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Feel the words from my lips
To your harsh finger tips
Then you know where I come from
Cause I know, yes I know
Everything there is to know
Cause I lost everything I had
See, I could have danced on the sun
But my world came undone
-- Flogging Molly
Myron Epimetheus
The little man sips absentmindedly from his mug while the boy digs – there is nothing like a bit of something warm to drink when one is accountably cold. Nor is there anything quite like the dirt of an old grave on one’s hands when one cannot find his way out of the death of his hopes. A bit of grave mud will do the boy well. Just as another sip of this pleasantly warm beverage is precisely what is required when one’s joints are heavy with dampness. And so the time passes with the boy covering himself in the dirt of a grave and the little man quietly sipping from his mug. The boy finally wraps his knuckles against the wood of a coffin and the little man nods – the splinters of that rotten wood will be good for him. A moment later the stink of a corpse fills the air, but it is neither the corpse nor the stink that the boy had sought with such desperate fury. “The past is dead, boy, and one cannot well live in the present if he insists on losing himself in the grave dirt of yesterday. Still you persist in crawling among the bones of the dead after those who are alive. Step away from there, boy, before you start to smell like a corpse.”
He does not bother waiting for the young man to compose himself before shuffling toward him and thrusting a tightly wrapped scroll into his hands. “Read, boy, the proper telling of your story. But do not read it here, for this is not your home and here all pathways lead you to the grave. Mistral lives, about this you were deceived. But she is lost to you and that is a truth whose denial has brought you to this place where the stink of death is so strong.” With a curiously paternal gesture he places his hand upon the young man’s shoulder, the chill of his touch causing him to shiver. “Come, boy, shake the mud of the grave off of your clothing. The past dies for all men but you do not need to confine your life within the dirty grave of the past. It is time, boy,” light flashes within the hollow sockets that once housed the little man’s eyes, “for you to find your way home and to live the life of Larry Silverfall – that would be you, boy – and not this figment of shadow which offers nothing but a box of rotting bones. Go, boy! Return to that place and that game that are yours, read the scroll and live there the life that is yours by right and not the fictions of these last pain-filled years.”
From the direction of the settlement of Ravenwood horns of mourning are sounded and cries of lamentation rise above the trees, and within the cries there dances a merry note of laughter and a contented whisper ~ Yesssssssssssss! O yes! So very many……
“The Shade rules here, boy, there is nothing for you. Go!”
I sit in and dwell on faces past
Like memories seem to fade
No colour left but black and white
And soon will all turn grey
But may these shadows rise to walk again
With lessons truly learnt
When the blossom flowers in each our hearts
Shall beat a new found flame
- Flogging Molly
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