Who is The Hollander?
26.8.03
It was a dark and stormy night. All around the brittle shack wind blew in a torrid tempest. The creaking of the floor boards would have set the dogs to barking on any other night. Dinah, the small Bassett Hound, and Rufus, the Cockerspaniel were excellent guard dogs, alerting their masters to the slightest hint of danger. But not tonight. Tonight the storm held their attention and blanketed their hearing with the soft rolls of thunder in the distance.
Tonight would be the last time their masters ever fed them.
As the door to the bedroom creaks open ever so slowly, a leaf flutters by the window in a frantic pace, lifted and thrown by the wind towards the west, towards the desert. Quickly it flies out over the dunes, under the branches, through the hills, above the mesas, and into a cactus which shreds it into tiny flecks for the lizards to snack on.
You really think i brought you here to talk about some dogs or a leaf? No, I brought you here to hear my story - the story of
The Hollander
It all began when i was a child. The yearning to cut someone's head off pervaded my entire being. It inspired me and frightened me, soothed me and guided me. It was wrong wasn't it? To want to cut someone's head off? That's what my mother told me when I confessed to her my dark whim. She told me to never mention such a thing again, and so I never did. Though it never ceased to enter my mind, like a shadow, creeping in through the door behind you. It knew me as well as I knew myself. I could never hide, or fight it away - it was always there, burning in the back of my mind as an ember would sear your hand, never enough to kill, but plenty to remind you of the fire next to which you stand, secure in your imagined safety.
As i grew, i learned the trade of my father - the trade of my family. We were butchers... funny how fate coils around you. Funny how fate brings you back, even after five thousand (and 1/10ths) years. When Kiyrla came into my life, i was in the process of cutting the head off of a pig. Go figure.
"Perhaps if you did it in one stroke, the pig could not be heard screaming 2 kilometers away." Her voice was soft, but firm - as full of intent and intelliigence as the ocean is full of unknown creatures. I started at the sudden interruption - your nerves tend to get a bit frayed when you're cutting the head off of a still squirming pig who, incidentally, could in fact be heard 2 kilometers down the road.
I never said I was good.
When i looked up, i was struck by the stature of the woman standing in the doorway. She was tall and lean, her wide shoulders and slender hips seeming to give form to the rest of her body, which appeared to act merely as a bridge between the two. The long red hair which reached down to her waist in a tight pony tail bounced lightly as she chuckled at my futile attempt at slaughter. Her bright green eyes were obscured by shadow, but i could feel them, almost like the sunlight pierces and warms you through the eastern window in the morning - and i knew they were green. I had never seen them before, and they were obscured by shadow, and they were green. I knew that as I knew that i would never forget that moment, not even after all this time.
"I suppose you could do it better then," I said as I layed down my tools. "By all means, go ahead."
As she drew out of the shadow of the doorway, her face underwent a slight change... I don't know if I can really explain it, except to say that the shape, while retaining it's form, had lost some of it's fullness. It was as if i were looking at a bowl of hot metal which, upon cooling, would retain it's original shape, though it's contents were no longer present. It really is a sight which cannot be explained, mostly because half of it is intuition, and the other half is perception, and rarely do the two meet in one person at the same time.
There was a shifting underneath her cloak that could not be explained by the movement of her body. When it began to dawn on me what it was that had caught my eye, it was already too late - her hand was upon her sword, and the blade was unsheathing itself with unnerving speed. I fell back and began to protest, exclaiming that I had meant no insult. My heart began to race faster still as the blade was raised in front of me, the metal gleaming in the dimming sunlight of that late august afternoon - that was the second image of 4 that will stay with me for the rest of my immortal life - it was the last time i ever thought i would die. (except for image #4, where i actually thought i may have been wrong to believe i was immortal - you'll read about that later)
But she didn't kill me. She didn't even try. The only arc made by that ancient blade brought it to bear on Wilbur, the thenceforth officially defunct swine. Laughing slowly and evenly, she picked up the tools and handed them to their relieved, shocked, and desperately-in-need-of-a-new-pair-of-pants owner.
"It may be that the next time you attempt to decapitate something other than a turnip, you will trade in this shovel and this mallet for something a little more appropriate."
OK, just a reminder: I never said i was good.
The sword Kiyrla used that day was called Job, it is my sword now. It has been for over five thousand years, since the first anniversary of the day I met Kiyrla. Over five thousand years since I became immortal. All this time, and still i am haunted in the same way every year on the night before my 'birthday'. The dream comes - the memory returns - and the day the earth stopped turning for one young butcher-to-be lives again. It was the day I shed my mortal life; the day the gods beckoned to me; the day I learned my path. It was the day Kiyrla died.
This is my story; this is my life; this is my world. Welcome.
-H
15.8.03
