Great Wits Jump

It Was a Good Day - Part 2

4/4/2021

“Be thoughtful,” I remember my Father teaching me early one spring morning many years ago, after one of the lambs had been mangled by some unknown predator. “Do not rush to repulse that which frightens you, face it, confront it, control it, dominate it. For what you may imagine may not be the reality.”

It Was A Good Day
by S. C. Gardner

~ Part 2 of 10 ~

The stench hung thick, putrid, disarming, as a rigid fog smoldered through my thoughts, dismantling my youthful ignorance. For a moment I stood frozen, unsure of the reality that lay before me. Images of Phoicia, Tanythe, and my father raced across my fears, as though they lay before me upon the ground, their souls crying out in agony and fear. I panicked and stumbled into the destruction, my eyes watered, my throat dry, seized from the foul taste that coated it.

The first body I came to I recognized immediately. Girardus, a quiet man, whose hands had molded the most beautiful pottery in the region but now were blackened and lifeless tools. Once he had given me a small medallion etched with the image of a fishing boat, a reminder of the port of Palermo, an “image of the home yet to be seen,” he had said, which I still wore and cherished. My youthful repugnance boiled over at the sight, my limbs shook as an uncontrolled spasm wrenched my soul, a forced bile taste came forth as my body convulsed with this new reality.

After a moment I raised my head and forced some sense of trembling control to my mind and body, regaining a small spark of calm to my soul as the world around me smoldered through this fogged dream.

The despair that surrounded me was fresh, untouched after its violent construction. From where I stood the hopes and lives of those who had dwelt here swept across my fevered mind in one collective vision, and the first understandable emotion I felt was shame. Shame that I was not here to repulse the force that so ignorantly impaled my village, my home, my family.

“Be thoughtful,” I remember my Father teaching me early one spring morning many years ago, after one of the lambs had been mangled by some unknown predator. “Do not rush to repulse that which frightens you, face it, confront it, control it, dominate it. For what you may imagine may not be the reality.”

A small fresh breeze drifted past, helping me regain some sense of my youthful imagination. I breathed in this fresh aroma, fearing it would soon be replaced by the surrounding gloom. Several other bodies lay nearby as I swept my gaze about the smoldering village. Many of the dwellings had been reduced to their stone foundations, unusable, forlorn, melting remnants of a once peaceful and fruitful community.

Again, my thoughts raced toward my family, my home, as I rose from this induced stupor and stumbled through the ashes. Crackling sounds from the once strong timber posts that had supported the thinly latched roofs continued to snap and smolder as I neared the ruins of what was once our peaceful dwelling.

None of the bodies I had passed were those of my family, yet each lay deathly still among the well-worn paths that separated our home and communal structures. Those that were not blackened, scorched and charred, like Girardus, lay impaled with long pikes protruding from their lifeless bodies, or slashed and dismembered, displaying festered open wounds which now were dried by the heat of the burning sun.

I moved through the crumbling stone entryway to our home, as visions of a once secure, protective structure pulsed across my memory. My Sister, Phiocia, would place various collections of wildflowers in sturdy vases along the small wooden tables that we scattered throughout our once peaceful home. She loved the colorful displays, the fragrant scents, and the joy these creations brought into our lives.

My Father often called them a “multitude of breath,” remarking sadly how it reminded him of the many spacious Chalet’s that were the flavor of Palermo culture. “They brought a sense of calm,” he would remark, “bright, beautiful, enduring; a steadiness to one’s life, a candor of expression that places the soul with thoughts of life’s constant resurrection, of the newness of the spirit.”

A small, murmured groaned drifted towards me, emanating near the hearthstones that lay to my right. There, prostrated under various debris of fallen timbers and small stone slabs from the crumbing cooking furnace, was Tanythe, soiled by the soot that still fell all about. She was alive, but barely.

“Tanythe!” I cried, attempting to move the various obstructions that were littered all about her.

“No,” she painfully cried. “Stop,” she wrenched, a hurtful expression cried from her soul. Quickly I searched about her troubled body and found one of the splintered beams was lodged deep, impaled and seething through her bleeding side.

“Jacabus,” she moaned, a flicker of troubled relief settling through her voice. “Oh, Jacabus,” she whispered, reaching blindly for my hand, which I grasped and knelt consolingly beside her. “They came, took your Sister, I could not stop…” she coughed, grimacing, pain littered her face and controlled her body.

“Why?” was my impulsive reply. “Father, where is Father?”

“There is much that must be said, though we have tried to teach you,” she stammered. “While keeping you ignorant of many things.”

“How can I understand that which I do not know,” I cried.

“Tis’ not that we desired this,” her paled expression yearned to reach out, tell a tale yet unspoken, but life was fading from her being. “Under the foot-stone,” she murmured, her breath gasped. “Rinuccia,” she painfully moaned and drifted into death.

My eyes clogged with a despair that was inconsolable. I was lost and alone, tethered to a tale that was yet to be spoken.

“There are times,” Father once told me and Phiocia, not many years ago, while seeing that our understanding was more defined than in our innocent adolescent years, “when what one knows is only a veil that covers the truth. Perception is that minds eye that forms a foundation, the beginning, the crutch that feeds the well of knowledge.”

“How can we know what is, Father,” Phiocia had injected.

He smiled at her question. “Truth is fleeting, twisted by what realms we see. Men whisper their creeds as though each has been privy to wisdom and thus hold the right to that truism that others are said to be ignorant of. Do not be deceived, hold to true foundations, those that are built upon words of stone, otherwise they dissolve and flake away when the storms of men’s wisdom leak through your ears.”

Now I knelt mournfully beside the Mother of my youth, whose lifeless frame troubled my thoughts and interfered with the peace that had so often been given by her.

A shadow drifted high overhead as the slight breeze grew stronger. Looking upward, I noticed the soiled clouds swiftly moving toward me and began to feel small droplets piercing my tearful face. After a few moments, the droplets began to fiercely fall upon the ground, splattering the charred wood and mixed the blood-stained dirt into pools of mushed soil. I slowly rose and let the droplets drench my skin, aware of the fear that engulfed this once lively village.

Tanythe had said with her last breath a word that had not made sense. The footstone, which had lain upon our doorstep since my thoughts and mind could comprehend. Turning, I retraced my path to the entrance and looked down upon the red slab-stone with its smooth, well worn rock, a curious object to contemplate at this moment, yet it must hold some significance she wished to pass forward.

The edges where rounded, smoothed by use and time. The sides, though taller than most stone of its kind and purpose, displayed nothing of unusual importance. I knelt closer as the rain began to turn the surrounding dirt into pools of slimy, clogged mud, and observed a small stream of rainwater trickle down one side and disappear through a small, unnoticeable opening.

I was about to discover the beginning of the mystery and step upon a path for the truth of who I truly was meant to be. My horizons were about to be challenged in a reality that my very soul would learn to fear more dreadfully then this day.

It was not a good day!

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