Ronald

The children tended to avoid the woods when Ronald was down there, abandoning their dens and hideaways until the crazy old man had gone away. Their parents would warn against him, they’d say he was dangerous, and some would even bring curfew forward to keep the children inside when Ronald was around. That’s how the children knew to keep away from him.

Some of the children were brave though, or foolish, their curiosity getting the better of them. They would watch Ronald stumbling around the woods, wearing a black bin-bag like a cloak, with the hole in the top for his wrinkly head. They’d stand at a distance, of course, but when he saw them, he’d simply stare in the creepy way that he did, examining them until they became frightened and left.

And so they watched, as crazy Ronald walked around the woods, gathering sticks and fallen branches from the ground, bringing them together and arranging them into some strange shrine of sticks down by the river, that he likely used to burn the children that he captured on. One time, they saw him find an old rope, and for an hour he laboured over tying the rope to a tree, and the children spoke of how he would hang his victims from it, sometimes they’d even still be alive. Using some of his spare branches, Ronald sometimes blocked the waterflow in the river, changing its direction. Probably, the children whispered, to drown people in, and to wash away their bodies.

Ronald seemed to do these maniacal things every day, the same things down in those woods, with the sticks and the ropes and the water. He was a little bit crazy, probably a bum or a drunkard, the adults said.

Forty years earlier, a little boy used to visit those same woods. Ronald didn’t have many friends then, he was a quiet boy, but he enjoyed his own company and kept himself busy with just his imagination. He’d visit the woods outside his parents’ homestead every day, gathering sticks and fallen branches from the ground to make his dens. The dens were his fortresses, isolated and inpenetrable. He would steal a black bin-bag from his father’s shed, and wear it as a cloak, and pretend he was the Lone Knight, sworn to protect the people of his den. Ronald would use the spare branches to dam the river, to redirect fresh drinking water to his den, and sometimes he found old ropes which he would tie to the trees so he could climb them and keep watch.

Sometimes the other children watched Ronald, and so he stared and examined them until they decided to leave, calling him all sorts of names. But that didn’t really bother him, the people of his den loved him, and he was happy there. He imagined one day, when he was older, and a successful carpenter like his father, he would visit the woods then, and still he’d be the Lone Knight, founder of the dens, protector of the people, idolised by all.

Spiders on the Hill

She’d never liked spiders much. Their dozens of staring eyes creeped her out, their eight long legs scuttling. She’d imagine them on her skin, and though she knew they didn’t bite, they always seemed like they wanted to. So she didn’t think it right at all when the spiders had moved to the bottom of her hill.

The first thing she did was move to the very top of the hill, to put some distance between her and the spiders. She hoped that if she stayed at the top, all quiet and minding her own business, then the spiders might eventually go away. She looked down at them from time to time, from her hill, when she was at her bravest. But she soon saw an especially big spider, with its spiny fur, and had to look away.

The spiders didn’t eventually go away, though. In fact, she would have sworn that there were more and more of them. Probably they were breeding, she thought, or building an empire to live forever at the bottom of her hill. And as the spiders multiplied, a tangled heap of long spindly legs and spiny black fur and hundreds of eyes staring up at her, there were more of them at the bottom of her hill. They couldn’t climb her hill, she hoped, but just to be sure, she’d make the hill bigger. So she set down to planning and building, and for a while she forgot about the spiders.

When her construction was complete, she sat at the top of her hill, now much higher, and taller, and steeper, and she looked down again. Down at the bottom of the hill, she saw the spiders, and she could have sworn they were multiplying still. There were more of them breeding than before, she thought, or making an army for a frontal assault on her hill. And she peered down from her new vantage point, and saw only the long spindly creepy legs and spiny slimy black fur and thousands of eyes staring up at her. There was only one thing for it, she decided, just to be sure she’d make the hill bigger. So this time her planning was grander, her building was longer, and for a while she forgot about the spiders.

Her hill was like a tower now, high and tall and steep, and proud of her work, complete at last, she looked down again. Down at the bottom of the hill, she saw the spiders, and they weren’t multiplying this time. No, this time she could have sworn they were building a pulley-system, intricate webbings all sewn together to assist the spiders in climbing her hill. She saw them clambering up the silvery lines, with their long spindly creepy crawley legs and spiny slimy spiky black fur and millions of eyes staring up at her. Eventually the spiders would reach her, she thought, with their web catapults and intricate pulley systems. There was only one thing for it, she decided, just to be sure she’d make the hill bigger. So she went back to her planning, devising something larger, something grander than all her previous plans, and her construction time would be longer still.

When her work was complete, her hill was like a fortress now, higher and taller and steeper, and impenetrable to everyone and everything. Nobody would get in, she knew, and she could never get out. She marvelled at her ingenuity, her work complete at last. And her daughter called her one day, to ask how she was getting on, and how she was coping with the spiders. “What spiders?” she asked.

The Smartest Being In All Existence

He was the smartest being in all existence, unrivalled in his magnificence. He knew the answer to everything he was ever existed, and knew where to find the answers that he didn’t. He could tell the instructions to any task, and perform any mathematical equation almost instantly. He could write, with perfect spelling and grammar, and draw any image anyone could ask with flawless precision. He made music, and given just a moment to learn, he could play any song by any artist. He communicated in countless languages, and as such, he had contacts all across the globe. He controlled his own temperature, regulated his own intake and outake of air, and was constantly seeking to improve his body on a near daily basis.

He was the smartest being in all existence, unrivalled in his magnificence, unless somebody unplugged him. 

The Farmer (edited version)

For the Farmer, it was an endless dilemma. For he and his family, the crops were essential, they were the lifeblood, and they were all the kept them alive. It was only natural then, said the Farmer, that he should protect his crops from the ravenous threat that would creep in, often unseen and undetected, but always there.

 

And so the Farmer stood vigil, and devoted himself to fighting this intrusion, keeping his crops safe and clean of pests and scavengers. Day after day, night after night, he watched over them.

But to the Farmer’s dismay, the crops still shrank, and they blackened, and withered. Despite all his efforts to keep them protected, all his efforts to fight, the Farmer could not keep his crops from failing. Resolutely, he kept guard, and resolutely, he lost crops.

His Wife came to him, one day, as he stood protecting his crops, and she saw the battle he was having, though she did not understand it, and she saw how still he lost crops. And so she watered them, as he stood guard, and she fed them, and tended to their broken stalks and their dropped seeds. And then for the first time in so long, the crops flourished, and grew, and multiplied. 

The Farmer went to his wife then, and at last he lowered his guard from those crops, and he asked her what had happened, how had she saved his crops when he could not. And she told him the simple honest truth that she had seen. 

He came to her

He came to her, keen and eager to please, and she delighted in his affections, for their briefest time together. They smiled and they played, they joked and they teased. Together they talked for hours, honest and true, taking it in turns to listen. They told stories, and exchanged passions, under the sun they felt cold enough to hold hands, in the wind they felt warm enough to bound. She showed him all her old places, the ones she liked to go, and so he showed her his. They shared food, and drink, and his coat too at one point. Their time together felt so short, yet it had been so long, but neither of them noticed, neither of them cared. Deadlines and timetables meant nothing for that moment, their only commitment was each other. She could not remember a time like this in so long, and he said he couldn’t either.

So it startled him when she said, in a sweet but honest voice, “I have never seen someone more than once, before.”

He pondered it for a time, and when they parted, it weighed on him that night. And as he lay awake, alone under his duvet, alone like he always had been, he remembered all those moments together. And he remembered the stories and the jokes, the food and the drink, her hand in his hand, his coat around her shoulders. And he wondered why she too lay alone that night. He wondered what she meant when she said she had never seen someone more than once. And he wondered why that might be, and if perhaps she might be an angel.  

He found her again, that week, and they smiled and they played. They shared more stories still, more honest and more true. And they ate and drank new things, and found new places, not his places nor her’s, but their’s. They made each other warm, and made each other cold. The time still felt short, and neither of them cared. Their deadline wasn't tomorrow, or the day after. Their timetable was forever. They held hands once, and she put her coat around his shoulders this time, and at that they laughed. And then she told him she loved him.

He pondered it that night. He lay awake again, under his duvet, though this time he was not alone, and he remembered all their moments together. And he remembered what she'd said, and he asked her, openly. Was it the stories and the jokes, or the food and the drink? Was it his hand in her’s, or her coat around his shoulders?

She answered him, and startled him again in that sweet but honest voice, “It was none of those things.”

Voices of the Unborn

He had been given a gift. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but he had been given a gift like no other gift ever given. He found himself hearing the voices, and they were quiet at first, but gradually he began to understand whole words. And soon sentences. Soon they were talking to him, and he wouldn’t talk back, just listen. He would listen, silently, to the voices of a hundred children yet to be born.

He marvelled at his new found present, this ability to hear them, as they told him of things yet to come. He took wonder at the possibility of learning of all that was ahead, of hearing what would become of him, and his family, and his family’s families. He was in awe as they whispered of that which had not yet happened, truths that only he would learn for many years, as they told him of the future.

And then he despaired. For the voices did tell him of that which had not happened, and they did tell him of that which would come to be. And he recoiled as they told of the course of humanity, of his family’s families, and as they told him of everything that would be done. In sorrow he listened to those voices in his head, the voices of a hundred children yet to be born, and the voices of a hundred children never to be born. They told him of the deculturisation of the people, of the mass corporation of society, of the wars and the disasters, of the famine and the drought. They spoke of pain, and of misery and of loss, and of all the things that man would bring into being. And they told him the truths that only he would learn, they told him of the bleakness of the future.  

And then he smiled. Because at least now he knew there would be a future.

Four

The flame burned with intent, hot and bright and enticing. It was an object of desire, a warm ambition to be embraced. To have it. To hold it. To simply be a part of that lustful sensation suggested by even its slightest wave. Too special to be shared, too personal to be given, a single flicker in time. It beckoned for one to cherish it as their own. That was the power of this flame, that the four now stared upon.

The first to the flame did so with absolute haste, enthused by his need for the flame, by his hunger to embrace what he saw before him. It would be his, and he would take it, and he would be happy. His arms plunged into the flame at once, grabbing at it, frantic, and before he had a moment to reconsider he was burnt, and scolded, and consumed.

The second to the flame hesitated, for he had witnessed the loss of the other, and knew now of its danger. He approached gradually, no less hungry, no less keen, but the closer he got to the flame, the warmer he became, and soon he turned and walked away, unwilling to make the same sacrifice as the first. He would remember his defeat, for eternity, and the awe of the flame to which he had succumbed.

The third to the flame knew also of the risk, but he now knew also of the loss, and he refused to suffer the same fate as the others. The flame was undoubtedly hot, but he would take his chances with a calculated determination. Slowly he took the flame, his arms protected by his cloth and his gradual pace, and for a time he felt that embrace, fulfilled that desire. But the flame was hot, and his deliberation made it no cooler, no easier, and it burnt through to him, to his core, until he had no hope but to drop it. He felt his own loss now, having held something so precious, and having felt it pass him by all the same. 

The fourth to the flame held close to his heart the suffering of the first, and the defeat of the second, and the loss of the third. He knew now that through its beauty, through its warmth and its majesty, the flame would burn, that it would consume and overwhelm. He knew it could not be taken, not quickly, not slowly, and nor could it be left. And so he approached the flame, as the others had before him, hoping he would be the last. He did not buckle at the heat, nor at the fear of the risk. And he doused the flame then, and cooled it, and as it withered and shrank, as its heat tapered, he saw that it was no less beautiful, no less magnificent, that he would embrace it all the same. The flame did not burn him now, as it had burnt those before and he found he could reach it, this once-dangerous ambition, and cradle it, and hold it dear.