A moral treatise,
By Elie Maxwell Wolf [Me, damnit, that's me]
Once upon a time, there was a young man who lived in a very large castle, but he was ALL alone.
He wandered in those halls in his dreams, because the castle was not really there.
In the real world he was a simple farmer, with a wife and two brilliant young boys,
Ifram and Luciam were their names
the man had no name, or his name the whole world forgets.
But the story here is not of his true life, or of his dreams, but of both...
For, if truth be told, it was the question in between leisures, he wondered what was important, to be a king in a castle or a loving husband and father on a simple farm...
One night the farmer fell to bed and became a king once again,
his dreams of long hours in that immense castle commenced right away,
long hours of relaxing luxury,
with all the sweets and sweetmeats he could image, a saloon which self served,
a symbol of his comfort with being alone.
All of the magical happiness that he could wish for was found around every corner.
The castle made the man feel like a free little boy, like he was safe and loved by the castle itself.
This time though, he knew that the dream felt longer than usual,
And he didn't know why he felt uneasy now.
SUDDENLY he awoke to the sound of his dear wife's weeping right outside the door of his cottage, he didn't understand what was going on, and he forced himself from bed. It was late in the morning, he had overslept this time. When he opened the door he felt himself die.
There before him lie his wife, crying, holding to herself the dead body of Ifram, his oldest son.-
-Wait for it!-
The man looked to his wife, and with searching hands he leaned by her and touched his cold lifeless face.
The man looked around himself for Luciam, forgetting that he was safe inside the cottage, sleeping.
With a broken heart he asked his wife
'What happened!? What in the name of the gods?"
And she merely fell limp and leaned against him, simpering.
Her eyes were closed, and her hands were shaking, and they were covered with blood.
Now The man was clouted by horror and suspicion. He tried to stand but failed.
"What happened to him?"
And she said in forced words, her whole body in shivers.
"He was in the shed for the plow- he was in the shed for the plow, and then the horses came, the carriage came and went and hit our boy! They HIT OUR BOY! He couldn't drag the plow... Our Ifram! Oh for hera- Ifram..."
Then the man saw the plow, standing on it's end in the pathway where the horse drawn chariot must have come through. There was not a thing he could do, his boy was dead.
The Plow, the big metal heaving thing, seemed to stare back at him with no eyes at all. The plow blamed the man for the blood now stained on his blade. His sons could not carry the plow, how could Ifram have been so foolish? Why did they not wake him up?
The man began to cry outright, feeling responsible, all the way up until the last ashes of Ifram had blow away on the wind. For days he had not been able to sleep- but when Ifram was finally at rest, he did, laying beside his still weeping wife, Luciam laying nearby on his own new bedstead.
He found himself again in his castle of dreams, but something was different-
The halls were all the same
Each pretty window pane intact and frosty like the season withheld.
Each leaning arch which held up the ornate chandeliers was bent to perfection
Each sheet on his kingly bed was folded to his admittance and pleasure...
Every flower in every pot and plot of the greenhouse was blooming
But not a bit of it could the man enjoy
His heart was aching, and everywhere he went he left a messy trail
The castle seemed to be closing in around him
But he could not wake up
No matter how hard he tried now he could not wake up, and he felt himself in fear of the enclosing walls, each tapestry looked to him like the tongue of some heathen daemon.
The stained glass windows shed patterns of red upon the marble floor and carpet, and he thought that the carpeting had turned to blood.
Laying on his kingly bed, trying to fall asleep and awaken on the other side, he felt like a child terrified, pulling his sheet over his head.
He found himself crying his sons name, crying it out, CRYING for Ifram, tears running freely from his eyes now like a baby with no mercy nor contentment to spare.
The Crying babe, hark, the man with no name, felt a hand upon his head and he realized that in his dreams, all of the castle was gone from him, and an angel was leaning over him, planting a kiss upon his brow. The angel shone and flickered like heavenly fire- the whispers of the gods filled his mind- He dared finally to close his eyes.
The man awoke, it was early, his wife was asleep as it was still dark out. He heard a clattering at the door, and then in the shed.
thinking that perhaps a raccoon or a wolf had made it's scavenging way inside of there, the man kissed his loving wife upon her sleeping brow, donned his boots and coat and pushed his way outside.
As he was walking across the way to the shed, the dawn broke over the midway of the valley, and as the road was bathed in the colors of flowers and red sun, a Chariot came trundling down the road at break-neck speeds, the rider unawares of a thing in the world, nor of a care.
As the later morning spawned, the tragedy assumed itself. The wife awoke to the sound of her son Ifram's screams, and Ifram stood, balanced on the edge of the plow, crying and whining hysterically, His father lying bloody at his feet, and the chariot rider not far away, on the side of the road where the chariot had rolled crashed and stopped.
The woman was steeped in tears, and dropped down, staring through with a look so cold at the chariot rider that it could have frozen the tears she was staring through. She turned her husband over and found him still alive, but badly wounded by the accident, she kissed his head, and took his hand in her own.
Ifram fell to his knees and leaned down against his father.
Awoken by the ruckus, Luciam appeared with his little infant feet leading him to his mother and wounded father, clutching his stuffed husk doll in hand, the pretty doll his father and mother had made and Ifram had colored with palm paints.
Luciam came and laid down by his father, saying not a word.
The Charioteer came to them and knelt down, a look of anguish in his face. He was repeating his sorries but nobody listened.
The village wise woman came and sutured the man's wounds, and set young men to work at their farm until the man was well enough to yield a crop. When the man returned to commission at work he found that the yield was healthier each year, and that after the chariot crash he never dreamed of that wretched castle ever again. He never spoke a word of his dream to anyone, and he kept the blessings in his heart and used them on all passerby.
The charioteer, it turns out, was the son of the kingdom's lord, the prince of their land, and overcome with remorse for his foolishness, he gave to them a greater plantation and plot of land, with able young men to be their servants and gardeners and farm workers.
With the family business all well and good, upon that land the man built a shack for he and his beloved family to live in. Soon that shack became a cottage, then the cottage became a house, and then that house became a great and beautiful estate. They were wealthy and happy, and had no need for magical castles.
Many many years later when the man was not so young, Ifram and Luciam came to visit their father at the family estate with their wives and children. The man sat with his sons and shared with them a pipe and a vineyard bottle of wine, sitting on the low marble patio of the north side of the great household.
His grandchildren whom he loved very much were frolicking in the valley fields of light, grass, and flowers, a great willow in the middle made the scene like that of a painting crafted by his dear and benevolent gods.
For a while they sat, and watched the children play...
After a time Ifram retired for a short rest, as he was now a steward and duke of the nearest castle, which several miles away to his own great household made out as a day long ride back and forth in between the family homes.
He went down to the meadow with his sons an daughters, resting peacefully under the great willow as he preferred to rest outside and dream of sylvan things.
As Ifram did so, Luciam drew nearer to his father and stared at him, face to face, father to son, so alike, and yet so different.
Luciam handed his father the pipe, kissed him on the brow softly in the way of son-like affections, and he said simply...
"No castle of dreams is worth the blessings of family"
The man with no name looked taken aback at the coincidental statement of his youngest son, who had become a strong and handsome young man himself.
Luciam winked his right eye, and descended too to the meadow to rest with his daughters and sons as his brother had with his.
All was melancholy, and peace.
The man could feel a weird electricity in the air, as he had felt when the angel had kissed him on the brow in his dreams all those years ago.
All in the world was peaceful, as he opened his mind and heart to the general fountains of understanding.
This moment, right now, was the castle in his dreams
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