A day of unrest- a short story

Decided to share a little short story of mine from about 5 years ago, from a time, when breath was writing and nothing was real unless put into a font. Peace can be an enemy of creativity I find... A day of unrest can be more fruitful than many a day of peace, at least as far as self-expression goes.
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A DAY OF UNREST


He was sitting under the canopy of a colossal chestnut tree, leaning against its majestic thick trunk; sitting with one leg bent up and on it a tatty note-book where he was scribbling into with haste, almost frantically. His forehead was furrowed and there was a deep crease between his thick black brows. A fly landed on his knee and started to test this newfound potential source of food by rubbing its hind legs together. To this harmless annoyance the man was left blissfully unaware.

“Boo!”

A Child had jumped up to him from behind the tree and this made the Writer in turn jump as if he had just fallen out of a deep sleep.  It was the fly who probably got the biggest scare, comparable to an earthquake and flew away.

“What are you doing on such a wonderful summer’s day?”  

He glanced at the wilderness beyond him, with dazed eyes that seemed still slightly unfocused. What a wonderful day it was indeed! How bright was the sun! How the sunbeams danced in the air, how the whole atmosphere seemed to shine and sparkle in a tiny spectra from white to silver to gold. “Like fairy dust,” he mumbled and smiled.

He put his pen back to work while the Child was curiously leaning over to see what he was writing.

“The sun is sprinkling the Earth with fairy dust. In these rare brilliant summer days all the hearts of people are blessed with purely joyous, optimistic thoughts. Nothing seems impossible with the power of the sun behind us. We become for one day like magical children, like Gods themselves.”

The Child smiled at this but to herself she was thinking, “Crazy. He is totally crazy but I like him. Why sit here under this beautiful tree, see the wonder of this gorgeous day and do nothing but write? Write, write, write. That’s all he ever does. But at least he's not like that horrid Queen. Although she can‘t help being like she is I suppose either.”

“Do you wanna come and play with the rocks on the seashore?” the Child jumped up and down in front of the Writer. “There are such great rocks there. If you find the really magical ones and hold them in your hand for a while then they make your palm tingle. I swear!! It was the Mystic who showed me. You really must come!”

The writer started to explain that what he was doing was quite important here and he would perhaps come and see the rocks later, in fact he would promise her that, when he noticed another figure approaching from the little path in the forest.

“Oh, no”, they both thought simultaneously. “The Saboteur.”

The slightly hunched older man walked slowly. He always paced himself for he never seemed to be quite sure where he was, even though he had of course lived here for over 30 years now. Or perhaps he didn’t quite have the faith that if he did indeed start to walk a bit faster with his right leg his left leg would follow? There were always strange uncertainties in his head; he had grown to accept them, even though for others they became slightly intolerable after a while. His eyes seemed to be narrow slits; they kept flying from left to right as if always trying to catch some unseen enemy.

“I have had an idea. I spoke about this with the Queen and she did seem to understand, so I think that it’s fair to say that I have saved us once again.”

Both the Child and the Writer remained quiet. The Writer kept flicking over the pages in his notebook, pretending to be re-reading his story, while the Child had found a beetle on the grass to play with. The lack of a willing audience had however never stopped the Saboteur.

“So this is the problem. We have lived here on this island for a long time. We have been doing fine. It’s peaceful here, nobody ever disturbs us. But lately I have begun to hear people whispering about going out to the World. I hear everything, never doubt that.”

The Child was still happy enough playing with the beetle who she had named Didi and adopted to be her- oh, about five hundredth adopted child, but only about the fourteenth beetle and definitely the first with its shell with that sort of marvellous tiny little crack which made the Child love this beetle most of all, she was certain of that. But the Writer had stopped fumbling with the pages and had turned his face up to the Saboteur now.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Oh there’s no need to play stupid. I know that there has been talk and I know that you have started to write your manuscript about f-ffrreed-om.” The last word was almost spat out and distorted as if with a deliberate attempt to make even the sound itself ridiculous.

“I have written about many things. Although you have never seemed to take an interest in the subject of my writing before, an addictive waste of time as you have always just called it.”

“Yes. Of course it’s a waste of time. I mean what have you accomplished by this annoying habit of yours? All you seem to do is write but there is no audience to read what you write, and will never be an audience. So who are you writing for? Furthermore- if you don‘t have an audience then how do you even know that what you write makes sense or if it is worth while? You don‘t have enough talent to be a true writer, surely you know that.”

The Writer had become defensive but he had hunched his shoulders a little, just like the man standing before him.

“I am writing because I need to write. Because I need to express all the beauty that I see in the world and I hope to inspire people to see it too some day. But have we not gone over this a thousand times? Leave me be.”

“I have always let you be and do what you want and waste your time. But this stuff about… hggghh…ff-freeedom”, he cleared his throat of sudden phlegm, “That stuff is dangerous. We all know what can happen. So I have made a suggestion to the Queen to find a better outlet for your energy. I have proposed to her to build an iron fence around our land. “

“We are living on an island for god’s sakes!” This time the Saboteur has really lost it, he thought.
Even the Child had started to take an interest in the conversation now.

“Yes! We are going to the World! Oh, I simply can’t wait! It will be wonderful! There will be other people, and other trees and fields and seas and mountains and animals and birds and…. Ah! Won’t there, Writer? Won’t there?”

The Writer was once again saved by the bell as now there were three more figures approaching from the other side.

The first one walked slightly ahead of others. He was dressed in his favourite Che Guevara T-shirt, wearing a pair of scarlet shorts and his usual tough walking boots. He seemed to move in the thick grass like a tank, bending down every tall plant and vine that came on his way. There was a path right there beside him but he never walked on paths, he preferred to make his own way, always one where nobody had seemed to walk before.

A little way behind the Pioneer was the Mystic. What a contrast his peaceful energy seemed to the previous one. He walked with confidence as well but each of his steps spoke of his love and awareness for the nature around him, he carefully avoided an ant’s nest and then caressed a passing branch with his palm as if greeting an old friend. All the while laughingly trying to imitate a blackbird that had just finished its refrain.

Last behind was a puffy-eyed and red-nosed teenager, dragging his feet and holding his gaze to the ground.

The Pioneer spoke first. He had pulled himself up to sit on the lowest branch of the chestnut tree and was dangling his feet now right above the head of the Writer.

“I have started to build the boat. It won’t be weeks till we can finally leave.” His voice was trembling with excitement and joy and at the same time he had never sounded more secure, more at ease with himself. How long had he thought about leaving this island! How tired he had become of the same roads and paths, the same meadow, the same farm, the same faces of people day in and day out! Then he had started to climb the trees. That had been fun for a while but even this joy was soon exhausted. A few months ago he had taken to swimming. He had swum further and further, as far as his strong physique had allowed him, sometimes turning back only at the very last minute and had barely been able to crawl back to the shore coughing salt water from his lungs. He had seen everything on this pathetic small peace of land for about a million times and he was utterly, killingly, depressingly sick, sick, sick of it. That moment he had discovered the way to string together planks of wood that he could float on, and had made his first raft which, yes- had fallen apart after a few moments but nevertheless was undeniable proof that escape was possible, had been the happiest time of his life. And now the boat was almost ready.

“Really? Are we really leaving? Oh!” the Child could barely hide his excitement.

“No. We are not leaving. This is our home. We will never leave this place.” The Saboteur had said this. His face was grave and sombre. This was worse than he had thought.

“Oh yes we are!” said the Pioneer with an arrogant, rebellious tone of voice. “Everybody wants to leave this prison of yours. Me, the Child, the Writer…” He had turned over to the Writer, waiting for the latter to speak and lend him some support.

The Writer had not moved since the argument had started. He had been so peaceful and happy and full of life and the power of dreams. And now it was all gone. He was sad. He had pulled his other knee close to his chest, huddled them both and remained silent while drifting away in his thoughts, desperate thoughts of inability and futility.

Nobody had noticed that the birds were not singing anymore. The blossoming flowers had an ever so slightly duller colour; the wind had stopped playing with the leaves and the strands of hay. The beetles and flies and bees had crawled and flown away. They had sensed the storm coming before anybody else and had gone to find refuge in the little cavities of the trees and the earth.

“You understand me at least,” the Pioneer was addressing the Mystic. “You have always talked to me about the wonder of the World, the love and the beauty of it. Why are you never saying anything when we need you to speak?”

“What is there to be said?” the Mystic said with his ever-calm and peaceful eyes sparkling as if he found the question humorous. “What can be said is never true. That is to say it is true, but so is the opposite if we voice that. I find no meaning in words. They break up the infinity, the absolute truth into little pieces, into polarities and render them without the beauty of their wholeness. We are all One and we can be happy with experiencing this directly, without words and concepts and opinions.”

The Writer looked up. “But I understand that as well. Yet the Unity can play with words, words can fall out of the great mystery of oneness without dividing it but exploring its many-faceted appearance, finding symbols and links between the seemingly opposing forces, thus enriching the minds of people.”

“Yes. That is your joy and we must all follow our own joy. I prefer the sound of silence, and to let my love for the world come out with my breath, you prefer to release it with your pen. There is no right or wrong. It is not wrong to stay here on this island or to go out to the World. It is only the outer circumstance that will change; the inner truth will remain the same. I can love the world from here or from there, I am never outside it.”

The Pioneer was getting extremely impatient now. “We are going. If I have to drag each and every one of your pathetic bottoms onto my boat, I will. If I have to set fire on this island, I will do that. We are not going to stay in this prison for another month and there is nothing anybody can do about that!”

“I always knew that you were a fool!” snorted the Saboteur. “But that you had a secret desire to kill us all, that I didn‘t expect even from you!”

“Oh shut up, you old fart! I have had enough of your pitiful excuses, and your pessimism and your never-ending fears and stupidity! I have had enough of you, do you hear!” There was a passion of anger behind the Pioneers voice that he had never expressed or even felt before and everybody was taken aback, sensing for the first time that their quiet little imaginary idyll was not so idyllic after all. It was as if there were deep cracks beneath the very earth they were standing on and for the first time everybody knew it, knew it but could not think of it. Thinking about it made them all shudder as if faced with more than a fear of unrest and arguments; they had experienced plenty of those before. But this crack made them fear something far more terrible, something far more fatal, it was as if death itself knocked at their door. But they could not not think about it, for it was right there, it had been right there in the voice of the Pioneer and nobody could think about anything else.

Even the Saboteur sensed this. Even he knew that the dreaded freedom was no longer the issue; there was something far more dangerous at hand.

The weather was starting to change. The air was thick, hot and falling heavy on the lungs. Huge dark clouds had drifted onto the previously pure and empty blueness and they hung there threateningly, standing completely still as if to pretend that they were merely figments of artistry and imagination on a huge canvas. Yet they would be alive soon enough, their inner essence and the danger behind their immobility was not to be mistaken.

It was a quiet little voice of the teenager that put an end to the tension of silence in the air.
“But what will become of me? What will become of me?” He broke into tears, a fountain of sobs was released as if from behind a dam, so strong, powerful and unrelenting from such a small skinny weak body that the Child started to cry as well with conforming sympathy and fear.

This encouraged the Victim to enter the next phase of his wailing, one that everybody was familiar with by now. The stage when the tears were punctuated with brief spells of sentences. The same story, the same words, time after time.

“But I… I… have been out there… in the World… there were terrible monsters there… men who… did horrible things… to me… They made me… they hurt me… I could not… defend myself… I am too weak… too sensitive… I cannot handle… the World… other People… They… Will… Kill… Me…”

The Pioneer who usually stopped talking about his plans and his dreams when he was faced with this incessantly crying boy for the first time made his heart cold and refused to be moved away from his resolution.

“You will be fine,” he said. “I am tired of your constant crying as well. Can you not just pull yourself together for once? We have played up to your scenes and tears for too long. Get over it.”

The Victim was shaking violently now. He looked around to find the Mystic, who had always been the only one able to calm and console him. But the Mystic had distanced himself from this scene. He was struggling to walk, his steps were shaky, and he seemed to have lost all balance. He was tormented down to his very soul. He had felt the tremor of the island with greater power than anybody else. He had felt something else that made his heart contort with spasms, his breath rapid and shallow. Rather it was something he didn’t feel. He didn’t feel the Divine, he didn’t feel the love from the universal soul, he felt as if the link that had always fed and enlivened him was suddenly cut away, leaving all of his body a huge scar, bleeding with anguish, with desolation, with fear. He felt he could not breathe; the air just could not enter his lungs. He gasped in this terrible sudden asthma attack. Why would the air not enter? Where was the Divine? Where? How could he live without it?

There was a sudden rumbling sound heard from the cloud directly above them. Silence. Another rumble. It sounded as if the heavens themselves were suffering from a violent argument or perhaps indigestion.

The first person that the Queen noticed as she hurried into the opening in the forest was the Mystic lying on the ground and clasping his stomach as if in a death agony.

Then she heard the sobs of the Child and the Victim. They were holding each other and shaking with quiet groans, their tears had spent up their force, and their voices had grown weak and husky.

Where were the rest of them?

She found the Pioneer and the Writer underneath a tree, sitting with stony, expressionless, empty faces, not resembling living beings at all. The Saboteur was standing like a statue. His eyes were blank; he was staring at the Mystic.

It was a sight the Queen scarcely dared to believe. She didn’t recognize any of her subjects at all. She had gotten used to their periodic rebellious streaks and annoying arguments and childish behaviour. But this was something terrible. Something so terrible that she had to act at once or all of them would be lost forever.
She had punished them many times when they had tried to subvert her authority. When they had argued and made plans behind her back without consulting her. She had restricted their movement; she had been vicious and cruel. Yes, she had been cruel. But it had been for their own good. The peace in her land came first.
But this time she decided that ruthlessness was not an option. They were all suffering and there was a deep benevolence and compassion in the Queens soul, for the first time perhaps.

One by one she went up to all of her royal subjects. She whispered words of strength, of wisdom, of comfort to each of their ears. The Mystic was the most difficult one to console. But as the man lying on the ground looked into the Queens eyes he suddenly saw in them a glimpse of the Divine. He had always respected the Queen but had never realised that in her humanity, in her many human flaws, in her desire to control and cling to her subjects, was simply another face of the Divine Soul. And he knew that he could never be separated from the universal unity. Even if he lost contact with it, it was there. Where else would it be? Oneness was oneness always, not merely at the times when he felt it. The small group of people suddenly awoke and with the Queens command ran to their little farm house, ran in togetherness and in friendship, ran to take shelter from the rain.

It was the Queen who brought peace to me. I had a deep anxiety attack, I had been crying for what seemed like forever. A part of me felt dead, closed off from awareness, numb, almost void.
It had all started when I sat down in my garden with my notebook, trying to put down all the thoughts and feelings in my ever-restless soul. There were countless different feelings, countless different personalities, and forces battling inside me. This had always been so. But this time they poured out of me and didn’t seem to find a common language, all the different sides of me seemed to disagree, leaving me with a deep discomfort, indecision, desperation.

A battle between creative urges and a desire to simply enjoy the summer weather and the nature around me like a magical child. That had been harmless enough.

The push towards new frontiers, a profound need to break free from my comfort zone. Colliding with the
distrust in humanity and fear of the unknown and my own self-sabotaging voice telling me I wasn’t able to fulfil my dreams or to survive outside my little safety net.

Past feelings of abuse fighting with the forceful drive to open myself up and become more of a social being, to re-enter the world again from my self-imposed solitude.

These had been already more difficult experiences.

Then there had been a peaceful joy of feeling the unity of the world. And suddenly that had disappeared. Disappeared together with all faith and hope. This had been terrible; I was not able to even breathe from this fear of never feeling the love of the Divine again.  

But the crisis had been resolved by some kind of inner ruler of my being. A sane voice that was able to unite the opposing forces. A benevolent queen in my soul who is able to resolve the arguments within, sometimes with force, this time with kindness.

I can live in peace with my inner fractions, with those different and sometimes rowdy voices in my heart. I accept them. I accept myself as I am.