(258) The abracadabrante story of Child Moon

 

Where one may safely foretell that the story will send its roots deeper into the earth, where our two companions, following their guide, must venture against their will, and against the current.

Continued from (256)  The abracadabrante story of Child Moon

DON CAROTTE
(striding across the encroaching roots of the great tree)

And if I cry I am, with sovereign voice and pride,
Who speaks that I within this flesh where doubts abide?

SANG CHAUD
(slowly, almost reluctantly)

My lord, you stand before the heart of all that matters,
Where man who walks knows not the boundary that scatters.
For he who gives your name, and he who answers too,
May once have mingled names till neither knew which was true.

And if some writer, seized by fever in the night,
Had placed these very words upon your lips outright,
Would you be less alive because those words were given,
Or more alive, perchance, if from your lips they're driven?

DON CAROTTE
(stopping abruptly, struck with astonishment)

A writer! Heavens dark! What phantom born of night
Would dare command my deeds, my glory and my might?
What scoundrel, what base tyrant, hidden in his den,
Would turn my noble fame into the scribblings of his pen?

I, who strike down evil! I, who vanquish shame!
Should I become the plaything of a quill without a name?
A character, forsooth? A phantom merely traced
Upon some scrap of parchment that a hand could have erased?

Nay! A thousand times, nay! I am of flesh and bone!
I bear my sword, I know the griefs that are my own!
My pain belongs to me! My courage is my deed!
No scribe shall make me captive to his ink-stained creed!

SANG CHAUD
(with an almost painful gentleness)

I take no life from you, my lord, nor seek to sever;
I said but “perhaps”, no heresy whatsoever.
Yet he who deems himself the monarch of his fate
May never know whose hand first opened him the gate.

DON CAROTTE
(with mounting indignation)

Enough of winding paths! Enough of phantoms dire!
With but a handful of words, thou settest earth on fire!
I thought I saw a donkey; behold, an abyss instead!
And now my very thoughts are swallowed by its dread!

Yet something, squire, confounds me beyond all measure:
The more I grasp myself, the more I lose that treasure.
I say I am, alas! And that most sovereign cry
Returns from some elsewhere whose dwelling I know not why.

SANG CHAUD
(regarding his master with renewed attention)

Perhaps, my lord, we ought, without deciding yet,
To watch what comes of I when it is said again.
For he who speaks the word is never quite the same
As he who heard it first, before it bore a name.

DON CAROTTE
(raising his sword as though challenging the invisible)

By heaven! I grasp it all! Or nothing do I know!
And therein lies the wizard's most accursed show!
One word conducts me through a labyrinth without end;
I think I've reached its heart, and all begins again!

Yet to the end I'll go! By heaven and by hell!
I'll face this I as knights confront the sword's fell spell!
Be it a multitude, a spirit, mask, or lie,
I'll vanquish that dark fiend who haunts me when I lie!

SANG CHAUD
(with quiet gravity)

Beware, my lord, lest in your haste to overcome,
You feed the very thing from which your torments come.
For he whom you pursue along the winding track
May be that self whose hand you reach to welcome back.

DON CAROTTE
(after a silence, in a muffled voice)

Then if I chase the man whom I am meant to be,
Am I the knight, the servant, or the lord of me?
And if another follows, believing he follows my stride,
Who leads the march, and who stands motionless aside?

SANG CHAUD
(his eyes turned towards the highest branches)

To untangle this, my lord, one first must understand
Who sets the path itself in motion through the land.
For he who thinks another leads him on his way
May find that he himself is hunted as the prey.

DON CAROTTE
(turning abruptly towards the unseen donkey)

And that accursed jackass! What was he doing then,
While we were wandering through these deadly labyrinths of men?
Did he know that, in silence, hidden among the leaves,
He shook the very reason in which my soul believes?

SANG CHAUD
(with an almost imperceptible smile)

He spoke no word, my sire, nor thought, perhaps, much more
Than those who claim to know what all creation holds in store.
He simply walked along, demanding not a prize,
And here we stand, perplexed, by who follows whom and why.

DON CAROTTE
(his gaze wandering, slowly lowering his sword)

Thus he who walks knows not who makes the loudest claim;
He who believes he reigns wears yet another's name.
And he who names himself, proclaiming what he is,
Might prove to be the echo of some pardon not yet his?

But what care I! I am! And if I still endure,
I must discover why this I devours me evermore!
For if I am the one who says he is the one
Who hears himself say I am when the night has begun,

By all the saints, Sang Chaud, I beg thee, tell me true:
Who is this I am that pursues me my whole life through?

SANG CHAUD
(bowing, then turning towards the path)

I know not, noble lord. But the donkey's far away;
He walks without an answer, nor needs one on his way.

Don Carotte remains motionless, clutching his guardless sword, which is called a staff, while above him the branches seem to stir although no breath of wind disturbs them. He looks at Sang Chaud as though discovering for the first time a man whose face he had never truly known.

DON CAROTTE
(in a voice scarcely audible)

But… if the donkey lives, not knowing what he's named,
Why must I answer for the name by which I'm claimed?

SANG CHAUD
(with a reverence)

Perhaps, my lord, before you come to know your being,
You must endure no longer wishing for that seeing.

A long silence. Then, high among the foliage, a cracking sound is heard, followed by a shower of leaves. Don Carotte raises his eyes as though someone had just spoken his name, but Sang Chaud, who has heard nothing, moves a few paces away.

DON CAROTTE
(suddenly, in a thunderous voice)

Ho there, Sang Chaud! Come back! By my faith, a thought has stirred:
If I am not the man I was when last I spoke a word,
And if tomorrow I become another than today,
Must I cease at last to be the one who held me in his sway,

The one I thought I ought to be, that someone else might rise?
Would victory then be mine, or his, beneath these changing skies?

SANG CHAUD
(without turning around)

I cannot promise, sire, the glory you pursue,
If glory must renounce the tale that brought it unto you.

And Don Carotte, perhaps for the very first time, finds nothing to say in reply.

*“Who am I if, waking again and again, day after day, I am pursued by the echo of words heard in my sleep: I am an infiltrator inside a schizophrenic double agent who is myself. Who am I if I am the one who says it, and who am I if I am merely the one who hears it?”