The Word ~ Judson Huss
The busy pathway between Here and There runs across the top of a small grassy hill.
Some time ago (nobody can remember exactly when) a man sat himself down, cross-legged, on a particularly lush patch of grass by the side of the path at the top of the hill.
Once settled, the man began to shout out at the passers-by and soon a small crowd gathered to hear what he had to say:.
“There is no thing that is part of nothing!” He yelled
People looked at one another, puzzled by the apparent wisdom in the man’s tone.
“The inevitable always happens!”
“?” some people began to mutter, unsure how to react.
The small crowd grew steadily for a while as more people passed by on their way to Here or There, and the man continued to shout.
“I am the eye through which I see”
Over the course of a day or two (possibly three) there was a constant eddy of people who stopped to listen, attracted by the mere presence of the crowd already there.
Soon everybody had either heard the man’s words or had heard of him.
Suspecting him to be a little mad and perhaps, dangerous, people soon chose to pass him by, doing their best to ignore him.
Over the course of days; weeks and months, people ceased to notice him, his voice became a accepted part of the landscape (like the view or the grass or the pebbles that litter the side of the path)
And over the months and the years the man’s hair grew long and grey and his words grew hoarse and littered with spelling mistakes. One by one his sentences turned to sounds; to unconnected syllables slowly solidifying until one day the letter S (or perhaps it was the number 5) fell from his mouth to rest on the ground in front of him.
He paused for a moment only, then cleared his throat and continued with his unintelligible aphorisms.
The passers-by did not notice.
Soon the grassy patch on which he sat became littered with letters of various size, hue, font and script; a disarray of curlicue and arabesque; describing arcs and exclamation marks; brackets and umlauts; foreign accents and brush stroke pictograms somehow passed his lips where the Immigration Officials from The Departhment of Language had long abandoned their posts.
Punctuation marks became entangled in his hair and beard while like-minded letters gathered in alliterative angst between his ankles.
His shouts had slowed to mumbles.
His body had become a small pyramid of jumbled letters and matted grey hair.
Eventually his mumbling stopped, to be followed shortly by a long sigh; a sign that any passer-by might have mistaken for a gentle gust of wind across the patch of grass on top of the hill.
Soon the elements eroded the pyramid until it became a mound.
The grass grew over the mound and the mound became a part of the hill.
Traffic on the path across the top of the hill is still busy since there is always a lot to be carried back and forth between There and Here.
Most travellers pass the mound without pause but there are a number of (perhaps more sensitive) souls who stop at the top of the hill and take a moment to catch their breath and admire the view, the grass or the pebbles that litter the side of the path; and some will claim to hear the voice of the hill on the gentle breeze that blows permanently across the grassy mound.
Some time ago (nobody can remember exactly when) a man sat himself down, cross-legged, on a particularly lush patch of grass by the side of the path at the top of the hill.
Once settled, the man began to shout out at the passers-by and soon a small crowd gathered to hear what he had to say:.
“There is no thing that is part of nothing!” He yelled
People looked at one another, puzzled by the apparent wisdom in the man’s tone.
“The inevitable always happens!”
“?” some people began to mutter, unsure how to react.
The small crowd grew steadily for a while as more people passed by on their way to Here or There, and the man continued to shout.
“I am the eye through which I see”
Over the course of a day or two (possibly three) there was a constant eddy of people who stopped to listen, attracted by the mere presence of the crowd already there.
Soon everybody had either heard the man’s words or had heard of him.
Suspecting him to be a little mad and perhaps, dangerous, people soon chose to pass him by, doing their best to ignore him.
Over the course of days; weeks and months, people ceased to notice him, his voice became a accepted part of the landscape (like the view or the grass or the pebbles that litter the side of the path)
And over the months and the years the man’s hair grew long and grey and his words grew hoarse and littered with spelling mistakes. One by one his sentences turned to sounds; to unconnected syllables slowly solidifying until one day the letter S (or perhaps it was the number 5) fell from his mouth to rest on the ground in front of him.
He paused for a moment only, then cleared his throat and continued with his unintelligible aphorisms.
The passers-by did not notice.
Soon the grassy patch on which he sat became littered with letters of various size, hue, font and script; a disarray of curlicue and arabesque; describing arcs and exclamation marks; brackets and umlauts; foreign accents and brush stroke pictograms somehow passed his lips where the Immigration Officials from The Departhment of Language had long abandoned their posts.
Punctuation marks became entangled in his hair and beard while like-minded letters gathered in alliterative angst between his ankles.
His shouts had slowed to mumbles.
His body had become a small pyramid of jumbled letters and matted grey hair.
Eventually his mumbling stopped, to be followed shortly by a long sigh; a sign that any passer-by might have mistaken for a gentle gust of wind across the patch of grass on top of the hill.
Soon the elements eroded the pyramid until it became a mound.
The grass grew over the mound and the mound became a part of the hill.
Traffic on the path across the top of the hill is still busy since there is always a lot to be carried back and forth between There and Here.
Most travellers pass the mound without pause but there are a number of (perhaps more sensitive) souls who stop at the top of the hill and take a moment to catch their breath and admire the view, the grass or the pebbles that litter the side of the path; and some will claim to hear the voice of the hill on the gentle breeze that blows permanently across the grassy mound.
7 comments:
Oh,this was very beautiful.I love it!Great picture to go with it too.Wonderful story.Have a great day!
I'm with Candie on ths one. Also, do you suppose that a man could turn int oa building? My Pop did one of those finger pointing things, while in New York City. My step-mum did not believe it when he told her to watch for the crowd to gather, to see what was going on. He just stopped on the side walk( I think they were some-where ,there, on 42nd ), and pointed upwards at no building in particaular. Sure enough; within seconds a crowd started to gather. Not to hear any orations, mind you. But to see if any one was up on a ledge, perhaps. The crowd did grow. Pop and the rest managd to sneak out under the crowd cover.
I guess your story kinda triggered my memory of his tale.
Reminds me of Mr. Natural in reverse, as he sat by the path that became a highway being surrounded by skyscrapers that became an abandoned civilization, then rubble, then the natural setting it was to begin with.
He must have been Mr. Civilization.
I'm glad you enjoyed my pseudo-parable (which, as far as I can figure, means nothing - a bit like Paulo Coelho's 'quotes of the day' on his blog ;) - they appear to be philosophical but in fact are random words thrown together to sound philosophical.
This story came to me in the middle of the night about 6 years ago as I lay demented, half awake and itching with chicken-pox. I have re-written it a number of times and this version pleases me most. Thanks for reading as always Candie, Sub & Dood.
Suspecting him to be a little mad and perhaps, dangerous, people soon chose to pass him by, doing their best to ignore him.
Story of our blogs.
Sincerely I think you are a great writer and you can write many different things,you have a real talent and one thing you were right from the start,you never wanted to get personnal,say your real name,share a bit of your life,well perhaps become a friend,well I guess you were right,I guess you were right.Will be reading you always as I do understand that the best ones have the biggest ego,Dali genius ;)
James: you gotta watch that paranoia :)
Candie: thanks... I think :D
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