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Black Hat
‘SO,’ HE SAID, ‘I FOUND YOU. LET ME TELL YOU A STORY. LISTEN.’
‘WHEN I APPROACHED YOU FROM THE SOUTH,’ HE SAID, ‘I WAS YOUNG. I WAS GIDDY AS A MAYFLY AND, THOUGH I LOOK DOWN NOW ON THAT TIME AS FRIVOLOUS AND CHILDISH, OH GOD, I WOULD GIVE IT ALL UP TO KNOW SUCH YOUTH AGAIN. THE WORLD WAS BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC, EROTIC; I LIVED ENTIRELY IN MY SKIN AND MUSCLE AND KNEW HEAVEN THROUGH SOME STRANGE ALCHEMY OF FASCIA AND FOOLISHNESS. IT WAS – IN MY MEMORY, AT LEAST – ALWAYS SUMMER. MY SKIN WAS GOLDEN AND WARM, HUNGRY FOR THE TOUCH OF FINGERTIP OR LIP, BUT SUFFICIENT IN DELIGHT TO SLIP THROUGH THE WORLD UNIMPEDED BY LOSS OR LONGING. I LEAP-FROGGED THROUGH THE STREETS AND DANCED IN THE FIELDS AND KNEW THAT THE WORLD WAS BRIGHTLY-COLOURED AND ALIVE.
THE MAN PAUSED AND LOOKED AT THE STONE, THEN SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SIGHED.
‘IT COULDN’T LAST, OF COURSE. NOTHING FLEETING AND BEAUTIFUL DOES. THIS FLASH OF LIGHTNING, THIS SHORT JOURNEY ACROSS THE PERILOUS ABYSS. GONE IN AN INSTANT. AND SO, WHEN I DANCED ACROSS THE GREEN HILL, SO LIGHT WERE MY FOOTSTEPS THAT IT TOOK NOTHING AT ALL TO PRESS MY SKIN AGAINST STONE AND SO BECOME IT. THAT WAS HOW I FIRST UNDERSTOOD THE SECRET.’
A man encounters a standing stone in a field at the end of the world. Apparently, they have a history. This is the account of their meeting and their past, the ways that Black Hat has approached the mysterious stone from every direction, attempting an alchemical conjunction. Black Hat and his dog are no strangers to strangeness, but the nature of this field is a perplexing mystery.
BLACK HAT is the contribution of Tom Hirons (Sometimes a Wild God, Nettle-Eater, Falconer's Joy) to the Seven Doors in an Unyielding Stone series.
‘WHEN I APPROACHED YOU FROM THE SOUTH,’ HE SAID, ‘I WAS YOUNG. I WAS GIDDY AS A MAYFLY AND, THOUGH I LOOK DOWN NOW ON THAT TIME AS FRIVOLOUS AND CHILDISH, OH GOD, I WOULD GIVE IT ALL UP TO KNOW SUCH YOUTH AGAIN. THE WORLD WAS BEAUTIFUL, EXOTIC, EROTIC; I LIVED ENTIRELY IN MY SKIN AND MUSCLE AND KNEW HEAVEN THROUGH SOME STRANGE ALCHEMY OF FASCIA AND FOOLISHNESS. IT WAS – IN MY MEMORY, AT LEAST – ALWAYS SUMMER. MY SKIN WAS GOLDEN AND WARM, HUNGRY FOR THE TOUCH OF FINGERTIP OR LIP, BUT SUFFICIENT IN DELIGHT TO SLIP THROUGH THE WORLD UNIMPEDED BY LOSS OR LONGING. I LEAP-FROGGED THROUGH THE STREETS AND DANCED IN THE FIELDS AND KNEW THAT THE WORLD WAS BRIGHTLY-COLOURED AND ALIVE.
THE MAN PAUSED AND LOOKED AT THE STONE, THEN SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SIGHED.
‘IT COULDN’T LAST, OF COURSE. NOTHING FLEETING AND BEAUTIFUL DOES. THIS FLASH OF LIGHTNING, THIS SHORT JOURNEY ACROSS THE PERILOUS ABYSS. GONE IN AN INSTANT. AND SO, WHEN I DANCED ACROSS THE GREEN HILL, SO LIGHT WERE MY FOOTSTEPS THAT IT TOOK NOTHING AT ALL TO PRESS MY SKIN AGAINST STONE AND SO BECOME IT. THAT WAS HOW I FIRST UNDERSTOOD THE SECRET.’
A man encounters a standing stone in a field at the end of the world. Apparently, they have a history. This is the account of their meeting and their past, the ways that Black Hat has approached the mysterious stone from every direction, attempting an alchemical conjunction. Black Hat and his dog are no strangers to strangeness, but the nature of this field is a perplexing mystery.
BLACK HAT is the contribution of Tom Hirons (Sometimes a Wild God, Nettle-Eater, Falconer's Joy) to the Seven Doors in an Unyielding Stone series.
36 pages, Paperback
Published October 31, 2018
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16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 23, 2020
Why I don't know, but when I started reading Black Hat by Tom Hirons I felt an urge to read it aloud and when I did, hearing his beautiful prose was a joy in itself. The story is about a man's relationship with a stone in a field at the end of the world. About the alchemy of man and stone. A relationship spanning a lifetime and longer, much longer than that. This is what I brought back with me this first time reading. And once isn't enough. There is more, much more waiting to be understood. Black Hat is part of the Seven Doors in an Unyielding Stone series and -beautifully- published by Hedgespoken Press.
March 12, 2020
Women in mystery but not quite as ecstatic.
January 27, 2022
I, too, read this aloud, having had the enormous pleasure of hearing Tom read his stories aloud infuse my own telling of this story of strangeness & familiarity.
There’s an echoing thread-line within that will accompany me, a nugget of profundity bent on touching my soul. There’s a sense of earnest longing for recognition by the man in the black hat, in the story, to be seen, to be a part of, to belong. This is the nourishment you can receive from this take, should you be open to it & the mystery it takes in both a head-on & meandering way.
I appreciate deeply the familiarity I have with the recollections the man speaks to the stone. So fabulous and intimate and revealing, shedding layers as it goes on.
My deduction of one star is for the lack of foundation for the relationship between the man and the white dog, who purportedly, we find out nearly at the end, belongs to him as he whistles for him. It may just be my own failure to see an obvious need for this type of connection between the two characters—and maybe it was Tom’s intention to make the reader uncomfortable at the everyday angst between the man & his playful dog—but I felt from the beginning that it didn’t lend to the mysterious strangeness of the story, but detracted somehow.
Perhaps that’s just how it needs to be: bringing the narrative back down to earth by shedding light on the mundane mistreatment of our spirit guides, our animal ancestors, and not seeing the companion available to us walking alongside us upon Eairth.
The main issue I have is, that after all of the journeying through the depths of soul work that this man has done, why would he treat animals this way? Wouldn’t he have learned by now to treasure these relationships rather than unkindly express frustration, neglect, & even loathing for this creature?
It is certainly is something to chew on and would not stop me from reading it again, for I certainly will, hoping to untangle the mythological threads tucked in the bundled yarn-bowl of this storyline.
There’s an echoing thread-line within that will accompany me, a nugget of profundity bent on touching my soul. There’s a sense of earnest longing for recognition by the man in the black hat, in the story, to be seen, to be a part of, to belong. This is the nourishment you can receive from this take, should you be open to it & the mystery it takes in both a head-on & meandering way.
I appreciate deeply the familiarity I have with the recollections the man speaks to the stone. So fabulous and intimate and revealing, shedding layers as it goes on.
My deduction of one star is for the lack of foundation for the relationship between the man and the white dog, who purportedly, we find out nearly at the end, belongs to him as he whistles for him. It may just be my own failure to see an obvious need for this type of connection between the two characters—and maybe it was Tom’s intention to make the reader uncomfortable at the everyday angst between the man & his playful dog—but I felt from the beginning that it didn’t lend to the mysterious strangeness of the story, but detracted somehow.
Perhaps that’s just how it needs to be: bringing the narrative back down to earth by shedding light on the mundane mistreatment of our spirit guides, our animal ancestors, and not seeing the companion available to us walking alongside us upon Eairth.
The main issue I have is, that after all of the journeying through the depths of soul work that this man has done, why would he treat animals this way? Wouldn’t he have learned by now to treasure these relationships rather than unkindly express frustration, neglect, & even loathing for this creature?
It is certainly is something to chew on and would not stop me from reading it again, for I certainly will, hoping to untangle the mythological threads tucked in the bundled yarn-bowl of this storyline.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews