The Parable of the Statue (Sage and the Scarecrow)
Project Summary:
The following is a short excerpt from my 2004 novel "The Sage and the Scarecrow". At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a longer work, like a novel, is deleting parts that don’t quite fit into the book or slow the story down.
The following short story is a part of a chapter that I recently decided to delete from the novel. I’ve left it a little raw, so you get a taste of what my works-in-progress feel like.
The Sage and the Scarecrow
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
The acrid, nuclear rain had melted parts of the statue into something inhuman.
It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
“If heaven lives for earth, and earth lives for heaven, then it must mean there are magical connections between all things.”
I think about Jennifer’s hand in mine, my hand in hers. I feel a sense of completeness. Just out of view, I know my dad will be there too. There are four books now, a few magic mushrooms, and some scattered pages from Plato’s Republic.
*
“Speak to me again,” I say to the statue-creature. “What is the relationship between heaven and earth?”
I make a circle out of my thumb and pointer finger and put it over my eye like a monocle.
“Eye of the beholder,” I say. I look at the statue. “This is monocle I will use to see the beauty of the apocalypse.”
I try to see the world through this monocle, to make sense of all the tangles of thumb-twitching zombies and the acrid smell of death and my own stomach pains, but the tangles stay tangled and the statue remains an unrecognizable something.
And it takes all the wisdom and forbearance I can manage with stomach pains not to call it ugly.
*
“The Sage wants to remain behind…” I mumble.
“But he finds himself ahead of others…” the statue-thing whispers back.
In my younger years, my dad would sing to me songs from the Wizard of Oz. One magic mushroom and I would be back with him, in my bedroom, two mushrooms and I’d be someplace I couldn’t predict. Three and I would obliterate myself completely and this whole world would dissolve like the statue’s face.
“You have to come with me, statue,” I say. “Don’t stay here. I’m so lonely.”
*
“Everything needs its opposite,” I say aloud. “I need Jennifer. What do you need?”
Its mouth begins to open but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can listen to you? That can hear your voice? I’m sorry. I can’t hear your voice.”
Its mouth opens again but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can recognize your form, but I’m not that thing.”
The rain begins to come down again, and I think, This is how I die. The nuclear rain will melt me into nothing.
*
That night the rain comes down. At first I want to stand next to the statue and let the rain warp me into something that can understand and love it the way it needs to be understood and loved. The first drops burn me horribly. I resist the urge to eat the mushrooms. I draw from a well of courage I had long forgotten. I will die and become a creature that can love.
But then, I find myself in a dark space.
The statue has formed around me, into a tender embrace. What could have been its back or its face or some other part I was no longer fit to recognize protects me from the acrid, nuclear rain.
Finally, I recognize the statue’s form. Its form is love.
The following is a short excerpt from my 2004 novel "The Sage and the Scarecrow". At the moment, I am revising the chapters from this book into 3-4 page short stories for posting on my blogs and in literary magazines.
Sometimes the hardest part of writing a longer work, like a novel, is deleting parts that don’t quite fit into the book or slow the story down.
The following short story is a part of a chapter that I recently decided to delete from the novel. I’ve left it a little raw, so you get a taste of what my works-in-progress feel like.
The Sage and the Scarecrow
The Novel in Short: Six months after his father has died from cancer, Pierce finds himself in a state of anxiety and crisis. The book follows Pierce through a journey to find his best friend and the only person he thinks can "cure" him.
The acrid, nuclear rain had melted parts of the statue into something inhuman.
It has nothing that could be recognized as a face, and the parts that are supposed to look like hands and fingers are molded into stumps.
I try to recall a passage from the Tao Teh Ching. I try to bring something to life from my useless memory. The passage has to do with heaven and earth and their connection.
The statue mumbles to me, “...not live for themselves.”
“That’s right,” I say with an exhausted smile. “They live for each other. Heaven and earth live for each other.”
I look up but don’t recognize any form. Its melted face and hands are something less than human. Only when I turn away does it speak to me.
*
“If heaven lives for earth, and earth lives for heaven, then it must mean there are magical connections between all things.”
I think about Jennifer’s hand in mine, my hand in hers. I feel a sense of completeness. Just out of view, I know my dad will be there too. There are four books now, a few magic mushrooms, and some scattered pages from Plato’s Republic.
*
“Speak to me again,” I say to the statue-creature. “What is the relationship between heaven and earth?”
I make a circle out of my thumb and pointer finger and put it over my eye like a monocle.
“Eye of the beholder,” I say. I look at the statue. “This is monocle I will use to see the beauty of the apocalypse.”
I try to see the world through this monocle, to make sense of all the tangles of thumb-twitching zombies and the acrid smell of death and my own stomach pains, but the tangles stay tangled and the statue remains an unrecognizable something.
And it takes all the wisdom and forbearance I can manage with stomach pains not to call it ugly.
*
“The Sage wants to remain behind…” I mumble.
“But he finds himself ahead of others…” the statue-thing whispers back.
In my younger years, my dad would sing to me songs from the Wizard of Oz. One magic mushroom and I would be back with him, in my bedroom, two mushrooms and I’d be someplace I couldn’t predict. Three and I would obliterate myself completely and this whole world would dissolve like the statue’s face.
“You have to come with me, statue,” I say. “Don’t stay here. I’m so lonely.”
*
“Everything needs its opposite,” I say aloud. “I need Jennifer. What do you need?”
Its mouth begins to open but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can listen to you? That can hear your voice? I’m sorry. I can’t hear your voice.”
Its mouth opens again but nothing comes out.
“You need the thing that can recognize your form, but I’m not that thing.”
The rain begins to come down again, and I think, This is how I die. The nuclear rain will melt me into nothing.
*
That night the rain comes down. At first I want to stand next to the statue and let the rain warp me into something that can understand and love it the way it needs to be understood and loved. The first drops burn me horribly. I resist the urge to eat the mushrooms. I draw from a well of courage I had long forgotten. I will die and become a creature that can love.
But then, I find myself in a dark space.
The statue has formed around me, into a tender embrace. What could have been its back or its face or some other part I was no longer fit to recognize protects me from the acrid, nuclear rain.
Finally, I recognize the statue’s form. Its form is love.
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