Argument: Lathynarn meets Sidney, who will make the dwarf knight’s name known again to the King by way of a quest.The city streets lit and towered by where the common folk live and who make a life for a life or two there.
Plastics and papers, and faces flung at the walls and pasted on what amounts to souls elevating them – lift the soul! soar the soul!
“I love
this dirty town
and its taxi-ranking pavements
and hidden stories squared
on street levels.”
We were looking for Sidney to fix it for Lathy to be noticed by the King – we had gone months since the Knights’ common room in a rounding-around phase of breaking and entering and shouting at windows and carriages and curtains and royal marriages – a right royal fuddle of ignorance and sighing.
Some of the knights now hated the very sight of us quite clearly in the way of what they sought to do.
“Quite low
and demeaning –
the King has noted me before.
But needs must be tended
like plants and coins.”
Coins and plants are uncommon in the city – mud and credit and promises grow better and reach further than they might have in a country ditch.
On the corner of 4th and 15th, Sidney skipped into view from a cab – Starbuck drove and threw a slab of a poem at the kerb – Sid brightened up to us with a smile shuffled from his pack of forty others.
“The dwarf?
Pleased to greet you!
I love your other stuff, and – hang it! –
I’m gonna make you King
of the Castle!”
I liked the man – an honest smile, sincerity, acute integrity – but Lathy took a snort and grumble, and turned a green armoured shoulder to Sidney, the dirty wee rascal, and his suit – oh, of course he wore a suit that wore his profession.
But no, I liked the man.
“I need
[… said Lathy…]
a quest from you –
some second-hand questing received
from his Bold Majesty
and meant for Fame.
“I need –
quite cheaply mind –
you to find and procure an action
quite sure and certainly,
quite one unique.
“I need
noticeable,
securable and fameable
actions from your actions
in my favour.”
Sidney sucked his teeth, straightened his tie, brushed down his jacket, smiled a while as he studied the dwarf knight in his greening armour.
“First we’ll,
glitter your shield
take drab armour and scrub it clean
to a silver, damn it,
more fashionable.
“Next we’ll
sort out that hair!
(You have hair under that helmet?)
Good – take a comb through it
and stylise!
“And we’ll
find a gimmick!
What can that sword of yours manage?
Magnetise things? Buddy!
The future’s yours!
“So we’ll
take your pony
and turn its hoofshoes to magnets!
Throw things and then catch ‘em
on the ground, see?
“Last we’ll
twee up your life
to popularise the ‘real’ you
(the faux you, unreal you)
and let ‘you’ be.
“Then we’ll
watch those offers
come stormin’ on at you – expect
the fame coffers to swell
as the words mount.
“Thus we’ll
make you a star.
You don’t think so? Of course it’s so!
You want so? I thought so!
Now watch and wait!”
Waiting and watching was all that his smile promised – quite easy for the two of us.
After an hour of his talk Lathy brightened too, like Sidney’s walk towards us, and he chanted:
“In brief,
and from now on,
the best of everything is good
and rich enough for me.
The best for me.
“The best
a dwarf can get.
I’ll be tasting my favourite
new perfume – sweet success!
So sweet to tongue!”
We all crossed the street and entered the park – Lathy danced a clanking rumble on the benches, over flowers and the tramps and bag ladies – he seemed quite joyful, almost a song in his heart, a musical around him, French horns punctuating his steps, the cellos training their sights upon him – an orchestra of hope and success with Lathynarn as soloist, and Sidney the conductor.
Myself, I suppose, the composer… I strolled with Sidney.
“Your boss
there, sunbeam, stinks.
He’ll never make it as he wants –
he is no knight, no knight
would envy him.
“Frankly,
he don’t know shit.
A biscuit full of delusion
I’d not want to chew on
for vomiting.
“I don't
relish shooting
a mosquito with a rifle,
so why not just shuffle
along and away?”
I nodded, yes, he was truthful – Lathy was a failing knight, the sun due to rise soon on the twilit glamour he sparkled with – but I couldn’t help liking my master, the green armoured fool.
We looked over to him, monologue-ing at the unlistening trees, his magnetic sword stroking his pony’s four shoes in turn – his helmet off, his brown hair waving at the cars and the city around us.
“Lathy
is, yes, a fool
but he’s my fool and I’ll follow
the way he asks me to.
Who’s deluded?
“It tastes
like sweet success
and lasts so very much longer
this gloopy delusion,
and it’s stronger.”
We all smiled for differing smiles – the forty pack that contains all the smiles of the world all written and mapped in a notation created by the Psychology of Man – and the city did its superior thing: ignore the folk that walk within.
Despite the money we gave Sidney – begged and borrowed and stole – we never heard from him again; such are the ways of besuited men.
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