Chapter Thirty
The Parable of the Witch Doctor
The sun rose soberly behind us, filling the sky with warming color long before the first rays of light could been seen over the mountains. By early morning, we were back down on the tracks, on the other side of the rock slide. We had passed over the mountains that were no longer passable. The engine made if first, along with its turbine and generator, and by the time Fluky, Mitty, Majorette, Rachael and myself had descended onto the tracks, much of The Cordwainer was starting to take shape.
In the half light of dawn, Fluky quickly got to work re-bolting the parts of the engine back onto its chassis. This required the construction of a crude a-frame. But the Polypigs were more than capable at that simple task of engineering. After Fluky had described what he needed, a band of scruffy young men had gotten to work falling small trees and stripping them of their foliage. Within an hour, Fluky was carefully guiding the turbine cowling back into place, with a dozen Polypigs ready with tools to bolt it down.
While all of this was happening up front, I oversaw the delivery of the almost endless caravan of mules carrying our cargo of boots. A human chain was established to unload the mules and redeposit the boots back in their hoppers. The Polypigs worked with military precision, jumping to attention anytime Majorette barked an order. I supposed the discipline was what had kept them alive so long, living in the mountains fighting the State. That it had been mustered and directed to our benefit, I could scarcely believe.
There was very little for me to actually, physically do – the Polypigs had little need for help outside of their own ranks. It had to satisfy myself to just sit with Majorette and watch the events unfold, offering advice or a preference when solicited.
“It seems,” I commented idly to Majorette as the work bustled on around me, the morning passing by, “incumbent on us all to at least attempt to work for change through a peaceful process...” What she had said in the night, crossing the mountains, was sitting uncomfortably in my belly. That Mitty's Plan – The Cordwainer – was analogous to the Polypig rebellion. “I mean, you say the Government can no long control the State, but I...” I trailed off, not sure exactly what I wanted to say.
“Let me tell you a story,” Majorette began. “There once was a man who suffered from headaches – crippling migraines. He is suffering so acutely, he decides to go see a witch doctor, hoping for some relief. The witch doctor tells him that the source of his headaches is an evil spirit that is trapped in his brain, pushing on the inside of his skull, attempting to break out. The only way to cure the headaches, the witch doctor insists, is to hammer a nail into the man's head, thereby letting the evil spirit escape.
“Now, the man is understandably skeptical. Letting the witch doctor hammer a nail into his head sounds extremely dangerous, potentially deadly. But the headaches are so bad, the man is willing to give it a try. To be safe, the man tells the witch doctor to hammer the nail in slowly, a little at a time, and keep a check on his vital signs. If anything starts to look amiss, the man will call the operation off, evil spirit or no.
“So the witch doctor starts hammering, as the man suggested, a little bit at a time. Tap, tap, tap, then he checks on the man's heartbeat. Still okay. Tap, tap, tap, checks his heart again. So far so good. Tap, tap, tap. Ahh! The man screams. The doctor checks the man's heart rate and his pulse is running. Stop, stop, stop! the man pleads, and the witch doctor agrees. Take it out! he screams in pain, and the witch doctor turns the hammer around to pull the nail out. There's a gush of blood as the nail is removed and the man's heart begins beating even faster. Not knowing what else to do, the witch doctor pushes the nail back in, stopping the flow of blood. The man's heart beat slows a little, but the pain in his head is still there... not to mention the nail.
“The man wisely decides to seek a second opinion. He calls together all of the best witch doctors from all of the villages around to come look at his problem. They come and examine the nail in his head and they confer with the original witch doctor. There's much muttering and nodding and poking at the patient's head. The size and weight of the nail is discussed, as is the nature of the spirit still trapped within the man's aching skull.
“The conference of witch doctors eventually comes to a consensus: The spirit in the man's head evidently is not the type that wishes to be freed. It is causing the pain, the rapid heart beat, rebelling against the attempts to remove it from the man's head. The spirit must be extracted from the skull as quickly as possible, lest it kill the man as it attempts to fight off the attack. The gaggle of witch doctors, therefore, starts gleefully hammering the nail further into the man's head, causing his heartbeat to race to dangerous extremes.
“The man is screaming in pain, his heart seems ready to explode in his chest. The man pleads for the witch doctors to stop with the hammering. The witch doctors reluctantly capitulate to the man's bloodied request, and stop forcing the nail any further into the man's brain. The man, at the very limits of his tolerance, collapses into unconsciousness. The witch doctors are mystified at this consequence.
“Along comes a bright, young witch doctor, who looks over the unconscious patient. He proposes a radical diagnosis: That the man's state of unconsciousness has been caused by a nail hammered into his head, and removing that nail must now be the top priority, lest the man succumb to his wounds. The other witch doctors throw their arms up in disgust. 'Nonsense!' they say, whatever damage the nail has done is insignificant to the damage the spirit inside the man's head is causing. If the nail is removed now, it will anger the spirit that, for the moment, seems to be resting.
“But the young witch doctor is unconcerned with predictions of woe and proceeds to pull the nail free with one mighty tug. A stream of blood follows the nail out of the man's skull, sending the man into cardiac arrest, killing him completely.
“Murder! The other witch doctors scream, pointing accusing fingers at the young witch doctor. Now the evil spirit is free and angry to be so unceremoniously removed from its home. Now it will hunt us all down and haunt us all! they bellow, and fall upon the young witchdoctor and beat him to death with their bone clubs, killing him for his blasphemy.”
“I don't understand,” I said, Majorette had seemingly finished with her story.
“The moral of this story is,” she said with a smile, watching the human chain of Polypigs load the last of the boots into the third hopper car, “more often than not, the doctors are worse than the disease.”
Majorette stood up and barked an order to one of her people, raising one of her short, twisted arms almost above her shoulder.
The Cordwainer Page 30
