SSN 001

The Shopkeeper's Son

I.1.001

For Sarah and Katharine
Tree sway in winter breeze. In the forest the sparse leafed pine moves slight and silent as if reflecting groundswell. The dull green cedar with a fragile structure bends, rustling, wrinkled like a hazy veil among the bare gray limbs littered with brown tightly clinging leaves. The sky above is blue; the ground beneath the canopy dirty with leaf and bright red mud. Rain has been recent and heavy but the air is warm. Winter has been mild so far, a blessing for those who live about. Imagine we are elevated looking down from a rocky ledge. A boy is climbing through the trees towards us, following a rough path. He is far more cautious than any boy you know. He carries a heavy staff, just right for his size, which he does not flaunt wantonly as a boy might, destroying vegetation, but uses only to lean on. The boys name is Carl Relyt. He has fair hair, blue eyes and freckles and is eleven years old. Carl has not seen us and, despite a sharp awareness of his environment, he will not. In a sense we are not here, or he is not there, being only a product of an imagination of a future five hundred years from now somewhere in the southeastern United States. Nevertheless he stops opposite the rock, looking up at the bare face stained with lichens and crevices with more sophisticated growth and the suggestion of a brown, formless patch between the trees twenty feet above. A mixture of curiosity and fear is on his handsome face. As fear wins out, without moving his feet he quickly bends to pick up the largest stone he can find. Then he stands straight and with his left hand holding out his staff towards us, makes a cross in the air, speaking the ritual he has been taught for occasions such as this: 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, go back, Demon of the Past, to your evil house and find your children and your children's children and rest in peace!' Then he throws the stone into our midst: the dark amorphous place which we inhabit and, as the ceremony demands, we must disappear, leaving Carl to run home as fast as his legs can carry him. Of course, though he can compel us to disappear, he cannot escape so easily. As he runs along the path in childish panic we can fly with him unseen, twisting and turning among the trees; and we can rise up above the forest in the manner of a thermal current capped with white, distinguishable for miles in the formless air. This is our property, we wraiths and demons who form the pyramid whose pinnacle this boy is. As we rise up the brown winter landscape, uncut by scars of roads stretches away below. A mile distant is the clearing of the town of Dentonsville with its patchwork of attendant fields. The boy has a long way to go and soon calms down, becoming ashamed of his fear, and begins to walk again, content with an occasional glance over his shoulder, wondering if he saw anything at all. Though if he looks up and sees our white plume in the sky he may believe again that he did. For this reason we must be circumspect. If the people of Dentonsville see our banner or believe we are about they too may say the ritual words and ban our entry into their town. So, we will go and sit on Carl's rooftop until he comes home.

For Sarah and Katharine

Tree sway in winter breeze. In the forest the sparse leafed pine moves slight and silent as if reflecting groundswell. The dull green cedar with a fragile structure bends, rustling, wrinkled like a hazy veil among the bare gray limbs littered with brown tightly clinging leaves. The sky above is blue; the ground beneath the canopy dirty with leaf and bright red mud. Rain has been recent and heavy but the air is warm. Winter has been mild so far, a blessing for those who live about.

Imagine we are elevated looking down from a rocky ledge. A boy is climbing through the trees towards us, following a rough path. He is far more cautious than any boy you know. He carries a heavy staff, just right for his size, which he does not flaunt wantonly as a boy might, destroying vegetation, but uses only to lean on. The boys name is Carl Relyt. He has fair hair, blue eyes and freckles and is eleven years old.

Carl has not seen us and, despite a sharp awareness of his environment, he will not. In a sense we are not here, or he is not there, being only a product of an imagination of a future five hundred years from now somewhere in the southeastern United States. Nevertheless he stops opposite the rock, looking up at the bare face stained with lichens and crevices with more sophisticated growth and the suggestion of a brown, formless patch between the trees twenty feet above. A mixture of curiosity and fear is on his handsome face. As fear wins out, without moving his feet he quickly bends to pick up the largest stone he can find. Then he stands straight and with his left hand holding out his staff towards us, makes a cross in the air, speaking the ritual he has been taught for occasions such as this:

'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, go back, Demon of the Past, to your evil house and find your children and your children's children and rest in peace!'

Then he throws the stone into our midst: the dark amorphous place which we inhabit and, as the ceremony demands, we must disappear, leaving Carl to run home as fast as his legs can carry him.

Of course, though he can compel us to disappear, he cannot escape so easily. As he runs along the path in childish panic we can fly with him unseen, twisting and turning among the trees; and we can rise up above the forest in the manner of a thermal current capped with white, distinguishable for miles in the formless air. This is our property, we wraiths and demons who form the pyramid whose pinnacle this boy is.

As we rise up the brown winter landscape, uncut by scars of roads stretches away below. A mile distant is the clearing of the town of Dentonsville with its patchwork of attendant fields.

The boy has a long way to go and soon calms down, becoming ashamed of his fear, and begins to walk again, content with an occasional glance over his shoulder, wondering if he saw anything at all. Though if he looks up and sees our white plume in the sky he may believe again that he did. For this reason we must be circumspect. If the people of Dentonsville see our banner or believe we are about they too may say the ritual words and ban our entry into their town.

So, we will go and sit on Carl's rooftop until he comes home.

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