Something in My Eye: Stories (8 page)

“Agreed,” said the little man, and they both slept, the young man on his bed, and the little man beneath.

That night snow began to fall, and in the morning a heavy layer blanketed the ground. After tea and a light breakfast, the young man and his little friend entered the lonesome vehicle, and although the little man's legs hardly reached the pedals, they were soon on their way. But on the interstate, they soon hit a stretch of black ice and found themselves in a ghastly accident. There was no hope for the young man: he died at the scene.

News of the accident spread quickly, and soon all the young man's neighbors arrived, followed by the authorities and the towing man. The little man gave his statement to the authorities and watched as the towing man towed his vehicle to the junkyard. He was then placed in chains and returned to the forest, where his community, having heard news of his deed, welcomed him as a hero.

Once, in the east, a newly married couple shared a great house on a large plot of cleared land, which was bordered by a dark forest. The couple had no children, and would often promise one another, after exercising or lovemaking, that there would never be any children.

The forest beyond the house was populated by the destitute and abject, and so to keep them from the great house the married couple employed several of the destitute to build a fence that protected the property and hired several of the abject to stand watch, equipping them with large firearms.

Often, on summer nights, when the couple would entertain, their guests would become frightened by the drumming and chanting emanating from deep within the forest, and so, as the nights passed, the guests, one by one, failed to accept their invitations, until the day when the couple was left, save for the guards, to themselves.

One night over dinner, the husband, who had swallowed several glasses of wine, suggested to his wife that they might have some children to brighten the empty rooms of the great house.

“When the forest has overtaken our great house,” said the wife, “then we will have our children.”

The couple soon retired to bed for lovemaking, but the husband in his disappointment and the wife in her portentousness could only manage an awkward embrace, and soon they fell fast asleep.

The next morning the husband wandered down to the property's edge and approached a guard who stood shouldering his rifle toward the woods.

“Let me ask you,” said the husband, “how much has the forest moved today?”

“Not a grain of an inch,” replied the guard.

“Very well,” said the husband. “Have there been any sightings today of the dwellers?”

“Not a coattail of a garment,” replied the guard.

The husband kept this information to himself that night at the dinner table. “How was your day?” he asked the wife.

“My day passed as any other,” she said.

“In time we might change that,” he said, lovingly patting her hand.

The next morning the husband returned to the same guard, whom he now favored for his honesty. “How much has the forest moved today?” he said.

“Not a hair's width from yesterday,” replied the guard.

“Will the forest ever consume my great house?” the husband said.

“Perhaps in the time of your grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren,” replied the guard.

“Very well,” said the husband, who was about to return home, but hesitated as a faint noise caught his ear. “The drums,” he said. ‘The drums and the loud lamentations. Do they seem closer to you?”

“I hear no drums nor loud lamentations,” replied the guard.

“Very well,” said the husband, and he returned home.

That evening, the husband and wife sat down to dinner. “How was your day?” said the husband.

“My day passed as any other,” said the wife, “except that I suddenly was able to perceive the distant drums from within the confines of our great house.”

“I thought so,” said the husband. “I thought I heard them too.”

The next morning the husband again spoke to the guard, who appeared slightly nervous at his post.

“The noises are becoming louder,” said the husband. “How do you explain this?”

“There must be a celebration within the forest,” said the guard.

“But the sound is so mournful,” replied the husband.

“They are very sad people,” replied the guard.

“Is that not them dancing just behind the first row of trees?” said the husband.

“My eyesight is leaving me,” replied the guard. “You might need to hire another.”

“Very well,” said the husband, and he returned home.

That evening the husband and wife sat down to dinner. “I learned the origin of the noises today,” said the husband.

“Yes?” she replied.

“The people of the forest are having a party,” said the husband.

“You know it makes me sad to hear that word,” said the wife, bittersweetly patting his hand.

That night the couple said a prayer in which they thanked a higher power that they had each other and a great house to live in.

The next morning, there was an uprising in the forest, and by noontime the destitute and abject had armed themselves with stones, ropes, and firearms, and soon had taken the fence, slaughtered the guards, and overrun the great house. Easily captured, the husband and wife were paraded about the compound in chains, and fed rainwater and grubs of the forest for their meals. By nightfall they were tried for malfeasance and found guilty and sentenced to hang at midnight, side by side, from a beam above the wide porch.

As the nooses tightened around their necks, the husband said: “The forest has overrun our great house. Certainly now we might have our children.”

The wife looked out over the crowd of hateful faces. “Yes,” she said. “I don't know.”

During a time of great wealth in the country, a number of those who had plenty took to the forest, where they lived in self-inflicted poverty in the hopes that they might get back to the marrow of experience, which had long since vacated human life.

One day, a widower, who lived in the city with his three middle-aged sons, decided such a change might be beneficial, so he sold the house and all of their belongings, liquidated his mutual funds, gave his monies to several pet charities, and, in order to symbolically finalize this severing, pushed the family vehicle over a nearby cliff.

When he had finished, he wiped his hands on his slacks and said to his sons, “I fondly remember in hallucinatory fragments the essence of human life, which you were born too late to know. We will go to it now, and feed upon it.”

The sons, who had grown quite comfortable in middle age, became very moody, and voiced their misgivings. Although none worked, all had busy schedules, and so they said to their father, “You elders with your mad and flickering visions. You will drive this generation to ruin! It is only you who fear time's passage, only you who inhibit our fun. Why not let us live the life promised to us as wealthy citizens of this country?”

“The forest still holds revelatory potential, no matter how debased our dealings with it have heretofore been,” said the father. “Furthermore, what kind of father would I be if I denied my sons the access to the wisdom of the ages? I would be the kind of man that the Good Lord, His infinite mercy notwithstanding, would not, and should not, let die.”

“Very well,” said the eldest and youngest sons, who were sympathetic, in a sniveling way. “We do not hear what you say, but we hear the way in which you say it, and we wish to remain in your good graces, because we love you.”

“Brothers, you appall me,” said the middle son. “If you follow our father to the forest, you will never again be able to order a fast meal. Therefore, I will stay behind, with some close friends, and curse the three of you while I enjoy fast meal after fast meal.”

“Then you shall be dead to us from this moment on,” said the father. “We will think of you as we think of all the dead that infuse our every moment: bitterly.”

“Yes,” said the two other brothers. “While we do recognize the virtue of your argument, we have never really liked you, and will therefore say goodbye.”

So the widower and his two sons began walking until they came upon a store teeming with outdoor goods. Inside, they piled their shopping carts with breathable clothing, backpacks, bug repellent, soft fleece jackets, sleeping bags, rods with which to fish, and a variety of dehydrated foods. The father happily walked along the aisles with his sons, sipping a cola he intended to pay for upon leaving. At the checkout counter, the sons assumed looks of wishfulness, smiling at their father in the hope of financial assistance. Their father examined his pocket, but then remembered that in his haste to prepare for the essence of human life, he had thrown his billfold into a garbage can.

“You,” said the father, pointing to his younger son. “Though perhaps not without ambition, you have proven in your years to possess the weakest manual dexterity, which might disincline you to forest living, so you shall stay behind and work menially for this establishment until the sum is paid off. Keep your backpack handy and I will, if necessary, send for you.” With that, the father signed an IOU, packed the equipment, and set off for the forest with his eldest son.

After several days of walking, the father and his eldest son became submerged in foliage, and were it not for the passing voices of similar travelers, both would have thought they had left the world completely behind. Their days were spent walking with
their heavy loads and their nights were spent cooking their meals slowly over a little stove. One night, the father noticed that, as he watched the lentils simmer, his eldest son carried a very gloomy expression on his face.

“Son,” said the father, “give me a digestible version of your troubles.”

“I miss so many things,” said the son. “I miss the city and the pretty girls, our home and our car and the smell of gasoline.”

“I might remind you that this here is the essence of human life,” said the father, tasting a lentil.

“However,” said the son, “I could forever go without these things and only cling to their memories . . . if only I could eat a fast meal again. It's insufferable, waiting for these things to cook.”

“Just one fast meal?” said the father.

“One more,” said the son, “and I will be quiet and perennially grateful.”

“And if I should refuse for the sake of purity?”

“I will abandon you and rejoin society. As much as the idea of you wandering alone creates a dull and nameless ache in my chest.”

“You have convinced me,” said the father. “Tomorrow we will cross a paved road, if my memory is honest with me, and if we follow that paved road but a mile, we will come to a place that sells an acceptable fast meal, and you shall eat one.”

The eldest son became quickly happy, but his expression soon fell. “But father,” he said. “We haven't a penny for a fast meal.”

“I am currently forming a plan,” said the father. “In the morning I will strip from my outdoor clothes, and I will cover myself in brambles and leaves and smear my face with earth and at the place that sells the fast meal I will pretend to be impoverished and insane. There being still an abundance of sympathy among men, they will not deny me a meal.”

The next morning they reached the crossroads, and there the father stripped off his outdoor clothes and pressed his face into the mud and rolled about in the leaves and brambles. He went on
down the road, affecting a limp, while the son waited with both of their packs. “How quickly I'll savor my fast meal,” the son said to himself.

Very shortly after, the father returned with a paper bag leaking grease and a cold cola in a paper cup.

“And you have eaten none of it?” said the son, beside himself with joy. However, even through the caking of mud on his father's face, the son could detect a reddening in the cheeks.

“It's true I have a certain predilection for cola,” said the father. “In my excitement I may have imbibed three sips.”

The son embraced his father and ate his fast meal so quickly that his father did not even have an opportunity to ask for a bite. Satiated, the father and his son began walking back into the foliage.

Soon, however, the son began to feel ill, for his fast meal contained sour meat, which bored holes in his insides, so he began digging a hole in the forest floor with a small spade. He continued digging until he had before him a hole six foot by three, and then the eldest son lay down in the hole and quietly died.

Mournfully throwing earth upon his son, the father said a short prayer, which the Good Lord did not hear, for He was sleeping. An angel was keeping watch, however, and noted the sudden suffering of the old man in a ledger, which was full of the names of individuals in the world undergoing similar bereavement.

The father, leaving the shallow grave, dressed in his outdoor clothes, washed his face in a little stream, and returned carrying both backpacks to the outdoor store, where his youngest son had been promoted to middle management, and was not so pleased to see his father.

“Your backpack is packed,” said the father. “Your brother has perished. Won't you leave everything you love and give me the pleasure of your company as we discover the essence of human life?”

“You say my brother has perished,” said the youngest son. “Why should I follow you into the forest?”

“You have no health insurance,” said the father. “You have no pension plan. I have reason to believe that you will climb no higher than middle management. They will fatten you with flattery and employee discounts, and when you become too old to lift the goods to the shelves they will slaughter you with a pink slip.”