Chatterbox: Inkwell

The Scholar and the Child

The Scholar saw everything, everyone, and every moment. He saw the worlds that the humans could not, and looked at the stars with jealousy. For they banished him―he was like them once, young and full of pride. But his seventieth year on earth had taught him something: humility. He no longer lit the skies with light, no longer defended his own name... he was Fuslan once. The warrior of the stars. But now, he was simply, humbly, called the Scholar. The person who dreamed of space and decorated the Child's dream with crystals and hope.

"Scholar," the Child asked. "Who were you Before?" 

"Ah," said the Scholar. "That is something I will tell you another day." Before was the place of memories―when he knew hope. Now, he saw this grim, dark world as what it was: ruins. The Golden Age had long passed. Nowadays everything was gone.

The Child was silent. His guardian was wise and who knew how old―he knew that he could trust the wrinkled Scholar. "Can you tell me a story?" he asked. The Scholar saw everything, yes―but he could not see the fear that lurked beneath the Child's calm facade.

 "Yes." He wondered what he would tell the Child. About his Before?―no, he could not muster it. He still despised the stars, despised himself most of all. Something fictional?―no, the Scholar could see the yearn for truth in the Child's gaze. “I shall tell you about this world’s Before,” he decided.

“This world is alive?” The Child wondered. “There was once people living in it? Other than us, I mean?”

“Precisely,” he said. “Once. Now, we are the only ones.” There once was a world where there were other people—businessmen, the homeless, the kings and queens… he remembered beaming at the youthful world that thrived so long ago.

“Tell me that story. Tell me the story of how it fell.” The Child leaned in, eagerly.

“Once upon a time, there were people other than you and I.” As the Scholar stared out the window, he felt regretful for not choosing a different, happier tale for this snow-ridden night. “Beautiful, it was. There was Sun—something different from all this frost, something that shed the world with warmth. People could go outside without freezing themselves. It was a time where the skies were not frozen from light, and the stars shined.”

“Stars. Light. Sun. Warmth.” The Child wistfully breathed the words, eyes wide. “Are you sure you’re not making this up?”

“I’m incredibly sure.”

“Go on,” urged the Child.

“That world was wondrous. But how did it change? The fault was entirely on someone named Fuslan. Fuslan was a vain warrior.” Yet he had been so happy back then, before civilization went to ruins…

“Fuslan saw the people, praising the Sun and ignoring his kinsfolk—the stars. So he took his knife and made the Sun bleed, and after scorching the earth for millennia the Sun gave in to Fuslan’s attacks and faded from the skies.

“But what Fuslan didn’t know was that the Humans couldn’t live without Sun. Plants died one by one, and soon they did too. Except you. You, because you were taken by me. Fuslan was banished from the stars, forced to spend half the length of the life he spent as a star living off the Earth.”

“So this is why the world is what it is like now. No Sun?”

The Scholar nodded.

“Are you Fuslan?” The Child whispered.

A pause. “Yes, I am.”

The Child closed his eyes and fell asleep fast. The Scholar brushed a hand and tucked a loose strand of hair behind the Child’s ear, careful not to wake him up.

The bitter cold, the howling wind would soon reach inside of the hut, the Scholar knew, and Death itself would take him and the Child away from the world. This was their last day together.

So the Scholar closed his eyes and fell fast asleep, willingly letting himself be carried off by Death.

The snow whirled, and the frost-crusted night blew out the candles by the windowsill.