by R.P. Burnham
Once, upon a time when that the world was unfair and evil (which is to say, any time thou lik'st), there lived a businessman who spent his whole life making money. Nary another thing else pleased him, and until the night came that he dreamed a dread dream he worked so hard and for swich long hours every day that he did not have time to look around him to witness the warp and woof of the world. Until he dreamed his dream the fowles of the welkin were apparitions to the businessman, the flowers of the field were specters, the trees phantoms, the rains of heaven ghosts, the stars above were will-o'-the-wisps, even the vast panoramic firmament itself was a shimmering chimera, and most of all the people who passed him each day were walking shadows. Until he dreamed his dream.
For always and anon he walked straight ahead as if that he be in a narrow tunnel and he looked only toward his goal. As he walked he would count his money and scheme to make more, murmuring a prayer to the power and glory. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of darkness, money maketh me to lie down in rich green pastures and restoreth my soul. Yea, to thee, Mammon, I bend my knee and pray that thou encreasest my store." For Mammon was the only thing external to him that he engaged in dialogue, the which reason be why he saw not thilke mighty powre that knitteth all bonds of things.
Even his lady, who had given him three children, and the children themselves, touched not his heart of hearts. For once he possessed something he ceased to be interested in it. His lady understood that he would fain be working to increase his store of worldly goods, and she accepted it. She tried to be a good woman by filling her days in deeds of good charitee to the wretched, hoping thereby that the tainted money her husband made could do some good in the world and return good for evil. But certes dared she say aught against him, for in truth she was sore afraid. She was useful to the businessman because she had good taste and could pick out exquisite antiques and fine paintings which said full plain to the world, lo! here be a wealthy man, but otherwise he hearkened to her feelings and concerns not the least. Busy as he was making money, he could see no place in the scheme of things for love.
Ywis, the lusts of the body were another matter. Certes there was a place for them. He kept lodgings downtown and forced many of his comely and fair female employees, including his secretaries, to partake in the sinful pleasures of the flesh. Those who refused he discharged from his employ, but not many refused, for he was rich and mighty and wot full well how to hent his way.
Now thilke businessman had a partner with whom he had to share the profits. The partner had invented the product they sold and held the patent on it, but the businessman had put up all the money and it grieved him to his very soul to have to share his riches with this partner. O it offended his sense of right and wrong, to say nothing of his sense of propriety, to have to share with this unseemly knave. For his partner, he trowed, was a weak man and foolishly honest. He cared not a straw for profits. Instead he cared only to make as good a product as possible, the which reason, certes, the businessman deemed him swyche an uncunning fellow.
For a long time the businessman brooded over what to do until came an evil day he was visited with an inspiration. First he hastened him to a lawyer, then he came back with a contract. "Prithee, sign this," quoth he to the partner.
"What is it?" quoth the partner, a guileless man and true.
"T'is nothing — merely a new contract to cover our business dealings."
The partner wanted to know what was wrong with the old contract. He was in the middle of an engineering problem and scarcely hearkened to the words of the businessman.
"Too limited. It doth not cover the business in expanding markets. Prithee, sign right here and I'll take care of the rest."
So it came to pass that the partner signed away his half of the business. In the meantime the lawyer was engaged to search the patent office for an invention of right plenteous similitude to the one the partner had and to buy it. Once all this was done the businessman doubled his profits. Then turned he his mind to his other ventures, for thou must understand that he owned divers sundry businesses, although the one he cheated his partner out of was the most profitable. He owned stores and factories, and paid his workers as little as possible. He owned a very profitable illegal dumping service whereby chemical companies could have their foul poisons dumped on agricultural land late at night for a handful of silver. Eek owned he lodging houses which he rented to workers and other lewd folk who paid him promptly (and well wot every wight that eviction abided him who failed to make payment). Though whilom the businessman had grown up in poverty himself, thou canst see that it had only taught him to be cruel and ruthless and to trust nobody, all without the slightest pang of inwit. What was right was what he had the power to get away with. Rude mechanicals were therefore to be used, for first of all they were but lewd men and weak, and secondly the less ye paid these shadows the more ye had for ye owen treasure.
So evicting tenants and cheating partners and dumping poisons were the measured deeds of a day for the businessman. As long as he kept busy, ywis, he trowed he fulfilled the moral imperative in the definition of a busy-ness man. Some there be who might balk and deem him a villain, but they were even greater knaves than the deposed partner, for certes they were principled people along with being foolishly honest. For them he had the greatest contempt, though he kept it hidden.
In his day it was not fashionable to look like a villain, so the businessman did not wear a black cape or sport a long drooping black mustache. Nay, he had blue eyen and a friendly smile and he knew how to look like a responsible citizen and an honest businessman on television, the which skill being all that was important. For the lowly born of that time had never been told that looks deceive, so they niste not that the businessman cheated his partner and paid not taxes and engaged in crooked deals and abused the poor feeble folk who were too weak to fight back. The businessman was putting one over on them, all right, and when that no one was looking eftsoons would he secretly smile to himself and think that sith it was so easy to deceive the fond and gullible masses he ought to run for public office. All he would have to do is keep smiling and promise no taxes, and then power, peradventure the only thing that was better than money, would eek be his owen treasure. The more he thought about it the more his palms started itching.
For what, prithee, would stoppeth him?
For when that he counted his successes, he saw full well naught had ever gainsaid him beforn. What he wanted he got. He set a goal, worked hard, and lo! it waxeth without measure. Now the only impediment touching his political aspirations was the partner. He was suing to hent back his share of the business, but just when that it appeared costly court fees and eek bad publicity touching his unleveful likings would delay the businessman's political career, it learned him that his partner was at death's door smarting full keen from a dread disease. "How marvelous," quoth the businessman, "methinks now there be naught can stop me." Then he bethought him for a moment and decided he would have to rid him of his wife. She was plain and middle-aged, not glamorous, and would be no help in a political campaign. But here he would have to be careful, for the lewd folk still frowned on divorce by their leaders. If that only she too could be infected with a dread disease, he thought, and then it decided him that would be his next undertaking. After that his march to the fount of pure power would be unfettered.
Thou must not think that these obstacles disturbed the businessman. Nay, they were what made the journey to his goal pleasing and the goal when reached sweet. (Glosa. For after all, why doth a wealthy man deserve plenteous riches and power while millions go without? Every wight, lewd or learned, knoweth it is because of the keenness of his wit and his craft and cunning in solving divers difficulties.) Textus. So the businessman, poised within striking distance of his ultimate victory, enjoyed full well having to solve the problems of his wife's murder, the hushing up of his foolish partner's lawsuit, and the more mundane problems of getting a campaign organization to hoodwink the lewd folk into voting him into power
.
"And a slogan" he thought beforn he drifted off to sleep on a night. "I'll need a slogan to give a distinctive touch to my campaign — something to really daze the people into believing I'll save the country." With eyen heavy with sleep, he could only come up with a couple second-rate ones — "Democracy, Decency, and Decentralization" and "Stand Tall and Proud." "But," quoth he, just as sleep caught him in her embrace, "I can hire some hack wordsmith for the slogan, so no need to worry about it now. I'll see about it anon." But never did he see about hiring a hack wordsmith, for it so happeneth that on thilke same night he had his dread dream, which went like this:
He is in a fog shrouded park and he is being followed by a foul fiend. He cannot see his stalker, except now and then as a vague form emerging out of the fog, but always he heareth the footsteps. Even on grass they echoeth like the feet of a madman on cobblestone, step by step, slow and unhurried and unyielding. The businessman walketh faster, but no matter how fast he walketh the footsteps echoing on cobblestone are always right behind him. A throng of folk pass him with blank faces and he can tell they heareth not the footsteps. It is only he whom the foul fiend doggeth. Panicking, he begineth to run through the park and down the street, into a drugstore and through the back into an alley. He runneth until he droppeth from weariness, panting and gasping. But it doth no good. Still step by step the shadowy form moveth avaunt thilke space the fog alloweth his eyen to see.
Just when that he can stand no more and is about to scream with dark dread, as swythe as the blink of an eye the scene shifteth and he findeth him back in the small town he grew up in. The day is bright and warm with gentle cheer, and he is standing on a pleasant, though impoverished, street. Across from him is the house of the lady for whom he did chores and earned his first dollars. But looks are deceiving, for he recognizeth the great dread and insecurity he felt as a boy buried by poverty to be the same dread he felt when that he was followed in the park, and he trembleth, not knowing what to do. Faces float by, his mother, his friend who played games with him, the first teacher to have caught him cheating, a neighbor who worked with his father — all people from the past whom he had left behind when that he achieved worldly success. It confuseth him to see them here with him, but beforn he can think of what it means he recognizeth further off, in the parking lot beside a kirk, a man who is bent down on his hands and knees staring intently at something. "Look at the intricate pattern on that leaf," his partner saith and pointeth. "How exquisite! How lovely!" Forsooth, here be a thing passing strange: the businessman in his dream somehow knoweth full well what the partner is doing. He is trying to live intently and fully, drinking up the sweetness of the earth beforn his time is up. But the businessman is filled with more horror than when the shadowy tormentor dogged him step by step. How can he appreciate beauty when that he will die? He will be swallowed by darkness, he will sink into the damp clammy ground without air or sunlight, he will molder and the worms will ransack his body. "Oh how," quoth he to the partner, "how canst thou be drinking in beauty when thou knowst thou art a dead man?" "Because beforn I die I want to live," the partner answereth. Even as he speaketh the fog droppeth down again and the partner, half lost in mist, turneth and beginneth to walk toward the businessman step by step, echoing as if on cobblestone. Now the businessman seeth he is the one who must die, and the cold sweat and dread and smarting in his lungs from running and the echoing of the footsteps do not go away even after he waketh up with a scream.
He saw that the dream was verily not a dream and he knew — Gramercy! — that he could not escape death. And deep in the night, all alone, with his sleeping wife by his side, the businessman felt small and vulnerable and powerless and for the first time sith reaching man's estate he was sore afraid.
When that he arose in the morning the businessman was still wood affright out of measure. He was obsessed with the thought that the shadow of death hung over him like an invisible sword and that unless he did right by his partner he would die soon. He cancelled an important meeting and hastened him over to his partner's lodgings, only to find out from the partner's wife that he was too late — the partner had died in the night. Instead of relieving him, this news afrighted the businessman even more, for the pangs of inwit gave birth to the fantastic conceit that it was his partner's ghost that had visited him in his dream. Too distraught to attend to business, he rushed back home in hopes that his lady would talk him into a calmer and more rational state. But when that he told her the whole tale of his cheating the partner, the partner's death and his dream, her face went stony. "It's the final straw," quoth the lady. "Full plain I see thou art a wicked man and I will bide with thee no more."
Whereupon there passed a weary time of wanhope and terror. Weeks went by the which he forsook the right swift course of his prosperitee and descended to the level of the meanest and lewdest of men when that he wandered the streets with wild eyen, but he saw nothing, recalled nothing. Only wherever he went footsteps on cobblestones dogged him. Finally the weeks of sore affliction caused stomach cramps so severe that the businessman thought he was dying of a heart attack. He was taken to a sickhouse screaming in great terror, and there, after several weeks of rest, he one day made a discovery. He looked at his hands. He felt his face. He wiggled his toes. He was alive. "What nonsense," quoth he, "to think I was going to die soon." And just like that he checked him out of the sickhouse and got back to business.
But after the businessman returned to the business world did any effect from the dream linger? Forsooth, the answer is yea. It remembered him his roots and he was a little kinder. It remembered him the dark dread he felt and how there was no escape from death and he was a little more humble. It remembered him that death was one thing he could fool not and he was a little less hypocritical. He ran not for public office because he was a little less confident. And now he lost money on some of his schemes because he was a little less crafty. By himself, and without any corresponding change in the society he lived in, these little changes were all thou couldst expect.
And so he lived on for many years.
But a question doth remain. After his dream did the businessman see that the fowles of the welkin, the flowers in the park, the rains of heaven, the stars of the firmament, and most of all the throngs of people in the streets were real? He saw that they were passing, changing every day. He saw that everything was hurrying off to death and negation. The stars would burn out, the fowles and flowers would fall, the rain would sink into the earth, all folk, lewd or learned, busy with their million separate dreams and plans would one day all be still. But strange enough to say, what he saw did not afflict him nigh as sore as the original dread that he felt in his dream. This was because the tunnel walls had disappeared and in realizing that he was no different from the world he lived in he was a little more human. While he lived he was a little more human. So it was that when that at last the day came for him to be gathered into eternity, in his death throes he called out, not for Mammon, but for the God who sided with the small and humble folk of the earth, and then he died a little easier.
here endeth the tale of the businessman who dreamed a bad dream
Two Bird Fables
The Flock That Flew Away
