Parable One: THE ANGRY MOUNTAIN

We can better tolerate all the pain and indignity Life slings at us, if we will but see the hand of the Master at work in us, and believe His hammerblows will result in our perfection...

The Angry Mountain:
Parable One

                 Mountain sat beside the seashore, humming to himself. In his mind, he was the epitome of all things. He was mighty. He was strong. He was eternal.

                What he was, more than anything, was dense. "Dense", in the unflattering sense. He knew little and cared less that he was not in fact eternal, that he had been created and eroded away a thousand times in that same location, that even now, hardly a millenium passed that he was an inch taller or shorter. He was a created thing that lived, and, as all created things, died�but that is a topic for another story.

                Mountain, content within his own self-importance and imagined supremacy, noticed little that went around him. But today was different. He heard a persistent squeak. He was annoyed.

                "Who dares interrupt my lofty contemplations?", he fumed.

                Minutes later (by our reckoning; Mountain, as earlier noted, had little appreciation for, nor indeed, comprehension of Time), he was again interrupted. The squeaking had lessened, but in its place a Pressure, a MOVING pressure, had begun upon his back. It felt not unlike Wood, and Reeds; Mountain knew wood and reeds, as they populated his lower reaches.

                "What trees, what grass stems dare uproot themselves, and move to other locations upon Me without leave?", he muttered.

                Of course, it had not been Trees or Grasses moving upon Mountain's back, but a wheeled cart, pushed by a small man in tattered leggings and sandals made of reeds. The old man, whose few remaining long, white hairs fluttered about his face randomly in Mountain's persistent breezes, had come to Mountain with a purpose. He had brought tools, and meant to carry home a portion of this very mountain.

                Upon reaching a point he found suitable, the old man began to unlimber his cart: the Pickax, the Shovel, the Shears. His cart was not large, for he knew from many such trips (had I mentioned that Mountain had a short attention span, and a shorter memory?) that the trip down, heavy-laden, would be very much harder than the trip up. He began to walk.

                And he walked. And he walked. Then, his steps began to slow, and he arced around to the side, describing a circle that was growing steadily smaller. With the shears, he clipped away some errant vegetation, saw what he had expected to see, smiled, and said, "AH!" He replaced the shears with the pickax, and with surprising strength for one so small, struck.

                "HEY!", Mountain yelped. "That is a most unpleasant sensation! Who dares assault my Person in such a disrespectful manner?"

                But the old man heard him not, and continued with his labor. Presently the Mountain forgot him, as it did most everything, and in short order, the old man was through. Replacing his tools atop the now-loaded cart, he turned to go. The trip downhill was uneventful, despite the occasional half-hearted shale fall Mountain tossed in his path, and soon he was home.

                More accurately, he was at his shop. There, he unceremoniously dumped the fragments of Mountain in a heap beside some others, then retrieved the shovel and began to load them into a cauldron which, when full, was placed within a brick dome containing a patiently stoked and VERY hot flame.

                A word of explanation: Although Mountain-by-the-seashore was miles in the distance, Mountain One is Mountain All, and the fragments both in the pile and in the cauldron Felt, and Knew�At least as much as Mountain himself felt or knew!

                Mountain, for a change, was quite at a loss for words! For though he had known many summers, and many brushfires, and even a few meteors, nothing compared to the persistent, steady, lasting, continuous heat that now oppressed him on all sides. Mustering all his supposed wisdom, he began to speak.

                'This�This is truly odd!", he whined. "My lovely, sharp edges: not so sharp! My hardness: not so hard! My permanence: becoming less permanent!" It was unlike anything he had ever experienced, and if a mountain can be said to be frightened, he was frightened.

                The old man, meanwhile, had repaired to his home for a meal, and a prayer, and a sleep, for he knew that a night and a day would pass ere he need do anything else.

                In the morning, following a breakfast of weak green tea, and a crusty rice loaf with tofu smeared sparingly upon it, the old man returned to his shop. Shedding his bedraggled clothing, all but a loincloth, and replacing it with a well-worn leather apron and long gauntlets, he sidled up to the oven and peered into the cauldron.

                "AH!", he exclaimed. For the fire apparently had been hotter than he knew, and Mountain was ready for the next step. Truth to tell, it was the old man who was ready--Mountain was not ready at all--his consciousness curled up in a small ball in the midst of his now-liquified self, sniveling piteously.

                Hitching his two dogs up to the trolley that bore the cauldron, the old man unbricked the kiln, then asked them to pull. At a certain point, he whispered, "ah-h�", and they stopped. Then, with a practiced smoothness, he grasped the handle with his right gauntlet, and slowly poured out the cauldron's contents. First came the muck, the carbonized bits of dirt and whatnot which had clung to Mountain's sides. Then, the black and red amalgam which was most of Mountain, various granites and basalts, now blended into a slurry. It was at this point that Mountain's consciousness slipped out of the cauldron, into the waiting bowl. He was crying openly now.
                
                "What is becoming of me?", he moaned. ""My lovely cool Earth, all gone! My tenderly probing roots, destroyed! Now, I myself tossed aside like so much�so much�SLAG!" it was the most demeaning day in Mountain's life, insofar as he knew, and his resentment was gaining momentum, as was his anger at the insults being dealt him.

                Yet, slag is precisely what he was, though he could not have known it, for it was what remained in the cauldron, the white-glowing five per cent, that the old man had sought all along. He poured it gingerly into a carefully crafted stone mold, then he waited. He wheeled the slag bowl to the other side of the shop; he unhitched the dogs, rewarding them with the small pieces of dried fugu he had taken from the house for his luncheon, and he waited.

                And he waited. And he waited. While he waited, Mountain's awareness had slyly crept out of the slag bowl and snuck into the mold, for though his resentment was not abated, and his anger was a mighty thing indeed, he was, after all, Mountain, and he deserved to be at the heart of things, not sidelined, and certainly not discarded!

                Then the wait was over. The old man opened a sluice, and allowed ice-cold water from a nearby stream to run into a shallow trough beside his bench. Grasping his tongs in one hand and a small blunt hammer in the other, he flipped the mold over, and the chunk of iron fell into it with a deafening hiss, then quickly grabbed it�AND PLACED IT BACK INTO THE CAULDRON!

                "What is this?!", Mountain roared. "Am I to suffer this same indignity over again?" His fury at this point was quite an electric thing.

                "Ah, ha, ha!", the old man chuckled, for he had often imagined what the mountain might think of this tedious process. Then he took a few fistfuls of a white powder from one jar, a scoop of shiny shards from another, and a whitish blob from a vessel where it was immersed in oil. Placing all these elements back into the cauldron, and the cauldron back into the kiln, again he waited. This time he watched carefully though, as the molten mass changed from one color to another, to another, for it had to be cast at just the right moment.

                Barely two hours or watching and stirring had passed when the old man snatched out the cauldron and tipped it again into the mold, amid much sparking. It lingered only a few minutes in the mold, when he grasped it with the tongs, and slung it onto the bench. He began to hammer. Patiently pounding it out to a uniform thickness, he then folded it in half, and hammered again.

                For your sake, I will not numerate all the times he hammered, folded, reheated, and quenched, hammered, folded, reheated, and quenched. The process, though, took several days. Mountains head (such as it was) was atwirl.

                "Burned! Frozen! Beaten!", he wept. "Wrenched in two! Beaten! Frozen! Burned! I cannot bear it! Oh, most wretched of Mountain am I! Will it never end?" He could not, he WOULD not comprehend what the Other was doing. His anger had crescendoed, and was ebbing. His resentment had become a dull throb in his gut. Finally, his spirit sagging, he relented.

                And it was at that precise moment that it did, in fact, end. For though Mountain had hated every second of the process, every pain, every indignity, had he but seen what was in the old man's mind, he might have borne it with greater grace. The rocky chunks: GONE!, and in their place a fifteen inch iron bar. The bar: GONE!, and in its place a forty-inch placket of carbon-manganese steel. The placket: GONE!, and in its place�well, you'll see!

                Now, with a final tap of his lightest hammer upon the signet chisel; now, with a few more strokes of the cuttlebone sharpening block; now with a final swipe of his lightly oiled chamois, the old man stepped back. His face was grimy, his calloused fingers were blistered, his eyes were wet, and he sighed.

                "ahh-h-h-h�". It was the contented sigh of relief from long labor, of pride in an exquisite job. He donned his Shantung silk gloves now, and gently grasped the shining object between his two hands. Falling lightly to his knees, he pressed it first to his heart, then to his brow, and finally lifted it above his head. The newly-forged Samurai sword was the epitome of his trade, the ultimate perfection of the metalworkers craft, the premier of all objects conceived and executed by the mind of man, the primary function of his life.

Gingerly placing it upon the teak rack his son had carved for it, he repaired to his home for a meal, and a prayer, and a sleep. Tomorrow would be here soon.


Mark Teague
May 11, 2009

Reviews

[Dusty]

What a wonderful fable! The exquisite detail would have bored me on any other piece, but you managed to keep my attention and direct my mind to all new territory... A very creative metaphor... We have all been the mountain at some points in our lives, and I'm sure we all have met the "patient old man"... I look forward to reading more from you!

[R J Askew]

Great stuff, a delightful read. I was taken with the mountain from the start and the story emerged most naturally. I have never wondered what a mountain might think or feel before. And I like the way the mountain was like a lazy old man. And of course mountain lives in the sword and you will go on to tell what deeds he does in his new form, right?

[emmajoy]

Gasping with absolute amazement and admiration! What a wonderful tale - but more like a myth or fable and surely, metaphorical

Not sure about my thoughts about the latter, but felt that the repeated heating, freezing, heating et all was the changes in the history of the earth, how it's laid down in layers, deposits etc. If I'm wrong, apologies, but ..

The mighty mountain, august above all else .. 'It was at this point that Mountain's consciousness slipped out of the cauldron, into the waiting bowl. He was crying ' bothered by Man, both clearly described yet both with an air of mystery - the man turning out to be far more than a sword maker, more a superlative craftsman.

Better stop now, keep going back to read this or that section!

Can you tell that, for me, this is an unusual and fascinating piece of writing!

[Rick Puetter]

Dear Mark,

This is a very nice piece. You have an easy way of telling a story, and that above all else is what pulls the reader in and captures his imagination. This is not to diminish at all the novel concept of the story. That's wonderful too. And the story is so Japanese with the spirit of the Mountain and the humble human going about his task without complaints, just enjoying nature and his work. Nice from conception to finish. A good one, Mark.

Very best regards,

Rick

[Linda Marie Van Tassell]

If not for the craft of your storytelling, this would have been a tedious read. As is, however, it is completely charming. It's a reminder how the struggle makes us stronger and how we need to see things from a broader perspective rather than our only-too-human narrow one. Thank you for the wonderful journey.

Linda Marie

[David Lewis Paget]

Quite a remarkable imagination, Mark, and an obvious knowledge of the iron foundry, and how it works. Interesting to me as my own grandfather was a steelworker at Smith & McLean in Scotland, a hundred years ago. I actually found a movie in the British Museum archives of the foundry in which he worked, and there he was; the grandfather I never met in life, as he'd died eight years before I was born. I found your story very evocative, and certainly interesting enough to drag me along to its conclusion.
David.

[Samuel Dickens]

Bravo Mark! What a fine, imaginative and original piece of writing this is. I found it appealing and satisfying in so many ways. It reached down deep and spoke to the artist and craftsman in me. I didn't know what the old man with the cart was doing at first--cutting rock to sculpt, mining for gold? I didn't know. Then the clues about geography and food told me it was in the orient. Aha! Metallurgy--it had to be! Speaking in parables-- now you know that's an ancient form of teaching. Of course, it did work pretty well for that carpenter. A really good one, Mark.