Terry The Fool
In the year 1859, B.I.R., a stir came about in town. Now, this town hadn’t been named yet; my friends and I, well, really anyone for that matter, if you asked them, would only call it Town 617. Toblitche had a plentiful reserve of potential towns that at any given moment could spring up and get a name. But that’s not what the stir was, no, cause you see, what stirred up Town 617 was when Tom Stehnam died, and his family came our way.
Now, how Mr. Stehnam died is nothing short of a mystery, a fortunate mystery at that, but still, no one knows everything about it. Nor did we care. Our home was on an open piece of land in the middle of the continent; to say we rang the bell when it came to where we were born was an understatement. Depending on how you looked at it, however, this was our biggest detriment.
“Shit”
A pebble struck my head.
“Get off your ass Terry, and start moving. If we don’t get this down the hole, I’m not taking a licking for you damn it!” The man screamed at the top of his lungs, I don’t think there was a moment when he didn’t. Was an alright guy, just made it hard to tell if he was being serious or not.
“Take a beating for all I care, one hour, two hours from now doesn’t matter. Bout time you realize that Phil.” He puffed up his chest and looked at me in a way that answered one of my questions. Compared to me, Phil seemed to care whether he could pick a fight with someone or not, a bulky freak. I was dead.
I sat up ready to run for my life, before someone intervened.
“Now hold on there”. My Savior came in the form of a small man with a bushy mustache and long gray robe. The religious guy. “I couldn’t help but hear this altercation gentleman. What seems to be the problem?” He looked up at Phil.
“This jackass likes to mouth off instead of working, that’s what the problem is.”
“Gotta be honest with you Phil, if you just asked nicely I would have done it immediately. Just a heads up for next time.” And there was my getaway.
The religious guy was protected, if you touched him you’re dead, if you argued with him you’re dead, if you get so much as a spec of silt on his nice robe, you’re dead. The good thing was he seemed to have a soft spot for me. So when I scurried away and Phil in his barbaric screeches began to disappear I had almost forgotten about the entire thing.
Our main base of operations in town was feeding the Giants in the ravine. Roll a cart filled with things that could be eaten, let it disappear into the abyss, rinse and repeat.
“Tom Stenham’s daughter is a real looker isn’t she?” A rather insensitive thing to say about a dead man’s daughter. Tim didn’t care about all the trivial things like that, in that he was worse than me.
“Thought hasn’t crossed my mind”. We sat on flat rocks overlooking the ravine, the distant flatter of falling rocks was the only thing besides our voices to fill the silence.
“Come on. I see looks coming from you. You’re a little watcher when it comes to how your eyes move about y’know that? They get all big like one”.
I pushed him away as at some point he became enamored with comparing me to any animal with large eyes.
“Alright, alright, I get the comparisons.” A strange thought crossed my mind.
“What do you know about her?”
“So you are Inter—”
“Stop being weird and tell me already, will yah?”
“Fine, fine. The Stehnam family lived in paradise before the old man died. This isn’t really the type of a place a pent up girl like her would go right. You’d think if anything happened to the big guy they’d go somewhere else, or nowhere at all, considering their social status, but would you believe they were run out? Turns out they weren’t liked all that much even among the wealthy so they came running all the way down here”.
“Not really what I asked, is it?”
“She is her family. The girl doesn’t have an identity outside of that. Entire family is that way. Just how it is”.
When I tell you that the Stehnam family didn’t mean anything to me, I wasn’t lying. But I was, in a way, I was. I was reminded of them each time I leisured at that building, the old hangout spot for loud music and drunk fools sleeping on the ground. Where once I owned the building, a little pass me down after my father died, now became the last fumes of the Stehnam family’s spark that Nancy couldn’t help but get her hands on. That was only the beginning, I wasn’t fully in the know of it all. For now I just sat and pondered..
The band was playing a new song that day, a song called Genesis. They urged the room to come to complete silence, asking each one of us to stand and watch as the group of five began with the strum of a guitar.
As those stars shine
Why must it go
As those stars shine
I want to know
Was there ever a need to reach for the sky
Was there ever a hand to call my ride
A one way trip with you and I
Was there ever really a Genesis between you and I
There’s a word called Love
Never heard it at all
Tell the truth I yearn so
For a path I call above
Genesis
Oh I wish it so
For a sign to show it all
For my heart to open so
There’s one truth I can’t ignore
Only heard it once before
A love so true it needn’t stand
Among the rest
Stand alone at the beginning to the end
Our Genesis
We’ll never end
Genesis
Why did it begin
Could there be a way
Oh my Genesis
It all came to an end
When you reached for the sky
And someone came by
A one-way trip with only I
Our Genesis
Why did you go
The band’s name was The Big Stompers, a group of middle-aged men with a passion for the soul. Too bad they’d only garner a small crowd. Not like I was any better of a patron, loud stuff never was my forte.
I took out my ear plugs and winced when the collected clapping of the crowd came to a halt.
“Bravo! Bravo!”
Nancy stood up and clapped in lonesome.
The band bowed their heads in a nervous bout, no one really knew how to deal with the woman, in that one of them found me in the crowd. I raised my hand which signaled them to interact with her. In retrospect this wasn’t my smartest move.
“I’ve never heard anything like this back home! Boys, what’s the name of this band of yours!” Not the image I had in mind.
“Um, we’re the Big Stompers, Ms. Stehnam.” The main one of the group, Teller, was the one to speak up.
“Come on! Let’s forget the formalities, my name is Nancy, that’s it, and you boys just got yourself a backer!” I don’t like this.
“What are you trying to pull here, Nancy?” She turned toward me. “If you want to talk, then you know where to go, stop beating around the bush already.”
With her bag in hand, she b lined up the stairs and opened the first door, slamming it shut as it reverberated throughout the entire building. Everybody looked at me in that moment, but I didn’t really have an answer. She’d frequented the place, sure, but was quiet overall, almost seemed too reserved to talk to anybody. Now…
“What the hell do I know?” I pinched my temple then followed in her footsteps, opening the door with a creep. She’d already sat down, her legs and arms crossed.
“Alright, I’m here. What do you want?” She didn’t respond but instead snapped her finger and pointed to the other seat. This only spelled trouble, I said to myself as I sat down.
“Alright, I’m here. Now what do you want?”
She cleared her throat.
“Terry”
“Yes?”
I have a… proposition for you.” She laid her hands on the table. “I’m sure you know the little thing that’s in store for us in just a short while, right?”
I looked back toward the window, and the last glimmers of light were falling.
“What about it?”
She tossed her bag on the table and flicked it open. The flap opened wide, and she pulled out a hefty book that blew a cloud of dust my way. Setting it down on the table made the structure creak as she flipped it open and turned to a page in the middle.
It was old, that much was certain; from the glimpse I saw of the cover, it seemed like an encyclopedia of some sort; an eye in the middle with unintelligible script around it was all I could make out.
“Here”
She flipped it around and pointed to the picture.
“What’s this supposed to be?”
“That right there is what we call in the Stehnam family, the Tree Route”. She pulled it away before I got a good look, but from what I saw, all it was was a picture of a tree with a large hole in the middle. It was dark, but there was a script there; I could have sworn I saw a mouth.
“The Tree Route Uh-huh.” I attempted to stand up, but she leaned forward and pulled me back down, and I fought it. “Nancy, I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me go!” Damn it, she’s strong.
“No, no, you’re going to listen to what I have to say!” She grabbed both my shoulders and slammed back on the seat. Then and there, I realized my first mistake: this woman was no woman, but a shadowed beast dressed in frills.
“Okay, I know where I’ve been beaten. Tell me about this singing tree, would you?” My fright was obvious from my trembling voice.
“R-right,” she twirled a lock of hair and looked away.
Did she really get embarrassed by that?
“Alright, alright, damn it! I’m serious this time, tell me about the tree route.”
Her cheeks turned pink.
“Would you give me a moment! I’m getting to it.”
She cleared her throat. How many times is she going to do this?
“As I was saying, my family for generations has had a little secret passed down to us,” she looked around the room before continuing.
“If you’re worried about someone listening to this, don’t worry, no one really cares about us.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to catch onto that.” Her finger landed on the bottom of the book. “During the three-month winter, all our internal clocks are a bit altered, aren’t they? No matter how many times it happens, we all get thrown off for too long, and people die. But this…” She tapped on the picture again. “This right here will fix that”.
“I get the sales pitch, why come to me? Not like I’m all that influential around here.”
“You really don’t get the influence you have around here, do you? Let me fill you in then. First thing my family heard when coming here was you, well, your father mostly, but you were mentioned.”
“Funny, I had the same experience with you.”
“Dead Dad’s tend to do that don’t they? My dad was the reason this couldn’t be distributed but now that he’s gone. Maybe it can help some people.”
“At a price I’m sure.”
She snapped her finger “Wouldn’t be the product of the Stehnam if I didn’t try and drive a profit somewhere. You can get that right Terry.” She attempted to pat my shoulder but I caught her hand in time and shooed her away.
“Right… Listen Nancy I don’t know where you heard about me having money but I don’t got it. I work down in the mines feeding the big guys, all in all I make just enough to keep this place a float, out of respect for my old man”.
“I see…” she stroked her chin and hummed softly. “I could always help you with that y’kno—”
“Nancy, Nancy, please stop” I raised my hands up and she stopped and drew back. The whole thing was off to me, I needed some sort of understanding.
“There’s about 100 people in this town, all more than willing to go through with this I’m sure of it. What’s the point in coming to me? All you people have some sort of game you try and play but guess what? I’m not having it alright?” I slammed my hand on the table. Stop it.
“My father built this place from the ground up, and I don’t need your family getting involved!” Why are you always like this?
“So if you have something to say then fucking say It!” I deserve to die.
To me, it seemed like a standard question, I was obviously distrustful and I wasn’t the type of person to beat around the bush. Besides, knowing someone from a family like her I didn’t think I was wrong in questioning her. In that I made my first mistake within my relationship with Nancy Stehnam. In order for everything to work I needed to change, it’s just a shame it had to go this way.
I’m the worst.
I sat there waiting, my chair knocked on the ground as in my blind mania everything was in line for knocking. It only took a few seconds for that sickening ever growing silence to kick in and make me come to my senses. I wish I never had, it was the worst thing I’d ever felt, maybe even worse than when my father died, at least I knew it was coming. I didn’t have a hand to play in it but there was no excuse for my actions here. I was horrible, I was the villain.
I made a grown woman cry— no, even saying that means I didn’t change a bit. I made a vulnerable, grieving daughter have to show weakness in front of a complete stranger, one that not only yelled at her but cursed her.
She was trembling, tears so thick they dragged her head down, she couldn’t look me in the eye, I wouldn’t either. I didn’t know what she’d been through, and she didn’t either in my case but that didn’t matter. Watching her struggle to catch her breath, hiccuping, clutching the book to her chest, her knees holding everything in place.
“I-I, I’m sorry” Before I knew it she left the room in a trudge dragging along with her the last of her urge to blossom, to remain only a bud, to die never to be opened.
I picked up the chair and sat back down at the desk, staring at nothing for a while. Soon my eyes trained downward toward a drawer that any other day would’ve been locked but today for whatever reason was wide open.
Reaching my hand inside I pulled out a gun, it was something my dad had found in his travels around the Island before settling here, he’d shown it to me before, I knew how to use it.
It was strictly prohibited to use the weapon, he was always a stickler for the rules, and…he was always so sad. There was only one thing this thing could be used for, he never had the chance to use it. But…
My hand eased toward the trigger.
Ever since my mom died it seemed like the world became black and white for my dad and I. We never reconciled, we never tried to heal, we avoided anything that reminded us of her, and wouldn’t you know it, I looked like her quite a bit.
My eyes crossed as I stared at the muzzle.
My entire world began to change as my finger eased into it, for whatever reason it seemed like all my regrets, every mistake I’d ever made, all the trauma came in a tremor. My hands were shaking, and I grit my teeth so hard it began to hurt. There was no point to it all, I was a horrible person, nothing was going to change that, what happened now only proved that, end it, damn it do it, end it, for God sake don’t drag it out any longer—
For the split second that my eyes opened, I noticed something left on the table. It was Nancy’s book, she must’ve accidentally left it.
My hand eased on the gun and placed it back down.
“I need to give this back.”
And just like that it ended. I think I was looking for an excuse to stop it, I was so out of my mind that I didn’t realize it but I didn’t want to go through with it. I was scared looking at the muzzle, imagining the sound it would make as it entered my skull and turned my brain into mush, how my body would convulse and stiffen and my body fully die. In that, whether it was fate or dumb luck, Nancy saved me in that moment.
I picked up the book and left the room, putting the gun back into the drawer for safe keeping. Our date would be later, we weren’t over yet.
I left the room and went to go look for her, a last ditch effort for the fool named Terry.
