The following is an excerpt from my novella “Landfall,” which will be available in future in its entirety. For now, enjoy this teaser. Feel free to send comments and feedback to holinauthor@gmail.com.
Once upon a time, the warrior begins. The night mist tastes like blood in his mouth, and his throat constricts, as if he is about to throw up. With a grunt and an ahem, he begins anew: Once upon a time, in a faraway province…
No one is present to hear his words – lately he has been given to talking to himself. He is constructing a makeshift fire, gathering bits of soggy cardboard boxes, slices of wood that splinter betwixt fingers and thumb, ripped-up signage that spells promises and guarantees. For a brighter future… one begins with dashing, dark strokes. … ends soon, finishes another with robotic red letters. The warrior stares intently at these two phrases, each written in a different language, and his mind constructs scenarios, linkages, progressions, how this one slogan led to the other.
But later. Once upon a time. So easy to be distracted. A consequence of age. Despite the touch of gray to his temples and beard, the chalklike lines that score his face, the warrior is a robust man. It would be assumed that someone with his calling has seen many things, most of them unpleasant, and thus the story about to be told is one of charred battlefields, lands so distant that their very names seem to have the clenched intensity of a dream, the screams of the dead and dying like the howls of animals at night. But he thinks of none of this as he tears off a slice of beef jerky with his teeth, and the stiff veins on his neck stand up. This is not about what he has seen, or where he has been, but what he has missed.
His mind has drifted back to the broken signs. Uncle, you would be proud of me, he laughs. I didn’t forget my language studies after all. But now is the time for discipline. Just a bit longer, at least. Storytelling is a tradition, rattling between generations, and with each telling the tale is twisted and hammered and massaged, until nothing remains but the emotional kernel that prompted the telling in the first place, and yet this urge is manifested over and over, delayed sometimes, forestalled by death and loss of memory and doubt, and still it persists. And now the warrior continues his story: Once upon a time, in a faraway province …
Not so faraway, he corrects himself. He is here, in that province. Home. Burdened by his knapsack and the empty sheath lashed to his side, he has trekked across lands and climates, until the seams in his boots split and his feet grew muddy and gray like the earth, and he has finally returned to the lake. Once lanterns lined the shores and plaintive string instruments celebrated the onset of autumn and festivals, now there is barren darkness. The bodies are gone. The survivors must have gathered them, spirited them away, incinerated them, buried them. The warrior is not a religious or superstitious man, but as he strikes the flint on his lighter and flame snakes to life, he considers the idea that the bodies moved themselves. They knew that tonight would be like this, every remaining night on this earth, in all the lakes around the world, and they knew that it would be lonely, and not so worthwhile to stay.
He has an obligation to speak for these people. They are owed their immortality. But that too is sophistry. He can tell of events, of the very emotions that tear at his soul, and in the end, they are merely his. The peculiar smell of a person’s breath, the imperfections in complexion or posture, the odd synthesis of a person’s appearance, speech, and deeds that compels one to love or hate – these are all destined to die with him, and someday a reader will hear of this hero, or that villain, and imagine a truth that in no way resembles the original. Indeed, hate may replace love, vice versa. Today’s hero, tomorrow’s villain. Every generation believes in absolutes, the warrior muses. Our common fallacy is that we believe that no other set of absolutes can exist. It would be impossible, reprehensible, wrong.
The lake stretches before him like a broken claw. In the distance, a single bird cries out, but the only answer it receives is the crackling of the warrior’s fire as he touches lighter to twig. The mutilated signs are burning, the sight somehow more devastating than that of a thousand corpses in flames. The words For a brighter future ignite, spark, and he thinks of the firecrackers that once soared above the lake, their explosions mirrored by the placid surface. And he hears the voices of those around him, friends and acquaintances and strangers, all of them pulsing and powerful. These is no help for it, once again the urge has won. So with a deep breath and a stroke of his beard, hairs turning to gristle between his restless fingers, he begins: Once upon a time, in a faraway province…
* * *
Every morning she stands at the window. Below, in the courtyard, the old man who is her father stands alone, his deer horn knives at his side. He moves to his own learned rhythms: a thrust here, a parry of his imagined opponent there. As the knives swoop and skim like cranes, they catch the first rays of sunlight, and every so often they shine straight at her, blinding her. But her father does not see her. His attention is occupied with the intensity of his extended arms, the bow steps of his feet, the uneven circumferences he slices in the space around him. In the old days, he was known as Iron Hawk, and now he is Old Hawk, a moniker that does not displease him. Such indifference distinguishes age from youth.
She watches, and even as she does so, her empty arms are describing the same circles, freeing themselves from the floppy sleeves of her gown. Tiny but unmistakable quavers (at least, unmistakable to a martial artist) color his motions, while hers are broad and invincible. And while his face furrows in concentration as he performs his routine, there is unfettered joy in her rendition, as if she is growing taller for every complete set of movements, unable to be contained by the ceiling, the roof, the heavens. Smiles jump to life when the sunlight from her father’s knives streaks across her face. And as she giggles, consuming and exuding energy, the street peddler cries out, just beyond the front gates, Steamed buns! Steamed buns here! She streaks down the stairs, her toes barely brushing the ground, her mother hissing Be careful! but not too loudly, for she knows her daughter’s secret and would just as soon not attract any attention to it, but the words are enough to bring her to a skidding halt just short of the courtyard, and with the utmost effort of will, her limbs slacken into courtesy. She wipes sweaty brow with perfumed sleeve, and bustles into the courtyard, past her father, who notes her ladylike, petite steps, the childlike excitement on her face as she calls out to the peddler, Here! Over here! We would like some buns, please! Flush with parental pride, he executes a final stroke, a certain death blow to all but the most experienced of warriors, and with a speed that belies his age, the knives are back at his side, their steel fogged with the warmth of his body.
* * *
The would-be warrior is young and ruled by absolutes: one’s destiny measured by mileposts, days spent under-neath a heavy sun or adrift on a starry ocean. What use are these ideas? Uncle sighs, and with aggrieved fingers he stabs at the parchment – another civil servant examination failed. But in his nephew’s world, it is the exams themselves that are the failure. The rote memorization of political successions, actuarial tables, spellings, quadratic laws – of what worth is it? A world roams wild beyond the drooping willow trees that mark the perimeter of the village, where countless mountains, rivers, and lakes lie in wait, where towns have names waiting to be pronounced.
His uncle calls out, Are you studying? The would-be warrior answers, Yes, a very coiled yes, because he is absorbed in his dragon stance, both hands curled white around the very wooden sword he has stolen from the local blacksmith, but this is of no consequence because the blacksmith is not an idiot, and has allowed the theft on one condition: Promise me you will do your best with it. Whatever you do, you must commit yourself to it. If you are a nose-picker, then be the best nose-picker far and wide.
Downstairs, Uncle pours hot but not quite boiling water into a porcelain pot, filling it, all the way up to the tiny strainer where the crushed leaves fan out like scorched flowers. A few minutes like this, then the accumulated tea will be discarded, for the full flavor of the leaves only emerges once they have had a chance to mature in that snug little crucible, luxuriate in that initial flow of water. This ritual is meant to open one’s mind to restful meditation, but all Uncle can think of is this rambunctious, orphaned child in his care, those high hopes for academic and economic advancement. It would all have been perfect. He had already composed boastful letters to friends in his mind: He gained the second rank in the state exams … he has been bestowed with his very own land … his name is known throughout the province …Accolades would have been his. You must be proud that you brought up your nephew so well. Weary of the sound of his own voice, Uncle calls out again: Are you studying? Every utterance is colored with unconditional disappointment, and he hates himself, be-cause he knows that rather than inspiring, these words are chastising, dissecting, murdering.
Flustered, Uncle realizes he has left the water in the tea kettle too long, and he dumps it with an uncouth splash. I’m coming up! he calls as he mounts the stairs to his nephew’s room, and with the swiftness of anger, he throws the door to the study chamber open. The young man is perched atop the black marble desk, a fine figurehead pose, resplendent in his white battle tunic, sword thrust outward to parry an invisible opponent. And, ha! he yells, unaware of his uncle’s entrance until far too late. And then with a sheepish, almost girlish grin, he sees him. Ah – Uncle …
Get down from there! Uncle shouts. Get down! You ungrateful, lazy –
Too late. With a deft twist and leap, the would-be warrior covers the distance between desk and window, and lands on the ledge with something less than balletic grace. Enough studying for one day, he sings. If I study one more minute, I will be as dusty and old as these books!
Grabbing at air with his arms, Uncle stumbles towards the window. You come back here –
The would-be warrior covers the ten feet from window to ground with ease. Perfect timing, as Uncle’s servant is just passing by with a freshly groomed horse, the one with eyes that shine like pearls at dusk. The boy takes hold of the reins and leaps upon the horse’s bare back. Hyah! he urges. Hyah! And the horse, not much liking this young ruffian, rears up, but the would-be warrior holds firm, earning trust not through force but by simply being.
You! Uncle is at the front door, gesticulating wildly at his servant. Stop him! Stop him! But the servant is used to the soft life, and does not have the agility of mind to do much beyond waving his arms in a desultory manner, mimicking his master. The would-be warrior snaps the reins and the horse thunders out of the courtyard, faster and faster, and he can hear his uncle shouting, Nephew! Nephew … Come back right now! He has covered enough ground that those last words are only as loud as a whisper, and when he hears them he pulls up. He is in the golden fields, mere yards away from the outskirts of town, and a slight wind rustles. The meadow flutters like thousands of delicate hairs, and the smell of spring smothers him. Someday, he will be fast enough, quick enough, and he will not hear his uncle calling come back, and that will be the time he will whip the reins once more, his horse will not stop, and he will continue onward until he and the horizon are one.