For most a man's entrance is his exit but not all. Some hop into the world but churn their way out. The snake may yet run with larger teeth.
Here the wolves sit gagged, the calf calm. The toad nodded while the snake's tongue danced. Yet also the toad is to the bull what the snake is to the wolf. As cowardice is to courage so also
is evil to danger.
Remember, Beggar, wolves do not hunt in the marsh for toads.
Is not evil then the reaper of cowards? If the toads be, must not the snake be? For did not you say the snake exists because of the toads? If you wish to finish evil, destroy toads.
You argue danger breeds courage but can evil breed cowardice?
The toad is as a toad without a snake. Blame not the snake! Yet the snake breeds no danger to the bull.
You say we are right to bring danger into the world but to offer up no evil. Yet I do not desire a world infested with toads.
Perhaps if we knew the difference between danger and evil I would know better your point.
Beggar: The ostrich feather is indeed a sign of long vision. You ask a difficult question. I doubt I am equal to the task. Yet there may be something in the compare you mentioned. For is not courage to act outward whereas cowardice is to draw, to curl within? Courage in giving up the self embraces the world whereas cowardice rejects the world while swallowing itself.
What if we argued that what creates an act is an act of opposition?
If I wish you to strike me, I need merely swing my fist! So in this danger is simply an outward act causing courage to outward oppose.
Captain: Hardly unique, my friend. The pusher is shoved back.
Beggar: Yes but then cast an eye upon evil. Cowardice opposes such. Draws inward. Can evil be the drawing of another into itself, hence the shell defence of cowardice?
As if to say dangerous men seek to do away with us, evil men seek to join with us, absorb us. Evil seeks a partner, an insidious thirst for other selves.
Captain: Are you speaking of marriage, now?
Beggar: Well, no, not really. Why do you ask?
Captain: Because I'd rather not be sitting so near a man about to be stoned. (Laughing) Though I doubt any of the men will cast more than understanding looks.
But of greater doubt is your point of evil as that of the joining of selves. For is that not danger too? The wolves consume flesh, so thus the snake, there is no difference to a supper's vision.
Beggar: Tell us then, Captain, the purpose where all men are bled
empty before their pyre or burial?
Captain: To ensure complete death, of course.
Beggar: You mean that a man is not buried, if he need not be buried? But does not the drain kill the man?
Captain: No, I did not mean to check for life but rather to ensure
no man awakens undead. For then such would regain life to only resume death. That horrible enough but terror more in the grip of flame or suffocation.
Beggar: Are men not so terrorized of this suffocation unto death,
that the ritual is formed? The bleeding, the gashing a less terrible thing, for could not a man awaken while his blood pooled a large basin?
Captain: Yes but better to awaken to the gent red stroke than the heavy embrace of earth.
Beggar: Why? Both bring again death to life; is life just plucked from death?
Captain: Though all men fear death, some forms are more hideous than others. No one desires the pain of scorched peels of pain as their living last, all prefer the gentile haze of unawakened slumber.
Beggar: Then death as the time destroyer of pain is welcomed but not thru a hideous gate? As if a man may only finds water thru the well infested with snakes?
Captain: Yes, that is what I mean.
Beggar: But there is no pain in the burial. Choose it as a painless exit, should all men not? If one must awaken here it is
but a few moments of airless wonder; would not the brief living dead simply think: 'Ah I have awoken undead, yet am buried to be
dead. If this is fate, then I will like its re—embrace. Quiet to .
enjoy a few last dreams of those as what I have loved'.
Captain: Hah, your thoughts stumble as much underground as above it! Gag any man to his suffocation and four must hold his thrash.
See the drowning man, a peaceful sink? Rather instead he beats and
bludgeons his sucking foe, never hopeless his flailings will lift him away to safety. Even as the crown descends, the hands will not surrender till the lead of death drags them under.
I myself, watched a man give his life unwillingly to a quick sucking sand. Yet was not quick enough for him or those who followed his eyes downward. Better the water, at least one is in it first, dead but for small battle over closed doors, but the sand is the drawing to a worm's mouth, it is decay and rot before the senses are closed. The sand squeezed his living higher, higher till it screamed silent from his mouth, his eyes. Then both found a voice while his arms, his fingers danced in plea, sweeping the caving earths for clues of destiny the way a blind man hunts for a pin. So beggar, you have erred. No man offers his breath to death gladly. For a man to unseal his eyes to a vision of dirt, for his gasp to inhale dust, for his limbs to know only an inch of swing, his chest locked from reprise by the betrayal of his tiny breath now awoken by the thuds of spillings ritual, all this is horror; not your candle taken away to herald dreams. How long could this churning, seething nightmare be fed air from the loose pockets of earth? We hope not long. Beggar: Yet there is no pain, Captain: Not pain of the body but those eyes surrounded in gulping sand are filled with another pain. A spirit's pain of exit through too small a window. A. spirit should lift whole out of gentle expire not be shoved by death thru eyes, the spirit ripping and tearing like a clinging cat to an arm as we attempt fling it at some abyss. Thus did this man abhor death by the earth's throat.
Beggar: Then both of terror is death by pain to the body, or death
by pain to the spirit. Yet which is man of least to be weeded to, the bride of nails or the bride of gags?
Captain: If a wedding it must be say then the bride of nails for in natural, unless the torturous hand of man stalls the ordeal, pain brings a death quickly though sharply. The choking bride is slow in the consummation, so reluctant is she to draw virginal blood.
It is a long, long procession.
Beggar: Could it not also be said that pain wraps the death, masks
the death? A man is distracted to its heat as an eye beholds more of a candle in the dark night, less of the bearer. The man is
driven from the pain, exists death's abyss by default. Or the man offers death as a shield from the pain, the way one would throw stolen honey from oneself in a hope to thwart vengeful stings of bees.
Captain: But does not then death become the friend, pain the foe?
Beggar: No, sir, it is a bridegroom forced between hideous sisters. But what we can say can we not is that men fear death thru its instruments more than of itself. Physical pain or pain of the sprit yield a different measure of fear. And I would say a different action of fear.
That death which has its bitter flavour in spirit yields an abhorrence, a terror different from that death of pain in the physical body.
For the latter death wears a mask, the dying are blinded to the purpose and become concerned only with the means. Every man know the truth of his death, yet every man is given courage to deny
the means.
That all warriors know they must die, indeed their occupation is death is one thing. But this absolute knowledge does
not ask they not delay its sleep. For what use is a military rank that stands humbled to the descending sword? Fight they must, fight they shall. So does the man fight the instrument of death, physical pain. In this he may have no change of escape but Death's mask allows an illusion in which courage can stand fast pain not death.
But the man in the whirling pit is given no mask to cover his eyes.
&
nbsp; No physical pain to engage his senses; demand his thoughts.
He knows death full in its creeping tough, cold, slime upon his skin. His is the terror of many deaths, inching down the crevasse, moist in its thirst
. The body moves, flails yes but the spirit is not raging to fury as for physical pain;
No here the spirit cringes, convulses to the death. For what can it fight but death itself and death is always sure in its victory.
This the spirit knows, it has only twigs of limbs to stay the great dark hand. The spirit knows its hands are too wide spaced in grope to snatch away the hordes of tiny consuming worms scurrying
to their feed. The spirit knows and screams its perfect wisdom like the circling of a headless fowl. Behind the eyes, jerking, trampling upon itself.
A beast on the end of its living snare frantic to the footfall of a reaper's approach.
From this Captain, do we not see two kinds of foes, two kinds of acts ?
Do not the teeth of wolves bring death and the mask of death.
That the bulls fight the wolves; death the purpose of combat yet death a vague bystander nonetheless. For the gash and snarl of the wolves make a veil of death, they are the pageantry where all lose their place in death.
For a play must end, yet during the play, no one remembers its ending. So with danger, that no one cries the inevitable of death and surrenders before the yaws of death. Those jaws are dim, lost in the dark throats; it is the white gleam of danger that curtains death's intent.
The bulls fight the teeth not the throats. Danger does not step forward unconquerable, hence courage has its shake of odds.
But for the toads their destinies come not with death painted bright. The fetid hunger is cavernous behind them. It has a wind that chills along their backs as the very hushed air about them
begins sink to this pit.
That their spirits curl to hold from this drawing, their souls, if you will, anchored by claw like a whimpering man dragged on his belly towards a cliff.
The toads have no curtain of pain to deny; to inhibit the stake terror conquering at their souls; their living spirits.
No death seems no escape from a cruel living but rather an eternal entombing into perpetual seethe. Death clamours for not a spirit' extinguish but rather adherence, as if the spirit in swallowed whole will become a limb of death's foul need. The man in the pit is terrorized to this living servitude into death's endless belly.
Evil then becomes more than just danger stripped of its threatening pain. It is not just death without pain, it is death without death of the spirit.
The man and the toad are swallowed whole, their terror is that their spirits remain living amongst the bowels of death. What is in a painful death of spirit is the dark, slime of swallowing without the lighted release of oblivion
to physical pain. There becomes no assurance the man will ever sleep, ever not reawaken to this foul intimacy.
As evil than is not necessarily of physical pain, neither is it a beast only called by physical death. The man's spirit can be swallowed or joined to the evil long before his body perishes.
For did we not say of the toads that 99 dies of spirit while only one was consumed of body. For the bulls, only one dies, the rest remain ready and full of courage.
Our discussion of death began at a bled burial. That man given to terror at his heart to imagine a living death. But is this not the sceptre, the cold ivory fingers of evil? To swallow,
infest, surround, entomb the living spirit! Right that a man fears, trembles this state of un—manned. He becomes a hollow shell filled with the decay of worms and carrions, a feast of maggot
swarms, where somewhere a spirit floats shelled in its horror to this sea of putrid slough.
That in time, evil seeks, hears, acts as evil is. For now the man hears through the gurgles of worms, sees thru the orbs of snakes, feels with the heart of a monstrosity.
This is what men fear of evil that they do not fear of danger. Evil as the parasite, the infector, the breeder of living dead.
Evil is leprous; danger is not. One has abhorrence to a rotted limb, not to one severed in combat and then healed.
Danger is sated by victory, evil knows no such limit. The snake, the fly, the worm, the maggot know no boundaries, they are a foul rain, moving from stagnant pool to dead sea.
Danger has a command, a leader, a rein of power. Evil has none. For even the man of evil who does evil unto others, does not direct his evil but is rather driven by it.
If danger were thirsty, danger would go to a well and fight for the right to drink from it. If evil were thirsty, evil would fill the well with sand so that all would be as thirsty as evil.
If danger were hungry, danger would kill for food.
If evil were hungry, evil would feed upon the living, not the killing!
Danger yields an inequality of survival yet equal chances; evil levels an equality of destitution and destruction only.
From danger we guard our doors, from evil all must guard their hearts
Yet have I not said that the spirit cowers always before evil? When the twin yellow glares shadow upon any man or toad, most often a spirit becomes tranced to any better sense. But most often the glare is first weak, cowardly, unsure in its first scurry across our vision. That is the time
to act! And to act thus for thy neighbour!
For could not 99 toads defeat the snake while one toad is gripped in hold? Though evil is present, it has only one focus, the rest can surely recover.
So with man also! When evil swarms to one man, that man may well be stone to flight. But are not the rest of us freed in our vision to rally our sticks and stones to his despairing cause. The quicksand holds one but surely it does not hold others from securing ropes and ladders?
We do not just help our neighbour for our neighbour's sake but for our breath too! For the evil will come to us, from his house infested, it must, just as the snake grew hungry and heeding the rejoicing came to the toads.
It is not enough to believe one is not evil and not capable of evil. That is a lie! All men have the same soil for a breed of worms; all men have smooth skin for a snake's throat. There is no denying evil while man is amongst men. Men must fight the evil of and for a man.
Evil in a man is of the snake, of the worm, it must gather, grow, swarm. Hence one knows evil by the moving grass, the dark locust cloud, the revulsion of a curled thing on your face. Where the spirit crinches, evil lingers. Among the acts of man upon man, man upon yourself, where a colder twinge of sweat tricks thus is evil scented.
Thus is the time for movement. Again I say no matter if you know not either man, strike your gong now for surely in time that evil will hunger for you. How can one demand assistance when none was rendered? How can one demand assistance when one watched silent as evil gathered man to man? What folly to plead deliverance amongst all the evil neighbours you had calmly watched devoured!
Look upon these slaves, Captain. Does one see in their death, danger or evil? If their crimes have been heinous and evil, then perhaps what can one do but use evil to eradicate evil. But if their crimes are of a minor disobedience, then is a greater evil a good thing?
Because, Captain, there is a thing in evil which is likened to the unleashing of danger. For once evil is added to the world's deeds it is never easily removed. All evil acts as mud churned blocks, piled on top, they wall a city, a street, a man to fester more and more contained in evil. The wells hard and cemented with malice are not easily chopped down by good deed or indignant combat.
These slaves, to die uncontested, there is no danger, little physical pain at a single cut. Though there may be no horror of a quicksand pit, there is evil about. They are no warriors or bulls raging for victory or death. They do not die together but rather one by one as a steel gong caresses their necks. No courage is demanded from manacled limbs. As each dies, the others will count, their lives temporarily pardoned by a few mere footsteps. Di
stance from dying, severed comrades, a poor and unlasting victory.
In short, good Captain, you have made them toads. And you yourself a snake. In that there is evil, there is no human spirit breathing amongst those blank eyes above collared necks. They are doomed, painless to a body, yet in horror none the less. The cowardice of their toad dilemma, the evilness of a snake has already coiled amongst their hearts. That is evil on human spirit is not lasting in that they will soon die is no plea for its existence. Like a spark amongst tinder, evil requires little time of birthing to exist forever.
So amongst this was a smell, a decay of evil that I came to. What was I to do? Tomorrow may bring me back as a condemned man, a captain, a guard with commanded sword or, worst of all, had I shunned a toad's plea, brought me back as one of these gawk mouthed spectators blank to their folly of being amongst ninety-nine.
For it is as much they as you or I or a king who breed evil into the world. In that you were right, it is the lethargy of the toads which yield to the snake an easy appetite. And easy presence. Thus I fight evil today that I not succumb to its ravenous mangle tomorrow. There are maggots in my neighbour's eyes! Shall I wait till they fly to my own decay before I seek to pulp their juice between trembling fingers? No! The time is now that of a sure hand not a flimsy one.
Can one toad defeat a snake? Perhaps. Can I defeat you? No. You are too many to fight. I cannot convince you to let them go because we both know that would mean the death of you and your guards by the king's command. The slaves lives are not worth more than yours. But I can ask the fang delay its puncture while the head, the crown is bargained with.
Captain: I caution you before the king to make no leanings towards any condemnations. A king who seldom mirrors his wrongs, is not very likely to encourage their vision from a beggar's tongue. I will send my second of command with you to tell the king of what has happened here. In three notches, I will behead the slaves. Do not unleash your tongue too much for these dogs, I would not welcome your neck to the block.
As to this difference of danger and evil and its off spring, I would accept evil as a lower yet more vicious thing in its pursuit of human spirit.
Your solution to evil is probable yet it builds upon something in toads which may not exist amongst men. For even the lonely toad will look upon another toad and see a brother or sister.
But man looks upon his fellow man in this world of obedience and command and sees only occupation. The ragged portion over there sees not myself as a troubled brother but as a captain diseased is my occupation.
He does not see the evil as communal only as warrants command.
So too I look upon the guards or the slaves or yourself. We are not human communal in a stew of your ravenous maggots. We do not say see "our brothers killing our brothers in the darkness of evil need." We say the guards as guards are evil, as all guards are evil. But it is not the disease of porters or labourers or beggars.
What do the guards say? We have not the evil of disorder or squalor or theft; we are honourable in our
The Seven Days of Wander Page 41
