Ben Soul

by Richard George

Dickon became aware of a straggle-haired crone, gowned in tattered black, beating a stick on a hollow log to set the rhythm. She fixed her blind eyes on the moon, reflecting that orb’s light from their blank white. As she whacked her primitive drum, she cackled a song that had no tune. Dickon shuddered. He felt the drumming and her singing drawing him into the mad thumping frenzy of the kangaroos.

  “No!” he groaned. “Stop!” he commanded. The drumming paused in mid-beat. The crone turned her unseeing eyes in his direction. Dickon took up a branch that lay near him. It became a sword. The crone raised her stick to begin the dance again, once more fixing her eyes on the uncaring moon.

  Dickon moaned a prayer to gods he did not know. His branch became a sword, black with old bloodstains. He swung it in a great whistling arc that swept the crone’s head from her shoulders. Black ichor erupted from her neck. Slowly the upraised arm fell with one last thunk upon the dead log, shattering it. The body toppled over. The head, its eyes still fixed on the blank moon, rolled into the shadows.

  A great stillness came over the kangaroos. Then, with one mighty shout and upraised arms they sank into the earth. The early sun rose, frightening the moon from the sky, and touching the clearing with rose and peach light. A merry music of pipes and viols echoed through the clearing, and a white horse came, caparisoned with gems and gold, and bowed a foreleg before Dickon, inviting him to mount. A suit of armor, chased in gold and silver appeared. Dickon donned it, and mounted the charger. They rode away into the sunrise.

  The Rising Past

  Dr. Field’s knock wakened Notta and Emma. Notta, ever the braver, answered the door. Emma had stood behind her, ready to render assistance should it be some intruder bent on evil who thus roused them in the night’s middle. When they saw it was Dr. Field, they invited him in as soon as he said he had an emergency and needed their help.

  He swiftly explained to them the threat to his patient. Notta and Emma agreed to take the poor man in and give him shelter. While Dr. Field drove to Las Tumbas to retrieve the man, Emma and Notta made up the bed Notta had been using with clean sheets and blankets and moved her belongings into Emma’s room. Then Emma made them a cup of strong coffee. Notta drank hers quickly, and left for the garage to wait for Dr. Field, and, he had mentioned in passing, DiConti. The stricken patient was of less importance in Notta’s mind. Emma stayed in the cottage. She paced in her living room where she had laid and started a fire.

  Emma, on the other hand, fixated on the patient. Dr. Field had referred to him twice as “Mr. Spitz” and once as “Haakon.” The name aroused old feelings she had long forgotten, of the golden day of the Great Temblor and the conception of Notta. What if it were he? How should she handle it? Would he even remember her? Where had he been for all these years?

  Emma could provide herself no answers to these questions, of course. She could only ask them, over and over, as she crossed and re-crossed her living room, now and again darting into the spare bedroom to be sure everything was done up properly. Several times she mocked herself for being so dithered and doddering. Then she returned to the litany of questions, wheeling through them like Tibetan prayer wheels in a Himalayan wind.

  Down at the garage, DiConti helped the now conscious Haakon to shift into the wheelchair next to the car. The path to the Village was rough, but, with Notta’s help, and Dr. Field guiding, DiConti hoped to make the transit without undue harm to Haakon. It might not have worked, of course, if Haakon had had broken bones. He was simply too weak to walk very far, though he could manage a few steps. Dr. Field checked his vital signs, gave him a further pain shot, and motioned to Notta and DiConti. Haakon looked up as Notta stepped into the light pool where his wheelchair sat.

  “Emma?” he said. “I thought your eyes were black.” Delivered of this cryptic comment, he lapsed again into drowsing sleep. Notta shook her head and put the comment aside in her mind. DiConti began pushing the wheelchair up the path toward the Village. When they encountered rough patches, where the path was too uneven to maneuver the wheelchair successfully, they locked the wheels, and DiConti on one wheel, Notta on the other, and Dr. Field in back, lifted it over the rough patch. Haakon weighed less than most full-grown adults. That made it easier for the three of them to handle Haakon in his chair. They only had to lift it four times to get it up onto the Village ledge, where the flatter land made smoother going.

  Emma opened the door as they lifted Haakon and the wheelchair up the three steps onto her cottage porch. A faint gray light glimmered in the east; dawn was not far off. Emma searched the man’s face as they wheeled him into her home. She nodded, once, as though half-convinced of something. None of the others noticed her nod. Prime Pussy retreated to the kitchen. This late invasion was far more disturbance than she wanted. Ermentrude, ever the adventurous one, dashed out the front door in the midst of the mélange of wheels and feet. No one noticed her going. Ermentrude flashed her tail in triumph at her heedless audience, and began prowling the weeds and grasses for night prey.

  Notta and DiConti settled Haakon in the spare bed. Emma bent over him to look closely at him. Notta and DiConti left the room. They needed to connect, and, though they used few words, they communicated much. In her dreams on the mountain, the unicorn with the unique horn smiled as she slept in her llama suit. Her evening’s main effort was fruitful.

  Dr. Field checked Haakon’s vitals again. “He’s doing well,” he said to Emma. “He’s stronger than he looks.” Emma brushed a lock of Haakon’s hair, more gray than blonde, from his forehead. The body on the bed was not the sculpture of muscle she remembered. She was unsure of her identification.

  “What did you say his name is?” she asked Dr. Field.

  “His papers say ‘Haven Fitz,’” the Doctor replied, “but he claims ‘Haakon Spitz’ is his name.”

  Tension rose in Emma. “What color are his eyes?” she asked. Dr. Field noted the taut wire note in her voice.

  “Blue,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because,” Emma said, drawing in a deep breath, “I may have known this man many years ago.”

  “From his pallor, I’d guess he’s been in prison until very recently.” Dr. Field frowned. “He’s very weak, or I wouldn’t have brought him here.”

  “Notta’s with me,” Emma said. “She’s stronger than you’d guess. And wilier. We’ll be all right.” Emma studied the man’s face again. “I think I know him, anyway. What should I offer him when he wakes up?”

  “Broth or gruel,” Dr. Field said. “And plenty of water. I’ll hook up an IV before I go, of course. I’ve just got to bring the stand from the garage.”

  “Broth or gruel it is,” Emma said. “Sounds awfully dull for a sick man.”

  “He’s through the crisis. He’ll be wanting more substantial food soon enough. I’d avoid chili peppers and the like for a while, though. Stomach’s often delicate after heavy pneumonia.”

  “How about tapioca pudding?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, maybe. If he wants it.” Dr. Field sighed. “I’ll go get the IV stand and saline solution now. Then I’m off to bed. I’ve had a long time without uninterrupted sleep.”

  “Go,” Emma said. “I’ll watch over him, until you come back.” As soon as Dr. Field had gone, taking DiConti with him, Notta came into the room. Frustration gnawed at Emma. She had hoped to examine the full man to see if she recognized anything, although she couldn’t remember birthmarks or scars.

  “Strange,” Notta said. “He looked at me like he knew me.” She smoothed her brown hair into some semblance of order. “He called me by your name.”

  Her round face, with its slightly broader than prescribed nose, full mouth, and chin that ended in a small, dimpled, point echoed Emma’s face. Only the gray hair framing Emma’s face and her black eyes were markedly different. Age had not wrinkled Emma yet, and the City’s harsh smogs had erased the dewy youth from Notta’s complexion.


  “He said a strange thing, too,” she went on. “He said something about he thought my eyes were black.”

  Emma nodded. Surety grew in her that this was the Haakon she had known. It was too early to tell Notta. She had to sound out Haakon first, to find out whether he remembered her and that afternoon in a falling hotel bouncing on the heaving earth. “We’ll ask him about it when he wakes up. Now, get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Notta yawned. She smiled sleepily. “By the way, I had a nice evening with DiConti.”

  “I’m glad, dear,” her mother said, fixing her attention on the patient in the bed. Notta wryly observed to herself that her mother had a new project, this patient, and was already lost in executing some plan she had in mind. Emma was asking herself where Haakon could have been, and why had he come back to her.

  Morning Shadows

  Ben woke from his dreams irritable and un-rested. He struggled out of bed to let Butter out for her morning yard patrol. Sand gritted in his eyes. His head was thick, as though yesterday’s hangover had hung on. He drank three glasses of cold water, shivering when the water dribbled on his bare stomach.

  Butter barked at the back door. It was her “Let me in” bark, a short woof designed to disturb the