The Seven Days of Wander

by Broken Walls Publishing

will be true. Though the eyes of bats, they have the wings of lions and the appetites to match. So this becomes the hesitate of spirit. That a man sparks, bursts, becomes a holy pyre of truth, robed in the wind of flames. His hands hold the smoulder of destiny, His eyes red before injustice. Down he plunges amongst his neighbours. Truth as a prophet of doom; of ripped asunder. He must set them all ablaze, marking the evil mould from the waiting tinder.

  He has not the ally of Evil, Time. He must move quickly before the world gathers in its dirt and rolls him under. A cinder of past hope which history marks unfertile. A graveyard of reluctance.

  What was the other that holds a man reluctant for flame? What of this fear and this blindness? What if one were to say to a blindman: 'For all your own, money, wife, child. I will give you sight for one day. At the end of the day it goes but your possessions are not given return'. Now, perhaps, first thought the blind man would be seduced to finally know the shape and colour of all he has felt and brushed. To stride with no reluctance through the streets of the sun. No hindrance at pebbles or turns or flights of up, down.

  But then will not doubts become clever in his brow? Will they not say: 'Why look for the last time on a wife you cannot caress, on a child whose laughter will be driven from your ear? Why a day of joyful squander in the marketplace to purchase colours that will be robbed to the gray of groping? Why give a life for a day, when the life will be doubly bitter because of the day?'

  So the blindman hesitates, ponders and breaks his fast of decision to query: 'A day is too little for so much. What must I give for a life of days?' As if opportunity only knocks at the door of negotiation.

  'Well' we offer 'for that let us trade the eyes of your wife and child will forever remain closed'

  The blindman shouts 'That is too harsh!'

  'Than' we offer 'they will remain open so long as yours remain open. If your

  eyes ever close, for glare or blink or sleep, then theirs shall as well. Permanently. You have only to maintain the sight you have craved all your black years and no harm will come upon them!'

  The blind man whines 'impossible for a man to keep his eyes open for years; sleep alone will pry them shut against his will.'

  We reply 'We offer the impossible: sight to the blind. Should not the payment be equal?'

  The blind man again: 'No, payment should be placed within the cup of the buyer. What would be the cost of a life of half a day sight; half a day blindness?'

  In rebuttal, we give a haughty reply" "Fool and a blind fool! Next you'll ask for the sight of one eye and blindness in the other. Or ask the cost of vision to the right but none to the left. It is not sight which you yearn but the price like a man who calls water wine and keeps old pennies in his cup. Do you think men with vision wake up in morning dew and then begin a great debate over what lies before their resting lids? No, they let the wings of a minds hunt furl open, whether to sour or sweet, bitter or joy. They are instantly upon the path, their feet awakened to the need of pursuit.

  You, are thus a sad worm before the gods of healing. For you wish the assurance of life which no other man can gather.

  Other men have lost wives, children, possessions. Had disease, blindness, death fall upon them and their huddles of care for fare less a reason than returned vision.

  Fool, we could assure sight, not what you see! In seeking a bargain for vision, you have bargained away vision! You have let fear of the shadows overturn hope for the light of day! We leave you to your dimness, a strong man of barter, fumbling your glorious savings in the lap of your cringe!'

  So that is what it is of fear. When fear curls around darkness and barters at the light. Men fear the loss of light when finally received. Better a comfort of eternal, than a brief star of illumination for will not despair be doubled in the new lack? Men fear how long, how much. Men fear for the others that may be lost in darkness, or new darkness as if light is a thing stripped from others close by life a tattered blanket amongst many.

  So this other reluctance. Of men of no future trembled before a future. Men in deep holes who argue the safety, the distance of the ladder. Who fear the passage, the liberation will bring new horror to minds dulled to the creep and snicker of foul limbs and broken teeth. Exacting scholars who have hellish dwells well defined and will stand no point of high look. Crimps of men dropped from the feast, they desire no bondage to make new bread.

  This cruel world has wounded their memory, it is the banner of their cringe, a shield from further slaughter. Like mice, so long as there is no squeak, there is no cat's paw in future.

  so you have the two, King Hindus.

  The mouse who becomes a man and the mice who swirl to his cellar and must be quickly forged to swords before their drool and sweat of fear drinks his flame to dust.

  King Hindus: 'There, the same is the same. The wind is a wind high a low, only the smell or stench varies. There are kings amongst men and torches amongst mice. The cat grieves not for the mice and if the mice envies to be a cat surely that is but to hunt its fellow mice.

  The world remains all a boil in its natural scent, a stew of pulsing blood. That some crave more and many do not is a natural thing seen upon any ant hill.

  If the slave wishes to be free, the guard merciful, the prisoner at large, the poor sated, that is as it should be. For what we wish to be cradles from birth what we are. Just as a bird wishes to fly, so does not learn to climb trees in the flurry of chattering squirrels.

  If those that wish, try and those that try plummet to gardens of pulp that, too is as it should be. For a wish is sacred but a try is obscene. It violates the natural order.

  For all my slaves should wish to be me but death comes a whirling beast should any try. Beggar, Beggar to king your untidy wisdom has gravelled in roots. Nature begs a higher stance. Look up. The tree, the bush, the mountain all grow to a pinnacle of crown. Only dust and sand and ash is equal before the wind.

  And behold, even is that, a thing is done of greater value. For the gardener does not plant the seed in ash or sand. The moist dirt is gathered separate, taken away from its sucking brothers. There to give root into growth, a growth not of equal in unleavened dust.

  Look upon the tree, its lower branches heavy and dark, its lower trunk thick and stiff to bear the weight. Up, up we gaze, the thinning of less, the trunk more subtle to embrace the wind. Till at the top trunk and leave and branch unite in a single glory of flexing height.

  What is the top of the tree, what is the king, the master, the lion? The definition stands alone, unique, the top is that where nothing is higher.

  And how is it that there is no higher? Because all is lower. Nature has a stiffness of logic no philosopher can bend. If you would carve upon this all wishes and desire, equality and uprooting, what absurd trees we malform! To break the lower and pile them to the crown, given the tree bend in a back breaking descent! Or how do we do away with the crown? Crown after crown till we saw at dirt?

  Turn it upside down so the roots breathe fruitless air and the green succumbs to suffocate?

  No the purpose of the tree is to raise the crown. Under the king the limbs flourish, the fruit is ripened. That some is blown away brittle or discarded unripened is no blame upon the master.These are your ones of fear; of reluctance. They were discussed in their unnatural fondles of dreams larger than their own minds.

  Here the duties of kingly crown, to look down and prune the tree for only he knows the fresh wind or the scent of new rain. Their life is to elevate his life and must be willingly to give up their grasp to the trunk as the master will it.

  So let the lower leaflets murmur quiet their wishes but let the only glow be light pouring downward from the crown piercing the noon sun. There can be no other fires lest civilization flare to ask.

  There is a lion for lambs, a king for men, a master for slaves. Things go less bloody when the teeth of the latter do not nip at the toes of the greater.

  Beggar: Forgive me, Highness but your modesty again paints
a lesser picture.

  For the mind of man is not so natural in order as we would grow to believe.

  The great, the kingly begin as the crown. Unusual to picture but true. Elevated thoughts and visions raise them high above dust. Floating as a single stem of sure destiny impervious to any natural huddle of wind or gravity.

  From below, in the dust futile with wish, drenched in dream, this noble beckon is seen. The roots, the men, the rough clay of trunk gather together and rise up to this green waves of moon before night's black curtain.

  See it, oh king, the power of destiny whirling, circling in the dust, gather its purpose. Then rising branch by branch, limb over limb, back and wood crawling like ants over back and wood to assemble this steeple to greatness.

  That all was strewn before is now linked. Linked in the purpose of this great thought, this citadel of vision.

  The king needs only provide the greatest, loftiest, height of his dream, the rest will gather to that. All is limited only by the great man's toll of his bell.

  That this wide note of destiny becomes known only by the swing of the largest hammer and the collect of the largest gong. One does not hang chimes to signal for the gathering of armies.

  The great elevate the meek though in no conscious effort to the meek but rather as the sun turns the trees towards its

  warming life.

  So I say to you, King Hindus, do not