STORIES FOR THE PEOPLE

On top of a lonely hill, stood an inn.  Inside, the fire crackled and danced, throwing a dim glow into the shadows. A low murmur of conversation harmonised with the groan of the wind outside, while the rain drummed on the dirty windows. On occasion, the door shuddered open and another weary, frozen traveller collapsed into the room.

“Close the door!” “Get him to the fire.”

There was a comradery here, between those who sheltered from the storm. The landlady kept them well fed and watered while they huddled for warmth and she listened closely as they told their winding tales, only to pass the time.  Eventually, most would drift off into the corners of the inn to sit round and whisper amongst themselves. 

Tonight though, they were unsettled. Furtive glances were cast toward the fireplace, where a man sat alone in silence. He had little with him: one small, sodden wet bag and the clothes frozen on his back. The frost in his tangled hair was starting to melt, dripping down his face in cold rivulets.

“I’ve asked everyone. No one saw him on the road. He came from nowhere.” Claimed one of the whisperers.

“He must be one of those wanderers” said another, “they range these mountains day and night. They don’t feel the cold… and they’re dangerous”.

“No, no, he just got lost, and he’s gone mad. You can see it in his eyes.”

The gossip went on and on, getting steadily wilder and more outlandish. The man seemed not to notice. He just stared into the fire and rubbed his hands together in slow circles.  Eventually, the whisperers conspired to produce a champion, who rose above their drunken babbling and separated away, floating toward the lonely traveller with a proud, though unstable gate. He dumped himself on the closest stool and swayed there for a long moment, until with a great heave he righted himself and leant forward to fix the traveller with the steeliest glare he could muster.

“We want t’ know who y’are”, he growled. The response was silence.

“And where yeh come from.”

Silence.

“Look pal, you look conspi…. conspic… conspiculorous. And we need t’ know who y’are Fo’ mootual safety’s sake, y’see?”

The traveller didn’t flinch.  The champion felt uneasy, as if the silence this man exuded was an insult to him. Besides, all the whisperers were watching, and whispering.

“Right!” He yelled, standing up mightily, “You gonna tell me your goddam name, or I’ll smash yeh skull in!” He was a hog of a man, squat and burley. His scarred face told of many bar brawls, and it twisted with anger as his fist rose.

“Sit down” said a voice behind him, firmly.  

The man whirled around snarling. But immediately his shoulders went lax and he stepped back, almost tripping on the bar stool. The landlady was staring him down, sternly. The whisperers were sniggering at him now and he thought for a moment of lashing out. But he didn’t. He bowed his head and shuffled away.

There was a clink as the landlady placed a glass of whisky before the traveller.  One sharp look and all the whisperers turned away and busied themselves with talk of nothing, taking care not to look around. “Drink up, this will warm you through”. The man finally moved, lifting the glass and draining it in one. His face creased and he flicked his eyes across to the landlady. “Lights a fire in your belly, doesn’t it?” He nodded. Turned back to the fire. Rubbed his palms.  

The landlady frowned. “Well keep your silence then! But you’ll pay for the drink.”

“I’ve nothing to pay with.” His words were dry; his lips had hardly moved.

“Yes you do. We don’t deal in coins here, we deal in stories. All the folks here swap stories for their food, their drink, their bed for the night.”

“Then I’ve nothing to pay with”.

“Well then.” Two shadows had appeared by her shoulders, “it’s back to the storm for you. It’s hungry tonight.” The wind was moaning outside. He shivered and leaned closer to the fire. “Hope casts a long shadow” he murmured. The landlady smiled with veiled impatience. “So you’ll tell us a story about false hope? We have those aplenty here.”

“I chased her all the way here. But she’s not here.”

“Ah, unrequited love, always my favourite”.  He turned to give her a withered stare. “I saw her footprints in the mud. I heard her laughter, always just over the brow of the next hill. I ran, but could never catch her. I ran so far, so fast. I didn’t eat, I never drank. The storm was always at my heels. The ground tripped me again and again. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.”

The man paused. His lips trembled and his shoulders hunched. He spoke quietly, “And as I chased her, I too was chased.”

Some undertone in his voice made the landlady frown andglance to the window. It revealed nothing but darkness. A prickling sensation slowly crept up the back of her neck. But she knew that while the whisperers dared not stare, their ears were turned towards the scene, so she breathed, gathered herself, and said with authority “you still owe me a story.”

She knew the man would speak. Once begun, it was impossible to hold back a story in this place, it flowed from everyone like rivers in flood. So, she waited, observing the man intently, watching the rhythm of his breath, the slight twitches in his hands, the way his eyes followed the flames. All of sudden she ordered: “Tell me the story. The story of who you chased. Ofwhat chased you. And of what you found.” Hertiming was perfect, her words filled with gravitas, and from his lips it flooded out.

“We met unexpectedly one spring day. I was alone in a crowd, listening to a great teacher who spoke of the wonders of the mind. She appeared next to me with a smile like droplets of water glimmering on a rose petal. By, she was beautiful. She asked the teacher a question he could’t answer, then laughed, took me by the hand, and led me away”.  He paused, then muttered: “until I met her, I had been lost, drifting, searching.”

“What for?” The landlady interjected.

“I didn’t know, but I thought I would know when I found it.”

“And you found it in her.”

“No, but with her being lost didn’t matter. I was content with her, talking of life and love, not doing, only being. No, I was more lost with her than ever, but I loved to be lost…”

He paused, and as if on cue the fire popped and crackled loudly.

“But she never seemed wholly at peace, and I would often wake to find her gone. She always returned, full of kind words and a soft touch. But as time went by, she looked to the horizons more, listening to something only she could hear. And then, one morning, she was gone, and I knew she was’t coming back.”

The landlady leant back, tapping on the empty glass as if to urge him on.  He sighed, glanced over to her, and continued.

“Then he started coming to me. It was as if a great, invisible cloud descended over my mind and my heart needled with fear. I only ever glimpsed him in the corner of my eye: a great, shaggy blackness. The Dread.”

“A black ‘dread’?” Inquired the landlady, “what, a ghost?”

He shook his head. “No, not that.  One day he revealed himself, leaning against a tree, laughing. “How stupid you are” he said, “how useless”.  I turned away and curled up, squeezing my eyes tight, but his laughter rang louder and louder in my ears, mocking me. I screamed and ran. I ran and ran and ran, blindly, terrified, turning this way and that through the tangled underbrush that clawed at my skin, the acrid smell of him in my nostrils, dripping down my throat”.

“And you fled here?”

“No, no… I came here looking for her. I’ve been searching, day after day across the moors, then the hills, then the mountains. On dark nights when I built small campfires to rest, he would drift around me in the murky darkness, seething with malice… I thought she had come this way, but she’s not here… have you seen her?”

The landlady didn’t answer. He turned back to the fire breathing heavily. The landlady was tense, and she demanded: “but tell us the rest. Where is she now? And what of this Dread you speak of?”

“I cannot answer you.”

“Then you still pursue her? And he you?”

His silence answered the affirmative. The landlady was sharp as a fox frightened by a wolf. She spoke to him now, slowly and deliberately: “then your story is not finished. It’s still going on, here and now… do you know the danger you’ve brought? You are pulling us all in…”

The whisperers were silent. No one spoke and most turned to look nervously toward the fire lit corner. Some stood and quietly started to shuffle towards the door. The old champion melted into the background, relieved that he had retreated when he did.

“Where is your Dread now? Do I need to bar the doors?”

“He’s here, now”, his voice shook.  The whisperers inspected each other uneasily, they were a gathering of strangers and any one of them could be a daemon in disguise.  But the interviewer did not look anywhere but the man. “Where?” she demanded.

“There, at the back, he came in with the wind”. All looked to where he did: at an apparently empty, shadowy corner where the stone wall was crumbling. “Son, there’s nothing there.” He glared at her, “don’t mock me!” he cried, “he’s blocking your senses! He’s right there. There! He’s smiling at me. Leering at me. And he’s waiting, until you all turn away. He’ll come for me then.”

The landlady nodded to herself knowingly. She slowly traced a figure of eight on the old wooden table and pondered her memories. Memories of the countless other travellers she had talked with, of the many stories they had told her. And with a deliberate pace, she began to interrogate the man’s fearful mind.

“I suppose tomorrow, when the storm passes, you’ll go on to chase the woman. And he’ll chase you.”

“Whether or not the storm passes, I will go.”

“And the next day the same?”

“Yes.”

“And the next?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ll follow this road, as you have done, as long as it takes, forever chasing, always being chased?”

“Dammit, yes, yes and yes!”

“But son, no-one saw you on the road. You didn’t come here the same way as everyone else. What did the road look like?”

“The storm was behind me and she was ahead.”

“Yes but what of your way? What did you see? Who did you speak with?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I don’t remember that! There was none of it. Only me, the storm, the chase, and him behind me.”

She turned and called to the whisperers, who were all still and listening with great intent. “Who else has walked that road before?” At first, there was silence. Then several hands rose slowly, nervously.

“But how could they? How would they know? I remember nothing! Only the fear and the chase.”

“And the fragile hope for what you chased ahead, and the fear of what chased you?”

“Yes!”

“And the despair of what you left behind? And the wish that you could go backward, not forward, to be in that time and that time would stand still?”

“Well… yes.”

“You have no idea how many stories I have collected from others, that were set on that very same road.” The man appeared confused, his eyes glancing back and forth between the interviewer and the corner of the inn that he dreaded so. She leant forward and lowered her voice, so that only he could hear.

“There was one who came this way recently, a month ago I think, or maybe it was yesterday.  A woman who said she had been chasing a man, who she had once met quite unexpectedly and fallen deeply in love with. A man who one morning had left her all of a sudden, though she had always known that one day he would. She had chased him over the downs and the mountains. She said he had always been just out of sight, so she followed his footsteps and the sound of his singing ahead. And she too had been chased by a dark thing. She said it ate her thoughts and spiked at her heart.”

“You don’t mean…” the man’s entire face expanded, his eyebrows raising, eyes widening, mouth agape. “But how… how could she have chased me as I chased her, each of us to the same place. And for me to arrive and her to be absent?”

“Time and place are fickle when it comes to matters of the heart, and that’s all that need be said. She went on, taking the road to the north”.

“But I came this way, the road came from the west and turned at this place south. There was no road to the North!”

“Not for you. Only for her.”

“But she’s in danger! If she’s pursued by this dark thing I must find her and save her, protect her from it!”

“She’s not, not anymore. She left it behind when she took her road. The dark thing ate fear, and when she stopped running for fear of what she would lose, she was no longer chased. That road took her away from the old story and into a new one.”

The man was speechless. He grasped for words but they danced away before he could touch them. And they all sat there, unmoved; the man frozen, the landlady tracing her figure of eight on the table, the whisperers holding their breath, the Dread, seething in the corner. The storm’s wails began to quieten and the drumming of the rain steadied to a gentle pitter-patter. The sun was rising, illuminating the southern road. The man finally looked past the confines of the inn, and his eyes lingered longingly on it. He saw things on the southern horizon he could not quite make out, but only he could see.

“Walk out young man. My shadows and I will hold your Dread here, where stories end. He won’t follow you on that road. Walk out and smell the flowers, listen to the birds, each moment think of the next footstep and the beauty that surrounds you.”

The man was as if released, his body unfrozen. He rose, lifted his bag and strode out past the landlady, past the whisperers and into the dawn.

Not once did he look at his Dread. But the landlady did, looking straight into its eyes with a steely stare. “Well done, old teacher. Now, go teach another”.