WHEN VISITING YOUR BOYHOOD HOME after the passage of too-many years, it’s only natural that it should seem quite a bit smaller than last you saw it.
But aside from towering over the landscape, Prosatio Silban was amazed by how little Bustan had changed: the same thatched creekside huts, the same arched stone bridge, the same goat-browsed village common, the same ivy-covered inn.
I should really get back here more often, he thought. But I know I won’t.
If my audience will feel that these interpretations are also relevant to their perceptions and emotions, I shall feel amply rewarded. However, I shall not feel hurt if my thoughts will find no response in the hearts of my listeners.”
— Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, The Lonely Man of Faith
THERE ARE FEW SITUATIONS AS disquieting as falling awake in the middle of the night convinced you’ve heard an intrusive sound, but with no aural evidence to back such an urgency.
Prosatio Silban lay still in his galleywagon’s sleeping berth, listening to his own breathing. He could have sworn there was something else that oughtn’t be. But try though he might, he could hear neither scratch nor skitter of mouse-paws, nor the enthusiastic chewing of a meat-seeking voonith. Two potential wilderness culprits eliminated, he thought. But why, then, am I awake?
“DOESN’T IT MAKE YOU CLAUSTROPHOBIC to cook in such confinement?” asked a visitor to Prosatio Silban’s close-quartered galleywagon.
“Less than you would think,” the beefy cook answered over the chop-chop-chop of mincing lizard-breast. “I actually find that it makes me more focused and disciplined. Sloppiness comes from spreading out – a dirty dish here, a crumpled towel there. But when everything has its own cozy and ordered place, and space is at a premium, there is no wasted effort and no wasted time. A good cook is economical in both movements and ingredients; and that can’t help but result in a tastier meal.”
(If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)
PROSATIO SILBAN WAS ALONE.
True, he had the company of his faithful dray-beast, Onward. But as for others of the beefy cook’s own species, none were nearby for long miles – one reason why his surroundings were known as the Western Wides.
He had chosen the Wides a-purpose. Having spent a busy and profitable fortnight in the lacustrine island-city of epicurean Pormaris, reputedly the most decadent of the Uulian Commonwell’s Three Cities and Thousand Villages, his soul felt somewhat bruised and in need of quiet solitude. So, with open eyes and heart, he had set out in his galleywagon on the broad packed-dirt road running due west from Pormaris.
I MAY LOSE SOME FRIENDS by saying this, but: It’s no longer Republican v. Democrat — it’s fascist v. patriot. Choose accordingly. (And if you’re in the mood for an escapist polemic, have at.)
11/8 UPDATE: !!!!!
TO SOME, DEATH IS AN unwelcome interloper; to others, a faithful ally. And to even others, its palpable presence can bring a type of hope.
Prosatio Silban swallowed the last of the blue duliac in his glass and sighed. He had been curled up in the Gold Piece Inn for what seemed like aeons, waiting on repairs to his galleywagon. One tavern, one wheelwright, and one ostler – that was all of the hamlet of Vetch’s Misery, a mostly abandoned village surrounded by fallow fields and muddy swampland.
For all that, the beefy cook was surprised that the inn was as crowded as it was.
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