by Mike Barnes
And a happy one, it seems; no longer restless, or at least not in the old sea-churning way. He has taken his father’s place in the fishing boat, and, though not the fisherman his father was—and too old ever to learn so much—his own knowledge of the sea and its creatures serves him decently, and with his still-strong body and stubborn will, he brings home enough to keep them fed. His brother, though mostly confined to the hut now, still mends nets, their own and others, and takes in other sewing work (the rich men send him what they can, under others’ names). Working together, the brothers have repaired the sagging hut and reclaimed the neglected garden. Their mother no longer works; though gladdened to see her boys under one roof again, without her husband, she is aging rapidly.
Often, after a day of rowing and hauling nets, when supper is done, the former pirate takes his spade and walks to some part of the pebbly beach that stretches around the great bay. When he is out of sight of the village, he finds a place that is new to him, with some new angle on the sea and the orange fireball sinking into it. Pulling solitude around him like a cloak, he turns over sand and pebbles in a slow, meditative rhythm, accented with eager flurries when the spade strikes something hard.
He believes himself alone, but his friends live high enough to see him. They see everything in the village, and in coves and villages far beyond this one. Looking down from one terrace or the other, they watch the slowly digging figure, darkening as the night comes on. The words they trade are the thoughts of an old conversation, which hardly varies except in the part taken by either man.
“A sad sight,” one will begin. Let it be the richest pirate this time.
“Is it?” the second richest pirate will answer. And, after a pause, go on: “What was the best time of your life?”
“That’s easy,” says the richest pirate. “It was every Saturday before I found the treasure the sprites promised me.”
“And for me it was Friday,” says the second richest pirate. “That was when my blood raced. Waiting for treasure was the best. Not knowing when I would find it, and planning how I would spend it when I did.”
“And?” says the richest pirate. And it is not impossible he will yawn, or stifle a yawn. This conversation is like the pipe and brandy that accompany it: something to be drawn out and savoured, warming the chest with a familiar tang.
“His whole life,” the other will say, gesturing at the black bar bending and straightening far below, “has been those days of waiting and planning. He never sees a beach without thinking it could be the one. He never turns a spadeful of sand without thinking he is about to uncover emeralds, rubies, pearls, and gold.”
Wear Me Last
Some months ago a young man got locked in a costume shop overnight. It happened purely by accident. The young man, who appears to be a student at the university, underfed and sullen-looking, fashionably unshaven, spent so long in the mask room at the back of the shop that the elderly proprietor, dozing over a book he had read before, forgot he was there. As there were no other customers, he put away his book, tidied up the cash area and left the shop, locking the front door behind him.
The video cameras that come on after hours recorded what happened next.
The student emerged from the back room and saw that he was alone in the shop. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He smiled wryly, looked about, and returned to the display of masks.
Alone among the rows of crafted faces, he began posturing and pretending, trying on various masks and striking poses in them. At first a little shyly, with awkward hesitations, as if unable to believe he was unwatched; but then more exuberantly, as he gained confidence in his solitude and surrendered himself to the pleasures of pretending to be others.
He first selected a pirate mask. It had a red bandana, a black eye patch, a hooked nose, a purple scar down one cheek, and a bristling black moustache. Its rubbery texture suggested real, salt-weathered skin. Putting it on, he flourished an invisible sword, parried blows, and ran his enemy through.
An ape face was the next mask he tried. He smiled again, his mouth lifting at one corner, when he turned the mask around and saw The Gorilla printed on a white label. What else could it be? But the proprietor was a meticulous sort, perhaps to counteract what he saw as a carelessness in his usual customers: actors, students, “creative” types wanting to throw a memorable party. He treated them a bit stiffly, as if to ward off a frivolity encouraged by his line of work. Hallowe’en was the only season when he relaxed a little, and grew warmer and more convivial with them.
The student put on his King Kong face and beat his thin chest.
The Vampire worked better. The student was already dressed in black, and when Dracula’s waxy face was in place, he unfastened all but the top button of his coat, making it more like a cloak, and then flung his arms out to the sides—Haaah!—while dropping his chin below his fangs.
He made his way slowly along the shelves on both sides of the narrow room. Always turning the mask around to read its label, even when the features made this unnecessary. Examining the life-like skin textures and detailed features and hairstyles, often bringing them close to his own face to do so. Every now and then trying another one on. The Monk. The Alien. The Mummy. The Courtier. The Ghoul.
At the end of the row, at the very back of the store, he came to a mask that was unlike any of the others. It was painted a dull white and had expressionless, rudimentary features: eye holes, a bulge for a nose, and a mouth slit. It looked like the model for a mask, or perhaps a mask that had been started and then abandoned. But why then was it on the shelf? The mask’s label was not on the back, but scotch-taped to the forehead. Wear Me Last, it said. Scrawled in black marker on a torn square of paper, it did not seem like the work of the careful proprietor. Frowning in puzzlement, the student turned the mask around. No other label.
After staring for a few moments at the mask in his hands, he set it back on the shelf—delicately, as if he were handling a bomb or other dangerous device—and headed toward the front of the room. He seemed done with the masks. When he was almost out the door, however, he paused, looked thoughtful, and then, with a sudden frown, turned and strode back to the last mask. Without a pause, he put it on.
What happened next was strange to observe; especially in silence, though there was no overt indication that the young man made any sound.
At first, nothing happened. He looked about the room. He made no gestures (what gestures would he make with such a mask?). Then the mask began to glow. Considering what came next, this may have been due to a thinning of the mask’s material, making it less opaque; in any case, it seemed to quiver with a faint white light. The young man stared at a spot high up in the room; it appeared that he could feel something taking place, but was not in pain or otherwise distressed by it. Gradually, the mask became translucent, the young man’s features appearing blurrily, milkily, through it; and then, by degrees, ever more clearly, until he seemed to be wearing a mask of spotless glass, through which his features appeared with absolute clarity, even more clearly than they had appeared before, as if brought into sharper focus. But that was not the end. There was a further stage. The glass—or whatever rigid material it was—began visibly to soften and become mobile, settling around his features, dropping into the hollows below his cheekbones and molding exactly around his nostrils and jawline. Now the young man did show signs of distress: not pain, precisely, but alarm at what he sensed was occurring. His eyes widened and he plucked at the strap behind his head, but the strap, following the same progression as the front of the mask, had already disappeared into his hair. The process quickened now, and when he tore, too late, at the front of the mask, trying to find an edge he could lift off, his fingers left red welts on his own skin. The observers saw a final flicker, a dimpling of light, as the clear mask slipped below the level of his skin, like a glass plate slipping into a murky pond.
He looked quickly from side to side, as if expecting something to rush out at him. But he was evident
ly unharmed. He brought his hands up to look at them. He seemed as he had been—though shaken, certainly. He kneaded the skin of his face carefully, rubbing his forehead, nose, cheeks and jaw; his face clouding over, perhaps because they felt unchanged. He looked worried. When he turned and saw the empty shelf where the mask had been, he fled from the back room and from the store. The camera over the front door caught the tails of his long coat flying upwards as he ran down the street.
His departure tripped the door alarm, which brought the police, who summoned the yawning and dishevelled proprietor. The events caught by the camera were odd, certainly—one officer made a crack about “Higher learning” and his partner chuckled—but as there was no evidence of theft or any other crime, and nothing to do except to keep the film in case some student reported a mysterious illness or other after-effect, the police left.
The proprietor, wide awake now, though he had yawned repeatedly to make the policemen leave, hurried into the back room. A new arrival came rarely, at intervals he couldn’t predict, and the last time had been over a year ago. Eagerly, he began checking his inventory of masks. He never knew what, or where, it would be. He had wondered whether he might be better able to guess if he paid closer attention to his customers. But he had been in the business too long, and besides, that would ruin the surprise.
He found it wedged between The Fighter (cuts and bruises, a pulped nose and fat lip) and The Diver (goggles and regulator, wet plastered hair and bluish skin). It was a beauty. Literally. Luscious rosebud lips, painted bright red; creamy cheeks, with an adorable little mole just above the corner of the upper lip, and a matching dimple on the other side; aquiline nose with excitingly flared nostrils; eyelids half-descended, and above them, dark black eyebrows, plucked and teased into naughty crescents; waves and ringlets of copious blonde hair, gloriously false.
The Starlet. The name came to him immediately, as it always did.
He wouldn’t try her right away, not until he made the label.
He stood admiring the new arrival for a minute more, feeling his elation shade with a regret he had never been able to name. Was it that they came so rarely, or that they came so unexpectedly, with such inscrutable randomness, like the dropped valuable that gleams on a dark and deserted street? With no way to contact the owner, what can you do except give thanks for carelessness in your vicinity?
Perplexed and gratified, he went into the storeroom, where he reached into a carton to retrieve another blank.
Sloth’s Minions
Of all the thousands of gods and goddesses worshipped by humankind, Sloth alone had no helpers. What did he need them for? He had no sea to part, sun to drive, dead to judge, or message to deliver. He was Sloth. He lay around while eternities passed, doing the absolute minimum, never lifting a finger for anyone or anything.
Even so, from time to time, Sloth’s vanity whispered to him that he, like any god, deserved a retinue. If the thought prodded him long enough, he would wander over to whatever council of gods was convening nearby and make his case. Lamely and halfheartedly, to be sure, with yawns he didn’t hide, unwilling to break a sweat even on his own behalf.
The results were always the same. Whichever god was presiding would reply: “Tell us what you have undertaken that requires any assistance.”
And Sloth, of course, had no answer, and couldn’t be bothered inventing one. Dismissed amid laughter, he slumped away with a shrug and a belch.
Returning from one such flop, Sloth wondered if he wouldn’t be better off recruiting his own minions from the legions of the lazy. They already followed him, after all, and only needed their service to be confirmed. Seeing three young men lounging outside a city’s gates, he decided they would do.
These three slugs, all lazy to the core, sat on a patch of grass beside the road, their backs to a low wall, dozing or trading stories while a greasy cap did their begging for them. Hardly anyone threw in a coin, which didn’t bother them in the least. They went on with their meandering anecdotes about the only subject they knew: their own inability to do an hour’s work, and the riches they’d squandered by not being bothered to keep a grip on them. All of their stories, which amounted to lethargic boasts, sounded much the same. Family, friends, jobs, lovers—whatever bit of goodness life had drifted their way, they’d watched it slide off again, for simple lack of concern to keep it. Mostly they told the truth, since lying took a mental effort they wouldn’t expend.
Listening for a bit from the crowded roadway, Sloth decided they would serve well enough. He dropped a ten dollar bill in the cap to catch their attention, then briefly laid out who he was and what he proposed.
“You don’t look like what you say,” interrupted one of the wastrels suspiciously. He, like his two companions, was dressed for comfort in baggy clothes, rubbed shiny around the hips; had a thin but flabby-looking body; and a weak, shifting face you wouldn’t trust to do the smallest errand. Sloth was clean-shaven, with a neat haircut, and wore smart, new-looking clothes. He looked capable enough. “Yeah,” said another of the beggars, “You look like you’re doing fine.”
“I can’t be bothered to look otherwise,” said Sloth. “I wear whatever most people are wearing, and talk a good game. That gets me by with the least trouble.”
The three appeared to take this in. “And we’ll be with you for good?” asked the beggar who hadn’t spoken yet, returning to Sloth’s proposal.
“For all time,” answered Sloth.
“Doing nothing.”
“That’s all.”
“But we’ll be dead,” said the first beggar.
“Immortal,” said Sloth. “Excused from life. And, after all,” Sloth went on, seeing the wastrels hesitate over this point, “what has life done for you lately?”
This seemed to settle them. They would become Sloth’s minions. Except—during this little parley Sloth had remembered that he didn’t have the power to make anyone his minion. It was only a passing daydream. He didn’t have any powers, since he’d never needed any. Furthermore, he’d already spent more time and effort than he cared to on this conversation; he was ready to move on. As a parting gesture, he’d have a little fun with these three, as long as it took no effort.
He proposed a challenge. They would demonstrate their worthiness to be his minions by coming up with a way to find fame and fortune without lifting a finger. Doing as little as possible, each beggar would have to acquire a name for himself or make a lot of money. Whoever found the easiest way would be Minion Number One, with all due honours and privileges. Sloth could not stay to watch the contest, but he would leave his clerk to record and pass on the results.
“Who’s that?”
Sloth pointed to a large boulder on the other side of the road.
“A rock?” said all three at once.
“Do you know anything that gets by with less strain?” Sloth asked. The three looked at one another, then back at Sloth, who said, “Believe me, he’ll get the job done. And without any fuss to show how hard he’s working.”
With that, Sloth stepped back among the citizens moving to and fro along the road; the beggars squinted to find him, but he blended away from sight; it was like following a leaf in a forest. They began casting about for ways to satisfy Sloth’s terms. One would suggest a do-nothing scheme, then another would point out the flaw in it—the unavoidable bit of effort it might entail—and suggest a better one. Ideas came to them quickly, and it soon became the most animated conversation they’d ever had. What Sloth proposed, they realized, was trickier than they’d thought. Getting something for little was no great challenge, they’d spent their lives doing it; but bringing that little down to nothing, or close to it—that was tough. Which was only reasonable, they agreed, considering that an eternity of indolence was the prize.
They dreamed up sure-fire schemes, and shot them down. Whenever one hit on a promising scam, he addressed himself to the rock sitting opposite, like a lawyer pleading his eloquence before a particularly stern and impassiv
e judge. The rock, of course, betrayed no reaction; though it was possible, by the play of sun and shadow on its surface, to imagine all kinds of thoughts and emotions passing through it. Finally, one beggar declared that he had it. He sat up and, with a smile at the rock, told his companions of his plan.
The trick, he said, was so obvious that they should have thought of it sooner. It was hiding in plain sight. They’d been looking for ways to make a name without effort, but why not let somebody else make the name. This was his brainstorm: find a person who has already won fame and fortune, murder him or her, and their name will never be mentioned again without yours attached to it. Like a flea riding on an elephant: you go everywhere the great creature does, without ever moving your legs. And what’s more, if you pick the right place to do it, you’ll be executed for your crime, which will spare you the often long and, let’s face it, arduous business of leaving this life. For the price of squeezing a trigger, you’ll arrive at Sloth’s door with a name to rank with anyone’s. All ready to become Minion Number One.
