like a fallen god, like the ruins of a monument idolaters erect for their own projections.

 

Stefan became aware of the mysterious music again. It was barely audible, and came to him soothingly through the dark. He saw the crow flying toward him, and he saw himself sitting at the small, round table looking at long, red fingernails, the golden bangles, the long white hair, and the crystal ball. He saw the entrance of the tent, the crowd at the market fair, and the tiny colorful lights twinkling like a myriad stars.

 

Stefan was on a journey back through time, revisiting his 33 years of life in reverse. 

 

Madam Zafroni watched him writhing on the ground. From the outside, he was a delirious man mumbling, begging, supplicating, grunting, and reaching out his hands as if he were trying to touch or grab hold of someone only he could see. He called out names now and then, and among these private apparitions and secret phantoms there was one whose name he breathed over and over again like a prayer:

 

“Angela!”

“Angela!”

“Angela!”

 

Soon, the convulsions subsided; the film he was watching in the dark projecting room of his mind ended. Stefan reached the end - which really was the beginning. He was no more - or rather, he not yet was. Future and past were now all rolled up into a smooth, round pearl, a microcosm of slumbering potentiality. All was well until a dark shadow spread over this blissful state of existence. There was a whooshing sound; there were two clawed feet, and a beak that snatched up the pearl. 

 

 

III

Stefan was brought out of the diffuse, warm light of self-forgetfulness by the sound of whispers, the sound of a child crying, muffled voices arguing, and the sharp, piercing sound of hammer striking hard rock. 

 

When he opened his eyes, all went quiet and he tried in vain to ascertain whether the sounds came from the outside or from within his own mind. Madam Zefroni, her crow, and her tent were all gone. Presently, he raised himself from the floor slowly and found that he was in a circular room more than half of which was dark as there were only a few small openings cut high up in the thick stone walls, and these let in barely enough light to illuminate part of the space to some degree. 

 

The walls were matted with creepers which were in a race toward the light. As far as Stefan could tell, these plants were of two kinds: one whose stems were a light green, ornamented with small, pretty flowers, and another that was dark green in color, tough, thorny, and flowerless.

 

Stefan decided not to venture into the darker side of the chamber, for the more he was enveloped by the shadows, the louder he began to hear the whispering, the crying and the sound of people arguing. As he shuffled back into the light, he ceased to hear the voices and after a time he willfully put them out of his mind. This was aided by the various curiosities he had discovered in the room. 

 

There were a number of portraits on the wall: some detailed and lifelike, and others sketchy, crude attempts that were seemingly abandoned before they were finished. These portraits showed faces that struck Stefan with an air of familiarity, but he couldn’t identify them.  He also found several mirrors of various shapes and sizes. Some hung on the walls and were quite clean, while others lay on the floor in soiled, broken pieces. 

 

There was also an elevated platform, a stage of some sort - although there were no seats for an audience. From behind the curtain of the stage, Stefan heard a growling sound and he immediately stopped in his tracks. He held his breath for a while, then stepped up onto the stage, and walked toward the heavy, black curtains. Slowly, he parted the fabric and saw a row of cages. Straining his eyes in the dark, he tried to determine what creatures lay slumbering there, but couldn’t. A scent of primal bestiality hang in the air; the sound of impatient, low, guttural growls increased, and Stefan thought it best to quietly retreat back toward the more well-lit center of the room.

 

Besides the portraits, there were various swords, axes, spears, shields and similar arms on display. Most of them were poorly maintained, neglected and were either rusting or covered in a thick layer of dust. Stefan had the urge to reach out and touch a sword that looked regal in its appearance. It fitted into his hand perfectly, and gave him a sudden surge of power. He swung it around a bit, but caught a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors, and the sight made him feel self-conscious and foolish, so he put the sword back where he had found it. After some hesitation, he decided to hold on to a small dagger instead. He wasn’t sure why he’d need such an item, but he slid it into his coat pocket, and just the knowledge that it was there made him feel bold and fierce.

 

As he continued exploring the room, he became aware of an object that looked like a treasure chest. Being positioned against the wall in the dark, shadowy side of the room, it was barely visible, and was somewhat also concealed by various other items placed in front of it. Stefan kneeled on the floor and ran his fingertips along the surface. It was made of thick, hard wood, and had several locking mechanisms keeping whatever treasure it was housing safely hidden. This item was clean of dust, though, and it seemed that it was often opened and was in frequent use. He dragged it toward the light a bit to read the inscription carved into the lid:

 

Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit[1]

 

In the middle of the room, there was one more item, a sort of centerpiece that was covered with a white sheet. Stefan approached it cautiously, and after some wavering, he slowly pulled the sheet off, revealing a big block of irregularly shaped rock, the top part of which had been carved and sculpted into a striking human form. The work was clearly unfinished, and Stefan studied the impressive torso with interest and fascination. It was a moment of eternal birth and transformation frozen in time. Stefan sat on the floor mesmerized by the contrast between the crude, jagged lower half and the expertly planned and executed work at the top. Some tools lay on the floor at the foot of the rock, and Stefan recalled the sound of a hammer striking hard rock. But, where was the artist? Who was the sculptor carving his vision out of stone?

 

Stefan remained sitting on the floor studying the stone figure for a long time, trying to imagine how he would finish it. It still required a lot of work, time and patience, that much was obvious, and Stefan wished he could see it again when it was finished. He stood up and surveyed the room and its curious contests again. He felt strangely linked to this room, as if he had been there before - in a dream, perhaps. Thinking he might’ve spotted a door - a dark, rectangular shape against a shadowy background - he walked toward it. It was not a door, but a writing desk with an open book and some writing utensils. Stefan leaned over the book, pressing his face very close so that he might be able to make out some of the words. Just like the sculpture, it seemed to be a work in progress. The writing seemed to have been left off abruptly, and the book itself had lots of blank pages left. The words that Stefan was able to read sent a chill down his spine:

 

Thinking he might’ve spotted a door - a dark, rectangular shape against a shadowy background - he walked toward it…

 

With difficulty, he tried to focus his frantic eyes, but one line caught his attention as it began with his own name:

 

Stefan sat on the floor mesmerized by the contrast between the crude, jagged lower half and the expertly planned and executed work of undying art at the top…

 

Sweat was trickling down Stefan’s back. He turned some pages back.

 

Stefan Brent was in the crowd, but not of it…

 

The recognition of what he was looking at made him feel as if he was being swallowed by darkness that was frightful and welcoming at the same time. He felt nauseated; took two steps back, staggered, and fell to the floor unconscious. 

 

The cawing of a crow was the first sound he heard as he opened his eyes. He was back in Madam Zefroni’s tent. 

 

“Hullo?” he called feebly, but again, only the crow answered him with a caw. The candles had burned down, the crystal ball on the table slumbered blindly, and there was no sign of the Madam.

 

Slowly, Stefan got to his feet and called out a few times.

“Anyone here?”

There was no answer, so he stumbled toward the exit led by the muffled sound of the market fair. He found his way out, and stood in the shadowy doorway for a while marveling at the familiar scene before his eyes: the colorful lights, the vendors, and the people skating on the surface of life, blissfully ignorant of what lies beneath the deceptively placid membrane of their own being.

Stefan Brent took a deep breath and slowly - just as a smooth, well-worn river rock would slide from the hands of a careless child into a wide, slow-moving river - he let himself be swallowed by the crowd, where each heart was a tiny drum echoing, answering the rhythmic throb of spring that vibrated in the air.

 

---

[1] (Lat.) “A joy it will be one day, perhaps, to remember even this.”

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

Since my first visit to this story I see you have found and corrected the missing Virgil. Good proof reading.

[Dave Brown]

This could have been saved for Halloween
It has that spooky feel about it
From the hidden reaches of your mind??
The bee hive reference relates to a birdhouse that has been taken over beside our front door and we hear then humming as we pass