You Go West, I'll Go East, And We'll Meet In The Middle By Paul Malone
Whatever intriguing geological processes and paleomagnetic mechanisms that wrought a mountainous and astonishingly beautiful landmass in the shape of a belt around the equator of an otherwise oceanic planet, would be (if anyone knew of it) open to speculation. However, as unlikely as the planet appears, stranger still is the sentient inhabitants' nomadic behaviour -- a perpetual westward circumnavigation, the purpose of which is long forgotten. A lifetime here (provided one doesn't walk the other way; that would be fatal) is measured in revolutions.
How did such a peculiar behaviour evolve? An astute anthropologist could propose plausible theories, however whatever their postulations, they serve no purpose here, for before us, and appearing not so different from us, stands a family of these inhabitants. Their story:
Sanders, a slender boy with large thoughtful eyes now rimmed with tears, stares wistfully at the broad-leafed fern where his brother, Barnison tries to conceal himself. Of course it's futile; Barnison's sobbing gives him away. Their father stands beside Sanders, his spear poised. The fern suddenly rustles. The muscles in the father's shoulders bulge as he draws the spear back, ready to throw. From behind the fern slinks Barnison, a thin boy with black shoulder length hair and surprisingly full cheeks -- the remnants of his toddler years. He rubs his eyes with his dirt-smeared fists, pouts his bottom lip and looks up guiltily to his father. Sanders whimpers and squeezes his father's forearm, but his father brushes him aside, draws back the spear and throws it. Barnison is astoundingly nimble. He steps sideways and the spear flies harmlessly past him.
The father says: “Keep still, my boy. Don't make this harder than it needs be.”
“Father, please, “Barnison cries, “I nearly caught a fowl for our supper.”
“I know you meant no harm, but you broke the law. Ten steps backward, not more. Now stop fidgeting and I'll make this quick,” the father says, now drawing a second spear.
Sanders grabs his father's arm. “No, Father. Remember when you speared Mother?”
“She died with honour. Even kept still so I could take aim.”
“You speared her in the leg first shot.”
“There was a strong breeze.”
“And she only took nine steps backward.”
“Listen,” says the father, now turning to Sanders and lowering his spear, “I've no time for your muddle-headed distortions of the facts. Your brother stands in peril of loosing his honour because he's too young and foolish to realise its time to die. Now step back.” The father turns back to face Barnison, but he is gone. Sanders and his father can hear him running back through the forest in the forbidden direction. With anguish evident in his voice, the father cries out for Barnison to return, but he does not.
After several days of futile waiting, when the need for food and water overrides the father's determination to kill his son with honour, the father cries and curses, shows Sanders his fists, although he does not hit him (he does not believe in violence), and finally, with Sanders slinking behind and occasionally wailing over the loss of his brother, they resume their westward march.
Much time passes. Sanders and his father trek atop steep mountain ridges that look like the spiny backs of giant sleeping lizards. Vegetation is sparse, the air is thin, and snow and ice lie in the rocky crags. Below them the twin oceans are often blanketed beneath clouds.
Still later they journey across vast, waist-high grasslands that swirl in the coastal breeze like waves upon an ocean. Sanders learns to hunt, can identify the plants and knows their uses, and in the evenings beside the campfire with his father, he learns the culture of his people. It is the evenings when Sander' father retells the myths that cause the father much consternation: The boy nods as if he understands, but his mind is elsewhere.
When one day they arrive in a red sandy desert beneath a dome-shaped mountain, Sanders' father stops, turns and admires Sanders, who is no longer a boy. Now Sanders is taller and broader than his father. He still has the large sensitive eyes and those soft, full lips, but now his gaze is discerning and purposeful and his lips are partly hidden beneath a thick black beard. “My son, this is where you were born. This is where we part.”
Sanders, who watches the mountain top shimmer as if ablaze in the sunset, turns to his father. “No, why? Not now.”
The father reaches out and cups Sanders' cheek in his now weathered hand. “It's not for us to choose.”
“But you're all I have.”
“One revolution, that's all we get together. So is the law.”
“The law? What good is it? It's bought us misery.”
“Nonsense. If I were to walk the forbidden direction, wouldn't you strike me dead?”
“I –”
“Yes you would. Yes you must,” says the father, now looking about to see if they are alone. “Imagine what would happen if we all just started wandering off wherever we pleased.”
“I sometimes imagine it.”
The father's face reddens. “The walk is what binds us. Loose the walk and the connection is lost. Then we're all lost.”
“They're just footsteps,” Sander says, slowly pacing backward.”
“Stop this madness. Look at your feet. Do you have toes at both ends? No you don't. And why not?”
“Father, please. Not this again.”
“Ten paces back. Ten. Isn't that enough?” Sander's father's voice wavers. He sometimes cries.
Sanders sighs, shakes his head and then walks back to his father and embraces him. “It's Ok, Father. I will honour this law.”
The father wipes his watery eyes, sniffs and says: “Then it's time, Son.”
Later, Sanders watches his father's wiry silhouette disappear into the darkening shadows upon the sandy plain. Long after the shadows have been swallowed by the night, Sanders stretches-out upon the warm sand and looks up at the stars. Whether he feels loneliness or abandonment, one cannot discern from his contemplative gaze. Perhaps if anything, his expression shows awe, that his life is now entirely his, and there are questions he needs to answer, only he is alone and there is no-none to ask.
To consider purpose, not for the collective whose is to survive in a universe that reacts to error like an eraser does to pencil, but for the individual, who comprehends the brevity and relative insignificance of their life, might seem egoistic. Certainly there appears no reward for considering purpose in Sander' world, unless to arrive at the conclusion that there is none, that life is transient and one should therefore enjoy the experience and be grateful when released back to oblivion. Yet Sanders now seems to have become possessed by a purpose -– to find his now long-lost brother, Barnison.
Whenever Sanders encounters fellow travellers, he asks if they've seen someone who might look just like him, only a little younger, perhaps heading in the wrong direction. Some stare as if he is mad, some laugh as though he is joking; some show sympathy, for his experience is not uncommon, but no-one recalls seeing Barnison.
One afternoon while Sanders is walking through a particularly beautiful forest where the trees allow the sunlight to filter below, and the air is thick with the sweet perfume of flowers, he hears singing. At first he shows little curiosity as though he thinks it is a bird, for sound refracts and does strange things in forests. It is not until he breaks into a clearing beside a babbling stream where a young woman sits sweeping her hand idly through the sparkling water, does he understand it is her voice.
She stops singing and looks up to meet his surprised stare. Sanders hesitantly steps back as though he feels he has intruded, but the woman stands up, wipes her wet hand over her naked thigh, and smiles as if she finds Sander's reaction amusing. Sanders smiles nervously. She slowly walks toward Sanders. Her eyes, like shards of bright green glass reflecting sunlight, hold Sanders' gaze. He drops his spear and takes hold of her outstretched hands. She gently rests her head upon Sanders' shoulder. He brings his hand up to her chin, slowly raises her face to his and then kisses her.
Such is life on this unusual planet: There is an under-current into which everyone is connected, and from it their lives flow. Intuition for them is as facts to us. When love appears as unexpected as the sun at midnight, it is accepted unconditionally.
Sanders remains now with the woman called Mandylion. They stroll through this forest hand in hand, pausing often. When Sanders mentions to Mandylion they should be moving on, she does so reluctantly. And then at every flower, every bird perched upon a branch or animal scurrying through the undergrowth, Mandylion pauses and sighs or hums happily to herself. “I love it here, Sanders,” she often says.
“It's beautiful.”
“Stay here with me.”
“What do you mean? How should we do that?”
“Oh, I don't know. But I feel we belong in this forest.”
Sanders grows silent and broods as though turning over all the possibilities and always arriving at the same unpleasant conclusion -- Mandylion's heart yearns for something she can not have.
And then one evening a group of travellers join them at the fire. A young man with a bloody vine dressing wrapped over his leg replies to Mandylion's curiosity: “I was wounded in a confrontation with the counter-revolution.”
“The what?” Sanders asks.
“That's what they call themselves. They're walking the other way.”
Sanders freezes. He can sense it in the under-current -- Barnison is there. “When did you encounter them?”
“Why, only yesterday back in the whispering gorge. I tried to spear one of them, but he was like lightening, jumped aside and then grabbed my spear and threw it back at me.”
“How frightening,” Mandylion says.
“Yes, but I wouldn't worry,” the young man says. “It'll be a long time before you see them. You'll go west, they'll go east and one day you'll meet in the middle. By then things will be resolved.”
The next morning, after the travellers have left, Sanders says: “Mandylion, I have to find Barnison. He's with the counter-revolution.”
“You'll go back?”
“I must. Join me!”
“I can't, I belong here. Return for me when you have found your brother.”
“But you can't stay. You've got to walk. You'll be seen.”
“Then hurry, Sanders. I'll walk a bit each day, but if I reach the edge of this forest and you're not there, then it'll be too late.”
“Too late?”
“I won't walk out of my forest, Sanders.”
And so it is that Sander's, having pledged Mandylion his expeditious return, slinks back along the path to where he hopes to find Barnison.
Sander's journey is far slower than he would hope. He often encounters travellers coming toward him, and then he quickly stops and pretends to rest. Sensing Sanders' apprehension and being empathetic by nature, the travellers often keep him company, and then Sanders is forced to wait until the early morning hours, when everyone sleeps beside the glowing embers of a campfire, before he can slip away.
One brisk morning when the rising sun spreads enough warmth to cause the dew in the forest canopy to patter upon the ground in a light shower, Sanders stumbles across an old man lying on the path with his bony back to Sanders. He is smeared in mud, and leaves are tangled in his grey scraggly hair. Sanders paces up and prods the old man with the stock of his spear. The old man groans, rolls over and opens his deep-set eyes. Sanders gasps and says: “Father!”
The old man blinks and coughs, then groans again and sits up. “Blast it, Sanders! What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same, Father. What has happened to you? Has it been so long?”
“Stop! You know the law. We're forbidden to talk.” The father stands up, holding his spear to steady himself. Sanders opens his mouth to speak, but his father winces and waves his hand urgently to indicate Sanders should remain silent. Then the father turns his back on Sanders and hobbles down the path -- in the forbidden direction.
“Father?”
His father groans and says: “What?”
“You...” Sanders strokes his chin as if carefully selecting his words. “Where are you going?”
“Going? Where is anyone going?” says Sanders' father, now turning to face him. “Nowhere. Straight ahead. Around and around, one more time!” He laughs and shakes his head as if he finds his words absurd. His laughter makes him shake, and then he coughs violently and doubles-over as if about to collapse. Sanders rushes to his side.
“You're ill, Father. You've become an old man.”
“Ah, yes -– an old man. I've been thinking of your mother, Sanders. I think I made a mistake.”
“Come now.”
“No. I thought I did right. I thought I did right trying to protect Barnison's honour, and leaving you too. But something's wrong.” He coughs again and braces himself by bending and clasping his thighs. “It's just that I feel empty. I can no longer feel the under-current. I miss your mother and Barnison. And as much as I hate to see you, and I suppose I'll have to kill you now that you insist on talking, I'm just so happy to see your face, I want to cry.” And so the father does. He sobs and clutches Sanders, who strokes his father's head and stares thoughtfully into the forest. Suddenly Sander's pupils dilate and he catches his breath.
“Father?”
“Yes?”
“Have you forgotten the clause?”
“Claws?”
“If a father and son should accidentally meet after they have parted, then they are bound to continue the journey together.”
“I've never heard such a thing. You're making it up.”
“No Father, in fact I would have to kill you if you tried to escape.”
“Blistering toadstools, Sanders! How could I have forgotten such a thing? I swear I've never heard of it. I'm loosing my mind.”
“It's ok, Father.”
The father embraces Sanders and sobs. “Son, I must tell you something terrible.”
“What is it?”
“I no longer know which direction is which. I look up at the sun and wonder where it is going. I wake and see the sunrise, and although that should be enough to get my bearings, I start to wonder if its sunrise or sunset I'm watching.”
“That's absurd.”
“Yet it's true. And the worst of it, Son,” says the father, now whispering, “is I killed a man for walking the wrong way. Only soon after I killed him, more travellers appeared. I thought they were going the wrong way too. I tried to spear them, but they took my spear away and beat me and said I was a crazy old man. They said it was me who had my directions wrong. Imagine!”
Sanders stokes his fathers tangled hair, and says: “Shush, Father. Maybe they all made a mistake, or you dreamt it, or...”
“Or?”
Sanders sucks in his bottom lip and then draws it back out under tension from his top teeth. “Listen Father, I don't think you made a mistake at all.”
“You don't”
“No. In fact, I too have encountered confused travellers walking the wrong way.”
“No!”
“Really. The poor souls, they're deluded and dangerous. So we need to be careful, Father. If they see us walking, in their deranged state they'll try and kill us.”
“Let em try. We'll show them what honour is.”
“In good time, Father. But there are so many of them now, we would be outnumbered. I have a plan.”
“A what?”
“I need you to do as I say.”
“Ah! I'm listening then.
And so it is that Sanders and his Father creep along the track, always on the lookout for those dangerously deluded travellers, whereupon they both slink into the forest and hide. And so it is that one morning not long after they have met, they stroll into the camp of the counter-revolution.
They lie on the sandy bank beside a deep lazy river. Mostly they are young, their first revolution alone. Some are lovers, and lay beside one another on the riverbank, enjoying the warmth of the day and the feel of the smooth pebbles beneath them. Others sit alone, contemplatively gazing out upon the unusually dark water.
Sanders' intuition leads him to Barnison, who sits alone atop a large boulder. There is nothing of the once small boy to be seen. Barnison is large-boned, sun-bronzed, and his powerful triceps bulge when he turns to face Sanders and his father. Upon Barnison's bald scalp is smeared mud and grass, as is the fashion for those afflicted with premature hair loss. Sanders tries not to stare.
“Sanders? Father?” Barnison says.
“Blast it, Barnison,” the father says and then reaches for his spear. “Don't think you're off the hook.” But Sanders, anticipating his father's reaction, pulls the spear from his father's hands. “No, Father. You're forgetting the clause.”
“What claws?”
“Should a person break the law and their punishers fail to strike them down with the first spear, then they are forgiven.”
Barnison raises his eyebrows.
The father says: “I'll be! You mean Barnison was free after I missed?”
As if weighing up the implications, Sanders hesitates before he replies: “Ah -– yes.”
“Barnison, my son, can you forgive me? I never knew. Ah this blasted law –- so complicated.”
Barnison slides off the boulder, briefly embraces Sanders, then he stands before his father and lays his large hands upon his father's shallow shoulders.
“My poor old father, the man of honour.”
“Yes, I am an honourable man,” the father says, as if confirming an irrefutable fact. Barnison releases him and turns to Sanders.
“You're here to join us?”
“I needed to find you. I've so many questions.”
“You walked in the forbidden direction.”
“What?” cries the father.
“It's ok, Father,” Sanders says. “Nothing has come of it, and look at Barnison. He's turned out fine.” The father turns to Barnison and suddenly notices the mud and grass upon his head.
“What's that stuck on your head?”
Barnison coughs and suddenly looks uncomfortable.
“Damned it, Barnison! You've gone and lost your hair. Serve you right, walking the wrong way.”
“That's nothing to do with it,” Barnison says, “but it's typical of the block-headed mentality that has led to our self-enslavement.” He turns to Sanders. “You want to know about the walk, right, Brother? You know why we do it?”
Sanders hesitates and then says: “To prevent us from accidentally converging at the same place. Then our weight would cause us to sink into the ocean. Right?”
Detecting the uncertainty in Sander's voice, the father says: “That's right, we'd all go under!”
“And then we'd be swallowed by sea dragons,” Barnison says.
“Well at least you remember your lessons, my boy,” the father says, not detecting the scorn in Barnison's voice.
“Even if it is all a lie,” Barnison says. “But that doesn't matter, right? All that matters is the law, because if we didn't have it we'd be savage and unthinking. Animals.”
“There must have been good reason for it once,” says Sanders.
“Maybe. Maybe we were territorial and fought one another like dogs do. It's hard to fight one another if everyone faces the same direction.”
“Then the walk is for the best.”
“It wasn't for Mother. It isn't for me, and what about you? Are you happy to spend your life walking round and round in a senseless circle?”
“Well –- no. I've met a girl. We want to settle in a forest not far west from here.”
“Then why don't you?”
“No you won't,” the father says.
Ignoring his father's interjection, Sanders says: “We'll be discovered, if we stay in the forest.”
“Then get the girl and join us.”
“She won't leave the forest.”
“And you really want to stay in one place?”
“I suppose I do.”
Barnison laughs and slaps Sanders on the shoulder. “Well then we have another revolution -- those who wish to stay put.”
“I don't know about a revolution. I just want a peaceful and happy life.”
“Do you know how long one revolution is?”
“A third of ones life.”
“And how wide is the path?”
“Wide?”
“It's narrow, Sanders. You can measure it in a few paces. No one strays far. If you want to be left in peace then take the girl and leave the path. Go south or north. It's uncharted. No one will bother you there.”
Suddenly, as if responding to an intuitive signal in the under-current, the counter-revolution stirs. People get to their feet, collect their few belongings and then wade into the river and swim for the eastern bank. Barnison looks across the river and then turns back to Sanders and says: “It's time, Sanders. I've got to go.”
“Wait! We've only just met.”
“I'll look for you when I reach that forest of yours.”
“It's another revolution.”
“Then we'll be old and wise!”
“What about me?” the father asks. “You fools are going to abandon me here?”
“You've got a few choices,” Barnison says.
“I'm not joining you madmen,” the father says. “And I'm blowed if I'm going to spend my remaining days stuck in some forsaken forest.”
“Then the answer is clear,” Barnison says, stepping forward and embracing his father and Sanders in turn, and then he turns and walks down to the river. Sanders and his father stand on the bank and watch Barnison wade to where it is too deep to wade further. He slips beneath the water, which clouds from his mud and grass toupee, and then he swims to the eastern bank. Once out of the water he turns, waves briefly and then disappears into the forest.
“I'm going back,” Sanders says. “Barnison is right -– Mandylion and I will leave the path.”
“Go then.”
“You can accompany me at least as far as the forest. It's in the right direction.”
“Yes, that I can do.”
“But Father, if you go on beyond the forest, you'll be alone. And if you can't find your directions...”
The father gazes out across the water to where Barnison disappeared into the forest.
“Do you think your mother could ever forgive me?”
“I don't know.”
“Everything is dashed now, isn't it? No wonder I can't tell east from west. I've made such a muddle of things.”
Sanders distractedly jabs his spear into the cracks between the river pebbles.
“Come on,” says the father, his spirit suddenly lifting, “let's find that girl of yours.” He walks down to the river and slowly starts to wade in.
“Ah, Father?”
“Yes?”
“This way,” says Sanders who points west, back into the forest and into his uncharted future.
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