SHAWNEE
‘Danny, you can’t understand. Enjoy the sofa alone and watch your TV. That was what she told me before leaving me’, Daniel Boon was remembering while watching TV on a mute mode. ‘TV characters in mute mode, seem like a bunch of stupid. They say something soundless like fish, they respond excited, sometimes thoughtful as though they can think. For seconds, the clowns are entertaining, then boring the whole day. We know whatever they do had been written beforehand in a plot, just mimics; but what else we have to forget the monotonous loop of life. I turn the volume up to hear their words, the stupidity is intolerable. What have I missed? It is not Eve; she makes questions, asks and wants. And this new notion in her mind, the day and night repetition, the Prairie, what is that?’
He put the TV on a pause; the stupid mute characters on the TV looked stupider. He stared at them for a moment then as if, remembered something; not due to the standstill figures on TV, but the silence of the two-day pause in his routine. The tranquillity in the air, an open window, the rustling of green, orange, and yellow of a lonely tree outside, in this last month of autumn. Something has been missing for a long time; he had always sensed it, never paid attention.
He jumped on his feet and ran to the basement door, opened it. The tired sunset hardly reached its rays to first few steps of a stair going down, the rest out of reach, hidden. No lamp for the stairs, and not any down there. He stands for a moment, ‘She had been afraid to climb down, the wobbling wooden stairs, no handrail at sides to hold, slender treads even for her small feet, high rises, going down shaky into the darkness. It was my hideout until she overcame the fear and added the basement to her territory of inference. TV is now my last resort.’ He went down the stairs waited for his eyes to accustom to the darkness. A shadow at the end wall, a chest drawer, he approached. He stood before it, the bottom drawer, opened it, a dim shine came out, a big metal box. He took it out; though heavy, the well-built man carried it with one hand up the stairs.
He placed the box on the sofa with care and sat by it. There was dust on the lid; he rubbed it, the light particles danced around his nose in the lazy sun of the cold evening. He exhaled, couldn’t them get all. A feather was neatly glued in the middle of the lid, a souvenir. A real feather, which had fallen off a golden eagle, in a harsh struggle to catch and lift up a mountain goat. He had been witnessing the scene, once the eagle locked its sharp claws into the flesh; there was no way for the young goat to get loose. He found the brown feather and kept it as a sign from ancient gods. He turned the combination lock, pulled the shackle, took out the lock, pulled up the latch, and rolled up the lid open.
An array of beauties: gold, silver, ivory, woods of Damascus, birch, and Scandinavian handles with blades of steel and titanium. Tens of knives and daggers in variation, each expert for a job. He put the box on his laps, picked up one by one with the admiration of a memory of each; decorated the sofa with them at his sides. Then put the empty box at his foot. The silent companions gave him a few moments of glee; the standstill stupid characters on TV looked funny again. Yet, the good old dust could not fill his void; the guests could not keep his faint smile.
He went back to the basement right to the chest of drawers, closed the bottom drawer, crouched on the floor, and stretched his hand on the dusty floor into the narrow space under the chest. His arm stretched in full under the gap, his fingers started a search for a precious touch. Not smooth, not soft, they fumbled in wander until sensed. The hand came out in full. He sat on the floor stretched out his legs, look at the wrapped gift on his laps. An old sackcloth woven with coarse strings, brown, random reddish stains on it. A wooden piece was stuck out the rag. He smiled, stood up, took it upstairs; put the rag on the sofa; placed all the knives back into the box; unwrapped the rag.
A Kentucky knife, a wooden handle made out of a sacred tree, a sharp but coarse iron blade that had seen inside bellies in many battles; on which dried bloodstains mingled with rust. He tried to rub clean the blade with the rag as much as he could. He raised the knife to see the polish in the blade, the sun before going down, sent its blessing upon it to shine. He placed the knife at his side on the sofa; turned off the TV, leaned back, rest the nape of his neck on the sofa’s top. He stared at the ceiling; let the chill of a breeze, the favour of the old tree outside, stray under his thin shirt. The open window had something else. The wind of autumn from an ancient graveyard, circled around the branches of the tree. Rustling leaves whispered the spell of life to the old warrior of Kentucky.
“Long time no see, Jonny”
“I had forgotten my real name. Hello Shawnee, my old friend, my warrior knife,” Danny replied.
“It’s a long time, isn’t it, Jonny?”
“Yes, Shawnee, a long time.”
“What happened? I thought you’ve forgotten me, Jonny.”
“I don’t know.”
“We had a good time together, Jonny, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Shawnee, we had.”
“It was like yesterday, in that old forest of Kentucky that we met each other, in the restricted area where campers had never seen for hundreds of years.”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“The old sassafras tree, tilted, not by wind but for a reason many years ago.”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“I was there for hundreds of years, in pride.”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“You saw how I stuck the bastard to the tree, kept him there until the rotten flesh fell off the bones. How delightful was when my grinds were sawing his bones alive. His skeleton laid down on of the slanted trunk, motionless, arms suspended at his sides, waving bones squeaking in the wind of autumn, concurred with the rustling of the leaves of the holy tree.”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“Do you remember when you saw me, first afraid, then came close. I saw you, a teenager with a slim body but eyes of a warrior. You came close, touched my wooden handle, trembling. I gave you the warmth; you grabbed my handle tight, took me out the wood and bones; the skeleton fell down on the soil shattered. You were staring at me while the cold rain of autumn started washing my blade; amazed by the shines of green, orange and yellow of ample leaves on me. I was looking at you, a great master, later a true friend. Do you remember, Jonny?”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“Jonny was the name I found right for you when I heard you were singing the bitter rain in the autumn rain.”
“Yes, Shawnee, I remember.”
“You were living in Lexington; you were on a camping trip with your classmates of Lafayette high school. You were in ninth grade, starting your first year there. We went together to your high school the next week, a big green yard, a huge building, and beautiful female classmates. Though you could enjoy none, a fourteen-years-old weakling bullied almost every weekday. Do you remember your big classmate? The fat boy in the school. You hated him. What was his name?”
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