Once Upon a Time,
There was A Village that was
being tormented by a man-eating
lizard-dragon.
The local constable did everything
to try to kill this creature,
but nothing could stop it.
So, finally, he visits a Gypsy,
who tells him the only way
to kill this monster
is to stab it in its appendix with
A Lance made of Green Glass.
Why The Green Glass?
And why The Appendix?
Who the hell knows?
In these old fairy tales,
The Monster must always be destroyed
by some form of penetration.
A silver bullet, a wooden stake...
Obviously, our ancestors were as obsessed
with impotency as we are, eh?
Dusk had coloured the home’s white walls blue, its pink curtains violet. The sea outside was restless and dark. Alan and Zahra sat at the kitchen table drinking white wine. He had finished the dates.
"I have to go to Paris for a few weeks," she said.
Alan was ready for this.
"How long do you think you’ll be in Saudi?" she asked.
He didn’t know. They drank a bottle and opened another.
They were so in love with The World, and disappointed in every aspect of it, that drinking another bottle while they sat at the kitchen table was the most obvious way they could honour it all.
Zahra poured him another glass.
Alan had the feeling that Zahra was waiting for him to leave.
But he had gotten there with Her Driver so he could not leave until she sent him away.
"Can I tell you a story?" he asked.
"Of course", she said.
"I have A Story for Your Son. What’s His Name again?"
"Mustafa."
"Mustafa, good. A good name." Alan was drunk and wanted Zahra to know it.
"This is a good story for Mustafa."
"I’m glad. Should I take notes?
"No need. You’ll remember the essence."
"I will try."
"Okay. My Father and I went camping a few times."
"Ah, camping again."
"This is not about camping. Please listen."
"I’m listening." He refilled their glasses.
He could hardly See but felt very Strong.
"I was around ten, twelve. And this one time he brought me up to New Hampshire. He drove into some National Park. Just endless woods. And we parked, and got out, and walked deep into the woods. For at least four hours. We didn’t see a soul the last three hours. We were off the map, basically. This was in the early morning. We started at sunrise.
We had snowshoes with us, and used them when we got into some deeper powder. The walking was incredibly tiring. We stopped every so often for water and a snack. We ate beef jerky and nuts, that kind of thing. Then we would continue up the slope.
Around three in the afternoon, the sun was already falling, so we stopped. We couldn’t see any sign of civilization in any direction. I assumed we’d walk down then. It was getting cold and would get down to twenty or ten. And what we were wearing wasn’t going to help us stay warm enough. "
"What was he thinking? Did you have tents?" Zahra looked aghast.
"I asked him that. ‘Do we have a tent?’ I thought he had some kind of plan.
But he acted like he’d just realized the math of it all. That we wouldn’t make it back before dark, and that the night would freeze us solid.
Not to mention the prospect of wolves, bears."
"Wolves and bears?" she asked.
Her look was doubting.
"Believe it."
"I guess I have no choice."
"So he said to me, ‘What should we do?’
And then I realized this was some kind of Test. There’s something in his eyes that’s testing me.
So I thought about the Boy Scout stuff I knew and said, ‘We build a shelter.’
And that’s what he had in mind.
He opens his pack and he produces an axe and some rope. He’s planning to have us make a shelter out of logs, tied like a raft."
"Oh no."
" ‘How long do you think we have?’ he asks, meaning before the sun goes down and it drops below freezing.
‘About two hours,’ I say.
‘I reckon you’re right. Better get started,’ he says.
"He was a tough guy", Zahra said.
" ‘He likes to be thought of that way.
So we got started. We took turns chopping and tying. We tied together two pallets of twenty or so thin birch logs.
Once we had that done, we cleared a twenty-by-twenty square in the snow, and assembled it there, a pretty respectable A-frame. We gathered fronds from the pine trees and lined the bottom with them."
"Sounds comfortable."
"It was surprisingly comfortable. Then we built a wall around the shelter. Three feet, all around. To keep the wind out. We put snow on the roof, too, about a foot of it for insulation."
"And it wouldn’t leak?"
"Not when it’s ten degrees. That’s the best insulation we had."
"Did you have sleeping bags? "
"No we did not."
"This man was a lunatic."
"Maybe. Then he asked, ‘Son, what do we need now?’ I knew.
We needed needle and thread, or duct tape or something. So I tell him that, and he produces a roll of duct tape.
"For what?"
"To make a sleeping bag out of our clothes."
"You’re kidding."
"I’m not. We cut our jackets up, and taped them together to make a big wide sleeping bag. And then we slept there in our long underwear."
"You shared the sleeping bag."
"Yes we did. And I have to say, when we were all settled in there, it was very warm."
"You didn’t have a fire."
"No fire. Just each other."
"And in the morning?"
"We taped the jackets back together, went home."
"So You Saved Yourselves by Building Something. I get it.
But he almost killed you both in the process."
"I guess", Alan said, and laughed.
"I’m allowed to laugh, right?" Zahra said.
"You are."
"Good. Because I find just about all of it," she said — and swept her hand around The Room, encompassing The House, The Sea outside, all of The Kingdom, all of The World and sky — "very, very sad."
