The Hyperion Chronicles

The Hyperion Chronicles
“Like a taste of Heaven…without all the saturated fat”

#309 Tell Me a Story

Editor’s Note: Because of the different voices in this column, and the way they talk, the following is much easier to understand if read aloud.

Sometimes when I write a story, I know what I want to do and I sit down and do it. Very much like an Old Testament God, I control utterly all the actions, plot, and dialogue. Sometimes I create characters, and they become so real that they take on a life of their own; I am merely a conduit for their fully realized independent world. Sometimes I have the ending and work backwards, or just have an outline of what I want to accomplish.

Then there was last Thursday; a strange night for me all the way around (see #138). All I got was this…image. I had no idea what it meant; what led up to it or what came after. It’s sort of like that old psychology questions where they show you a picture and ask you to tell them what’s going on.

When I first get the image I am sitting outside, in the dark, staring at these two candles on a metal wicker table. My mom sits down, and I tell her the tale, hoping it will jump-start my brain:

“Okay. It’s night. At first all you see is lights, many of them, all in a row. You swoop down closer and see that the lights are candles. The candles are held by these people wearing robes, dark red robes, though in the candlelight you might be forgiven for thinking they are dipped in blood. The robes have hoods—of course—hiding the features of the wearers. The people walk single-file, down off a hill, through a path in a field. They walk into an area nearby deep with vegetation. Trees and bushes come right up to the edge of the path, with foliage covering the sky overhead. Who are they? What are they doing? Where are they going?”

I sit back, slightly flushed from my oration. My mother ponders a minute, and then begins: “The people are carrying the candles down the path to a great cauldron. They throw their candles and flame into the cauldron, and the heat of the melted wax and the fire light the cauldron higher and higher. It takes all night to fire the cauldron up to the sky, and in the morning that fire lights the sun that travels across the sky.”

I like it. Unfortunately, I cannot connect to it or see where to go from there, but I tell her she should write it down. I mean to continue the story that night, but then the radio happens and…it’s Friday before I put pen to paper again.

I still have the image in my head—as real as a film strip spooling before me. Still no inspiration, though. I ask my server Jadrian at Denny’s, hoping she can help.

“These people go down the path to a brick wall,” she begins at once. You ask this girl a complicated question and she answers so quickly that you’d swear she’d been waiting for it all night. She continued:

“This brick wall, you can’t tell it’s a brick wall, because it’s covered with vines and branches and stuff. These people, they have a key, a key they are not supposed to have. They enter.”

“Why do they want to enter?” I ask, as she pauses for breath. “What happens when they go through the door?”

“There are these creatures beyond the door,” she says, her eyes warming as she thinks, “and they’re not human. Well, they look human, and they talk human, but they’re not. At first they welcome the people in robes—because they have the key—but then they turn hostile. The people need the key to get in past the brick wall because there is something through that wall they need to help people. They’re trying to help everyone—in the beginning—but it all goes wrong and everyone ends up dead. Is that okay?”

It was better than okay. I felt like I could fashion a story out of this. However, the germ of an idea was coming to me. I grab the other server Taisie and drag her outside. I give her the story. This is the third time I’ve done this: I’m getting better at it. I don’t think anyone has ever asked her to do something like this before, but Taisie doesn’t disappoint:

“These people are going to a secret burial site. They are part of a secret society. They go to this site to commemorate their leader, whom they loved. In fact, the blood-red robes don’t symbolize death but the love they had for their leader. He wore white robes, which they poured black...on when he died.”

“What happens when they get to the secret burial site?” I prompt. “What happened to the leader?”

“The leader was murdered. When they get to the burial site, they find the grave desecrated. The leader was murdered for something he believed in. The murder came as s shock to everyone—not just the group—because the man was respected in the community. His death was tragic to all, but especially his secret followers. He was killed because…I don’t know why he was killed. That’s all I got.”

“Now I saw the way to write this column: ask others and see through their eyes. (Although, I suppose you figured that out.) I still needed my story, though. All these were great, but they felt too real for me to just take.

I looked around; mostly the bar crowd. A guy with a broken nose, some club-hos (don’t hate; if you’ve been out late at night you know what I’m talking about), and the funniest dishwasher I’ve ever seen in my life. I go back outside to stretch.

Sitting on the curb smoking the foulest cigarette this side of Eastern Europe is this old man. I swear: put glasses and a toga on him and you’d think Gandhi was back. As it was, he wore a tan robed shirt over military fatigues (what I like to call Hindu-Western fusion), and sported a white turban. I thought he might be a Sikh, except he had no beard. He did have whiskers on the side of his cheeks that amounted to subdued mutton chops. They were white, which contrasted against his cocoa brown skin.

He looked at me without expression, but offered no greeting. I launched into my pitch, asking if I could put the image to him and get his reaction. He nodded—at least, I think he did—and I started in. It was a bit disconcerting the way he stared at me as I talked, but in for a penny…

When I finished, with the directive, “Who are they? What are they doing? Where are they going?” he said nothing. He continued to smoke his noxious cigarette in silence for so long I figured he wasn’t going to answer, but just as I turned to go back in he started talking. His voice was so soft that I had to strain to hear him speak. When he was done, I immediately came back in and with shaking hands wrote the account. As near as humanly possible, this is word-for-word what he said:

“These peoples, these robes, these night…they exist only for one reason...to make sacrifice. These candles...is…how you say?...tallow made of fat….fat from humans these peoples killed before”

Maybe it was the smoke from the kitchen, but I swear I could smell those candles. He went on, in halting English, but like he was reciting from memory:

“These peoples…these robes…these candles…go on path for many steps. These peoples come to clearing, made of rock. There is altar, and many candles…large candles…same kind.

“Altar is big…stone…carved like table with legs like animal. These peoples begin chant. Drag him out of shadows. He dirty, worn, bleeding on head and stomach…”

He pointed to his left side.

“These peoples…drag man to altar…tie him down…leather straps…human skin…other sacrifice. These peoples chanting higher higher. These peoples drip candle on chest. He screams. Chanting, screaming, chanting, screaming. The candle hisses as it touch skin. It…solids…mark over heart…one these peoples take out knife…bone handle. Peoples stop chanting. Man says words…forbidden words…these knife come down.”

He pauses, takes one last drag of his cigarette, and stubs it out carefully. He looks me dead in the eye: “You that man.”

“I’m the man with the knife?” I ask, weakly, feeling sick.

For the first time since I laid eyes on him he offers an expression. It’s a smile, feral, showing brown and yellow teeth. He speaks four more words: “You man on altar.”

I don’t think I’ll ask anyone else.

Hyperion
August 17, 2004

Credits
Thanks to my Mother
Thanks to Jadrian
Thanks to Taisie
Thanks to the old man on the curb, whoever you are
Thanks to Tootsie for Editing
Special shout-out to M.I.A. Skippy the Wonder-Lizard. We miss you; hurry back

Motto Explanation
See, saturated fat’s not good for you