Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 3: Lord Michael

Death was a weary business. I recall only the interesting moments, as one recollects the more striking steps of any journey. The months within a lightless cell have faded. What would there be to recall? Just a dull dark, dank with despair. But I remember the whipping post, down to the fine details of wood grain. Fresh pine from the mountains. It had swirls of yellow grain, etched with rougher red lines that leaked sap. I tried to picture myself in the mountains from where this wooden thing began. Seeing the cool green shadows, feeling the cold clean wind. Each crack of the whip brought me back screaming to the execution dock.

I forget my trial. A tedious stage-play of sly faces, stomach-turning betrayal. And I only dimly remember days in the stocks, while folk who once tugged forelock in respect to my noble person now tossed horse apples and cobblestones, jeering at my fall. Dull business; God and Satan alike agreed to strike it from the records of the human story. Exact as did I.

And yet, I remember the smallest details of the hangman's absurd leather hood. Soft calfskin, dyed black as a courtier's funeral best. Eyeholes cut big and round, giving the burly man the air of an astonished child. With a slit to show lips; wide red lips, for all the hairy naked chest. I remember a brief comic urge to give him a kiss. I did not; I was too broken in body and spirit for japes. There came a last gaze at the sky, the tightening grasp of the noose while I kicked legs, gave last gasps... But what came after? I've no least recollection.

Death passes same as birth. One cannot recall the moment. It is forever hid. One only realizes later that it must have happened. Think back to your earliest memory. It cannot be of your birth, struggling in the womb, pushed out into light and air as your mother howls. No, it will be some childhood recollection of a burned hand, a lost toy, a soft song at bed's side. Memories from years after the start of life. So also, beyond death.

My first recollection after dying is walking beside the donkey that bore my remains. Turning random ways as villagers drove us ever on. And yet I knew I'd been walking so for hours; perhaps for years. I almost remember that I argued at great length with some person as we walked. I do not recall with whom. But I feel we debated the goal of my journey, the purpose of the road itself and the injustice shown the donkey. With whom did I argue? Perhaps with the donkey; or my corpse upon it. Perhaps I argued with the road itself. Could a road speak, surely it would ask what purpose did I have upon it?

I remember the passing countryside as mere bits of tattered light, a crude sketch of a world upon a tapestry torn by wind and storm. The long miles of trudging, the dead man slowly, slowly turning to something sad and liquid. The donkey plodding ever on, at times putting muzzle to grass it could not eat, into water it could not drink. A creature suffering without purpose. A symbol of pain borne patiently for lack of choice. A weary damnation, lacking the drama of hell's fire or heaven's interest.

And then, ah, and then upon the infinite, endless road, I recall the boy. Absurd creature; not yet grown into his large hands and feet. Freckled, hair wild and yellow as straw. Face bright and innocent as summer sky. I never saw a face that had less to do with me or mine. A pleasant, peasant's face, a boy's face. A face declaring at once to all: behold a dreamer, an optimist, a gormless fool no wiser than the donkeys of the world.

I watched fascinated as the farmer hefted the spade, weighing whether it were best to add the boy's corpse to the hole, lest he reveal they'd taken the donkey from its civic duty. The boy did not notice the clenched hands, the narrowed eyes. Instead he whistled while digging my grave, dragging the pathetic clay within. At last for final word: naming me 'friend'.

Friend! As though I were neither a noble far above his peasant station, nor worm food at his feet. No; I was friend; something common as him. And holy for being common, as all truly holy things are. I sighed; and then before my grave, beside the road, beneath the setting sun, I laughed. For I knew now the purpose of the journey given me. Not in life, but in what dream comes after.