“Did you come looking for me?”
“Perhaps. How should I know? Do not the fickle Fates always toy with our expectations?”
“You are not a farmer.”
He smiled. “I thought the tractor would be a good disguise, I only have to open my mouth and I am betrayed.”

Previous Post 042

1530

I climbed on and there was no more conversation, it was too noisy and too cold. I saw his hands were turning blue on the steering wheel so I enveloped him, just a slight gradual warmth to ease him. I do not think he noticed, his eyes barely noticed the road, as if he stared from within a dream.

I warmed my hands holding the coffee. “So, tell me about these ghosts.”

“You do not know? The dead do not leave us you know. They can get lost and stray far from home, but they do not depart from our world. But those who die alone and unloved, only the winter winds will carry them. They look for a home that will welcome them, but all shutter their windows against them.”

“And the summer winds?”

“Ah, those my friend, they are the souls who were loved, for to be loved you must love. That is why the summer winds are so joyous and simmer and dance with impish humour, for they carry love with them and those souls have no problems in finding a home, for all open their windows in welcome.”

“It does not seem right. It is those who have never known love who need to be loved.”

He wagged his finger at me. “Ah, you are a dreamer. There is no soul that has given love which has not been loved by someone. What you give is what you get - it is an important law of nature.”

“Where do the winter souls end up?”

“In the void of course.” I gave a start and he looked at me as if he sensed there was something he should know about me.

“My name is Robert, or as you prefer to call me in Italy, Roberto.”

“Robert, I am Luigi. I like to think of myself as Luigi the poet and dreamer, but as the years pass I am becoming plain Luigi.”

“Well Luigi, you send your unloved ones to me in the void and I will do my best to teach them to love.”

He almost crossed himself. “Robert, a strange name for one from the void. Have you come to collect me?”

I laughed. “I am but a mortal, a man. One who knows a little about the void. You are wrong you know, there is more love in the void than there is on Earth.”

“You are a poet and dreamer?”

“No. An artist. Mainly on the computer.”

He got up and came to peer at me from close up. “Robert Teller?”

“I am flattered and caught at a disadvantage, for I do not recognise you.”

He waved his hand dismissing my embarrassment. “You, we discuss your work at the university! I tell the students that your paintings are also poems. Just wait until I tell my students that I met you. The void, it is the place where your Kaleidoscope Worlds exist?”

“That was what I thought, then for a while I saw them as the soul of a very special child. Now they are many Worlds in the void and both my suppositions have turned out to be true. Only more than even those two beliefs.”

1531

“You intrigue me. If I bribe you with hare in baby onion stew, you will explain?”

“Not yet.”

“I will add a bottle of wine.”

He got me laughing. “Do you have paper and something to draw with, if need be even a pencil.”

“My brother, he is the farmer, but he has children, I am certain I will find what you ask for.”

I took the materials he brought me and sat outside in the cold, sheltered from the wind and sketched a Kaleidoscope World, ours, with our Emerald Isle. I signed it off, ‘May you ride on Summer winds and in the Winter of your time, come visit us on our Kaleidoscope World. Robert Teller.’ I could smell the stew he was heating, so I walked back in and handed him the drawing.

“Now your students will have to believe Luigi the dreamer.”

He stared at the sketch. “I have dreamt of this World Robert. Does it truly exist?”

“What makes you ask?”

“This emerald, it has not existed in any of your work, yet I saw it and now you draw it.”

“Yes.”

“Yes!?”

“I hope you are not depriving your brother’s family by offering me the stew.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “This was cooked for me and as all good Italian wives, my sister in law made more than I can use.”

I grinned. “I suppose she could not very well, in good conscience, chop up only half a hare and send the other half out into the fields, to wait for when it will next be needed.”

“So you have a gruesome side to you.”

“Yes.”

He dunked his bread into the stew and then waved it at me, drops spraying onto the table without him noticing. “You are one of those who tries to learn from life so as to become a better person. If I may give you a small advice? Never lose the gruesome part of yourself, it puts everything back in perspective. Nothing more boring otherwise.”

“Professore, you must be popular with your students.”

“No, not professore, just Luigi. I think they do not hear me with more than their ears and therefore they find much to laugh at.”

“That is alright, words have a way of hiding within us, waiting for the time when they can be appreciated; in years to come your students will look back and you will be remembered and admired, while your respected colleagues will be forgotten. That will prove to be of more value than the callow admiration of youth.”

“Your eyes betray you. Your words betray you. You look younger than my students except for when you look at me or when you speak.”

1532

“I am a little older than I look, but not much.”

“What you have seen then has aged you inside. What has been so terrible Robert?”

“I…”

“Fear not, I will not speak of what you say.”

“I do not fear, I tremble at the thought of speaking of the things I have done, that is all.”

He sat silent for a long time, his eyes boring into mine. “You have killed.” I shuddered.

“Yes.”

“Always this ‘yes’. Same as the rest of mankind. Why?”

“Why ‘yes’ or why I killed?”

“The ‘yes’ I know, why have you killed.”

“In anger, for revenge, in self defence - as I thought at the time.”

“All those reasons for one killing?”

“No.”

He paled.

“Are you done with killing?”

“I fear not. Every death brings a little more of that Winter wind into the heart and leaves a spot blackened for all time, so for that reason I would that there be an end to it, but I fear life will not allow me to be who I choose.”

“If this is all true, why are you admitting it to me, a stranger. You are not planning to kill me are you?”

“In Winter? Never. Your soul belongs to Spring, when there is birth and a joy in life.”

“You will kill me in Spring?”

I sat back and looked at him. I had been speaking without allowing myself to think, for otherwise I would not have dared to. I now saw I had frightened him.

“Luigi, I fear I have ill repaid your kindness by speaking without thinking. I came out into this harsh land in winter to be alone and think; your questioning released thoughts I did not wish to face and I forgot how my answers would seem to you. I will ask of you one favour. Be my guest in two weeks time. Meet me where you found me today. If you do, I promise you will have nothing to fear and much bigger dreams to dream.”

“Ah! You are involved in politics! Is that why you killed?”

“I will only tell you of one reason. If you see wrong in me then do not meet me in a fortnight.” I told him about Richard and Wendy, sparing him no details. He tried to stop me and by the end his eyes had filled.

“How did you kill him? You made him suffer?”

“I suffer because of that, not because I killed him. I abused a gift.” My voice I realised had been abrupt, sharp like crushed glass, but he only nodded.

“As your guest, I would meet this Wendy?” I nodded. “I do not know that I could bear to face a child who has suffered so deeply, while I arrogantly have spoken to my students of suffering refining their souls and then retired to drink my wine and eat the delicacies my money could buy me.”

“You will find joy in it.” For the first time he looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. I looked straight back at him, calm again, but not apologetic. He lowered his eyes and softly agreed to be there.

1533

“Allow me then to give you a gift so that you may look forward to the day with eagerness.”

I had already early on, when I found I liked him, sent my healer to check on him. I had waited for this moment deliberately.

“You left the university, came to your brother because you expect to lose your sight soon. Already things are blurry and you suffer terrible headaches.” He stared at me in shock. “Sit back in your chair, close your eyes until I tell you to open them again.”

I sent the healer into him. Without moving I jumped back to the road and walked off. I would see him, I knew, in two weeks time.

I had not walked more than a mile or two when I felt my healer return. As I carried on walking I began to feel ill. It took no genius to work out that it was the healer. I turned and began to walk back and felt better, turning again I immediately felt ill again.

“Does Luigi need me?” The healer stimulated the feelings of joy in me. I presumed this meant it was happy, not that Luigi was. I jumped back to the yard. As I arrived I saw him standing by the door, he did not show any reaction, so I hoped he had not seen me arrive.

“What is it Luigi?”

“Please come in.” As I sat he remained on his feet, too troubled to sit. “I don’t know how to say this. Robert, you misunderstood; I am going blind, but it is not the problem you think it is. I…”

“The easiest is to just say it.”

“I am not used to asking for help. Robert, it is my brother, he has cancer and is dying. That is why I moved here, his wife cannot run the farm on her own.” He stood staring at me and I saw his hands were trembling.

Softly I asked him, “Is it that difficult to ask me?”

“Yes.” He sat opposite me, on the edge of the sofa. “I do not fear asking, I fear the answer. When I realised what you had begun to do for me I thought maybe you can save him and I fear you may refuse.”

“I cannot do anything if you do not ask.”

“Will you?”

“Will you pay a price?”

There was a sudden disappointment in his eyes which he tried to mask. “A price? How much?”

“Your eyes. Do you love him enough to give up your sight today?”

He paled for a moment and then laughed. “That is kind of you, Robert. If I have to pay to save him, I think you deliberately chose the easiest price since I will be blind in a year or two anyway.”

“Your eyes have been healed. If you choose to keep your sight you will find your eyes clearing up soon.”

“Did you need to tell me that?”

“Luigi, you must make a sacrifice, something important, else how are things to be balanced?”

I liked the way he spoke without hesitation. “I have grown used to the idea of going blind. It is difficult for it to be happening now - I had comforted myself that I had two maybe three years if I was careful. Take my eyes now Robert.”

“Are you afraid your sight will improve and then you may not be so willing to make the sacrifice?”

“God! You are hard.”

“You are certain, you offer your sight for his life?”

1534

The healer knew/understood my reasons, it disapproved, but obeyed when he nodded. In one instant his world turned dark. I watched the shock on his face, the difficulty he had adjusting. As he gained control over his emotions and fears, I laughed.

“Luigi, if I am the devil, you have made a bad bargain. I have taken your sight and will rid your brother of cancer. What if I did it because he is to have a heart attack in a couple of days?”

He gave a small smile. “That will not happen.”

“Why not?”

“You want me to meet your Wendy.”

Next Post 044

I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love - and should some of it be true for our reality, I hope you will love our Cherine.

Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου

(Alexander Zenon Eustace)
^{22nd August, 2019}

* posted on Steemit: 22nd August, 2019



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