To the man who spent his life turning stones into sugar cubes.
(In other words: "Thanks, Grandpa")
“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.”
Had I been more inclined to believe in miracles and divine intervention, the day I stumbled over the innocuous amalgam of magic and sedimentation would have been the day the religious world as we know it crumbled to dust; there is no doubt in my mind that someone – some overzealous servant of Absolute Being or another – would have proclaimed its existence to all creation (in the vain hope of putting to rest eternal brawls for spiritual supremacy, no doubt), thereby plunging mankind into yet another bout of brotherhood-inspired bloodshed. As it was… if any faith ended up broken, only one person ever need atone for it.
***
“You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.”
I could give you a million reasons for what happened that evening: I could claim a momentary lapse in judgment, disguise the entire ordeal as an act of kindness, or enshroud it in words of piety and praise. The simple truth is, however, that a favourable combination of time and circumstances will crumble even the most impenetrable of citadels - and who am I to claim superiority over the great city of Troy? Suffice it to say it was done.
***
“We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.”
I did not really need to see his face again; its most prominent features – the jadeite green of the eyes, the elegantly scripted (in ceil blue) ‘i’ across the bridge of the nose, the slightly recalcitrant set of the chin – have all been preserved for posterity, albeit scattered across several generations. Nor did I really need to hear his voice (and even if I did it would have made no difference, as proper vocalization requires a pair of lungs, a larynx and a mouth – any and all of which the ghosts of our past rarely possess) – what I really needed, with all the desperation of the Son of Dawn clawing at the gates of Heaven, was to re-confirm, reestablish as an irrefutable actuality, the fact that he had been a part of my life once, a part of my everyday reality. A part of me, if you will.
***
“The one who loves you will make you weep.”
The very air around me shifted, but I did not open my eyes to determine whether the shadowy form before me was true to my memory (it could have just as easily reproduced his likeness from those last, pain-ridden days – there are no guarantees in death!). I could not look, could not breathe, desperate for a sign that he was as happy to see me as I was to see him, yet too afraid to move lest I disturbed the subtle balance of the moment. Can such a gentle sound as a rustle of cloth break a human heart? Because I swear, the moment his shirt cuffs grazed his hips on their upward journey, mine shattered into a thousand pieces…
***
“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”
Silently, his hand blossomed into a universal gesture of request and I dropped the offending piece of rock into his palm. I hardly dared believe my eyes as it bubbled and morphed, the colour slowly but irresistibly fading, until all that was left in its wake was a perfect little hexahedron of pure white: a sugar cube.
And that’s when the tears came.
***
“Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave.”
Had I been more inclined to believe in miracles and divine intervention, the day I stumbled over the innocuous amalgam of magic and sedimentation would have been the day the religious world as we know it crumbled to dust; there is no doubt in my mind that someone – some overzealous servant of Absolute Being or another – would have proclaimed its existence to all creation (in the vain hope of putting to rest eternal brawls for spiritual supremacy, no doubt), thereby plunging mankind into yet another bout of brotherhood-inspired bloodshed. As it was… If any faith ended up broken, two new ones sprang up in its place.
“Children, there is someone I would like you to meet...”
