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The Jevlir Caravansary

Category: Short Stories

  • Are You Sure You Don’t Want More?

    Ferod stood in shock in front of the shrine. He’d distinctly heard the words.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    He didn’t really believe in the old gods. Nobody even seemed to remember the names of whatever god or gods this shrine might be dedicated to. But he had run out of money to pay for seed grain, and if he had no seed grain there would be no planting, then, of course, no harvest, and therefore no seed grain for next year either. So he came to the shrine and asked the gods, whoever they might be, for money to buy seed grain.

    “No,” he said, inwardly cursing himself for responding to the imaginary voice. “I just want money for seed grain.”

    He said this because he didn’t believe in the gods and didn’t suppose they were going to give him even that much. So why ask for more?

    On his way home he tripped over a rock and fell into the ditch beside the path. As he was scrambling back out of the ditch he felt something smooth and hard. When he got back to the path he brushed the object off and found that it was a large silver coin, worth precisely the amount he needed to buy seed grain.

    Stupid gods, he thought, making me fall in the ditch in order to find this pitiful coin. But at least it will buy me that seed grain.

    Ferod’s farm went reasonably well for the next few years. He didn’t get rich, but he always had enough to feed his family, with seed grain left over for the next year.

    Then his wife got sick. The village shaman performed rituals over her, but she didn’t get better. He applied all the folk remedies he could remember from his mother, but she only continued to get worse.

    Then he remembered the shrine. He hadn’t been there since his prayer for the seed grain. He really didn’t believe the gods had provided the silver coin. Clearly it was just a coincidence. But it could hardly be less effective than rubbing his wife’s body with that noxious smelling green mixture he had simmering in a pot on the stove.

    So he went back to the shrine. “I would like my wife to live longer,” he said.

    “How much longer would you like her to live?” he thought he heard. What an imagination I have! he thought. Here I am holding a conversation with a pile of rocks.

    But he answered just the same. “I’d like  her to live five more years,” he said. By then the children would be old enough to work in the fields, and she would be older than many women he could name. Yes, five years would do.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    He didn’t bother to answer. He felt too foolish. And besides, he didn’t believe the gods would do anything in any case.

    But when he returned home, his wife had taken a turn for the better, and had thrown out the noxious smelling green stuff he had been cooking on the stove. So things got much better.

    Better, that is, until five years later his wife fell from a ladder, broke her neck, and died. Ferod was too grieved and angry to notice that it was five years to the day from his visit to the shrine.

    Still, the children were older, and were able to work in the fields, so life went on. It was lonelier. Much of the life went out of the farm. But they kept on living.

    Then came the great drought. Not only was Ferod’s farm dry and unproductive, but so were all the farms around. The river was nearly dry. There came a day when Ferod knew that if they didn’t get rain immediately, they were all going to starve.

    So once again Ferod went to the shrine. He didn’t really believe it would help, but he went anyhow, as had been his habit when he was desperate. The shrine was covered with vines now so that the rocks could hardly be seen.

    “I need enough rain to water the crops,” he said.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?” he thought he heard again.

    “Why do you always ask that?” he shouted. “OK! I want more! I want lots of rain! I want it to rain and rain.”

    He said this because he didn’t believe the gods would do anything. Besides, the question made him angry because he felt foolish.

    But before he was halfway home clouds were gathering and the rains began. It rained all the rest of that day. It rained all night. Then it rained the next day. In fact, it kept raining for two weeks. The river rose ominously, but it hadn’t overflowed its banks.

    Nobody considered that it was raining in the mountains as well. But then there came a day when a rocky barrier was swept aside in the mountains and a wall of water swept through the village. It took away houses. It washed away the crops and most of the soil in which they grew. When it was done there was nothing left of Ferod’s village.

    Ferod managed to survive, clinging to a large tree on top of a hill that wasn’t quite completely submerged. When the water receded he went to find the shrine.

    There were only a few stones left scattered where the shrine had been. He raised his fists and yelled at the gods. “Why did you do this to me?” he asked.

    “We only did what you asked,” said the voice. It might have been in his head. It might have been carried on the wind. He wasn’t sure.

    The voice seemed to mock him. “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    (This post was written for the one word at a time blog carnival, on the word “more.”)

  • On the Worship of Umnam and Umnan

    “Why were you in such a hurry to leave the last village?”

    Roban looked at his daughter. She was also his apprentice in his trading business. He drove his wagon on a circuit amongst the towns and villages that extended hundreds of miles and weeks in time, buying and selling things that were available in one place but needed in another.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events and products of my imagination. Copyright © 2012, Henry E. Neufeld

    He had convinced himself that, if his oldest child had been a boy, he would not have had to deal with so many questions. When he mentioned this conclusion to his wife, she broke into gales of laughter. But right now, whether it was sensible or not, he wished for a practical, down to earth, boy child. Yet he knew that nothing short of a real answer would satisfy his daughter.

    “Because,” he said after a pause, “tonight is the heathen festival of their evil god Umnan.”

    “Why do you call Umnan evil?”

    “Because he is an evil god.” Roban tried to sound final, but he knew it wasn’t going to work.

    “But Umnan sounds just like our god Umnam. There are lots of words that end in ‘n’ in these southern villages that end in ‘m’ back home.”

    This made Roban think. Of course he’d noticed this before. It was essential in adjusting his speaking so he didn’t sound so foreign. Sounding foreign was bad for sales. He paused again, this time for a couple of minutes. He covered the pause by pretending to look over the oxen and the load, making sure all was well.

    “It may sound like that,” he said finally, “but it isn’t really. Umnam is kind, just, and loving. He preserves us and defends us from the hostile spirits of nature. We sacrifice to him out of our love and thankfulness. Umnan is evil and nasty, and is out to get everyone in sight. He uses the hostile spirits of nature, the wind, storms, fire, and water. If his worshipers don’t sacrifice to him regularly, he will strike out and kill them.”

    He hoped this would divert her, even though he hadn’t answered the question of why he was so determined to leave their village before the feast.

    Temporarily, it seemed to work.

    “Why?” she asked. This was normally his least favorite question. Right now, however, it offered a long diversion.

    “Do you remember the story of the great flood?”

    “Of course I do, daddy!” And that was very true. She tended not to forget things—anything, in fact—and she loved the ancient stories.

    “Well, give me the outline.”

    “Men were evil, so the gods sent a flood to destroy them. But Umnam saw that some of his people were obedient, and sent them warning by the prophet Urvam. They fled to their boats and rode out the flood. Many perished, but Umnam preserved the faithful and brought them to land again. When they reached land, they still had to face falling branches and unstable rock piles. But the sun came out again and a rainbow appeared, which was the sign that Umnam loved them and would preserve them forever.”

    It was an admirable summary. Roban had hoped his daughter would tell the story in more detail, thus taking up more time and giving her an opportunity to forget her original question.

    “Quite correct,” he said. “But the story of the great flood told in the south is quite different. Their story says that Umnan was angry with his people, and chose to destroy them with storm and flood. But a great hero, Urvan, learned that the flood was coming, and rode downstream on his horse ahead of the waters, warning his people to flee to their boats. Many were lost in the flood, but the survivors made it to shore. At the last moment the chief’s child was struck on the head by a falling branch, loosened by the wind. Thus the people learned that Umnan demands his price.”

    He paused again. “You see how they pervert the truth with their demonic story?”

    Several minutes of silence ensued. Roban found he approved, but at the same time it made him nervous, almost like the moments while one waited for a wild beast to strike. Of course, this was his daughter!

    “But if you look at it differently,” his daughter said finally, “it could be the same story.”

    “No, it couldn’t!” Roban came back instantly. “The two stories are not alike at all!”

    And then it came. “I see,” said his daughter, deceptively calm. “But you still haven’t told me why you wanted to be out of the village before the feast.”

    “Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t want to, but I will. Every year at the feast, one child is chosen as a sacrifice to Umnan. That is evil! If you were in town, I guarantee they would choose you!”

    The daughter truly did believe that was evil, but she still thought the stories were much too much the same.

    I wonder whether Umnan actually wants a child sacrificed to him, she thought. Maybe a branch just fell, and that’s the way people interpreted it. But she was actually more cautious than her father gave her credit for, and she didn’t say it out loud.

    (This is an exercise in taking a different point of view on a story. You should recognize similarities and dissimilarities with the biblical story of the flood, focusing on the lectionary passage Genesis 9:8-17. I’ll be discussing this in The Way Sunday School Class at First United Methodist Church, Pensacola, February 26, 2012. We ask members to bring various responses, art, poetry, stories, other thoughts.)

     

  • A Great Disappointment to Me

    “You’re a great disappointment to me.”

    Jay’s father’s words hit him harder than when his boss fired him, or when he’d been expelled from his high school. He was still a teenager, and already he was practically unemployable. It wasn’t that he was stupid. He simply had a serious problem with the truth.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events and products of my imagination. Copyright © 2012, Henry E. Neufeld

    He sat around the house for a few days, avoiding his father, who no longer tried to tell him to find a job. Where would he find one anyhow? He wondered when his father might tell him he was no longer welcome. The man did believe in the maxim, “He who does not work should not eat.”

    Then the impossible happened. Out of the blue he got a call. One of his friends had mentioned his name for a construction job. He was a little bit young for the job, but the contractor told him there were ways around that. That concerned him a little. How did one get past regulations on what a 17 year old could do on a construction site?

    The first day of work he was met by the contractor himself. “Just tell everyone you’re 20,” he said as he presented some job forms that had already been filled out. “Just sign where the arrows are.”

    Jay knew better, but he could sense that he wasn’t supposed to actually read the forms. He’d tried to slip something by his teachers too many times to miss the look the boss was giving him. So he signed the forms.

    He expected that he’d be out doing the hard work of hauling cinder blocks or something like that. He had no building skills at all. In fact, it was very strange that he’d been called for this job in the first place. But Jay was used to suppressing thoughts like that. They got in the way of getting what he wanted.

    But instead of the hard manual labor he’d expected, he was sent to ride with one of the truck drivers who picked up supplies and delivered them to job sites. The work was hard, but not nearly as hard as he’d expected. The driver told him to pay attention and learn where the various job sites were and where the suppliers were located.

    “Before long you’ll be driving,” he said.

    Jay knew that at 17 he could not get the sort of commercial license required to drive the sort of truck used for those deliveries. But he decided that he’d better not ask, because he’d been told to say he was 20.

    He soon noticed something odd about those deliveries. Somewhere along the way the driver was swapping forms. He’d only got a glance, but he was pretty sure that what was on the purchase orders was not what was delivered to the job sites. Then there were extra stops at some warehouses. It was clear they were buying more materials than they were delivering to the job sites, and then delivering the rest to those warehouses.

    After a couple of weeks, the contractor told him it was time for him to take the delivery route himself. He handed him a fake driver’s license. “You’ll need this to identify yourself when you pick up the supplies,” he said.

    “What do I do if I’m stopped by the police and they check the computer?” asked Jay.

    “You drive carefully and don’t get stopped by the police,” said the boss.

    He handed Jay the paperwork. Jay leafed through it. He could see the two copies of each of the purchase orders and the list of sites and deliveries. The boss watched him carefully.

    “I think you know what to do with those,” said the boss. “I think you’re an observant young man.”

    Jay nodded. He wanted to feel proud as the contractor called him “observant,” but hard as he tried he couldn’t shake the feeling that the look the boss was giving him was one of contempt and not congratulation.

    He’d never been worried about lying before, but now he had a job and was making his own money. He’d felt pride that he could get the job, even through the slight discomfort he had about the lie regarding his age. He had told himself that was just concern over getting caught, but this was something more.

    The deliveries were not that hard. He didn’t find it difficult to keep the paperwork straight so that each job site received what their paperwork said they should, while there were always materials left over.

    But each day he couldn’t shake the feeling that the boss looked at him with contempt. He’d never caught on to the problem of lying when he did it at school or at home, but now each time he told someone what his job was he felt guilt rather than pleasure. In school or at home, the only reason he’d seen to tell the truth was what might happen if he got caught. Now it was his life. And he found he wasn’t comfortable with his whole life being a lie.

    He spent a little time on the internet and located the contractor licensing and fraud unit of the Sheriff’s office. But for a couple more weeks he couldn’t bring himself to take any action. He realized that there would be no way he could prove the contractor had told him to lie about his age. Those forms in the employment office probably lied about his background, and he’d signed them without thinking. It was just another little lie, but now it was a weight around his neck—his life, in fact! He probably couldn’t even prove that the contractor had provided his fake ID.

    Each day that his boss looked at him with that look of contempt made it harder to continue the next day. How could his boss, who was ordering him to cheat, have contempt for him because he did it? Then one day he realized that the boss had contempt for himself as well.

    So late one afternoon after he left work he got together with the fraud investigator. “I can’t prove the contractor is involved in any of this,” he admitted. I have a history of lying and cheating. I signed the employment documents. I’ve been using this false ID. But I’m done.”

    The investigator didn’t go easy in questioning him about every detail. But when he was done he said that most people would have shown up with an attorney and demanded immunity in exchange for their testimony. “We were already watching your boss,” he said. “What you can’t prove, we can, and you’ve given us the last piece. I don’t know what will happen to you, but you can be sure I’ll put in a good word. Keep working and we’ll take care of the rest.”

    It was a week later when the deputy showed up as he started his route. He confiscated the papers and arrested the contractor and several others. But he didn’t arrest Jay. “You’ll have to testify,” the deputy said.

    “OK,” said Jay.

    As the contractor was being led to the waiting cruiser, he turned to Jay. “You’re a great disappointment to me,” he said.

    But this time what the boss said about him made him feel proud.

    (This story was written for the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival – Disappoint.)

     

  • We Should Have Learned to …

    “We’re not going to bother with any of that marching crap,” said Jeffords to his troops. They were his because he was the only one in town with experience in combat, little as that was.

    The villagers were lined up, sort of, in front of him. The idea was that he would prepare them to fight in the great war should their baron call for them. He had hated all the details of military life, the drill, the order, uniforms, and theory. What was important was for people to learn to fight.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    His troops had spears and crossbows. The crossbows weren’t very good, but they were the preferred hunting weapons in the area. Jeffords suspected any real hunters had hidden those crossbows they actually used to hunt, and these were the remnants.

    So Jeffords set about teaching the villagers to use those crossbows. Marksmanship was the order of the day, with a little bit of work with the spears (just in case the enemy got that close) on the side.

    Then word came that enemy troops were approaching their own town. The baron had called for them. It was time to go to war.

    “There’s no point trying to learn to use crossbows effectively,” said Karl. Karl, much like Jeffords, was the only person with military experience in his town. He was convinced that the peasants could not learn to fight properly, and the only possible way they could be used in battle was if you made them into a coherent unit.

    “What we need to learn to do,” he told them, “is to learn to point those spears forward together, hold our shields locked together, and march forward together until those spears are sticking inside our enemies.” He did his best imitation of his drill instructor’s voice.

    So Karl’s troops drilled constantly until they could make a solid wall of their shields and a nice hedge of their spears.

    Then the word came that they must go to war for their baron.

    It so happened that Jeffords’ groops and Karl’s troops faced one another when the day of battle came. Karl couldn’t quite suppress his worry as he saw all those troops carrying crossbows. If they were accurate enough for long enough, things could be very tough for his people.

    Across the field, Jeffords had his own worries. If those troops across the field could hold that nice wall of shields and move forward with all those spears pointed straight forward, things could get pretty tough for his men. He was remembering how rarely his folks hit their targets, and it looked like this might start at longer range than they’d trained for.

    Then the orderly line of troops started to march forward with their shields in a wall. On the other side crossbows began to fire. It was ragged—they’d never really learned to fire in a volley. Most of the bolts ended up in that wall of shields, though an occasional yell indicated a hit.

    Jeffords realized the only possibility was for his troops to get behind. He began to yell the order. Unfortunately, nobody had practiced this particular maneuver. In fact, they had barely practiced any maneuvers.

    So some chose to run around the right flank, others tried for the left flank, some thought it must be a retreat and started to run away, and there were a few who seemed to thing they should run forward with their spears.

    Unfortunately (this time for the other side), some of Jeffords’ troops did make it around and it turned out that they did know a bit more about fighting than Karl’s troops did.

    When the battle came to a close, or more accurately wound down due to the dwindling number of participants, there were quite a large number of bodies on the ground. Some of them were pretending, but who could tell?

    Jeffords pulled himself up off the ground. His leg was cut wide open and he knew he wasn’t going to be walking soon. He looked at the mess.

    “Maybe we should have learned how to march,” he muttered.

    Across the field Karl looked around. He was in better shape than Jeffords, but he didn’t have much fight left in him.

    “Maybe we should have learned how to fight,” he said.

    (This story was written for and submitted to the one word at a time blog carnival: Marching.)

  • Of Gold and Good Advice

    The old man sat in his simple room looking at the bag of gold. “Use it however you want,” the rich young fellow had said. “I feel I need to give it to someone, and I have no idea who. I think you may know.”

    The old man was renowned for his wisdom and his kindness. He had never sought attention or fame. He lived simply. He gave away whatever he didn’t need, and he needed very little.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    And here was a bag of gold, enough to buy the entire town. At least.

    He thought of a plan. He divided up the money, and then he set out to find three young men.

     

    “I believe you’re about to go and seek your fortune,” said the wise, old man to the first young man. “I want to make you an offer.”

    “What? Make it snappy!” said the young man.

    “I have here a bag of gold. It’s quite a considerable amount of money. I will give you a choice. Either I’ll give you this bag of gold, or I will give you a wise saying that will help you as you seek your fortune.”

    “Give me the gold, if you have any,” said the first young man.

    So the wise, old man handed the young man a small bag of gold. The young man was delighted with his good fortune. He went on his way, richer than he had ever imagined he would be.

    “I will offer you a choice,” said the wise man to the second young man. “A wise saying to help you live a full life, or this bag of gold.”

    “How much gold is there?” asked the second young man. “Can I get a sample of your wise advice?”

    “This bag is filled with gold coins,” said the wise, old man. “And no, you must choose between the gold and the saying. I didn’t say it would be advice.”

    The second young man was a thoughtful sort, and he had heard of the famous wise man. “I can always earn money,” he said, “I’ll take the wise saying.”

    “You have within you a gift that can connect you with the universe,” said the wise, old man.

    “Is that all?” asked the young man. “I should have taken the gold. It wasn’t a fair test.”

    “What has fairness to do with it?” asked the wise, old man. “It’s my gold. I can give it or not as I choose. Here! I’ll give you the gold as well.”

    The young man went on his way, still fuming. He had the saying and he had the gold, but somehow he felt cheated.

    “I will give you a choice,” said the wise, old man to the third young man. “You may either have this bag of gold, or you may have a wise saying that will help you live a full life.”

    “I’ll take the wise saying,” said the third young man.

    “You don’t care how much gold I’m offering you?” asked the wise, old man.

    “Not really,” said the third young man. “I’m not asking for it.”

    “Very well, then. Here is the saying: ‘You have within you a gift that can connect you with the universe.’”

    The third young man looked thoughtful. “Thank you,” he said. Then he started on his way.

    “Here,” said the wise, old man. “I have no use for this. Take the gold as well.”

     

    Some years passed, and the wise, old man heard news of the young men he had encountered.

    The first young man went to the nearest city. He lived well on the gold. In fact, he could have lived for many years. But within the first year he invested the gold in a trading caravan that promised enormous profit.

    The caravan was lost and never heard from again. The young man ended up penniless and eventually took his own life.

    The second young man was very much disturbed by the saying given him by the wise, old man. He thought and thought about it, but he couldn’t see any value in it. Wise sayings should be easy to understand and put into practice! He thought the test had been unfair, and even though he was rich beyond his wildest dreams, he was angry, resentful, and very difficult to get along with.

    His belief that the world was essentially unfair, setting traps for unsuspecting young men and treating them unjustly led him into conflict with others. He eventually killed someone in a drunken rage, a person who had treated him unfairly, and he ended up in the king’s dungeon.

    The third young man was delighted that he had a gift within him. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant to connect with the universe, but he set out to discover what that gift might be. Each time he discovered something that appeared to be a gift he set to work on it to see whether it would help him connect with the universe. He wanted to discover what that would be like.

    Over the years he found that he had many gifts, and as he put his best effort into developing every gift he discovered, he found he could do many things. He spent the gold very carefully, living on what he earned, and using it mostly to help him in his quest as well as to help others.

    He became quite popular and well liked. He didn’t try to be popular, but there were so many people he had helped or taught, or even just served well when he worked.

    Many years later he was sitting in a bar listening to the talk of the men and women from the caravan route. They told the story of a wise man who had a talent for helping people with his knowledge and his money. He recognized the story. It was his. But the speaker attributed it to someone in a town he had never heard of in a country he couldn’t have placed on a map.

    “… connect you with the universe.” He suddenly realized just how connected he had become.

    He chose to bring his story to the wise, old man himself.

    “What do you think of the results of your experiment?” he asked.

     

    Now you, reader, what do you think?

    The LORD’s judgments are true.
    All of these are righteous!
    10 They are more desirable than gold—
    than tons of pure gold!— (Psalm 19:9b-10a, CEB)

  • The True Word is Withdrawn

    He couldn’t be more than four or five years old, thought the headman. He really should know, as this was the son of the resident priest at the little shrine on the north edge of town. But he really couldn’t remember.

    This is a work of fiction. All person’s, places, and events are products of the authors imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    He’d wandered into the headman’s office and said he had a message from the gods. It was impossible to believe that the boy could think of the words he used. He’d condemned the headman for having one of the villagers executed on false evidence, and for stealing the property of others. The child had called the man, the elder, a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He said the gods were going to punish him.

    It was intolerable. The child had said the message was from the gods, but he knew it had to be from the child’s father. How the father had known the headman’s secrets, the headman had no idea. But there was only one answer. The priest had to go. And the child would have to go as well.

    “You lie,” said the headman. “Your father put you up to that message.”

    “No, it is from the gods,” said the body.

    “Liar,” shouted the headman. But the boy didn’t show the expected fear.

    “The true word is withdrawn,” he said. “The gods will no longer speak.”

    The headman laughed. “The gods will no longer speak,” he muttered. As if their speaking ever did any good. The priest brought regular messages, but they were either just general congratulations or they were so muddled nobody could figure out what they meant in any case. Who cared if the gods didn’t speak any more?

    A few days later the priest and his wife were arrested. Everyone suspected the charge of theft of public money was trumped up, but they weren’t sure, and besides, nobody went against the headman. As was the tradition, the boy was given his father’s place. Of course, he had to be cared for by someone, and the headman generously offered to give him a home until he was old enough to go live alone in the shrine.

    The years passed. As expected, the little boy grew up and became the priest of the shrine. And as was expected of him, he began to produce oracles from the gods. They were suitably difficult to interpret. Nobody could tell whether they were true or not, because nobody could be sure what they meant.

    Yet the headman’s luck seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. From time to time as he was lying in bed unable to sleep he’d start to believe it had started on the day that the little boy had told him the gods were going to punish him. Then he’d push it from his mind. It really had just been a trick pulled by the boy’s father. Good thing he hadn’t fallen for it.

    The boy, so far as the headman knew, didn’t even remember the incident. After all, the child had been very young.

    Then came the day when the baron called for the headman to bring troops. There was to be a great battle. The headman didn’t want to go. What he needed was an excuse to stay away and send someone else. In fact, he wanted to keep all of his cronies and supporters from having to go to war and send some of the others.

    The best way to do this was to have an oracle that told him (or could be construed to tell him) what he wanted to hear. That would justify him before the villagers, and reported (with suitable adjustments) in a letter to the baron, it would justify his sending someone else in response to the request—really an order—for support.

    He didn’t bother to say anything to the priest, who would doubtless produce something suitably incomprehensible which could be interpreted however he needed it to be.

    All the warriors gathered in the town square to hear the oracle before the chose those who would go to fight for the baron and those who would stay and defend the village.

    “Those who go will face great trials, but will return crowned with glory and honor. Those who stay will be surprised and will suffer dishonor.”

    It was suitably obscure, but how could he interpret it as direction from the gods that he should stay at home? He should have coached the priest as to what to say. Clearly the young man hadn’t realized his sponsor wanted to stay and had made the oracle too precise.

    So the headman led the small group of warriors off to support the baron. As would be expected, those who were his closest supporters chose to go with him. Who could resist returning crowned with glory and honor? Who could explain such a decision?

    It was unfortunate that the town elder left in charge was not a close associate of the headman. After all, the closest associates had headed off to war. He suspected the headman was stealing from the town. He suspected he had had innocent people imprisoned and killed. But he didn’t care.

    The elder began to talk to others in the town, and they decided they really didn’t need the headman. They decided they would kill the headman and any warriors who chose to support him when they returned. They thought the number of returning warriors would be diminished, and they would be surprised.

    It was an unsavory business. The rumors in the town were intense. Some said the interim headman was in bed with the real headman’s wife. Some said that it was the headman’s younger daughter. Everyone was talking about how the supposed caretaker was taking things for himself.

    Then one day the watchman shouted out the word. The warriors were returning.

    The men gathered near the gate, planning still to arrest the headman. What else could they do? Despite the chaos, there was no way they would survive if they let the headman take back power.

    But it was a sad procession that entered the town. The headman was lying on a wagon. His weapons around him. He had been presented with a wreath as a crown by the baron for his valor in battle. Though the wreath has withered, he was, indeed crowned with honor. He was also quite dead. And embalmed. It really was quite a surprise.

    But before everyone realized this a battle broke out between the warriors who had been left behind and the small number who had returned. Despite their small numbers, the returning soldiers did well, and killed most of their attackers. There was only one of the warriors who had stayed in the village left alive and unmaimed when the battle was over.

    He went to the temple and asked the priest how everything could go so wrong for everyone.

    “The true word was withdrawn,” said the priest who had been the boy. “What did you expect?”

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  • A Fresh Perspective – II

    A Fresh Perspective – II

    (See also A Fresh Perspective I)

    The church council didn’t know what to do. Well, that isn’t precisely true. Individually they did know what to do, but they didn’t all know the same thing, and no one plan of action was acceptable to all the members.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and things are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of anything or anyone in the story to anything or anyone in the real world is coincidental.
    Copyright © 2012,
    Henry E. Neufeld.

    Here was their problem. They had dozens of young people coming to events at the church. They played basketball in the gym. They played softball on the softball fields. Many of them even went to Sunday School.

    The power bill on the gym was going up, and there was no money to pay it. The softball fields needed more and more maintenance, and there was no money to pay that either. The Sunday School classes needed more materials, but there was no money for that. They needed more teachers, but there were not enough volunteers.

    Some thought the problem was that the church didn’t trust in God enough. They proposed a month of fasting and prayer that God would provide the money.

    Others thought that the problem was that these were children whose parents didn’t go to the church. They wondered why they had to spend money on children whose parents weren’t interested enough to support the church with their time and money. They suggested the children should go to church wherever their parents did. They just looked blank when someone mentioned that very few, maybe none, of those parents went to church.

    Some thought they should try to get a grant somewhere, they weren’t sure where.

    Then one retired lady who had spent her entire life working with the children started asking questions.

    “Isn’t there something in the church budget we could give up?” she asked. “Perhaps we don’t need new hymnals this year.” Everyone was so stunned at this suggestion that silence fell, and she was able to continue. “Surely the children are more important than the appearance of our hymnals!” she continued.

    “And to all you praying folk. Are you going to show up to help? Will the money you save by not buying food while you fast help the budgetary problems?”

    “I know my granddaughter loves to work with children, but nobody has asked for her help. I’m told she’s too young, but is she really?” Again there was silence.

    “And has anyone considered contacting these parents? You seemed surprised at the suggestion they might not attend church. Most people in our community don’t—attend church, that is.”

    After a short pause she finished. “The only new thing I think we need here is a fresh perspective!”

    (This story is an alternative to the one I wrote for the One Word at a Time blog carnival on the word “Fresh.”)

     

  • A Fresh Perspective – I

    (See also A Fresh Perspective – II.)

    For years merchant trains had passed through the town by the falls on their way to the great north-south trade route to the west. The terrain was terrible, but alternate routes were even worse. One could go two or three days journey southward, past the end of the gorge below the falls, then cross the river, and head up on the southern side, but that took even more time and the road above the falls wasn’t any better on that side than on this one.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and things are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of anything or anyone in the story to anything or anyone in the real world is coincidental.
    Copyright © 2012,
    Henry E. Neufeld.

    Then had come the bad news. Several towns to the east had gotten together and were clearing and improving the road that bypassed the end of the gorge. They were blasting passages through the rocky hills. They were building a bridge across the river past the end of the gorge. They were building a road that avoided the river entirely. Put simply, they were making it possible for wagon trains to cut several days off their passage and avoid the long treck up the mountain to the town by the falls. The distance was greater, but the time was substantially less!

    The elders of the town by the falls were downcast. Almost all of the income for people in the town, and for miles around, came from the trade traffic. There were porters to make the climb up the mountain, caravan guards, blacksmiths, and all the workers required to clothe and feed them. So they hired an engineer to estimate the cost of blasting a road up the mountain and then improving the road by the river. If they could do this, the route through the town was much shorter, and they could bring the caravan traffic back.

    But the engineer told them that the cost would be much too great. Not even if everyone in the town donated their labor could the cost be brought down to something the town could afford. The resulting road would be hard to navigate, with nothing but tight switchback turns. It would even be dangerous.

    The elders argued for hours. They discussed where they could get loans. They wondered if there was a way to bring goods up to the town that would cost less than building a road. Some people thought one could contrive a way to bring wagons up to the town with a contraption of pulleys and ropes, but the elders dismissed that immediately. Who would ever think of doing such a thing?

    Then one man, bearded and dressed in animal skins, tried to get their attention. He first tried clearing his throat, but nobody listened. Then he waved his arms, but nobody noticed. Then he said “excuse me” while he waved his arms. People nearby said, “Shhh!” but nobody paid any further attention to him. Finally he jumped up, waved his arms, and yelled, “Hey! Excuse me!”

    Then one of the elders said impatiently, “Yes? What do you want?”

    “I have an idea,” said the wild looking man.

    “Who are you?” asked the senior elder.

    “I’m Embo, a hunter and hunting guide,” said the wild man.

    “And what qualifies you to have an idea about our road? We have consulted all the best experts.”

    “I grew up in these woods,” said Embo. I have guided hundreds of hunting parties upstream and downstream, and far afield in the mountains to the north. I know these mountains.”

    “Knowing these mountains doesn’t qualify you to build roads,” said the engineer.

    “I’ve never heard of you,” said one of the elders.

    “He doesn’t look respectable,” said another elder to the person beside him, in a voice he thought was quiet.

    “I know these mountains,” said Embo again.

    There was murmuring amongst the elders and the audience, but the head elder waved his arm and silenced them. “We have been arguing for hours and we have not found any solution. It won’t hurt us to hear this … um … man’s idea.”

    “To the north perhaps a day’s journey, there is a gap in the cliffs. It leads up onto the plateau a few miles west of the village. One could build a road through it, and it would join the river road.”

    “That is why hunting guides shouldn’t pretend to be engineers,” said the engineer. “The passage up to the town is only the minor part of the problem. Building an adequate road along the river presents a much greater problem.”

    “Yes,” said the senior elder. “What do you say to that?” But he asked his question in a tone that expected an answer. You see, none of the elders knew about the gap in the cliffs. They were only interested in what was in the town and in the caravan traffic. Why bother with gaps in cliffs?

    “Well,” said Embo, “I was coming to that. Everybody knows [they didn’t, but why bring that up?] that another day or so westward along the river the current slows enough as it crosses the plateau so that one can navigate it with boats or small barges. . . .”

    “There’s another reason that hunting guides should not pretend to be engineers. How are these boats to get far enough above the falls so that they can be used safely?” The engineer crossed his arms over his chest and gave Embo a challenging look.

    “I was getting to that,” said Embo. “I have frequently moved hunting parties up the river by simply having horses pull the boat along by walking on the current road. While the road is rough on wagon wheels, the horses can handle it quite well.”

    The engineer opened his mouth to speak, but Embo held up his hand. “Before you tell me this is another reason why a hunting guide should not presume to be an engineer, let me tell you that I have seen this sort of thing elsewhere, and that it would probably be best to have the boats hauled by oxen. The path will have to be improved, but not nearly as much as you are proposing. The resulting travel time will be days shorter than it is on the new road, and the wear and tear on the carts will be much lower.”

    The engineer opened his mouth and shut it several times. He wanted to object, but he had already thought of some improvements that might be made to the plan, and there was a commission at stake.

    “I see you are just now beginning to get the idea,” said Embo. “Perhaps that is why engineers should not presume to be hunting guides!”

    (This story was written for, and has been submitted to the One Word at a Time blog carnival on the word “Fresh.”)

     

  • The Stairway Going Down

    He stood looking at the hole in the ground. He could feel his hand trembling. He knew he was terrified and was embarrassed, even though there was nobody there to see.

    A stairway going down.

    That phrase was loaded with all the psychological freight of his own claustrophobia, heightened by his choice in literature, which tended to feature terrifying places, and by hundreds of dungeon adventures from fantasy role playing. The adventure party would be practically out of supplies and wounded to the point of death. Then the gamemaster would intone: “You see a stairway going down.”

    They’d pretend to lack imagination and tease one another about using the last of their power to climb down the stairway into the darkness.

    Dim. Dark. Dank. Damp. Dirty.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons and places are products of my imagination. Copyright © 2011, Henry E. Neufeld.

    All connected to “down” and all seemed to apply to the stairway in front of him. But this wasn’t a game. This wasn’t fantasy. He was actually standing in front of a stairway. It went down. It was dim. No, that wasn’t adequate. It was dark, it was damp, it was dirty.

    I could just go back to the car and call the police, he thought. I could get help. But the image was still in his mind. The light flashing to the sky as though someone had fallen holding a flashlight, or perhaps dropped one. He’d actually stopped to go and investigate. Then he was sure he heard crying, or perhaps moaning.

    The wisest course of action, he knew, was to get help. Why did he think it was urgent? What good would it do to get injured. Then he could easily end up way down some hole and nobody would know he was there.

    On the other hand he heard the words of his parents, his brothers and sisters, and associates. “A hero in his own mind.” “He can handle the fantasy world; the real world is beyond him.” “The more heroic the character, the more cowardly the player.”

    He had to go down that stairway.

    The first step was the hardest. No, that wasn’t right. It was the second. Or perhaps the third. Actually, it was always the next step. He hated the word “down” more with every step. He had even forgotten why he was trying to go down this stairway. He just focused on the next step.

    Suddenly he slipped. He threw up his arms, and hit something, then he was sliding, and he could hear rocks, or perhaps bricks falling around him. Then he landed hard. He was in complete darkness. It was bricks, not rocks. He could feel them all around him.

    It was his worst nightmare. Underground, in a cramped area, and finally buried alive. And here he was, living it.

    There was a moment when he thought he couldn’t think. He thought his mind and body were both frozen. Then he realized he was thinking about not thinking. Then he realized he was thinking more clearly than he had ever thought before.

    While he could feel bricks around him, he was still breathing easily. He felt that he was bumped and bruised, but he didn’t feel like he was bleeding. He didn’t feel any dampness. If he was really buried under a pile of bricks he wouldn’t be in as good shape as he was.

    He tried to move, and found he could. There were quite a few bricks around him, but only a few on top. It was painful to move, but not so painful that he couldn’t do it. He suspected nothing was broken, or it would hurt more.

    My mind has been making all this worse than it really is, he thought.

    A few moments of movement and tossing bricks, or rather mostly pieces of brick to the side, and he was able to stand again.

    Now where was he? He looked back, and he could see that there was still a small hole, but it offered plenty of room to crawl through. He should have a flashlight with him, but he didn’t. He did have a lighter. Why he carried a lighter, he could never explain. It was one of the things he kept in his pockets, most of which were not very useful. He wondered if he’d done it because he was so afraid of being buried underground.

    He lit the lighter, and saw that he was very near the body. Hardly had he thought “the body” than he realized that this was even more of his own nightmare scenario. It occurred to him to wonder if he was dreaming.

    Then he saw the flashlight several feet further on. He walked over and picked it up, flashing the lighter a couple of times to light the way. It was a waste of time. The flashlight was history.

    Then he went over to the body. He felt around the man’s neck (at least he thought it was a man), and thought he felt a pulse. Then he realized he really knew of nothing to do, and couldn’t really be sure he’d know the difference. He’d just heard you should be able to feel a pulse at the neck.

    Now was the time to do what he should have done in the first place, and call emergency services. “What goes down must go up,” he said, laughing as he mangled the common saying. Then he crawled up through the narrow hole and onto the stairs above.

    He was standing at the top of the stairway going down before he realized that he was no longer trembling. I could go right back down there, he thought. But he knew he needed to make that phone call. Where was his cell phone? Oh. Right there in his pocket, next to the lighter, complete with an app that would turn on the little LED light.

    I won’t mention that part to anyone, he thought, as he dialed 911. It wouldn’t do to have them realize he could have called the police at any time.

    The police wondered why he had gone down the stairs at all. “How was I supposed to know whether there really was anyone down there? I hadn’t really seen anything,” he explained.

    They explained to him that the “body” was a local gentleman who had gone for an evening walk and gotten lost. There used to be a few houses here with basements, and this was one of them. It’s a good thing for him you saw him drop that flashlight.”

    “Yeah, it is,” he said. But he didn’t mean for the guy who had fallen.

    He felt like a new man. He could handle reality, even in down in dim, dark, damp, dank spaces.

    Maybe next time he’d even remember he had a cell phone!

    (This story has been submitted to the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival – Down)

  • The Prince Will Come

    “The prince is coming here,” said the traveling merchant.

    “How do you know this?” asked someone from the crowd.

    “I saw him in a town far to the south, and members of his entourage told me he was heading this way. He plans to come all the way to the coast, and that will surely be right here.”

    “How long will it be before he gets here?” asked another.

    “It’s hard to tell, but it will be at least a year, maybe as much as two years.”

    The crowd soon broke up into smaller groups. Many thought the arrival of the prince was so far in the future that they needn’t worry. But there were others that thought it was time to begin preparations.

    It had been several centuries since any member of the royal family had been in that particular town. In fact, it had been nearly that long since any member of the royal family had been within a thousand miles. The town was run down. Commerce was poor. There was still some trade by sea, but the trade routes to the interior were risky and unreliable.

    So the town council got together and began to discuss how they might prepare for the arrival of the prince. There were many things that needed to be repaired. Certainly the roads within the jurisdiction of the town council should be repaired. The walls needed considerable work. The port facilities needed improvements.

    So workers were hired to work on the roads, the walls, and the port. More guards were recruited to protect those workers from bandits. The workers, in turn, needed to be fed, so merchants began to go inland to buy fruit and vegetables, and to villages north and south to buy fish.

    Some of the engineers noticed that they could get some very fine wood if they just followed the paths that were being reopened by the merchants, and so they sent work crews to cut trees and to carry them back to the city.

    Within a few months, merchant ships that stopped in the city found more customers than usual and were able to buy more goods to ship elsewhere. Word spread, and so commerce by sea increased.

    Occasionally there were rumors about the prince traveling in areas to the south and west, but never any firm word on where the prince actually was and when he would arrive. There were plenty of people who claimed to have seen the prince. There were even some who thought they knew when the prince would arrive in the town, but as time went on, they all proved wrong.

    Two years passed, and there came a time when the town council met again. They’d been spending money to get ready for the visit of the prince, but they were now past the latest time that anyone had projected for the prince’s arrival. Not only had the prince not arrived, but they didn’t have any word from any of the towns nearby where people might give a reliable estimate.

    There were three parties in the council. The first maintained that the prince would arrive eventually. They were confident in the many words that they had heard about the arrival of the prince. Sometime, they were certain, one of the predictions would turn out to be right, and they would see the prince and his party come over the hill and up to the gate of the town.

    The second party maintained that it was likely that the rumors about the prince were false, or at best there was no knowing when the prince would return, but they suggested everyone look around the town. “Who can possibly suggest,” they said, “that the town is not much better off. This idea that the prince is coming has made this town a much better place. If we keep preparing for him, it won’t matter whether he shows up or not.”

    The third party said that the whole thing was silly. The prince wasn’t going to show up, and he never had been planning to show up. They felt that the townspeople had wasted a couple of years of hard work. Why bother when there was no prince on the way?

    There was quite an argument in the council. Those in the first group obviously wanted to keep the town in good shape for the expected arrival of the prince. Though they agreed with the second group on how to proceed in general, they felt they were faithless. It wasn’t really enough, they said, to keep the town in good shape. One needed to keep it in shape for the prince.

    The third group thought the new way of doing business in the town was simply too much work. Why not relax more. Perhaps things hadn’t been as good and people hadn’t had as much before folks started expecting the prince, but life had been more relaxed. They even passed around stories about how comfortable things had been in the good old days.

    It’s only fair to point out that both the first and second groups thought that the third group had forgotten many of the less pleasant aspects of the good old days, especially lack of food and high unemployment.

    So it came time to vote . . .

    What should the town do and why?

    (This post has been submitted to the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival – Come.)