Not Every Hero Wears A Cape
It is well know that everyone has an origin story. But mine, the saga of a poor young lad who asked for nothing more than to look after his goats, long, long before he discovered the solitary joy of his beloved pillar, is lost in the mists of time.
Instead, with the graceful swoop of the falcon who soars through the temporal clouds, circumnavigating history’s globe with the omniscient gaze of the seasoned hunter, let us glide swiftly away from those simple days of yore to our present strange times.
Imagine! You awake one morning on top of your trusty pillar prepared to get on with your day exactly as you have for a millennium - sweeping the dust from the rocks, making abstruse calculations on your abacus, occasionally washing your tunic in the rain, and composing obscure and bad-tempered missives for the Society of Stylites.
Imagine! The pillar upon which you stretch your weary limbs was deliberately built to be so tall your celestial perch is far above even the clouds and the people (known as ‘readers’ or ‘acolytes’ or ‘followers’) so far beneath your heavenly gaze that they might as well have been ants whose ant-ics you may have reflected upon with no more than a wry smile.
Imagine! You awake upon this morning of all mornings, this morning of…how can I put it…my mind wanders…ah yes…extraordinary cosmic doom…You stretch your scrawny arms in salutation to the sun that lurks behind the moody clouds and you wish your constant companion, loyal friend, renowned cynic and legendary canine correspondent, Felix the Dog, a cheery, ‘How goeth thee, oh most loyal hound.’
Imagine! As you embark upon your humble morning repast, there comes from the land beneath the most hideous of dins. A thousand nails scratched against blackboards. The whine of every lost internet connection. The sky darkens to ashes, occasionally illuminated by the flashes of a weird lightning. A violent wind whips across the land. Your pillar shakes like a sapling in a storm. The air hums with the many winged vibration of a legion of dark furred bats seeking fresh blood.
‘Courage, Felix,’ you shout, ‘Courage!’ as you clutch your ears to ward against the horrendous hubbub. And, obeying your own advice to the faithful hound, you steel you’re nerves and lean over the side of your column.
Oh most terrible of scenes!
The world has revolted against itself. Brother turned against sister. Son against mother. Daughter against father. Sun against light. Sea against tide. Dogs have made friends with cats. It’s all lava streams and ashen plumes. The terrible din is the extraordinary wailing of the krakatoan eruption of grief from millions of people moaning at the utter ruination of their lives.
Never could you have imagined that the world you had abandoned so many years before could have descended into such abject chaos.
But, as Felix, that wise dog, reminds you with a kind nudge of his nose, ‘Hope springs eternal.’
Amisst the carnage, you see the faintest gutterings of hope (or maybe it is cope). A few candles cupped in dirty hands against the terror of the long night. And so, you don your tattered sandals and your torn tunic, you gather into your arms your beloved hound, and begin the long climb back down to the world.
It is June 24th 2016
In the meantime, tell your friends!