A Juggler in the Woods

A Subtle Catalyst

At least it was morning. An unfamiliar path through the woods is not the place to be in the dead of night. It being a windy November day however, it felt cold as night even through my heavy overcoat.

One might ask, with reason, what I was doing in such a place at such a time. Having mid-morning business in a nearby town I had set off just before dawn in my carriage. In spite of the cold I was enjoying the solitude of my ride something spooked my horse, and sent it dashing down the road in erratic fashion. I managed to calm to animal, but not before its careening had taken the wagon off of the road and into a ditch of sufficient depth as to make extricating it myself impossible.

I waited until the first orange shine of morning for someone else to arrive. I was certain that some fellow traveler or another would happen by, and render me assistance. (For which I would have happily paid with some of the silver I carried with me.) After two hours of such waiting, and being far too removed from both my home, and my destination, (Fate having presented this difficulty to me at almost the exact halfway point of my journey), I entered the woods, where the aforementioned path began. I had contemplated it several times while I waited for help and decided at last it must lead to a country home where I might seek relief from my situation.

Fool that I often am in the mornings, I brought no saddle with me to mount the horse and ride back home. Being nothing more than adequate in the ways of horsemanship, there was little hope of riding barebacked without being thrown. I tethered the animal to a nearby tree, and set off into the unfamiliar woods.

It being the middle of November, much of the autumn pallet had passed from the leaves and foliage, leaving mostly browns and stray blood-red leaves piled up all around me. More than once I stopped to sweep the leaves away with my feet, digging the path out of its temporary grave.

Scantily clad branches on the hibernating trees clicked and scratched against one another, a diaspora of stubborn leaves clinging still to a few limbs.

I traveled for perhaps twenty minutes along the path, swooshing leaves from in front of me, only to have the wind blow them back in moments. Still no sign of human habitation. It became clear to me by this point that the path, wherever it led, would be of little use to me in my predicament. A turn in the path just ahead of me would mark the end of my search, one way of the other. Either the home I sought lie just beyond this bend, or if not, it was there that I would turn around and head back to my horse.

As I rounded the bend, I heard the distinct sound of humming. Not like an insect, but as a man may do to assuage boredom or fear. A periodic clacking sound accompanied the humming, as though one struck small rocks with a tiny hammer. After a few more paces, the source of both sounds came into view, a sight so strange I shall likely never forget it, even if I reach dotage and forget most other sights collected in my brain over a lifetime.

A man, about my age and size, (though somewhat more rotund than me) sat on a large boulder just off of the path. He wore clothing that was almost entirely white. More white than I  had ever seen on one person before. More white than I would have thought a man short of royalty could afford. Save for a modest black vest, every aspect of his ensemble was not only white, but clean. Overcoat, trousers, vest and undershirt, even shoes and odd three cornered hat. Without his clothing one might have called his face white, as it was more pale than the average man. Though in comparison to his garments, there was much notable color to his flesh.

The tar-black moustache which curled to a slight degree at either end was the only other color on this spectacle. But the greatest oddity was not in fact his clothing; it was his activity. He sat juggling what appeared to be four balls of equal size. They too seemed to vary somewhat in color, though so quick were his movements that for much of the time the objects were but a blur to my eyes.