Once, the sun never set. And man didn’t mind the sun in his eyes and he drifted to sleep, it warmed his face as he dreamed of even brighter days. Beautiful women and beautiful boys and girls played in the waving grass, tipping its green hat to the clouds as they drifted calmly by. Birds chirped in the trees, and rabbits bounded in delight near foxes digging holes in the gardens of man. There were freckled smiles and single tears. There was love and there was laughter and they both rose from the dirt like daisies stretching out to say, “hello” to any passers by.
All was right in the world.
Then one day the sun did not sit in its usual resting place, high in the middle of the sky. Man rose to find the moon had come out of hiding, and had brought darkness with it on its heel. The darkness frightened man, he was used to the only less bright places of his earth, under the trees in the fields and waning behind him on his walks. The moon brought high seas with it and uncaring rain, rain that fell in white and blue sheets. Dark storms speckled the night sky, and with it came horrible things. Lightning, which stretched its purple fingers from sky to sky; thunder, which shook the very foundations of earth; and blood, which flooded the dirt beneath the feet of man. The wind howled and the coyotes howled back. Trees fell, and the beautiful boys and girls died. Beautiful women cheated on beautiful men and beautiful men cheated on beautiful women. Tears fell in pairs now, more like armies invading a kingdom, and with these evil affairs, a new and dark and terrible thing had befallen man.
There was no hope in those days. Dark armies came from inside the forests, men painted in black shields with long metal blades that did not have ears, that did not hear the screams of its victims. Their kisses were not kind, not filled with love, only lust, only filled with their own lips and their own pleasures. Bounty was taken from the lands, the earth scorched and salted and burned, trees screaming with a crackling cry and their leaves flew into the air, orange embers flickering out just above the lightning’s knuckles. No one seemed to hear, no one seemed to see, only death, death. The earth died, the people died, the sky died, the sun died.
Dust rose in mud puddled flaps as the armies marched onward and built a dark castle, cut from the same trees that once cried tears of amber and sap now were held together in stacked pieces by their own sadness. All peoples were enslaved, under the lock and key and iron fist of some unforeseeable mad man, and the moon smiled its half moon smile, crooked, to the side, and wrinkled. And man was made to toil the land, what little was left, for the millions of armored minions. The dark armies ate dirt and laughed a hideous laugh, more like a scream than a laugh, but men could not tell the difference; they couldn't. Their chains covered their ears, blinders laid over their eyes, mouths clamped shut with bits.
The days were ever more darkening, each one blacker than the next, and the moon smiled and the clouds cried and the lightning shook its fists and the thunder retorted and the wind swept the earth with a blistering vengeance.
All was lost.
Then, from far away, one man walked with the sun on his back, a small beam of warm light peeking through the maelstrom. He was not the prettiest man, not the tallest, nor the strongest, but his will was of refined steel. He had held his ground, from behind, from many miles away, and he had fought back such beasts before. The rain punched his face and the wind pulled at his hair, yet he kept coming. The lightning tried to strike him down, but he was grounded. The thunder attempted to scare him, booming deep, gutteral rolls from miles away, and he shrugged it off as water on his already wet back. He was soaked, he was hungry, he was spent, but yet he marched on, through everything the moon had to throw at him. He marched on.
He came upon the edge of the kingdom of the Black King, and he stiffened his soft jaw, and bowed his bent back, blinked the rain away slowly, and breathed. The lord of war awaited him, surrounded by his dark army of thousands, armed to the teeth, shiny gray weapons reflecting the moonlight. And the man- this one man!- he stood right back, his leg rested on a rock, his cloak flowing in the harmful breeze, hair blown back, and squinted eyes. He took a step, the army took two, but though their weapons sharp and their armor strong, they could not account for the one thing that they did not have: resolve. There was NO stopping him, nature could not, what was man dressed up in clanky clothes? Yes, the man's heart was ill with despair, yes, he could taste a hint of vomit in his throat, but these are mere and trivial trials, nothing such as what could come their way.
Both were closer now, the Black King on his dark horses of death, and the murderers of many surrounded him, the slaves in the distant too busy to watch, their heads down, their hands buried in the salted soil. Yes, too busy to watch as one man strode up to a kingdom and declared in muted confidence that their reign was over. But not without a fight.
I saw swords swarm down, stinging bees and silver hawks with talons drawn on this one man. And they cut him, he was real, he was flesh, he was human, but his blood pooled and only made him stronger, he continued to march forth, and the armies, some of them fell on their swords in discouragement and cowardice, for how could they kill a man who lived to die? They slashed and slashed, and he blocked and parried and punched back, and though his fists were no match for spears and shields and swords, his wounds were. The will is an unstoppable force of dramatic appeal to one who has no will to begin with, They had lost that fight long ago. Lo, even the clouds and the storms seemed to have slowed up, too at awe of this bleeding, dying warrior to throw anymore from the storehouses at him.
And as many fell on their swords behind him and around him, more of the army just dropped theirs and cried, wept and wept and wept at the sight of this mangled man, now more meat than man. His right arm was gone, he was limping, using what was left of his left arm to drag himself forward towards the Black King, who begin to pull back on the reigns of his dark horses. This man could not be stopped, though the Dark King knew his weak spot. He ordered the slaves to surround him and soon the sound of chains dragging the ground encircled him. And he drew his long death blade, the Man Bane, and sliced the throat of the first slave he could find. Then another. And another. And another. Lifeless bodies dropped in thanksgiving that their end had come. And the man, the one with the sun on his back, breathed heavily and cried for mercy, but mercy had left along time ago. He wailed, gnashed his teeth, hit the ground with his so called fist, and dug his fingernails into the ground to take on this Black King.
Not many slaves were left, only the ugliest. And with each slice, Man Bane grinned in crimson. And the moon shuddered, the storms rolled away, for the will of the crawling man had pushed even nature aside. The man was now three feet away and there were three slaves left. The Black King had no teeth, had no nose, no eyes, no ears, no heart. No, only holes where such things should be. But he smiled. Somehow, he smiled in all this.
The last slave was at Death’s door, Man Bane curled around her throat. She was a sad sight, beaten and mashed up and raped, a shadow of a once normal looking young lady. But she was used, trash in the eyes of all, pitiful, disgusting. No one would love her, hold her hand, fall asleep with her in the shade of a tree- if the sun ever came back. And just as the Black King’s tendons tensed, the man with the sun on his back said,
“Me, not her.”
And the King roared with delight. Finally order to his disorder could be restored. So he drew up the man, and tossed the lass aside. He raised Man Bane high in the air, and with a fierce love for blood plunged it deep within the man. It broke through his back, into the ground, into old roots to pulled up trees, and stayed there. Blood, though not much, gushed from the wound, bathing the Black King and the slave girl in warm dark red, rich blood.
Little did the Black King know that with his strike he would be struck down.
With an explosive white light, the clouds evaporated away, the moon ran into hiding, ducking behind the horizon and the sun returned! It’s white hot heat burned away any impurities and the Black King rose in intense pain, clenching his fists, trembling at first, then smoking, then exploding in a dust cloud of rage and evil. His will was not strong.
And the man, the man with the son on his back, rose from the ground, wound still open, still dripping blood, Man Bane still forced inside, and he picked the slave girl up, the ugliest person on earth, and kissed her chapped lips.
She was healed, first her beauty and then her heart. He wiped her tears away with his one good hand and onto his body, and her tears reattached fallen limbs, closed up gashes in his body, and forced Man Bane to shrink back into its silver metal slab.
All was found.
The End.
