and support all about the Brothers and Beggar.
The executioner turned swift to unsheathe a sword as brave and broad as his calling but the Giant's work was swifter upon lions than upon bound lambs. The long cudgel swung new fate and executioner and his head went spinning into a corner; still attached but rather lazy in its droops.
Black and even larger in rage, the Mountain began its descend upon the two remaining moles, one who gestured defiance with a clownish raise of a broke chair; the other who appeared to already begin examine his injuries, so engrossed his hands were, covering his trembling skull.
But as the great arms rose a fearsome potential, the Beggar stepped 'tween gong and the brassy shells "Enough, friend, enough. All is a clucking, there is no need for the crack of eggs to spill disaster upon a great Eagle of soul. Righteous though it is, your manner of serving waylays no satisfaction here. A hand gentle upon a father has no place in the scurry of his flesh. Let us go and leave the dead remain amongst the dead."
Dangerous intent crawling across his eyes, the Giant held check the waver of stiff resolve and blared "Give away the arena. Little lamb, this Lion will not stand the such as their bait. Decided or not, the sons shall be sent hither upon the father; I of one in hope their souls lose the coming debate."
The Beggar unmoved replied, "Where the undecided goes also Wrath, for what is unjust is wrath which skirts an act of man for the easy pluck of brutish rage. A sourish task much lower than thy full limb can reach."
Giant: "Ha, tis always a tongue which glides left right and leaves no salt of justice. The eye of Desert knows the way through storm or glare which forever devour the hesitant! Let the pretty lizard glide off the path for foul waters must be loosed for a taste of dust."
A perception of groan moved from cornerwise, the Executioner sat partial up and gazed into slow recovery.
Beggar: "He lives. Allow the weakly living their corner; for thy foot looks to wide light and has no need of black tread. You have given a just blow, it will ring long of its message. These brothers will hark its turn and now as like remain silent. What need is there to strike amongst the fangless snake but memory? A difficult task, a death of memory, strike at one and another better is lost. For like as not, the sons here are now the father, deny their living, the father is lost forever from your love. Again, my burdened friend, you must stall before pain before injustice, held by nobler grip of love. You must love what the father loved, your love cannot stop and start in different places. Love joins not gulfs.
The great stick lowered, the Giant at turning spoke grim yet in a tear "So be it. The sparrow has saved his three crows, though doubt will see truth in a next sun's rise that an old verse will resume. These ears will hear cackles no more. The desert's chatter has less gloom. I return there. Old is the saying 'Less the whispering men, less the dying din' but now is its dawn of understand.
I go back amongst the howling things of dust and dry to wet my lips upon unwatered wine; the better grasp is for a lone herder than this drool of less and less passed so many hands around. Only onto you, Beggar, do I thank the lift of a father's doubt: A new treasure borne well in my heart."
With a sweep of coal eyes he added "Odd that so little can fill up a heart while so much is lost at hand.
Penniless fates we are, Beggar, but better the height of hollowed handed hawks then lizard tails and tongues dragged endless in the dust."
At that, he strode out to his desert, again the light blinking as the Mountain gave the doorway a common use, yet a fuller fate than norm.
With the danger of retribution passed, the Innkeeper piped his message to the remaining ears "And whose to pay the damages tabled, sirs?"
Beggar: "Bill thyself, keeper, for tis of your doing."
Innkeeper: "I! I broke no table or chair unlegged!"
Beggar: "By accident, I know but did I not perceive the sideways glance of your all ears laid amongst the conversation?"
Innkeeper: "Yes but..."
Beggar: "Then you know that it was by your means, that is, your table, your chairs, your inn, that this end was result."
Innkeeper: "But I purchased an inn not for assault but salt. I did not force these ends. "I am innocent."
Beggar: "Nor did I on enter for see the splintered result. Nor these brothers, nor Giant. Therefore, we are as innocent as thou in intent. But whereas we sought to be replete and sate, we found only strive. Built only about the round of your means. We are cheated and must serve sentence upon the table and its master, just as soldier and king pay alike for victory or defeat. The table has had its sentence; now yours is to pay of a condemned table."
The Innkeeper had a retort sneered on his face, when a coin conveniently flipped to his chest and rattled its decline around in quick turn of stance.
"There you see, that gold does the work of many tongues, Beggar"The lawyer tugged at a snap of his purse string. "Now you know our tale. Take it tucked amongst your rags and depart from among us. Your ridicule is not a wanted dessert, there is no due or its payment and its flavour will likely yield more bitter protest than even your throat can swallow."
Beggar: "Ridicule is only a thing for men who quickly forget their defeats. How can a Beggar claim full victory over life? In love, how can any herald of victory or defeat when there is only a last separation?
I only say this to comfort loss. The father could kill as well choose to be killed in the greater Man, beyond the law. But there in that place, for him, lied greater law of greater burden. For love he could not kill the Father, nor the Sons, nor the Giant. His agony was not disease but rather health. Health of Spirit. Spirit surpasses Body but for Love cannot conquer the Bodies of lesser Spirit.
Understand that the Father's agony was and is held while the son gives search of Man. As if the Father's agony would yet birth Man through Son.
This is not a thing to be completed or lost or failed but is instead a task always upon the Sons. To seek Man and end agony.
Despite a giant's wrath, borne of a simple love of Nothing, do not relinquish your task.
Evil forgets quickly. Good remains always a ponderous memory. It is the question that liberates not the answer, just as thirst carries to water, not the look of water itself. Thirst breeds movement away from dust.
Remain ever at the Father's agony. Though not quite of Man, you at least are not either lost amongst men.
It is the burden of the Son to foot in both worlds and question. With Answer mirrored in agony. And in that too, we stand Brothers.
With that the Beggar turned and followed the way of Giants: though his pass left a doorway less filled; more light around his exit.
Though no one gauged the effects. The doctor remonstrated to his brother's rising side while the lawyer called for fresh wine and a new table for its prop. But no meal, he ordered no meal. For even amongst men, there are times a man's hunger will pass by food for thought.
The Seventh Day
The Beggar awoke. He had slept wall-slumped, head and arms
upon knees; as a crown wearied of what bends to it, yet helpless to burden itself elsewhere. The knees of a man bent lower purpose than mind's elevation, no matter the mount or lowest valley destine. Stares to the purpose, ever bearing even onto a dust of kneel, even onto to perpetual thankless and curse, the knees withhold no grudges and will pillow a tyrant's dreams. Perhaps it is in their pairing that they find this strength and solace at a condemned pacing. Or in simple passage, creak joy only as movement. Perhaps as husband and wife, or jailed cell mates or sold brother and sister, they believe that purpose will sow a resting place if they but hold daily at task.
Hunger did not awaken the beggar. He had fed that night from a little bread offered by one of the guardians of the City Gate who offered not upon a necessity of proving brutes have compassion but rather where deep voids are seen,pebbles will fall. Crumbs offered into the abyss of man's eyes yet trail no sounding. The guard thanked, yet nothing was unhungered. The gua
rd returned to his ever stance of unpassing, yet still glancing wary at a Need only his day of wants could shield from his knowledge. A knowledge easily and uneasily forgotten ...and forgiven.
As for the Beggar, he ate and retired, reposed at the walls of mortared undreaming.
Hunger did not awaken the Beggar. It was vision. But not his vision. His eyes had remained black to the night's marching despite a continuous jerking in limbs twitching at a cold air's settle or arousal. No, it was another's vision. A stranger's eyes which pulled down into a beggar's cradle and demanded attention.
The way one is moved to turn and ply reason from another's stare. The mind's hands rummaging then discards memorized for the fit of who or why. Busy round a dread that one is being stared at for reasons uncollected in the past. The new unknown has such foreboding, such a whisper roaring into unconscious. It is a bad thing to awaken to, like the scrapes of sound shuffled outside a desert tent; the night's hand lingering with intentions.
Hunger did not awaken the Beggar. But there is so much in a man that is hunger, that is thirst yet a hand has too much frail, too much clumsy, too blind, too sieved to gather it to a mouth yawing at another's stare. Like newborn near the breast, another's vision causes hunger unmask itself; and this is a vulnerable too much in tremble, too much in a world seethed with iron flies, to be denied. A man’s soul is open, staggered with a relentless
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