a brief story

They waited. And waited. And waited.

A woman's hackneyed gait and irises uptight and bulging beckoned to them in an unknown language. The two men were standoffish in her presence and in their perpetual gazing made her feel vulnerable. The sordid sun beamed down on the men as to elicit a slight omnipotence at the gaze of God. As the woman approached closer they began to shift foot soles etched and washed and rebirthed in a transient reinterpretation. The houses full of ground and spit and bricks from shale lay propped together like teepees. Their mouths twisted and jaws tightened. A prod and a nudge led the men to their feet.

The first man was dirtied and bloody. His clothes were tattered and clung to his body in an abstraction of some simian from an earlier era, one where violence held ultimate power. He was slightly hunched back anklets red and bruised.

"So are we going to go any farther down this road?" he asked the woman. A muted guttural sound came back as an answer. "Toward the end of the feeding ground." Her finger twirled the ends of her nape towards the red horizon and finally past the road down the creek and landed at somewhere in the Earth.

The fool writhed his hands together in an enthalpic motion. On contrary to the vagrant, he was dressed like a court jester. His brightly colored tunic stood distinct and his jesters cap wriggled with three bronze bells each symmetrically absent in space. A bauble stood beside his hip, opposing the woman in a defiant tone. On a tap, he placed his hands toward his mouth and jerked his fingers downward on the corners of his face to make a frown. "Is he going to talk?" the woman said. "No, he does not do such human activities." said the man in response in place of the fool. They left the woman in a fit of dust toward the approved destination and little bits of flotsam came up rising from the ground.

The end of the road was demarcated by a tiny shop filled with trinkets and hand bibles and foodstuffs. Human presence was absent and no where to be seen as there were no humans in the mens existence as they recollected their memories like enveloping hands through scattered glass.

The men walked in silence absconded by their past and regretful of their future. The sun soon turning into moon and moon turning into a little blood clot in the sky and rivulets like tiny blood streams flowing down to hemispheric variations of the earth. They were welcomed by grassy marshes of lilies and gnats and other night creatures. Milkweed and the soft pale reflection of the moon onto the water giving inward representations of the soul and the jesters bells making slight jingling noises. Here the fragility of man stood tall among birch and cypress trees which roamed. Man created shelter for protection and stole fire from those higher powers depriving them of their skin and organs. They walked among the cathedrals of the past the giant trees in the air and the spirits of the forgotten. Neither men were pious and thus were playing the role of martyrs in their own stories.

It was dark and they could no longer see the end of the day without its undying conclusion so they forgave themselves and set up a little shelter underneath a cave, with bits of leaves. The men had finally returned themselves to the earth, the mother of all, taking refuge in a fetal position huddled. Soon the sun rose and they left afoot in a solemn manner each man refusing to acknowledge the other.

Only then were they allowed to step foot on the feeding ground when they were given their tasks. The ground was harsh and muddy. It was surprising that after then there was men of all colors and shapes were gathered here. Regardless of will they were predetermined to exist in this very moment, guided by fate itself.

The feeding ground was covered with filth and soot. Little pigs and animals were feeding on a steeled trough, the windows were indistinguishable from the walls of the buildings. The jester kept on singing to himself, disillusioned with the presented fate. The faces on the men sloped downward. Their bodies were a thinly veiled vessel for their soul, and the sun was making them droopy. The sky was blanketed by a sheet of yellow.

Around them the walls seemed to enclose the feeding ground, like an optical illusion, and they were encapsulated in this box. There was a single door that was from one of the walls. The fool glanced over at the old man, questioning reality. The old man stood stoic and unbothered, like a solemn monarch whose country was on the brink of disaster. The other men were talking in shushed tones.

"They must have gathered us here for a purpose." said one of the men. The fool seemed to nod his head in agreement, though it was synoptically unclear. "No, the counsel does as they chooses. There isn't a rhyme nor reason they could have rationed out." Two of the men in business suits were still discussing about the meditations of it all. A scrawny looking kid came over to the Jester and the old man.

"You look interesting." The kid was analyzing the old man from top to bottom.

"I've just been a while."

"Where are you from?" Asked the kid.

"From somewhere. Far away." The kid's facial structure morphed into confusion. The jester kept staring at the kid's cheekbones, they were sullen and prodded out like the skin did not fit the bone. It seemed fascinating, the shape, and the jesters eyes did nothing to conceal his pronounced excitement.

The jar seemed to stop and the clock was wizened and in a trance the kid moved away from the two men.