The Story Teller

I was out for a walk and saw a man leaning on a tree, he was a story teller.

    I met a man once, one that I'm sure I wasn't supposed to meet. Since that day, I always wondered if I accidentally snuck up and wandered into a halfway point between worlds. That day was sunny, but a veil of the dark infinite seemed to drape over. It seemed to cover the area with a fog you couldn't really see or feel. It might have been that feeling in the air that made it seem like I walked to the edge of reality. His world of hard truths clashing with ours of warm hopes. You try to put those in the same space, maybe you'll end up with that piece of dark infinite. Maybe he'll draw for you if he sees you trying it.
     Sometimes, when I'm laying down to sleep at night, I wonder if that man has any plans for me? Or maybe he already drew them and I'm just going to wander into the right spot one day. The right spot, I hope you'll understand what I mean by that after hearing about this man and the way he told his stories. He was doing his job and creating a miniature horror show.


    I live about twenty minutes outside of a small cowboy town. I'd give you an exact distance because I keep a pretty keen eye on the odometer. It's not so rare that I'd drive big machinery to and from that town and diesel isn't cheap.  Calling it a cowboy town is only half of it really, the other half is a town that does a fair trade in the logging industry. The cowboys and the loggers all get along because without one, there's probably not going to be the other. So us ranchers riding our tractors around the fields and the truckers that rumble by all the time, we have our minds set on a budget. I thought I'd keep to the way we tell distances out this way since this story doesn't have anything to do with the ranching.
    I lived in the area my whole life. I grew up throwing bales and fixing fence. Then added the skills of driving tractors, raising cattle, throwing more bales, and fixing the fence again. How I got the job of running the place is the same as how my dad got it before me. His dad ran it, it goes back for one more generation before that. That's just the way things are done around here.
    Ol' Grampy died a long time ago, died happy, a rarity in these parts. Pop pulled up stakes and he moved down south to a small coastal town. Where he and my maw set up shop in a little cabin. They're doing alright, both in their golden years, but with their sense of adventure still intact. Ocean cruises and cross country trips still planned so they tell me. I'm not the one to tell them they can't, they earned it. By my own ranching experience, I know they did. Times can go from tough to worse before too long. Or they can just flat out run in the other direction and you find yourself living the easy life. Now it might seem like I'm rambling a little, but these are the kinds of things that go through my mind now. What does that man's art show have in store for them? For me? For my little ones?
    That morning was a cool breeze, not that it was cooling off. Just to be able to take a little break was that cool breeze. The week leading up to it was the hottest I remembered in a long time. I was having my day off since I had nothing to do but wait for the grass to grow again. With that in mind, I decided to walk my fence. Check to see if any trees had fallen across the barbwire, see if any of our neighbours bulls decided to come over for a visit when he was in an amorous mood. When they're that way, they walk through your barbwire fence as if it were cobwebs.
    The sky said that there wasn't any rains on the way. So I let myself hope to get in that second crop before the fall rains came and drenched the entire works. If that happened, the cows would have a half year of good eating then we'd hit that bad patch of soaked hay. Poor buggers would wind up with chewing tobacco before summer rolled around again.
        Behind the house, a few hundred meters away, the fence entered the woods. Back in the trees was usually where the problem would lie. I thought I'd start my walk around the fence there. I got to the fence and turned right, walking into the cooler shadows of the forest. My well worn trail along the fence was clear all the way. From the south end, where I entered the stand of trees, was an easy walk to north side of the ranch where the fence popped out beside the main road. I was surprised, there was a nice little wind storm during the heatwave, but the trees withstood that.
    I could have just walked back to the house, but I decided that I could do with a nice stroll on that nice day. I walked along the fence which followed along side the road, waved at cars as they passed. People headed to and from town, it was a slow day so there wasn't a whole lot of traffic. As I walked, I gave each post a little shake to make sure they were still in good shape. I didn't think I missed the man leaning on the tree. Might have been because he was in the shade which was almost coming straight down by then. I was still a good distance away, but he seemed to defy the shimmer of the hot day. He shimmered out of touch with the rest of the scenery.
    Focusing on him was hard, it made me think that I should have brought some water along. Maybe I was near to having a heatstroke. I felt fine though, except for the uneasy feeling as I drew nearer. This was the only tree along the entire length that the field traveled along the road. How long was the man standing there? Why was he standing there? Hitch hiking? If not, where was his vehicle? The walk to the next house would take him a good long while, so maybe he was getting out of the sun to catch a breath or two. It didn't seem like it though, he was just there.
    It took me a few minutes to reach the lonely tree he was leaning on. I didn't get any closer than the next post along the fence. Post number one, now that I think about it. I put one hand on top of it, I hitched my thumb of my other hand in my pocket. That was as close as my feet would take me, close enough to give this visitor a nice 'how ya doin' and ask if he needed some help or a ride. I stopped, he wasn't right. Everything about him wanted to make me start back pedaling towards the house. It was a long, long way, but I'd walk backwards, facing him the entire way. I did not want to show this man my back. Anything about him made me question if I was even awake. Maybe I was still in bed and having a bad dream I hoped I wouldn't remember.
    At that moment, while I stood with my hand on the post, I thought I'd scream if that man talked. Everything looked right, but felt wrong. I was having a frantic argument with my body, making it stand there and not run. It took a good long moment before my feet felt planted on the good earth again. Who ever this man was made the sun inconsequential. My eyes took him in, that might sound wrong, but that's the way it was. He didn't burrow into my mind, but he slid into it like a worm into it's hole. Nothing I could do would have stopped that.
    He stood, leaning against that tall fir tree. He wore the plain clothes of someone who was outdoors a lot. Shades of tan and used blues, shades of no colour in this dusty area. On his head was a hat that almost could have been a fedora, but it looked more cowboy hat than anything else. The brim hung low, but I could just see the flicking of his eyes. His dress almost looked like he was getting ready for the annual stampede. He wore a western shirt with pearlish buttons. His jeans weren't anything that seemed designer made, they looked almost the same as the ones I was wearing that day. Well worn and comfortable. He wore the same type of boots that I saw loggers wearing all the time. Steel-toed leather stompers that could walk for miles and miles without a whimper.
    The man had a grin on his face, his bottom jaw rolling back and forth, a cigarette jiggling up and down between his teeth. I noticed these things because I didn't look directly at them. The man was measuring the land in front of him, the patch of road in front of him. Only when I wasn't trying to see his eyes is when I saw them flicking back and forth. I didn't see his face until I was looking at the cigarette jiggling. That's when I noticed the horror that was there. His grin wasn't anything but that of someone contemplating a plan of carnage. He didn't look at me and I was so glad of that.
    “Hey bud, nice day isn't it?” He loosed those words through that Cheshire grin.
    I couldn't believe he was talking. There wasn't anything sinister in the tone of voice, but it spoke of endless times seen.
    “Yessir, it's here I think. This is a real nice spot for it,” he continued, I noticed that in his right hand was a match that he slowly rolled between his thumb and first two fingers.
    “Pardon?” That came out of my mouth in a high pitch, like that of a young teenagers voice breaking.
    “Right here.”
    “I...” I swallowed hard, I even heard the click in my throat, “I don't understand.”
    “You will.”
    Oh god, I wish I could tell you that he didn't look at me. His eyes seemed to be as useful to him as the eyes of a doll. Only there so I'd have something to look at. When he looked at me, I could feel that he saw me before those even, brown eyes slid over and played their part. Staring into my head. That's when I saw that the cigarette, that he had propped in his lips, seemed to have a whole other purpose. One that kept my sanity with me. There was a reason he was hard to look at, in more ways than a horror. He shifted like a heat shimmer in my mind.
    “You see, I'm an architect. I'm a story teller.”
    I shook my head, it was all I could do. I didn't understand and I didn't trust my mouth to be as calm as I wanted it to sound. He looked up at the tree and saw a little bit of a dead branch sticking out. Now that thing must have been ten feet off the ground, but he didn't jump or stretch or grow to reach it, he just reached up and snapped it off. That's when I knew that he could reach over and grab me if that's what he wanted. A shudder went through me.
    The man held the stick loosely between the fingers in his left hand, tapping it with his thumb. His other hand still rolling the match. I wondered why he didn't pop the match and light the cigarette, that's when I remembered that I wouldn't like it if that cigarette came out of his mouth.
    It was a peg, it was a stake holding together his mask. If the cigarette came out, the skin he was wearing would slide off like a grand unveiling of a nightmarish terror. If it slid off, it would show something to send me running.    It would be nice to say that if it did slide back, it would almost be like a meat hood and that's the best way to describe it. It would also be nice to say that what you saw would be a plain white skull or even a nub of gore balanced on his shoulders, but it was far more horrible.
    I knew that it would be an image of writhing white things, or crevices filled with tiny spiders, or an unknown insect carrying it brood of hundreds on its back. I prayed for that cigarette to stay right where it was. What was worse, it was as though his skin wanted to slide off, especially his face. That's why it shimmered the way it did.
    The man called himself an architect and stepped out into the useless sun. He bent and violently gashed a mark across the road with the stick. For some reason, it looked like he could dive straight into the ground and disappear if he wanted. He grunted as he said that he had to show me his art now. He ran along the road, dragging the stick and making straight lines and arcs. Sometimes drawing circles. He made a few symbols that I could almost understand. I didn't know what it was, but it had the look of finality. The man danced down the road  a good distance, making his canvas maybe two hundred feet from end to end.
    The man was done with his little dance, I don't know if time stopped, but right then I heard a car coming. The man backed to the other side of the road and the car passed. He dropped the stick in the ditch, he was done with it. The man watched the car get out of sight then came back across the road. He walked to the tree and leaned on it again.
    “That's where it'll be. That's where it has to be. You'll be the one to see.” He grinned at his rhymes.
    During that entire time, I don't think that the match left his fingers.
    “See this tree?” He leaned back on it “Count from this tree to that circle down there and remember. I think that's why you see me. Rarely do people get the pleasure.”
    “Does it have to be?” I didn't know where it came from, but the words blurted out of my mouth.
    “No, it never does, but if you want, we'll see.” He held up the match, he looked over and grinned. “If this doesn't light, it won't have to....”
    I hoped. I focused my will on that match, just break or something. Please. Don't...
    His thumbnail snapped down and his fist dropped a few inches, it seemed almost celebratory. The match popped alight and I closed my eyes and shook my head. Knowing I tried to change fate with pure will.
    “Tough luck, bud.” The man brought the match to his cigarette and took that first long drag. “If you know what's good for you, you better head on home.”
    “Is that for me?” I asked, hand shakily pointing at the man's art.
    “Nope, but you'll have to bear witness.”
    “My family?” I felt my voice already trying to crack, heart already breaking.
    “You think I'd show that to you?” Again, his gaze was on me before his eyes slid over to see.
    I shook my head.
    “That would be a cruelty that you couldn't change. This,” he pointed, his finger jabbing at the air, ”is what must be.”
    “When?” I asked.
    “Fall,” he said with indifference and took in another long drag, “yeah, sometime in the fall.”
    I just turned and walked away. I hated that I could see what his art was, what it showed. It was tire marks, drag marks, and body marks. I couldn't tell how many, but I knew that it had to be a truck going around the corner way too fast. I knew, way down deep, I just knew that there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it.
    I was half way between the tree and the house. I knew he was still there, I could hear him smoking. It still felt like he was in my head. Slowly, he started to fade, but I could hear that the cigarette hit the ground. I let out a half groan and half sob and began to run. I knew if I turned, he would be right behind me, reaching for me. The feeling that you get of terror shooting up your spine, that's what it felt like. I couldn't stop running until I was standing on my porch. It felt like the wood beneath my feet broke the spell. I turned and it was a hot summer day again. Not that fog of empty dark that stood just behind the sunlight.


    The days after that were filled with deep reflection. I hugged my family more. My kids seemed so fragile and small. My wife held a steady hand for me and kept me sane. She filled with life again as she filled me with mine. Everything seemed to matter. I didn't tell her about the man though. That was something I was taking to the grave. I honestly hoped that day would remain a secret to all but one man.
    We did manage to get that second crop up, it did rain a little on it, but I didn't think that it would be that bad. If the cows could thank me, I do believe they would in the last bitter cold of the coming winter. I didn't forget what happened though, I tried to push it out of my mind with hard work, but that only pushed it to the end of the day. Piled it all up in my mind for bed time. I was only waiting and some time in the fall came too soon.
    I was sleeping a deep sleep when I felt my wife shaking my shoulder. She was telling me that something had happened out along the road. That she heard the sound of metal twisting and logs actually rolling along the road. I shivered and was glad she didn't notice. I didn't want to see what I imagined it would be like. What the man's grim schematics had planned. Worse, what if the man was there admiring another of his masterpieces? I don't know what would happen then. I had to go though, I had to bear witness like he said.
    I told my wife to call the cops and that I had to go and see if anybody was hurt. I was already filled with dread. A lump in my throat and my feet felt as if they were filled with lead. What was it he said? I wasn't sure, but I knew people would be dead. I found my words flowing through my mind in that insane rhyming that he must have planted there. I hopped in the pickup truck and drove down the two lines that served as our road. I bumped over the cattle guard and turned left. At the farthest edge of my headlights, I could see where the logging truck started to lose control.
    This had to be one of the trucks that was starting to make the early morning fall runs, to and from somewhere way out in the sticks. The big rig wasn't going too fast, it must have blown a tire. There was a bunch of ripped rubber shredded along the road. I came around the corner, slowly making my way around pieces of tires, then pieces of truck until there was a log all the way across the road.
    Pieces of the truck cabin were strewn along the wreckage and dumped logs. The pattern of it all made it easier to figure out was I looking at. The truck must have jack-knifed and then the worst thing must have happened. It tore itself apart then the logs finished the job. The cab was pulled underneath the load while everything behind the cab kept rolling forward. Smashing the cab and anything inside it. Tearing it apart as they came to rest. The marks on the road were horribly familiar. My mind's eye saw the man doing his sick dance. A mark I particularly remember was now a gouged piece of road, a log must have done that. Another made by twisted metal that dragged along the road as it came to a stop.
     I took a deep breath, what if there was a survivour and he was waiting for someone to help? Here I was sitting in my pickup and doing nothing. I hopped out and reached behind the seat to find my flash light. Looking at it, I thumbed the on-off switch and out of the corner of my eye, saw that I'd inadvertently pointed it right at the tree. It was four posts down, the man told me that. I had to remember where the circle was at. I shook my head to try and get rid of the rhymes. The circle that I remembered seeing him draw on the road. The fourth post marked something that I didn't want to see, but would. I walked to the side of the road and jumped over the ditch so I cold walk along the fence.

    One. I shined the light around and called out to anyone who might be there.

    Two. Again, I called out. No answer. No noise, but the ticking of an engine block cooling down.

    Three. I swallowed hard. Why was I here?

    Four. The actual circle was straight out from the post along the road. I didn't want to see. Everything telling me to just get in my truck and wait for the police. They dealt with this kind of thing all the time. It was their job. I found my feet moving me to the road, I stepped down into the ditch and up to the gravel surface of the road.
    My hand was squeezing the flashlight so hard that the circle of light was shaking. It shook as it slid along the road, then up and over the log laying there. I had to look over the log, what I saw was horrible. However, when my mind figured out exactly what I was seeing, I started to scream. The reason the cigarette was important came sharply into focus. The skin that wanted to slide off the man's head was here, it was a slow dawning piece of gore. A puzzle your mind had to figure out, then it was a picture you didn't want to see. A mans face that had been sluffed off and dragged away by the architect's work.
        My knees went straight to rubber and I made my way to my truck. I didn't look for anything else, I just needed to get to the truck. In the distance, towards the house, I heard the 4-wheeler come to life, it was screaming down the road. My wife panicked and forgot to shift to a higher gear. She swung onto the main road and slid in behind the pickup. She leapt off and we met beside the pickup's open door. I slammed into her and sobbed into her shoulder. Held her so tight that she had to pry my arms loose so she could get a breath in.
    The horror, the nightmare of what I imagined, legions of things that made shivers go up and down my spine. If I saw the architect's face slide off, that was the only way I comprehended what he was doing. What I would have felt that day, if I saw him drop that cigarette, was exactly what I felt four poles up. My wife kept asking what was wrong, but I couldn't tell her. Just shook my head over and over, I never let her get more than an arm's length away from me.
    For me, it was like that for a good long while. When I did make it to sleep, it was with the lights on.  When I ate, it had to be mechanically, food had lost its taste for a while. What kept bringing me closer and closer to any semblance of real life was being with my kids. My wife being that shoulder to lean on, seeing how I needed to know the good in life again. My family built me back up to a mostly normal life.
    I almost lost all that when the brother of the truck driver came to see me. I didn't tell him everything, but he already knew all that from the reports he got from the police. I relived as little of it as I could while telling him about that night. What helped was him actually telling me the good things about his brother. He even made me laugh a few times. I guess it was mostly those good stories he told me that let me start living a life again. That the thing I saw on the road that night wasn't the whole story, it was a remnant of a good life and a loving person. Someone who, however badly they'd left, was still making people happy.
    So, that's how I got by.
    Sometimes I still think about the man. I wonder how he actually works. I imagine him walking around a hospital with a box full of chalk. Drawing his lines on the floor, making his markings on the walls. Maybe popping a match to see what will stick and what won't. I wonder if anybody else sees him. If they do, I hope they see him as a better man than I did. That he was telling a story of long due respect for the dead. Maybe peaceful. I wonder if he's going to draw for me one day. Maybe my parents. My family. That's when I stop those thoughts dead in their tracks, to worry about those things would be missing what I had.
    Oh, I'd really like to think that maybe he'd have a little mercy on me and mine. Yet, I know his is mostly a story of carnage and death. His is always the story of the end. Of all ends. He wasn't malicious, he wasn't fair, but he was always the horrible truth.

The End.

Author's Note

A story I wrote for the "Story Teller" contest.

Reviews

[lawrence bear]

This was goood. I loved it, an excellent story, had me reading to see what happens. Vivid and well imagined, you sir are a fine story teller.

[Norma M Sutton]

A good story.

[deeps]

Wow! Very descriptive write with wonderful imagery
I like this alot. I love the emotion you put into it.
I love writes that have raw emotion and i kinda felt
this in there. Everything held together well.
I like this. You tell one amazing story.