The Pyrrho of Martinsburg

Part 7 - The Hill Fort

Copyright © 1998 Ron Tower

The Databases of Eden
The Hill Fort
Air Bombed by Ladybugs

THE DATABASES OF EDEN

George was a spirit now, poor soul.
But it wasn't bad. His body had been

something of a problem for some time
and now he was free of that at least.

And a few questions had been answered.
For example, we do survive in some form.

But as to the why and the wherefore
either he wasn't one of the initiated

or there simply was no why and wherefore.
Also he had discovered a skill for the

new world. He could talk to those in bodies
and hear their thoughts in a way that

didn't make him insane with their voices.
So he had been recruited for a job.

But why work? He didn't need to. Somehow
he had gotten into some energy pattern

that just fed from the surrounding energies
without effort or struggle or pain.

But the God's honest truth was that he
was bored and he had some sympathy for

those poor earth slobs slobbering through
their exertions, excretions, and exhortations.

And it was just a part-time job. He could
still look around here, wherever here was.

His first client was a certain Mrs. Jones
of the furry jones and the jones measures.

They had shared a few joint illusions out
toward the branching book leaf pile.

You enter the leaf veins, you know, then ...
well, enough of that. They had shared

that which can be shared here and went on.
But she had this enigma, this twist:

I was just a little girl, no harm was done
to me, I was at ease in the fort of breezes.

This was before the rains stopped, before
the climate shift that made everything brown.

Up in the hill fort I met a stranger. Yes, it
must always be a stranger. Those you know best

and love most never tell you anything beyond
how to get on and how much they love you,

which is nice, but anyways, this stranger,
he was a dusty old desert bum, a stylite:

Look, little girl. I will lift out my cloak.
Look into the dark and you will see sparks,

just sparks at first, but concentrate hard,
like the sun raises ghosts in the desert sand

you must mix sparks with something of your own.
You will fill in the rest from your treasures:

A scholar sitting in a formal rock garden
tapping at his tablet with a stylus, flicking

though the wireless void to the great databases
of Eden, the texts thought and produced,

explanations, stories, songs, images, heart
breaking rushes of empathies, searing desires,

aches, hatred, the bloody hand spent and tired
collapsed on a corpse in turn made a corpse

by passing scavengers, a little girl huddled
below cedar branches sobbing in her skirts.

Tap, tap, tap. He tapped up an old Marx Brothers
movie, laid the tablet against a rock, napped

and watched, napped and watched. He laughed
loudly, I think, but it came out like silence.

The stylite closed his cloak. His beard was
grizzled and dirty, his sandals dusty and worn.

That night I could see the surrounding country
from the tower, lit by the moon, shadows of

goats and old carts and the tents of the merchants
moving in and out like diaphragms of black silk.

I think I could see the stylite going down
the trail in and out of trees, toward the desert.

Now here's the thing. You know I am one of the
sleepers. And when I sleep I even dream.

And my dreams seem to be of the earth and of
an old man living in a trailer in the desert.

From time to time young women come and he pays
them to sit in the heat as dusk comes.

He lifts up an old blanket and tells them of
sparks. The ones who see the scholar get double.

So George spoke. Old man, what is your name?
Philo, I believe, a strange name for Arizona.

You know we survive. I am one who watches from
here, wherever here is, and I wonder about you.

Why the young women? You don't touch them.
Are you a monk? They are quite beautiful.

The old man grunted. You must have been a satyr.
I was a satyr, but I am well beyond that now.

But I still like their company and their fresh
minds. I need their images, and their thin ankles,

deep brown with silver bracelets, and their
breath smelling of peaches and apples and honey.

Somehow George could understand. Tell me, old man.
Have you been to Palestine? To a hill fort?

The old man slowly smiled. He didn't have a
beard any more and he was fairly clean.

That young girl, a merchant's daughter, she was
the first one to see the scholar and his tablet.

She gave me a lot to think about, a lot to
think about. She was beautiful too and her

eyes were cats eyes, deep, deep blue on the
stone wall of the hill fort, the wind blowing

her head covering in the moonlight as I went back
across the Jordan. Those were difficult times.

The client wanted to know. What is so important
about the scholar? What about the tablet?

The old man muttered. I almost have the technology
worked out. It is well within reach now.

To look at me you wouldn't know. I am very rich,
very rich, but I must usually keep out of sight.

I have foundations. I fund research. I collect
texts. I start companies and mentor poets.

I hire young women for what they can imagine.
I am crusty and old. I ache and I don't know.

I watch the young lovers and the old lovers.
The smooth skin of young lovers is pure,

but the wrinkled old skin of the old lovers
still tingles and is knowing and beyond delusion.

I am no longer a lover in the bodily sense.
I love images and patterns and texts and time,

aching, lonely, tick-tocking time, that old bugger,
and I love the lovers in their ignorant hope.

But the client was impatient, for a spirit.
But what's this all about? What was I to you?

You, yes you. You were not typical, no, and yet
you really don't know, do you? Strange. Strange.

Little girls, little girls. Look, that scholar does
not exist. I am that scholar. I am making him.

I have been making him from your sparks for
five hundred years. But you know what?

It's not going to work. I've got the tablet and
the stylus. I've got the wireless network.

I've collected the texts for all these years.
I've got the best graphics and movie archives

and random poem generation software of every
type and description. It's all hidden in my cave.

The old man for a moment was teary eyed, rare for
him, I think, given what he had seen and done.

He looked out his trailer window. He looked up.
We're not there, George thought. He continued.

But something I do not have and I will never have,
I do not have those God damned databases of Eden.

THE HILL FORT

The crusty brown and winded olive trees
are a match for the secret cool rooms

of stone where on matresses the young wives
are what their husbands dream in fevers.

Their children have large knowing eyes, but
they do not know, only the breezes know.

It is stone cold in the winter, but they
wrap and shiver and do what they must.

The wives dream of far away hills without
these grunting lords with their greasy beards.

But once on a spring morning this one was
a gentle lover. He looked and touched lightly.

His wife stood by a window and the wind was like
a lover she never dreamed of, with soft hands.

An old man tends the goats in the spring field.
He sees on the walls a young girl running.

He remembers his children and how they laughed
and how his young wife was a fire and cool water.

The olives must be crushed, some must be preserved
in brine, some are eaten fresh as they are

beaten from the trees on blankets and canvas.
The whole family is there gathering into sacks.

The outside of the buildings look rough and
poor, but inside such cool delights and riches.

The young boy was allowed to hear the poets
recite all through the night by fire light.

Their words were like waves and like fire brands
and like swift horses and like honey or sweet oil.

Buy low, sell high. Save for when the times are
lean. Don't be afraid to risk. Bide your time.

The second month of the siege the leaders escaped
through secret tunnels and left them to die.

For no reason the enemy left just in time for
the harvest and as the cisterns were almost dry.

I am afraid. These secret words or public stones
can protect me, can they not? Shout, rattle.

They come to us and sell. Then others come and buy.
We do not go far except a few go over the hill.

The computer screen flickers in the old city by
the sea. The tourists use their cards. Phones ring.

So many came, Turks, Crusaders, British, and
now we are here, below the cool, stone ceilings.

A little boy from Ohio runs up to the top and
looks out across the blue sea. Smells like fish.

This stiff weed is brown now. It will be green
again, hanging from the aquaduct, by the dry marsh.

I am not home. I am far from home. This is not
my home. I cannot make it home. I am not at home.

The stone wall is dripping water now. A main is
broken and the water rushes down the hill stairs.

My, my, my little man. I will love you as I can. Just
be good, be contrite. I will rock you through the night.

He is very hot, ten kilometers from town in a dusty
hole with sun, and vipers about, vipers about.

Cool corporate halls know no place or time or race.
Once you are in the office, where are you?

She telecommutes from Tel Aviv to Spring Sandusky
by the river, where pokeweed comes out every spring.

Blur this together, a Crusader chanting Pali, yes,
and a vipor biting the polar bear, no, a dust storm.

This is a easy hall with many private rooms off it
where you can pray ancient prayers or play new games

or lick tofu gravy from a lover's tummy while dreaming
of Mars, red warrior Mars, with its pink deadly sky.

I have two grams of Moon dust. It set me back a
pretty penny. And here is a stone from Haifa Zoo.

I picked it up to remember you. I picked it up after
the winter rain that washed away that aweful stain.

They don't have Wendy's there. It is a God aweful
place, but the falafel is good, better than New York.

The tour bus came to the bottom of the hill. We would
have to walk up the crumbling stairs. Bring your

water bottles. It will be hot. It was cooler in the
lower levels where the cisterns were. The windows were

narrowed for archers first and then for rifles. Thick
stone was always a good choice before cruise missiles.

She slipped a few bills to the tour guide and hid
until night fall. It was very dark but there was

some moonlight, so she did fine. No wild animals
came and she stood in the high window in a breeze.

She pressed up against the stone. It was very smooth
from years of, what? Touches? Brushing up against?

She heard hyennas, but for some reason she was not
afraid. They were far off. They would not come here.

AIR BOMBED BY LADYBUGS

I was working hard in the office when that
old con came by, winked, admiring my scam.

I am so sorry that the day will not be like
any other day, just a day with a staircase

and a clock ticking and a river caught fire
and old enthusiasms renewed to the light of

roasting cinnamon trees and a car run from
air in a country of well breathing citizens.

I really am sorry. So don't tread on me.
Don't watch me. Don't monitor my electronics.

Don't count my lines of code. Don't make
me virtual or just in time. Don't fire me.

She burns for you, really. The old con winks.
What a sweet, sweet December, he whistles.

Cool off is the farm pond in the cow pasture
surrounded by high bramble bushes and wire.

Run the path up to the road. You need the
exercise, God knows. Don't be so lazy.

I have converted to polo shirts. Things are
more casual now. We are getting things done.

A thirty minute commute and all the time
in the world, lovely, lovely, the sun sets.

And in the deep woods there are secret meetings.
The signs are exchanged and the bones bruised.

The feelings are running high in the council
room. We must be a wealthy trio, sing, sing.

I was falsely accused. I was chased by well
meaning individual contributors through halls

with copies of paintings advertising museums
and art dealers and auction houses and galleries.

They can monitor your key strokes you know.
They can install cameras in computer screens.

My office door was unlocked when I came in.
Mysterious janitors pushed large boxes on wheels.

I used my credit card at the check out counter
and the baby behind me wrote down my number.

I went skinny dipping in the farm pond at night,
was chewed on by catfish, was air bombed by ladybugs.

When I came home joggers were circling my house in
search of open windows. Lightning bugs hovered.