Two

He was near death when I found him, his body frozen and battered, naked and sunburnt in a meadow near some willows. At first I thought he was dead he lay so still, but jerked slightly when I approached. I circled round him, near to the willows, and saw a little boat wedged into the roots of the oldest tree. He must have come down the river from the mountains, though how he got up there was a mystery to me. I could see that he was too weakened to defend himself let alone threaten me, so I covered him with a shawl I was wearing and half-carried, half dragged him through the meadow, then the glade, and then to the cottage.

He couldn’t talk it seemed, and watched me wide something akin to wide-eyed fascination as I prepared some thin gruel to try to revive his wits. He remained that way as I fed him like a baby and laid him to sleep near the range over there. His burns and bruises weren’t so bad as they looked, but his thin body was constantly taunt, near twisted. I was becoming convinced he was a madman, and thought it best sit up and watch him until he slept.

He did not sleep it seemed, and I found myself falling asleep in this chair, but just across the way from him, near enough to the fire to stay a little warm, far enough to escape if need be. I awoke with a start to see that his eyes were moving at least, moving very slowly around the room, as though taking in many things for the first time. He seemed fixated with the fire and kept returning to stare at it, like some small child fascinated.

I asked him if he was feeling any better and you should have seen him jump. Fair leapt up in the air he did. Of course, this gave me the fright of my life and I started as well. You would think that he had never heard anyone speak before! I sat very still for a moment and he continued to watch me from his spot by the range there, his eyes wide like saucers. I realised then that I hadn’t said a word to him since I found him out there in the meadow, and of course he hadn’t said boo to me. I told him my name and he continued to gawp like some big dummy, so I decided once and for all that he was indeed, a complete idiot. At that moment I considered trying to tie him, but wondered how he might react, and instead bade him goodnight and retired to my room, locking the door, and barring it with a chair, just to be sure.

When I awoke in the morning, still alive praises be, I found my room unentered and in the same state I had left it. Walking into the main room I found him there still sitting in the same position, still gawping at the room, still wrapped in that shawl, although the fire had long since died down. Now, you know that these Spring mornings aren’t too mild, so I had no fear that he would have frozen to death in the middle of the night, and after all, this wee cottage of mine does hold in the warmth well, but you would of thought that he might gather his wits enough to fuel the fire when he found himself alone with it. No such luck. I addressed him, and he turned to look at me again. I asked him to try and stoke the fire, no reply, I asked him if he was hungry, no reply. I relit the fire from the near dead embers, and reheated the gruel.

One

Some say that when the Great Maker took up the work of the millennia it was begun very slowly. These say that the Maker planted the seed of a kind that grew up out of the darkness of the void, to fill space with the wonder of our universe. This seed began as a speck of matter in the womb of the Our Mother, and from that conception it expanded exponentially outward in mass and complexity to become that which we now see around us, and that which lies above us which we have yet to understand.

Once the universe had grown the Great Maker and the Our Mother began the task of shaping the morass of matter that was the Beginning into the coherent shapes we know now. These two majestic ones began to manipulate and teach our world, teasing and pushing, charming and correcting. They say the majestic ones must have completed their works in good time, for today we live in a truly wondrous place. We have a world of grace of beauty.

But I do not believe them. I am a heretic. Our world is one of depravity, and meaningless cruelty. We are isolated and lost in a mindless, headlong rush to the End set in place for us by the Maker and his whore. The seed never was I say. The seed was little more than the effort to see one small enclave of civilisation eked out of a savage chaos imposed by those even greater than the majestic pair.

I say that when the time has Ended and the glory of the Maker has faded from the minds of the feeble children around me this place will collapse back into the morass from whence it came and we shall be no more. The glory of the Maker will be little more that a glimmer of hope among the remaining worshippers of a long-dead god.