Thirteen Ways to Water

by Bruce Holland Rogers

  Containing only air:

  Except the air was absent and

  The pail, it wasn’t there.

  How long this lasted none could say

  As none was quite aware.

  The absence finally ceased to be,

  It simply couldn’t last,

  When Something suddenly arrived

  From nowhere with no past.

  No one was there to measure it,

  But it was Something vast.

  The stars bunched into galaxies,

  The land cooled and congealed;

  The sun shone bright and tartly

  Like a lemon that’s been peeled,

  When two came walking close at hand

  Across the cosmic field.

  The Tiger and the Engineer,

  Who trod the new-made ground.

  Saw absence in the Somethingness:

  “There’s still not much around!”

  They said, “If there were more to this,

  We’d find it more profound.”

  The Engineer, whose task it was

  To supplement Creation,

  Began to work, though at his back,

  With equal application,

  The Tiger stalked to bring his works

  To their annihilation.

  Said he, “We need some mountains

  To enhance the flat horizon.”

  The Tiger said she quite agreed,

  So Engineer devised ’em.

  Then with her massive sweeping tail

  The Tiger pulverized ’em.

  “And if there were some trees about,

  Now wouldn’t that be grand?”

  So Engineer arranged for some

  To sprout out of the sand.

  The Tiger gave each trunk a swat

  That no tree could withstand.

  Then for a while the Tiger walked

  Most peaceably behind,

  While Engineer was raising up

  Two things of every kind,

  From fish to frogs to chimpanzees,

  And then, at last, mankind.

  The Earthly population swelled;

  The Tiger was astounded.

  “And now we’ll dance a merry dance,”

  The Engineer expounded,

  “To celebrate fecundity

  And all that we have founded.”

  Hand in paw and paw in hand

  They circled as they sang,

  “Not long ago was nothing,

  Now we’ve got the whole shebang,

  From shoes and ships and sealing wax

  To Finland and meringue!”

  “The time has come,” the Tiger said,

  “To focus our attention

  On how this crowd will grow and grow

  Without some intervention.”

  The Engineer considered this

  With growing apprehension.

  “Why not let them multiply

  And swell and grow forever?

  These recent ones, the hairless apes

  Are marvelously clever.

  They’ll entertain us endlessly:

  Just see how they endeavor!”

  And it was true, these human things

  Were good at clever tricks.

  They dressed themselves in ostrich skins,

  Built Taj Mahals with bricks;

  They learned to ski and parachute

  And light cigars with Bics.

  “I’m tempted some,” the Tiger said,

  “To do as you suggest,

  And let them cover all the globe,

  Key Largo to Trieste.

  The counter argument is this:

  They’re easy to digest.”

  With her great paw, the Tiger snatched

  A recent generation,

  Chewed it up and swallowed it,

  And said with some elation,

  “With claw and tooth I engineer

  Creation’s cancellation.”

  Just what she meant to say by that

  Was in a moment clear,

  For in a gulp she ate the anti-

  Podal hemisphere.

  She ate the ground they stood upon;

  She ate the Engineer.

  When she had swallowed all the Earth,

  She took a bite of Mars,

  And when she finished chewing that

  She swallowed up the stars.

  The Tiger then was singular,

  Which briefly felt bizarre.

  “A Tiger ought to finish what

  A Tiger starts to do,”

  That’s what she said, and bit her tail,

  And ate herself up, too.

  Thus begins a Universe,

  And thus it bids adieu.

  On that last word, Tweedledee disappeared, and with him, Tweedledum. In their place was a man in black armor. He wore a helmet in the shape of a horse’s head, and in his arms was a large bundle of rags.

  “Well, here I am, to the rescue,” he said.

  “What’s that?” said Julian, nodding at the bundle. “A parachute?”

  “Perhaps rescue was the wrong word,” said the Black Knight. “What I should have said is, ‘Here I am, reliably.’”

  “Oh,” said Julian. “So that’s who you are.”

  As they fell, the wind began to unwind the rags, which weren’t rags, really, but one piece of cloth. A shroud.

  “Tell me,” said Julian. “Tell me why.”

  “Lots of reasons,” said the Knight. “There are poems and songs about it. You should know.”

  “I want your opinion,” Julian said. “I want your version.”

  “Well,” said the Knight, “there is a song that I’m particularly fond of. If you’d like to hear it.”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “So you did,” said the Knight. And he sang:

  I met a sickly, sickly man

  Upon his bed a-lying:

  I tapped him with a two-by-four

  And asked why he was dying.

  “See here,” I said, “I want to know

  What is your soul’s intention?”

  I asked because it mattered, though

  I failed to pay attention.

  He said, “I die because the whales

  Who swim the salty waters

  Won’t introduce me to their wives,

  Much less unto their daughters.

  And so I die of loneliness

  for love I never knew,

  The floaty whale-ish sort of love

  That might my life renew.”

  But I was thinking of a plan

  To dig a hole so deep

  Insomniacs could hurtle down

  And safely fall asleep.

  This hole would open at each end,

  A metaphor for living.

  Distracted thus, I had to shout,

  “What answer were you giving?”

  He coughed a bit, and then he wheezed,

  “I’ll tell you if I must,

  The likes of me is never pleased

  To linger here as dust.

  I’m meant for finer things, you know,

  I’m made in God’s own image.

  I’ll live on as a concept, say,

  A quark or line of scrimmage.”

  But I was puzzling out a means

  Of earning higher wages

  By building artificial Queens

  For London’s daily pages.

  “See here!” I said, “You make me feel

  I’m wasting all my breath!

  Now tell me how it is you die.

  And why life ends in death!”

  He said, “The answer’s plain enough,

  You needn’t holler so.

  I’ll tell you how it is we come

  And why we have to go.

  Life is a rope of broken pearls

  That once was painted green,

  It’s carried by a pair of girls

  Who stop sometimes to preen.

  “The butter that they wa
lk upon

  Spews from eternal churns,

  The pearls glow like the pages

  Of a novel as it burns.

  And so, you see, simplicity

  Requires that our lot

  Be that we exit, when we must,

  With only what we brought.”

  For once I followed what he said,

  Since I had finished thinking

  About a poison that would cure

  The ills of too much drinking.

  I thanked him much for telling me

  His insights into dying.

  He said it was a piece of cake,

  Then did it without trying.

  “I suppose,” Julian said, “that’s as satisfactory an answer as I’m going to hear.”

  “I haven’t heard any better,” said the Knight, “and I’ve heard them all, believe me.” The blowing shroud knocked his helmet slightly askew, but he didn’t rearrange it. “Any time you’re ready,” said the Knight, “you can reach out and grab my hand.”

  “And if I’m not ready?”

  “Then sooner or later,” said the Knight, “I’ll reach out and grab yours.”

  The shroud continued to unwind and at last ripped free in the wind. Anna’s body, curled up like a baby’s, rested in the Black Knight’s arms; the fingers of his right hand twined with hers.

  Julian reached out to stroke Anna’s hair and tuck a flying strand behind her ear. He thought of the end of a different poem, a poem about another woman dying. He’d heard the first lines of it just recently. In ended like this:

  We waited while She passed—

  It was a narrow time—

  Too jostled were Our Souls to speak

  At length the notice came.

  She mentioned, and forgot—

  Then lightly as a Reed

  Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—

  Consented, and was dead—

  And We—We placed the Hair—

  And drew the Head erect—

  And then an awful leisure was

  Belief to regulate—

  “That’s a good one, too,” said the Black Knight. Julian hadn’t known he was speaking the lines aloud.

  “Contrariwise,” said Julian, “they’re all good. It’s not a question of which poems to say. It’s a question of saying enough of them enough times.”

  The Knight was silent for a bit and then said, “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to, did I?” said Julian.

  “Didn’t ask me to what?” said Anna’s mother. She had gotten up to tuck a strand of Anna’s hair into place, then returned to her chair next to Yvonne.

  Julian’s leg tingled. It was falling asleep. He shifted Nick on his lap and said, “For something to drink,” Julian said. “How about some juice? Nick, that sound good to you?”

  Nick nodded with his whole body, head and shoulders going in opposite directions. “Apple juice!”

  “Yvonne?”

  His daughter sat very still in her chair, looking at her mother’s lifeless face. She had known that her mother was dying. It had been explained to her many times. But it was clear that she didn’t know what to do with the event now that it had arrived. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t asked any questions.

  “Yvonne? Some juice?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Anna’s mother left the viewing room.

  Julian took his daughter’s hand in his. She didn’t respond. Julian followed her gaze to the place where Anna lay.

  Julian squeezed Yvonne’s hand and sang a single note three times: “Mi, mi, mi.”

  Yvonne kept staring straight ahead. Julian withdrew his hand, bounced Nick on his knee and sang,

  Ring around the rosie,

  Pockets full of posy,

  Ashes, ashes,

  We all fall down!

  Yvonne looked at him. Julian started the song over, and Nick struggled to get out of his lap. Julian set him down.

  “Ashes, ashes,” Julian sang, and Nick started to dance. He collapsed on cue, then said, “Do it again!”

  “And again and again,” Julian promised. And to his daughter, he said, “If you want to, you can help me sing.”

  Nick sang, “Rosie, rosie!”

  Yvonne smiled a little, then stopped smiling.

  “If you want,” Julian said.

  And then he repeated the song, singing it as if it were the song that Nick thought it was, a song about playing on the grass in a circle. But Yvonne was old enough, knew enough now, that she might be able to hear what was really in the words. It was in the words of so many songs. But not enough. New songs were needed all the time, and they needed singing again and again.

  You’ve got to go deeper in, Julian thought, to get further out.

  “Ashes, ashes,” he sang, “We all fall down.”

  And on the next verse, his daughter joined in.

  Introduction to “The Brass Man Who Would Sink”

  In the heyday of pulp fiction, some contributors to the various magazines were so prolific that they might have three or four stories in the same issue. The editors disguised such frequent contributors with fake bylines so that readers wouldn’t know that one writer had written half of the contents. The editors who bought “Heart of Shanodin” wanted to use “The Brass Man Who Would Sink” in the same anthology, so this story first appeared under the byline of Hanovi Braddock.

  The Brass Man Who Would Sink

  In olden times, when the sun was whiter and the stars were brighter and but one moon hung in the sky, there lived a miller whose son was as handsome as his mother was poor. And poor the miller was indeed, for the stream that drove her mill had little by little and year by year dried up. Now it was only a trickle, and far from the flow needed to turn the great grinding wheel. The miller’s neighbors carted their harvest far away to have it milled. The miller grew so poor that soon all that was left to her were the mill and the cherry tree behind it.

  Though she was poor, the miller wanted the best for her son. Only a rich suitor would do for him. When a farm girl came courting with her family and a bouquet of wildflowers, the miller and her husband drove them off.

  “But mother, I know of her,” said the miller’s son, picking up the flowers the young woman had dropped. “All say she has an honest heart, a quick mind, and a gentle hand. With her I might know the Delight of Two Hearts.” For he was a pious lad, and the Delights of the Prophets were more in his mind than were any thoughts of riches.

  But the miller would not be moved. Her son would live in a rich house, not some farm house. Her husband was not quite so sure. There was much to be said for the Delight of Two Hearts. Had not he and the miller found such happiness? But though he had some say in the matter, her word was final.

  One day, as the miller’s husband was walking home from the forest with a load of wood on his back, he met a party of hunters. Among them were the lady of the nearby lands and an even more richly dressed woman whom the miller had never before seen.

  “Cutting wood. There’s a labor I’m happy never to have done,” said the lady, making a sour face.

  “Would that I never had to do it again, madam,” said the miller’s husband. “I must cut wood these days to earn our bread. I’d give anything to be free of such toil.”

  “You’re the miller’s husband, are you not? Do you speak with the voice of your household? If you mean what you say, I can see to it that you need never labor so again. I’ll exchange these rings on my fingers and a heavy bag of gold for what’s behind your mill.”

  What could the lady mean but the cherry tree? The miller’s husband eagerly agreed, the bargain was written and signed, and the lady dropped her heavy gold rings with their heavy great jewels, plop, plop, plop into the husband’s hands.

  To the husband, the lady said, “In a month, I’ll bring the gold and come for what’s mine.” Then to the richly dressed stranger, she added, “Justiciar, you have born witness.”

  “I have,” sa
id the justiciar, adjusting her robes, “and the weight of the law seals this bargain.”

  The husband arrived home rejoicing, and the miller sang out in delight when she saw the rings with their great gems. “But what did you give in the exchange?” she said.

  “The lady asked only for what’s behind our mill. That cherry tree is certainly something we can do without!”

  The miller laughed. “What would she want with a cherry tree? Husband, she can’t have meant that! Our son was behind the mill, airing out the bedclothes.”

  The husband went white with this news.

  “Come, come,” said the miller. “It’s a good bargain after all. Our son will live a rich life as the lady’s consort. We’ve provided for him well.”

  “For his body, perhaps, but not for his heart,” said the husband, who knew his son.

  He was right. The son, upon hearing the news that he would be a lady’s keepling, flew into a rage. He stormed out of the mill house and into the forest, and none of his father’s commands or entreaties would bring him back.

  The son marched deep into the forest, and then deeper still, further than he had ever gone before. At last he came to a clearing where there sat a pile of stones and a great clump of bushes. The young man was tired of walking by then but he was still full of fury. One by one, he picked up the stones and hurled them at the bushes.

  Whoosh! went the first stone as it scattered green leaves. Whoosh! went the second. Clang! went the third.

  Now there’s a mystery, the young man thought, and curiosity overcame his anger. He parted the branches of the bushes, and what should he find but a man of brass? The metal figure stood at attention like a soldier, and had stood so long that it was sinking into the earth. Everything below the knees was already under ground.

  “A little enchantment might make a great warrior of you,” the young man said, “but I don’t see what use a warrior is to me.” And he walked slowly homeward, his anger spent, but his sorrow enduring.

  He did not come out of the forest quite the same way that he’d gone in, so found himself crossing ground he’d never walked before. As night fell, he lost his way, but he saw a little square of yellow light and made for it. It was the window of a woodswoman’s hut. I’ll ask directions here, he thought, and he opened the door.

  Inside was a very, very old woman, whose head bobbed constantly up and down and whose hands shook like leaves in the wind. She was tending a fire that did not smoke.

  “Many pardons,” the young man said. “Do you know the way to the mill house?”