[story] by the thousand
author: n'aq teo (letterbugg)
He does not do magic, that autistic little boy next door. He screams and he shouts and he does not really know how to talk, but he can pick locks with broken pencils and recite things from Mr. Isaac Newton's Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Sometimes he will say things like "Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas", without knowing what they really mean.
My sister tells me he is six years old. Jan's parents are not home very much, and his siblings are at school, so he spends most of his time with his grandmother. She should know, because she pops over next door often enough, and is fond of giving him food. Jan likes the gifts that she brings; handmade cookies or freshly baked cake or fruit. (He must approve of her presence because I've heard that he is very fussy about visitors. He does not like strange people sitting in his home.) After giving such gifts, my sister often stayed to listen to Grandmother's stories.
My sister is an interesting character. She is armed with a rather entertaining imagination which sometimes takes an unsettling turn on rainy days. And then there is Jan's grandmother, who is a bright and eccentric woman armed with a battery of tales and much wisdom.
One can imagine, then, what happens when my sister spends time with them, spinning yarns and eating cake and watching Jan go about his antics. Or perhaps one cannot, and so it has become custom for my sister to read her journal aloud to me as she is writing it.
Many of her narrations leave such an impression on me I feel they might stay with me for years to come. One such tale is that of the village, and which is probably more fiction than fact, if there is any fact in it at all. One sometimes cannot tell with my sister.
This tale reached my ears not long after Jan had an incident outside. There had been some sort of a misunderstanding and a tussle. A stranger, offendered by Jan's behavior, had hit him. Chaos and outrage had followed and none of it changed the fact that Jan had been punished for being different.
Unenlightened, my sister had said with distaste, referring to the culprit. Benighted ignoramus.
And then she began the story.
In the days of old when miracles came by much more easily, anything that was out of the ordinary was immediately treated with either reverence or suspicion, depending on whose whim it was that mattered. Alas for those children born different from their brothers and sisters.
Those children were thought a scourge, a curse; they brought bad luck. Some believed them to be the result of sins from previous lives; others believed they were the result of sins from present lives. The children were scorned and beaten, abandoned in forsts and deserted lands. The most scientific minds at the time thought the children were afflicted with some kind of dementia, and so some were locked up in gaolhouses until a cure could be found.
But there was a village (it was rumored), peaceful, prosperous and strange, that sheltered those children. It was said that all kinds of magic happened there. Things appearing and disappearing and dishes running away with spoons. (Oh, but of course there were no wizard hats or magic wands. It was ridiculous to talk of wizard hats and magic wands because there were no such things as real wizards.)
Folks thought it was a stupid thing to pick up something that had been thrown away.
But those children were a boon to the village.
When a new king ascended the throne, war burst out, spreading like a plague, devouring the world.
In a smoking, ruined village (one of many), a few young conscripts, battered and dirty and terrified, were expecting an enormous army to bear down upon them at any moment.
They had seen the worst; their homes turned to ash and their comrades and friends slaughtered. There were but a huddle of women and children and the elderly remaining in the village.
The soldiers began to discern signs of the enemy's approach. The ground shook, and the dust billowed up in clouds by the hooves of raring steeds. There were shouts, sharp cruel unfeeling voices. Two of the soldiers ran away, and the rest trembled in despair at the inevitable.
One soldier rose out of his hiding place, mad and desperate with fear. His mates tried to quiet him, but he shouted, there's nothing for it, and charged at the enemy alone. The soliders watched as a torrent of arrows and flying blades cut him down.
An enemy officer, distinguished by the many decorations on his garb, called for the rest to come forth and surrender.
You are outnumbered, he barked. Give yourselves up and we will spare you.
The soldiers knew it was a lie. They stood, unmoving, unwilling to surrender.
The enemy officer turned and signaled to his subordinates. The whole pack of enemies headed for the village, to tear apart whatever that was left standing.
We shall protect our village, the remaining two soldiers decided. We shall not die without a fight.
One of them drew his sword and harpooned the enemy officer with it. The enemy immediately attacked. The poor brave soldier fell where he was standing.
The last man steeled his resolve as he revealed himself, holding onto a sword as battered as he was, his knees shaking and his eyes fixing on the enemy army before him.
Suddenly he heard a sound, and then two. It was a rush, like rain and hail and wind. But despite the noise, everything else was deathly quiet. The soldier did not dare turn his head.
The enemy heard it too. Their horses neighed and tossed their heads.
And then he saw them. There were children on steeds, thousands of them. He caught a brief glimpse of their faces as they rode past him towards the enemy; the children had solemn, dignified, stern countenances and silent wise eyes. They seemed to go as suddenly as they had come.
And not one of the monstrously powerful enemy army was left standing.
The soldier fainted.
No one knew what to believe later, for it was only that surviving soldier's word for it, and the physicians had put his sanity under suspicion.
There were some who said, however, that it must have been the children the villagers had adopted, and children from the past, those that had in some way or other been the sacrifices of society and superstition and war. They must have had come to defend their old home, or so the rumours went.
The village slowly resurrected itself over the years, and it continued to take into its loving care many children who were not welcome elsewhere. No one ever dared to invade it ever again. For you see, rumours can cast spells on people.
Jan's life goes on as always. Just two days ago he apparently threw all his parents' house-keys down the rubbish chute. He has also recently taken to mechanically reciting passages from Chaucer and scrawling Avogadro's number on his mother's teak buffet hutch and saying Mr. Max Planck has a constant.
My sister tells me he will be enrolled in special school soon, and who knows what new things he will learn or perhaps teach there. It is his birthday next week and he will turn seven. My sister will bake him a beautiful birthday cake as she does every year.
I have always been awkward around Jan. I never know what to say or do. So I usually avoid him.
But I have seen him smile once, that tiny little boy with the rosy cheeks and kind eyes, and that, indeed, was a moment of magic.
So this year, I think I will get him a present. I hear he likes toy trains. There is this very nice miniature train set in the window display of a shop I pass by on my way to school. I have seen him smile once, that tiny little boy with rosy cheeks and kind eyes, and that, indeed, had been a moment of magic.
the end
He does not do magic, that autistic little boy next door. He screams and he shouts and he does not really know how to talk, but he can pick locks with broken pencils and recite things from Mr. Isaac Newton's Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Sometimes he will say things like "Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas", without knowing what they really mean.
My sister tells me he is six years old. Jan's parents are not home very much, and his siblings are at school, so he spends most of his time with his grandmother. She should know, because she pops over next door often enough, and is fond of giving him food. Jan likes the gifts that she brings; handmade cookies or freshly baked cake or fruit. (He must approve of her presence because I've heard that he is very fussy about visitors. He does not like strange people sitting in his home.) After giving such gifts, my sister often stayed to listen to Grandmother's stories.
My sister is an interesting character. She is armed with a rather entertaining imagination which sometimes takes an unsettling turn on rainy days. And then there is Jan's grandmother, who is a bright and eccentric woman armed with a battery of tales and much wisdom.
One can imagine, then, what happens when my sister spends time with them, spinning yarns and eating cake and watching Jan go about his antics. Or perhaps one cannot, and so it has become custom for my sister to read her journal aloud to me as she is writing it.
Many of her narrations leave such an impression on me I feel they might stay with me for years to come. One such tale is that of the village, and which is probably more fiction than fact, if there is any fact in it at all. One sometimes cannot tell with my sister.
This tale reached my ears not long after Jan had an incident outside. There had been some sort of a misunderstanding and a tussle. A stranger, offendered by Jan's behavior, had hit him. Chaos and outrage had followed and none of it changed the fact that Jan had been punished for being different.
Unenlightened, my sister had said with distaste, referring to the culprit. Benighted ignoramus.
And then she began the story.
In the days of old when miracles came by much more easily, anything that was out of the ordinary was immediately treated with either reverence or suspicion, depending on whose whim it was that mattered. Alas for those children born different from their brothers and sisters.
Those children were thought a scourge, a curse; they brought bad luck. Some believed them to be the result of sins from previous lives; others believed they were the result of sins from present lives. The children were scorned and beaten, abandoned in forsts and deserted lands. The most scientific minds at the time thought the children were afflicted with some kind of dementia, and so some were locked up in gaolhouses until a cure could be found.
But there was a village (it was rumored), peaceful, prosperous and strange, that sheltered those children. It was said that all kinds of magic happened there. Things appearing and disappearing and dishes running away with spoons. (Oh, but of course there were no wizard hats or magic wands. It was ridiculous to talk of wizard hats and magic wands because there were no such things as real wizards.)
Folks thought it was a stupid thing to pick up something that had been thrown away.
But those children were a boon to the village.
When a new king ascended the throne, war burst out, spreading like a plague, devouring the world.
In a smoking, ruined village (one of many), a few young conscripts, battered and dirty and terrified, were expecting an enormous army to bear down upon them at any moment.
They had seen the worst; their homes turned to ash and their comrades and friends slaughtered. There were but a huddle of women and children and the elderly remaining in the village.
The soldiers began to discern signs of the enemy's approach. The ground shook, and the dust billowed up in clouds by the hooves of raring steeds. There were shouts, sharp cruel unfeeling voices. Two of the soldiers ran away, and the rest trembled in despair at the inevitable.
One soldier rose out of his hiding place, mad and desperate with fear. His mates tried to quiet him, but he shouted, there's nothing for it, and charged at the enemy alone. The soliders watched as a torrent of arrows and flying blades cut him down.
An enemy officer, distinguished by the many decorations on his garb, called for the rest to come forth and surrender.
You are outnumbered, he barked. Give yourselves up and we will spare you.
The soldiers knew it was a lie. They stood, unmoving, unwilling to surrender.
The enemy officer turned and signaled to his subordinates. The whole pack of enemies headed for the village, to tear apart whatever that was left standing.
We shall protect our village, the remaining two soldiers decided. We shall not die without a fight.
One of them drew his sword and harpooned the enemy officer with it. The enemy immediately attacked. The poor brave soldier fell where he was standing.
The last man steeled his resolve as he revealed himself, holding onto a sword as battered as he was, his knees shaking and his eyes fixing on the enemy army before him.
Suddenly he heard a sound, and then two. It was a rush, like rain and hail and wind. But despite the noise, everything else was deathly quiet. The soldier did not dare turn his head.
The enemy heard it too. Their horses neighed and tossed their heads.
And then he saw them. There were children on steeds, thousands of them. He caught a brief glimpse of their faces as they rode past him towards the enemy; the children had solemn, dignified, stern countenances and silent wise eyes. They seemed to go as suddenly as they had come.
And not one of the monstrously powerful enemy army was left standing.
The soldier fainted.
No one knew what to believe later, for it was only that surviving soldier's word for it, and the physicians had put his sanity under suspicion.
There were some who said, however, that it must have been the children the villagers had adopted, and children from the past, those that had in some way or other been the sacrifices of society and superstition and war. They must have had come to defend their old home, or so the rumours went.
The village slowly resurrected itself over the years, and it continued to take into its loving care many children who were not welcome elsewhere. No one ever dared to invade it ever again. For you see, rumours can cast spells on people.
Jan's life goes on as always. Just two days ago he apparently threw all his parents' house-keys down the rubbish chute. He has also recently taken to mechanically reciting passages from Chaucer and scrawling Avogadro's number on his mother's teak buffet hutch and saying Mr. Max Planck has a constant.
My sister tells me he will be enrolled in special school soon, and who knows what new things he will learn or perhaps teach there. It is his birthday next week and he will turn seven. My sister will bake him a beautiful birthday cake as she does every year.
I have always been awkward around Jan. I never know what to say or do. So I usually avoid him.
But I have seen him smile once, that tiny little boy with the rosy cheeks and kind eyes, and that, indeed, was a moment of magic.
So this year, I think I will get him a present. I hear he likes toy trains. There is this very nice miniature train set in the window display of a shop I pass by on my way to school. I have seen him smile once, that tiny little boy with rosy cheeks and kind eyes, and that, indeed, had been a moment of magic.
the end