Scorpion Soup Page 8

  Then, one morning, I woke up with a pain in my hand. I assumed it was from years of chopping wood, and so I rested.

  A few days passed, and a pain began bothering my other hand. A week on, and something very strange indeed happened.

  A little shoot began to sprout from my elbow.

  Naturally, I was very alarmed. I showed it to my wife. Screaming, she sent me to a doctor, and left to visit her mother in the neighbouring town.

  The doctor prescribed a tonic, and told me to get rest. So I took to my bed for a week, drinking the tonic morning and night.

  As I lay there, under the blanket, the shoot began to grow.

  It grew and it grew, and it grew and it grew, until it was more of a branch than a simple shoot. And, at the same time, another shoot sprouted on my other elbow, and on both my hands. Before I knew it, there were shoots peeping out from each finger, and from my ears as well.

  I was terrified and ashamed.

  No one else I knew had foliage growing from their body. After three weeks, my wife came back from her mother’s home. By this time, my entire frame was covered in greenery. Vines were growing out of my nostrils and my face was rough and grey like the trunk of a tree.

  And that is what I was becoming – an oak tree.

  My wife ordered me to leave the house at once. She said I was bewitched and that I had brought dishonour to our home. Confused and humiliated, I set off, to get away from people. Whenever anyone saw me, they taunted me, calling me an oddity and a freak.

  And then, one day, I reached the forest where we now find ourselves.

  By that time I had lost the use of my arms, with branches in their place. My torso was more like a tree’s trunk than a human body and, with each moment, I felt my legs stiffen a little more. As for my toes, they had become roots, roots searching for soft ground in which to plant themselves. I knew deep down in my sap why this change in circumstances had come.

  It was retribution from the forest for having felled so many fine trees with my axe.

  The oak tree paused for a moment as a light breeze rippled through its leaves.

  He seemed to sigh.

  All this happened centuries ago, he said. And I suppose I should be thankful because I have outlived all the people I have ever known.

  The tree sighed again.

  I wish I could do something – anything – he said, to teach other humans to change the path of their ways.

  Yousef, who had listened to the tree’s story, touched a hand to the oak’s great trunk.

  ‘I have come to know the secret of humanity,’ he said, ‘and I am devoting what time I have left to making this knowledge available to all men.’

  The oak tree rustled with interest.

  ‘Would you tell me the secret?’ he asked.

  And so Yousef explained all he had come to understand.

  When he was finished, the oak tree was overcome.

  ‘I wish I had grasped such a simple and important lesson when I was still a human,’ he replied.

  The next morning, Yousef thanked the tree for his shelter, and the tree lowered a twig for him to shake.

  Just as he turned to go, the tree made the sound like the clearing of his throat.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ he said humbly, ‘and I want to help you.’

  Yousef frowned.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I don’t want to sound rude, but you are a tree. How could you help me with my cause?’

  The tree said:

  ‘Last night you explained to me your quest, and for it you will have to spread the word to men. This secret needs to be passed on, and on.’

  Yousef nodded.

  ‘But how can you help me, dear tree?’

  The oak seemed to stand a little taller and prouder than before.

  ‘From my branches you can make paper,’ he said, ‘and from my twigs you can fashion a nib. From the oak apples in my high branches you can make ink. And,’ he said, his voice quivering slightly, ‘when you are done creating a book from me, you can make a beautiful box from my trunk in which to keep that book.’

  Yousef took in the mighty oak’s wide trunk, its branches, its twigs, leaves and shoots.

  ‘Dear oak, I could not betray your kindness,’ he said.

  The oak replied:

  ‘Even after I have betrayed the forest, among which I have now lived for an eternity. Cut me down, and I shall begin life in a new form.’

  And so, a tear in his eye, Yousef cut down the tree.

  He made paper from its twigs, and ink from the oak apples, and sewed the binding with twine. Once he had created a huge tome, standing as tall as a man, he created a magnificent chest to contain it, delicately carved and scented with the fragrance of the forest.

  And, on the front of the chest, he inscribed the following words:

  My form may have changed once, and then again, but I contain the wisdom of all Men.

  The chest was then heaved onto a grand cart, and transported to the National Library, where it was given as a gift to all the people of the land.

  A few days after the great book arrived at the library, the kingdom was overthrown by an invading army. Much of the population were slaughtered, including Yousef. All the libraries in the kingdom were destroyed by fire, and anyone found owning a book was burned at the stake.

  The invading despot gave the order for the farmland of the vanquished country to be tilled with salt. So ruthless was his new regime that the people fled to other kingdoms, their lands unfit to be ploughed, their capital destroyed. Eventually, all the people gone, nature reclaimed the ruins of the capital.

  Centuries passed.

  Where the capital had once stood, a forest grew, giant oaks forming an unreachable barricade against the outside world.

  And then, one day, a hunter strayed into the forest on the trail of a beautiful gazelle, when he became disorientated and lost. Night fell quickly, forcing him to bed down on a rock, itself covered in moss.

  Awaking the next morning, the hunter realised that he had been seeking shelter in what appeared to be the ruins of an ancient building.

  Surveying the area, he found the enormous carved wooden chest, all covered in creepers and vines. Carefully, he cut away the lianas. And, with all his strength, he pushed back the lid.

  Inside, perfectly protected, was a colossal book.

  Intrigued at what he had discovered, the hunter forgot about the gazelle, and began to read:

  The Hermit

  There was once a hermit who lived in a cave up on the top of a mountain.

  Taken there as a child, he was left with a telescope and enough food and water to last him a lifetime. His parents had hoped that the boy would reach spiritual salvation, and would radiate good karma to the universe.

  From his vantage point, the hermit could watch the kingdom below, taking in the trials and tribulations of daily life as seen through the telescope’s lens.

  For days and weeks, and months and years, he watched.

  And he watched and he watched and, as the decades passed, the older and wiser he became.

  Reaching old age, he sat back and considered what he had learned through a lifetime of seclusion, and of watching.

  He came to the conclusion that humans confused the content with the container.

  They would gorge themselves on great plates of inferior food, imagining it to be delicious because there was simply so much of it.

  Or, they would make halfwits their leaders, merely because they were pleasing to the eye, or because their words were spoken in honeyed voices.

  And, when it came to information, they would champion weighty tomes that contained almost no real content, while shunning small books that imparted real truth.

  ‘What can I do to explain this situation?’ the hermit asked out loud one morning, as he sat by the entrance with his telescope. He was about to go and lie down in the cool shade, when a dragonfly flew into the cave.

  With wings buzzing fast, it said:
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  ‘Why don’t you explain the situation to the people in a way that they can understand?’

  The dragonfly flew out of the cave, and the hermit sat there, teasing a hand through his long white beard.

  ‘I will make a book,’ he said to himself, ‘a book that the people down there will appreciate. It will explain clearly how to discern between the container and what is contained.’

  And so that is exactly what he did.

  The hermit created a book of extraordinary size, using the finest materials, and colours that he knew would attract the attentions of every man alive.

  It was kept in a special box, all covered in fragments of mother-of-pearl.

  When it was finished, the hermit wrote a message telling the people of the town to come up the cliff face and meet him in his cave.

  He tied the message to a stone, and threw it down the mountain.

  But, being wizened with age, the hermit was not very strong. The stone didn’t make it all the way down as he had hoped. Rather, it became lodged in the cleft of a tree, where it was protected from the elements.

  Decades passed and then, one day, a theologian was out walking, when he spotted the stone in the cleft, and found the message. Calling for his disciples to walk up the mountain with him, he declared that the message had been sent to him by God.

  By this time the hermit had been dead for some years, his body remarkably well preserved by the exceedingly dry climate.

  Scrambling up the hillside, the theologian and his disciples reached the cave where the hermit had lived. They found his body curiously uncorrupted, and they found the telescope and the box that contained the book.

  ‘This is the refuge of a saint,’ said the theologian, ‘and from hence forward it will be a place of pilgrimage.’

  Word spread.

  And, within days, pilgrims began to turn up.

  Some of them sought to be heeled, others craved answers to certain situations in their lives.

  More still were seeking attention.

  And yet more made the journey to the refuge so that they could boast to their friends that they had been there.

  One at a time, they would troop into the hermit’s bedroom, and would pray over the special box, all covered in fragments of mother-of-pearl.

  No one ever thought to open the box.

  After all, they regarded it as a sacred relic of some kind.

  For centuries, devotees came and they prayed. Most believed that the pilgrimage had cured them, and they told their friends, who hastened to the mountain. A handful were sceptical. But the mass of public belief was so strong, that they were ridiculed and shamed.

  With time, a monastery was constructed there, and a hierarchy of priests was installed. The pilgrims led to a lucrative business, and all manner of trinket sellers and others set up stalls.

  Then, after a very long time, the hermit’s box fell to pieces, the result of so many lips and so many hands touching it.

  The priesthood wondered what to do. And, as they were wondering, a boy said out loud:

  ‘There’s a book inside the box. Why don’t you read it?’

  ‘Read it?!’ exclaimed the priests. ‘How dare you suggest such a thing! No one opens the sacred book! To do so would be to perform an act of unthinkable blasphemy!’

  That night, when the priests were sleeping in their grand monastery, a stone’s throw from the hermit’s cave, the boy pulled back the great book’s cover, and turned to the first page.

  On it was written a single line. It read:

  When Man can discern between Content and Container, he will be wise.

  The boy turned to the next page… and the next… and the next…

  But they were all blank.

  Taking this fragment of wisdom, the boy left the mountain.

  With time, he became a man, and he developed a celebrated business empire. Those who knew him, or knew of him, regarded him as a leader of men. When asked why he was so successful, he would reply simply that it was because he could discern between that which contained and that which was contained. People thought he was either joking when he said this, or that he was making fun of them.

  But almost no one ever paid attention to what he had actually said.

  On the last day of his life, the man was walking home when a random stranger stopped him in the street.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

  ‘Do I know you?’ asked the man.

  ‘No, you don’t – but I know you.’

  Without another word, the stranger gave the man an envelope.

  Inside it was this story:

  Cat, Mouse

  There was once an island on which the cats reigned supreme. They lived like royalty, gorging themselves on the abundant mouse populace, forcing the mice to work for them as slaves.

  In the factories and in the mines, the mice laboured from before dawn to well after dusk. All the while, their cat masters became increasingly cruel, and lazier and lazier, as the mice served them.

  From time to time, a lone mouse would escape his shackles, jump up, and taunt the cats.

  But such break-outs always ended the same.

  The offending mouse would be caught, tortured, and slowly devoured while still alive.

  Rather than become disheartened at their fate, the mice became increasingly tolerant. As the months and years dragged on, the mice slaves found that they could endure worse and worse conditions. And, as they did so, their feline masters became progressively neglectful.

  Eventually, the day came when all the cats fell asleep on the long, hot summer afternoon. Seizing the moment, the mice in the slave camp managed to unfasten their chains, and broke free.

  Having tied up the cat guards, they stormed the pleasure domes in which their feline masters reclined. Strengthened by years of servitude, the mice quickly gained the upper hand.

  The cats had no choice but to become the slaves of the mice.

  Begrudgingly, they did so. But, so hardened by their own experience as slaves, the mice were themselves ruthless masters. Regarding the cats as vermin, they thought nothing of executing them summarily for even the most trifling misdemeanour.

  The cat numbers fell dramatically.

  Indeed, such was the mouse rage, that the cats were almost entirely wiped out. Their numbers reduced to a handful, the survivors themselves plucked up courage and broke free. Making their way by night to the beach, the last cats built a raft with a flimsy mast and sail, and they took to the sea.

  Within a day or two all but one had expired.

  A scrawny tabby cat, he survived because his treatment as a slave to the mice had been especially harsh. And, as a result, he had learned to harness reserves of strength that other cats never knew they possessed.

  After days and nights on the waves, this last bedraggled cat reached another island – an island ruled over by ghouls.

  Fearsome in looks and demeanour, the ghouls had a legend that one day a saviour unlike them would come from the distant horizon, and would rule over them. Every ghoul child was raised with the legend and could quote it by heart.

  Each morning and night, all the ghouls clustered together on the sands to peer out to where the water met the sky.

  Centuries had passed, and no saviour ever came.

  But still they waited.

  And they never gave up hope.

  Searching the horizon for their saviour became important in itself – a kind of divine act by which the ghouls lived. Gathering together twice a day as a community kept the society strong, and was a way by which traditions and folklore were passed from one ghoul generation to the next.

  On the evening of the cat’s arrival at the island, the ghouls were clustered down at the beach, singing a song venerating their saviour – the saviour who had never come. Some of them had forgotten why exactly they met there twice daily. Yet, in many ways it didn’t seem to matter why they were there, so much as the fact that they were.

  ‘Look there!’ cried
one of the ghoul children suddenly, pointing to the distance.

  ‘Keep singing and stop making a noise,’ snapped one of the ghoul elders.

  ‘Father, look!’ exclaimed another of the children.

  A surge of anticipation swept through the group, as all the ghouls – young and old – set eyes on the raft.

  The cat was pulled to safety, and was taken at once to the house that had been built for the saviour, were he ever to come. Fed delicious morsels of fish, he was fanned with palm fronds, and told over and over how very special he was.

  Unable to believe his luck, the cat enjoyed the indulgence for a long while. He learned to speak the ghoul language, and became well-versed in the ghoulish lore and traditions, of which he himself was part.

  But, now that their saviour had arrived, the ghouls’ society began to collapse. With no reason to cluster down at the beach, the ghoul community became fragmented.

  The legends and the songs were forgotten.

  And then, eventually, the ghouls began to question why they had to support such a lazy tabby cat, even though he was supposedly their saviour.

  Fortunately, one of the ghouls was more enlightened than the others, and realised what was happening. Little did he know that it was his ancestor who had devised the idea of the ghoul saviour arriving, as a device to keep the community in harmony.

  After much consideration, he poisoned the cat as he slept.

  Beside his now bloated feline body, he left a document.

  When they found the remains of their saviour, the ghouls were disconsolate. They jumped up and down, and beat themselves with sticks.

  ‘What will we do now that our saviour has left us?’ they cried as one.

  The enlightened ghoul jabbed a hand towards the document.

  ‘The saviour may have gone to new hunting grounds,’ he said, ‘but he has left us this. It will become the core of our new faith,’ he said, ‘and will be repeated day and night by us all down on the beach.’

  The ghouls hurried down to the sands.

  ‘We want to hear it, and we want to worship our saviour, the cat,’ they called.

  When they were all clustered together before the setting sun, the enlightened ghoul read the story to the others, as they listened: