A story can be told, another story may be true, yet another may be more to our taste. Some stories throw us in clear relief and yet other stories make of us more than we are. How then are we to see, I mean see, the story that is our truth and then also the truth of our neighbours.
I am a story, a faded picture of a child that nobody can name, lost as I am in time, surrounded and entwined by stories of other forgotten faces. I am the most precious and the most worthless of things.
In the photograph, the road appears as if out of nowhere on one side and snakes across the image to disappear again into the photo’s white border. Two figures walk along the road, full of pluck, coming from, and going to nowhere.
The child holds the adult’s hand.
It was black as night when it rose, dripping, from the mud. Birds flew away shrieking their displeasure and a small tree, uprooted by the birth of this dark being, fell to ground.
It was a stone-grey morning when it found its way out from the swamp of its birth and stood to its full height, clods of earth and lines of slime still falling from its back.
It was then still bright morning when it ventured into the clearing where The Blue Knights lay resting by the side of the still sleeping Sphinx woman.
The giant figure, trailing a massive club of most wicked nails adorned, stood still for a moment as if to decide the next twist in its tale. Then, lifting in its arms the club on high, prepared to strike someone or something in the clearing bright with peace.
In that same moment, a buck, not full grown but with a small showing of antler, came out the shadow, also by the clearing, and walked towards the beast.
It stopped and looked up into the place where the creature may have hidden its eyes.
What creature are you that look so fearsome and cruel, said the Blue and Yellow Knight, my heart cries that I should strike you to pieces, but my head tells me to find your very nature here.
I am war, rumbled the dark creature, come to destroy your world, I have no reason or rhyme and I do not take prisoners.
And with that the dark one brought its mighty club down from the sky to crush the knight. But where the knight had stood, there was nothing and the club hit the earth a thunderous blow. Ten miles away an earthenware bowl, belonging to a hermit there in his forest hovel, upon a rude table, cracked.
A roost of starlings flew up from the trees and their murmuration made the shapes of waves lapping a beach.
The Blue and Yellow Knight, now with the Blue and Yellow Woman Knight at his side, each supporting a long spear, came toward the war beast and skewered it through and through, until it sank upon the grass.
You cannot kill war, said the creature, I am without number and I kill without prejudice, your time will come. Then it faded, part whisp of vapour and part dark wind.
The Blue and Yellow Knights sat together upon the ground beside the still sleeping Sphinx.
So, said the Blue and Yellow Woman Knight, War is coming to us and we shall not flinch. Let us be ready when the dark creatures of war make to destroy the lives of our innocent people.
We shall prepare, replied the Blue and Yellow Man Knight.
The Guardians of the Cave 