I don’t often stride.
Striding is a manner best held by those with the pinned back shoulders of a champion and the lifted head of a person not likely to trip over a misplaced bucket. It is a simple thing best left for those with gallant heart, the confident folk who ignore the rising slosh and who breeze past the reaching grasps of peril without regard for the dangers of the day.
The morning was brisk, um-and-a, and I had unfortunately forgotten to grab my jacket as I stepped into the wind-stricken street. A rare moment of dramatic flair pushed me forward, I knew in my heart that a strider should be noble, a strider is bold, they would never duck back into their lobby because it was colder outside than they were expecting.
With the bustle of a fluttering pigeon, I strode from my office and its nine fingered harpist therein; I strode from the letters of notice stuffed into my letterbox, all demanding that overdue fees be paid and that the more ominously silent fees be given the time of thought; boldly, I strode directly into the path of an oncoming wagon.
Fate holds a very funny course.
They say that the goddess of Luck, Lenith, guides it to her whim, but such hopes are twaddle. How can a god, even one with omnipresence, pick the side of each fallen coin or adjust the schedule of every wagon so that I may be struck the moment that I wandered into the street? Nonsense. If she was that invested in destiny, the maiden would have no time to lay about in idyllic clover fields making daisy circles and leaving vague symbolistic messages that the next sheep herder who happens past is actually the true king of Stallinger and not just some child who is rather good with sheep. Besides, if luck was such a definite thing wouldn’t we just call it, um-and-a, fate?
I don’t dislike Lenith, Aurelia’s followers don’t actually dislike anybody. It’s just that I prefer the simplicity of a god who is as equally powerless as the smallest turtle who swims in the largest lake. Aurelia is a kind god; she is fair; she is about as likely to smite a person as any Lundrian’s grandmother is as likely to say no to cup of tea. She borrows her power and uses it sparingly; she loves the weave of the world and through her actions demonstrates that one person shall never truly own a thing that can be shared equally. Priests say that she was the weaver who gave the gods their power. Historians, who are like priests but are less likely to be called heretical when they read another book, will say that within every thread, even death’s, there is a piece of Aurelia’s essence.
I thought of existence as I was hurled into the air. Time slows when you are actively dying and, ever relishing the chance of becoming philosophical, I thought for a moment about what it means to, um-and-a, die.
We are always dying, if you believe each moment to be like sand though an hourglass, um-and-a, and as the last grains tumble down the conical into a mound placed upon the other side of finality, you tend to notice them a bit more. It’s like a Sunday where you stop to smell the air: a fresh dew from overnight rain dampens the rising sun and a settling warmth begins to bless the night that is passing into glorious day. The baking bread pours its fragrance out into the quiet street in deluge as the call of the paperboy sounds over rooves and tussocked dale.
It is peaceful in this moment, colours of all things in their place unfurl within this morning’s light. They reach outward towards the distance of horizon, the appearance of noon, the reoccurrence of night. They ebb and flow and cycle and leave you to wonder if you had ever existed at all.
I think of myself as a good man.
Short, um-and-a, in stature and in conversation, but good, nonetheless. The city of my birth did not see me as a man but instead saw me as a figure. I was an indebted figure that must be drawn back in and then punished for allowing itself to exist in the first place. I owed too much money to a guild with too small a patience, and as the only patient that I would see that morning would attest, an apology does not equate to a suitable repayment.
‘My gods man, you look as like a hen that’s been put through the wash. Can I fetch a doctor for you?’ the blurred shape that had struck me with its cart now stood over me, a smile of bemusement was worn upon its face and a metaphorical bucket of apology had been meekly left to damn up what was a lifetime of not needing to be forgiven.
‘I am a doctor,’ I managed say as the pain of several small broken things made a nuisance at my side and the resultant inward breath felt recalcitrant for being drawn.
‘Well good, you can fix yourself then,’ –logic, so simple for some– ‘you should watch were you’re walking though, it shouldn’t be my job to tell you that a wagon is approaching.’
Attempting to stand but lacking the strength, my vision had begun to make out the stripes of a captain’s regalia hanging from the man’s shoulder.
‘You were driving on the footpath,’ I said, light beginning to fade from the corners of my consciousness, ‘Does that not strike you as odd?’
‘No,’ the man replied confidently, ‘much less wagons on the footpath. Listen, can I take you anywhere? I’ll never leave a doctor lying in his own crumpled heap,’ he added as if making up a new moral to live his life by.
It was clear that he was a mad man. There was a repercussionless manner to way that he walked which was as equally frustrating as it was inspiring. It was as if there was no danger brave enough to tell him that he was about to die. He had this way of just standing still that gave the impression that he was still striding without the need to move. Ensign Ironmonger was his name and knowing him was like inviting the spectre of death to your piano recital. Why take the risk? But, for me, to stay in the Port of Nations any longer was a death that was, um-and-a, certain. Misfortune, fate, luck. All things are merely sand through the hourglass of life, and for once had I decided to ignore them.
Pointing toward what I hoped was the direction of the sea, I breathed a final word and lapsed into fretful slumber.
‘Anywhere sounds nice.’ I said, accepting his offer.
J. McCray
2022
Sunday Short Stories 