Argument: A journey through the forest leads to the empty plain, two leavings and one arrival – two for one is a sorry exchange.Very gently, gently, the sun rang down the line of the horizon and the moon rose silver and bloomlike above us – stately, plump – it shone a light on us as we stumbled through the flowers and that stream of flowers we were in – all tumbling together; washing rosewater, crocus-sweat and tears-of-piss-a-bed through our hair.
I gained balance around my pony’s neck and saw Lathy ahead of me – some nobility of moonlight perched upon his steed.
“Indeed!
(… he shouted…)
This is travel!
This is life… Accommodation
of the road and river
sweep us onwards!”
Float, float, follow and follow… what’s to be seen between the trunks and the green and brown of the leaves in the drifting scene?
To the left a handful of knights errant and truant from the castle fighting beasts – look, Sir X takes a snark, in turn quite blinded by the other – his armour bright, its body black… again, left and further down, Sir Y climbs the stumped and broken dark tower humped on a hillock ‘midst marsh drab and glamour fuelled of magick – Sir Z battles demons, his own it’s said.
To the right there were the victories and stolen lives drifting by – a woodsman with his axe taking a tree to the market – a hunter with gun gunning the squirrels and the targets painted gold – the priest with his habit, a dirty habit all soiled.
The view was spoiled by the half-light and still we drifted down the avenue between the trees – the blooms reaching up to my childish knees.
And then somehow it happened – we left the forest – a flat land appeared in the dark and the river widened to a delta washing the plant life of the woods to the triangle of the plain.
The flow lessened, pressure stuck, the depth of flowers reduced to some fingerfulls – we thudded to a halt and I was almost thrown from my pony’s neck – Lathy likewise and he ordered:
“Pony –
move on from here!
Mush! Tally! Don’t disenchant me;
take me on a distance
and move your arse.”
But she would not move and nor would mine – stationary, statues living in two inches of bloom – I spotted dandelion, marsh hedgings and circus weed – but spotted no kick of hooves to scatter them.
“Jump down
and pull ‘em, boy.
Let ‘em know who’s boss around here –
kick, whip ‘em, and move ‘em –
grab at their ears.”
I did so, gentle at first but pulled harder given minutes – they whinnied and mad-eyed as I whipped at their backs with the flat of my hand – when I stopped they pony-sighed-and-pulled-legs in a way that could not move – a thought took me downwards and I scraped away the carpet:
“Their feet
are stuck down fast
and the ground is all metallic –
their shoes are all magnets
and stuck them so.”
Our street tricks to fool starvation had disabled us – no movement in our bellies led to still feet, four feet left on each pony and eight horseshoes glued to the floor.
Dignity held them solid to the metal and, undignified, I pulled the reins and pushed their rumps, dragged at necks, strained at their ankles as they screamed and bit at my head – I begged them – no, please, just a step, come on, take a canter, one trot, one leg, one hoof-full forward, please, for yourselves – desperation is the devil’s smile from the moon.
What to do?
We had no choice – we left them.
We left them standing in the dark in the petal carpet in some silence – Lathy clanked in his metal boots, heavy with vague magnets of his sword and charisma – I cried a little as we walked, but knew the buttercups, the roseflesh, the broom gorse-whin of the river would feed them.
I looked back often and watched them get smaller – Lathynarn, to his credit, grew an inch or so taller.
***
Clank thud and scrape across the iron plain – moon highlighting the flat parts only where there were high parts, and there were none; day after day, day after day the moon revealed our motion over the metal, the rust and the flat – this flat, metallic ocean.
“Walking,
creaking onwards –
where are we headed to, Lathy?
We’ve been hours and days here
but all’s the same.
“No points
on the edges
since we left the ponies standing.
The game’s not so funny
when repeated.
“And on
and on and on,
always on behind Lathynarn –
yes, you there, deaf and blind
to squires behind.
“Hated
and jeopardised:
our feet thudding this blasted ground!
My granddad always worked
in the steel works...
“He knew
the feel of steel
and iron ore and hot smeltings
forming to the girders
of Glengarnock.
“But he,
I must presume,
never walked a week on iron
as we’ve done, suffering
two blistered soles.
“And he,
I must assume,
knew his task, his job and his goals
whereas we must wander
with ignorance…”
I mumbled for the weeks and months we trotted on the moonlit plain with the rust rusting our feet a red martian sand and iron-filings dust staining our face and calling to Lathynarn’s sword.
***
The moon had risen no higher – but I saw him first, slumped on the ground – a burst paperbag of a knight sprawled glowing in the blanched and silver light, with lance and helmet lying beside.
“Someone
is lying there,
Lathynarn, should we see to him?
He is a knight it seems –
fabulously.”
A grunt from Lathy in the knight’s direction.
I ran over to the pile and saw rags cluttered around, a mass of hair polishing the ground and – look closer – is that? no – a metal hand, some rivets, a wired mechanism, some pneumatics – I ran around to the face and there was an approximation of a face in metal – this knight was a machine.
“Sir Knight,
are you able
to stand? Are you alive, Sir Knight?
Can we help you to go
to where you want?”
Lathy walked over to us, kicked the knight and snorted.
“Wake up,
metallic man,
come with us and tell us stories
of how you arrived here
and where to go.”
His eyes lit up, his metal hands creased – he pulled himself to his place, gathered rags and lance and placed his helmet – his barber’s bowl – on his wigged and leonine head and said, no, sang:
“I am Sir Quixana.
I am an ill-made knight.
I seek my squire
and the lost limelight.”
He put a hand in a rag – he wore these rags as his armour had been stolen – and removed a red ball on a length of nylon then placed it around his head – the red ball was his nose.
“Suppose
[…he asked..]
I were a clown
and no metal man, no robot –
what would you take me for
then – and for why?”
Lathynarn ignored him and walked away – Sir Quixana followed and I followed after.
It’s all following, all following this tale.
