SQUIT's SMILE
(Published 'Heliocentric Net' 1993)
There were four long hills rising to the geometric centre of the township, whereupon the Ancient Fathers had seen fit to erect an architectural folly (although the original term ‘folly’ was only attached to it by some ne’erdowell do-gooders). Its aspect was that of a giant tower which leaned in all directions at once. Some of the inhabitants, when they actually deigned to look up at it from their daily strife for life, perceived it as an inverted pyramid. However, it was simply there -- a landmark that nobody any longer bothered to notice.
So, when new arrivals came in across the surrounding scrublands on a packhorse, he (and, on rare occasions, she) would be stunned by the apparently unstable megalith rising and widening from an already high point of the township. The huddled, makeshift beast-sheds, which served as shelter for the people as well as their flocks, seemed to crawl up to the monument, without any worthwhile gaps for movement between.
There had been no new arrivals for some years. The desert winds, caught up in some cyclic global panic on the ice runs up North, had worsened for several seasons, making the township further from the thoroughfares of civilisation.
Then, quite out of the non-existent blue, during a particularly long pandemic of freak mildness, came one — side saddle — across the wastes. Dressed as a woman, she was observed to lift her hand to her brow as a shade against the curdled blur of the choking sun. She appeared to survey, with in-built sextants and balances, the height of the pyramid. She was presumably an architectural student from the nearest University at far off Eleison, working out a doctorate on the wonders of the world – or so thought the townspeople as they raised their own eyes from dredging the accumulations of dust from their earthen floors.
Such folk felt no pride for the tower that dominated, yet failed to encroach upon, their daily runs. However, as soon as a stranger was espied on the otherwise unnoticed horizon, they became conscious, not only of their own shortcomings (e.g. the bodies chance had made them wear) but also of the last vestige of the Ancient Fathers, bequeathed by the existence of that one particular architectural item of now certain folly...
The inn was crowded, unusual for that time of day. The landlord, Squit, had spent most of the morning clambering over the roof, cleaning out the gutters and patching up the holes which seemed to break open every night, whatever the weather. He brushed off the dust as he bustled into the bar area, cursing the day he was born. When he saw the amount of people crowding around the pumps, mouths open, he cursed even louder, since there was nothing more irritating to Squit than customers.
"Hey, what do you think you lot are doing, gathering in here?"
"We've come to partake of your lousy beer, mine host," jeered one lad with lights in his eyes.
The rest nodded diffidently in assent.
"Well, you can all pack off till nearer closing-time. I've too much to do to deal with the likes of you, today. Up on the roof, just now, I saw one coming, who looks a sight more respectable, and a lady at that! She won't want to mix with any old company and she's bound to step off here, this being the only inn."
"Come down off it, Squit, you think she'll stick her nose in this dump?" continued the callow lad.
Suddenly, all heads with necks turned as the door creaked open, and in strode the stranger that many in the township had seen coming since much earlier on. Their eyes were almost out on stalks, as they explored every nook and cranny of her demeanor. They didn't know it was rude to stare, especially since she stared back at them.
Squit was the first to move, striding over to her, holding out his hand -- which she did not take.
"Welcome, madam, I trust your stay here will be fruitful and don't give mind to these gawping gents, they're just going."
And he motioned them out the back way. Turning again to the stranger, he went on, "Can I offer you a mouthwash, or, at a little more cost, a belly sluice, or perhaps merely a waft of roasting carcass, or a clean ladle of ..."
"No, no, I'm only here to seek directions to the folly." Her voice hinted at breeding, slightly unfeminine in overtone, yet underlaid with a lilting dialect that betokened the fair sex.
The timbre of her voice, however, was furthest from Squit's attention, when he realized that the stranger was blind. The eyes were shards of grey pottery; but her fingers were long, slender, more feeling and manipulative than any he had ever seen; they were playing a braille compass-casket as if it were a musical instrument.
Her steed snickered outside. Squit, at a loss for words, asked whether she would like to bring it in for a watering, before venturing up one of the long hills to the Ancient Fathers' monument.
She shook her head. "I've spent most of my life getting here, dear sir, through all manners of weathers, and this..." -- she pointed to the revolving wheel-spikes of the compass-casket -- "...is my trusty box of tricks which has got me here. But now, all I can find with my feet are splinted wood, disused fences, corrugated iron sheets, cries of child and beast as one, and no way through them to that I most yearn to see. So, pray, don't dilly, just give me a nudge to the top."
She used the word 'see' as if it held all the mystery of the universe.
Upon the slow setting of the dust-corrupted eye of the sun, the folly, to those on the southern reaches of the township, stood out like a vast triangle which, for long, had been the unnoticed emblem of their faith in religion. Many kneeled in penitence, not with faces upraised, since few could see it with equanimity, reminding them too much that the past had no more duration than the future. I, simply shadowed their temples, granting an unremarkable peace, and as the splodge of sun-fire finally quit their world for the next in line, the darkness swaddled all, including the hilltop shape of Trinity. As night took the shanties fully in its cloying embrace, one could only hear the odd howls of beast and babe; even those intermittent reminders of day took their noises into dream.
But one still sat awake, She had reached the foot of the vast inverted pyramid, where mathematics (or some arcane version of mathematics which only the Ancient Father could convert from a pure science into an art-form) had balanced the apex upon the central proud fulcrum of the township, demonstrating incredible feats of poise and inner strength. Taking the line of least resistance, the superstone perched on comparatively next to nothing.
She recalled Squit's amusing chitchat as he led her to this place of quiet. He was somewhere near, snoring louder than the beast that had carried her.
1
She smiled. With her box of tricks fast-churning within her hand, she reached out to touch the vibrant surface of the tapering base, in the hope that it would fulfil her as much as would drain her. Perhaps she could layoff her blindness upon it, somehow, as many had told her of its curative properties.
She stumbled.
At the very end of her tortuous quest, she tripped over Squit's outstretched leg and careered into the monument. She could not see it, but she knew its intrinsic aspect with an instinct that only the blind could feel. She knew the massive block teetered, righted itself momentarily, and then hurtled from its plinth down the screaming slopes, in all directions at once putting out of misery those in its path -- finally coming to rest in several halves, and brooded henge-like for the rest of eternity.
Squit had been in one of its paths, so his salacious dream was cut short.
2
She smiled. She would be neither blind nor a woman. She walked up the sloping side of the inverted pyramid, defying all known laws of gravity, her box of tricks whirling and clicking in her hand.
"Blimey!" said Squit, upon awakening to a dawn clearer than any he could recall, with the sun making the rooftops blush.
"Where am I? Must have dreamed myself up here!"
He wandered down the long hill, dodging between those yawning from the 'beast sheds.' He was in a hurry, for otherwise he would be late for opening-time, with many customers wanting a bevy before breakfast.
Halfway down the hill, he looked back, without really knowing why. He had gazed absent-mindedly a thousand times upon the monument, without properly 'seeing' it, but today it filled him with a glory.
The folly was his God, he only way to face out the absurd.
No need to keep staring at it, for it wouldn’t go away. It was rude to stare in any event. He eventually reached his inn, where e welcomed his customers with some very special Happy Hour offers. Several halves off he usual price.
Ending 2 seemed far better. Squit smiled.
