Autumn and Entropy

II The Gospel

Tools

  I quit the confines of the truck in haste and slung a well-used harness over my perpetually aching shoulders, at once noticing the wear had become quite obvious along the multitude of creases, straps and buckles that crisscross the garment. Once bold and dark, the slate colored fabric had faded to a dull and washed out gray, akin to the humdrum tone of an overcast sky. I had no doubt that all the years the trusted old tackle had spent carrying my tools across a thousand miles of burning sun and stinging snow had started exacting its toll.

  A smile etched its way across my face highlighting the myriad crow's feet and creases age had kindly blessed me with, as the motions of a carefully honed ritual commenced. Of their own accord my arms danced in familiar patterns, my shoulders shrugged against tight stitching and my chest heaved against heavy glass infused metal; for my body needed no guidance, as it had performed these rites countless times.

  My sacred exertions, if viewed by the layman, could certainly be mistaken for the maniacal fumbling of an amateur; though as age had bestowed upon me those deepening crow's feet, so had it blessed me with an utter lack of concern with presentation. Arcane designs were writ upon the very aether itself as my flailing arms worked the harness into place. Like the mystical lines of the ancient Ogham carved upon the earth by my forebears, I worked my arms as such and rehearsed the rites of my own religion; securing those precious and sacred artifacts I dearly revered.

Flesh

  For these were my rites, this was my mass, my sacrament of straps and clasps cinching and tightening into chaffed flesh, straining under pressure and load, a sanctimonious ritual of fabric and metal. This secret ceremony I had learned through years of toil and turmoil, amidst the passion and insight of self discovery. It was a rite forged in a place of purity and solitude, a place I had discovered far below the crumbling and failing facades of my youth and my vanity. When the buckles snapped, when the fabric creaked and locked the mighty beast to my chest and set fire to the nerves in my back I found peace and rejoiced in the honest burden; for this was my gospel carved across my scars and bound by my sinew and etched upon my bones.

Worship

  I surveyed the fields imbued with orange and yellow, I observed the day glow forests with reverence as they sprawled out before me toward shimmering horizons, and I drank deeply of the temperate breeze whilst giving thanks to whatever god of autumn would listen.

  My church lay across that verge, where the cultivated gave way to the uncultivated. It was in every blade of grass and every falling leaf. Glorious scripture recorded over remote eons and written upon all the myriad forms in which life chose to take shape. Its benevolent choir was out there singing in the wind and drumming in the rain. My church was out there under the warm October sun and to walk there was to worship at its altar.

  I kicked a well worn gray boot into the dirt in a concerted effort to snap the idle thoughts and fanciful reveries from the fore and get back to the here and now. Enough with the dramatics I remember thinking, enough with the emotional insight and elaborate exaggerations. Enough blathering on and on in overdone symbolism and metaphors. It was time to make tracks. I shook my head and realized that sometimes I was a bit too much, even for myself.

Light

  After a second bout of daydream wandering I managed to suppress those grandiose thoughts while I locked down that bulky optical beast. With little thought I secured the mighty zweihander in one well rehearsed motion to the rolled steel clasp at the fore of my breast. It rested at a snug ninety degrees to an aging but remarkably well proportioned paunch proudly displayed about my midriff.

  I shifted slightly with my footing, gauging the load and balance as the sun bleached harness shared creaking fulminations with me. My mighty weapon that subdued and enslaved the light had been an indispensable companion that I lovingly referred to as my lightsaber. Happy with the familiar strain upon my shoulders I smiled in satisfaction and bid farewell to the truck and to the road and to that uninvited acquaintance of mine lingering as he did on the periphery of all things. I set a course away from those nuances and turned the very earth under my foot, setting my face against the warm sun and struck out in search of fall.