Carol of the Bells

Short Story

So, I am here on the cold cold ground with the snow my sandals, and the flakes of frozen ice collecting on my bald scalp. And you don’t want to pay me? I am a rhapsode and all my knowledge is on tap for you and your men and you can’t even scrape together the funds for me to have that of copper in my pocket? Well fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I may have on a tunic made of shabby spun wool, but I command the forces of the sky god and all of his minions. And all the touch of my tone to my palate.

Do you understand that you pay me for the work that is already done? My skill in composing verses for you and your men is on tap and free for the taking. But then you must see me first.

 Think of the skill that I have two command Hercules and Orpheus and Medea. To conjure up scenes of vasty deep and command them to my top and the hammer of my spear. And I am blind so can see in my mind the picture that I draw for you so that you and your men can imagine it.

 And all for a little bit pay to count the wolves that will jump over the sheep. They claw and bite at my command whistling into the air so that you and your men can share them growling in the dark. It is all that I can do and I do it for the flock sent before me for an evening’s performance.

And I can suspend the action to take it up the next night, as with being and nothingness is unfinished for night after night after night. And each night you and your men can check in to the existential café where I am the earliest and church bells peeled through the beyond.

All for the want of a pocket change in my purse. And I tip my hat, even though I cannot see anything at all, and depart the satisfaction that my skill has prevailed.

In these lines though yet unimagined will be quoted. I need no writing to set them down because we have lost the art of scribing. But I have faith that we shall rediscover the most liberal of the arts: the use of pen to fix the voice in a moment of time and space.

Think of all you have deprived your men of, the chance to be made immortal by the silver tongue as they hear others who have also been made immortal. Don’t you think that they want that chalice? To be remembered long after they have gone?

But note you count your copper and decide that my skills do not deserve to be placed next to another Spearman or gladiatorial swordsman. Don’t you know that the chance of glorious death motivates more than one Spearman? They fight for a day as I motivate them for the glorious future that you hope to have. It is for this that the Carol of the bells rings today, yesterday, and all of the tomorrow’s yet to come.

If you want the return of the King you must fight for it and all that it contains. Whether it is the ring of doom or the fair maiden’s hand. Do you not see the power of words? Words the arms? One of them is worth a division of fighting men. Do you not see it? But the power of words is not for free because it takes endless amounts of practice and foresight to find the vowels and consonants together to form a substance more powerful than flesh. All of this I can rise out of chaos and can’t have an against the dudgeon eternal pain. All for the touch of my tongue given with words.

And this you deny for saving a few coppers. Are you mad or seeming unhinged?

Think of the delight that these words conjure up. Think of the terror that they envisage. And all of this is in my shape waiting to, wanting to, wishing to cast this spell of the rhapsode.

Think of how deep scholars will pour over the words said here and then discover that they were conjured by the oral tradition and not by fellow scribes. It will pond and amaze them to find that the gift of gab makes the world they live in possible. Do you not want to have a portion of this glory? A festooned slice of invidious craft? It would be the mill of the man to parry such thrusts.

Think of how words will guide you men away from the cities, where the streets have no name. Or to the scenes of violence where they will deploy their training?

Or is it that you must feel the wrath of the rhapsode? To feel the state of the lash for not having gifted him the copper which he so desperately deserves. Well, I will show you and show you well. If you do not want to participate in the glory of poetry, then feel its mighty sting. I will conjure up an epic so deep and fast that thousands of years from now men and women will pour over its every meter and model at its dactylic hexameter. And they shall repeat to students every syllable that is then uttered. And many generations will pass, and the art of writing shall be restored, and they will gather in their homes to scratch out which words should be preserved.

So, I will take the Greek hero, I think Achilles is the greatest of all, and link them with a man who leads other men but is nothing compared to the godlike Achilles. And this leader of men will be shown to be a fool, a coward, and a fiend, and he will send his warriors to be slaughtered and left for the feasting of the dogs and all of the birds. How would you like this to be your legacy? Well, it has happened and I, Homer, will create it out of whole cloth for you, Agamemnon. This I promise you as a rhapsode.