by Esfandiar

 

Oh, there you are. I thought you weren’t going to come to me.

Do you know what today is? Of course, you don’t. Why would you, after all?
On this day, about thirty years ago, plagued by my numerous conflictions on the very nature of morality, I set out to search for those who claimed they understood it all.

I suppose you might have your own beliefs about it as well. I wager you have a concrete notion of evil—can you point it out if it’s staring right at you? Will you not be deceived by its pretensions?

We like to act so confident—so fundamentally sure in our moral convictions. Ah, but if only we knew how foolish we are. In my youth, I was like that! I was angry when others around me did not do a task that so clearly was the right thing to do. It is a feature of youth, I suppose –the arrogance of morality…

Nevertheless, you are reading these words, and so I will deliver to you a remarkable memory of mine. In those years, I lived in a small town –a few thousand inhabitants at close distance to the sea, the forest, and the mountains. It was quite the location! Each season blew in a fresh wind of novelty—every year, something new was in store. The berries from the forest, the colorful fish from the sea, and the fresh water from the mountains—oh, what days those were! I am getting sidetracked, yes, the memory!

In conversation with a few of my peers on the very nature of evil, one of them told me something quite staggering:

“There is a new traveler in town. He sits at the tavern every night, laughs maniacally and at random times as he lets the effects of liquor overtake him. He seems like quite the madman, but in his insanity, he at once illuminates about Evil as well as the Good.” This fellow of mine was quite the eccentric character—he somehow knew about all the various people of the town, yet nobody knew of him. I never understood how he got all his information.

In my excitement, I needed to meet this man at the tavern at once. “Fantastic, gentlemen. We should meet him this evening!”

This is what was quite strange, dear reader, that none of my friends were interested. They began with a series of excuses—one more absurd than the other considering how well they knew that I knew they must be lying.
“Oh, I must attend to my nephew’s birthday tonight,” blurted out a friend who was and always had been an only child.

“I must attend to my mother!” complained my orphaned friend.

The very informant of this entire matter looked petrified at my recommendation. I think he did not want to pretend quite as much as the rest of them. He looked to me, and with imploring eyes, told me “We should not tempt this. Let us remain puzzled on this—we shall have many more nights of discussion!”

I remember thinking that an absurd suggestion, and decided to go to the tavern that night. Perhaps they were right—I never spoke with them after that night.

After dinner that night, when I knew taverns typically emptied out, I made my way there.

The tavern had quite a strange air to it. There was an old fiddler, the best I have ever heard play if I may say so, that played quietly in the corner to himself—lamenting the loss of his beloved (who, between you and me, never loved him anyways. The fixation on unrequited love is baffling to me). The smell of kindling from the fireplace mixed rather interestingly with the occasional whiff of liquor—an unforgettable aroma! Ha—how time passes.

Other than the fiddler and a few drunk souls passed out about the tavern, I saw a person sitting at the bar with a cloak on. As I started to walk towards him, I heard him begin to laugh. Of course, I expected symptoms of insanity—on account of my informant friend’s comments.

“Oh, there you are! Why I thought you weren’t going to come to me.” It took me a moment to conclude that he must have been speaking to me, but his friendliness caught me off-guard.

“Hi! My name is—”

“I don’t care about your name, young man.” He interrupted me. He turned around and scanned me for a second. He had interesting eyes, somewhat attractive if I may say so. In fact, he seemed like quite an attractive man. If it weren’t for his laughter and his tattered cloak, I would have thought him a different sort of man altogether. “Sit with me. Bartender, bring us two full jugs”. He turned around to look at me again. “So you are curious about Evil is that it?”

I was taken aback at his knowledge of my purpose. “Yes. How did you know that?”

He laughed his vociferous laugh again. It felt forced—there was immense pain hidden in his laughter.

“Everybody comes to me for the same experience, young man. Let us begin, then. Do you know what today is?”

“Well, it is the fourth—”

“Of course, you don’t. Why would you?” He shot me a scolding look. I was confused at why I was feeling shame at all for attempting to answer such a simple question. Of course I know what today is. “Today was a busy day for me” he concluded. The bartender brought us our drinks, and he at once drank about half of his cup. “Cheers, if you do that sort of thing!”

I took a sip of my drink and glanced at my favorite fiddler in the corner. He was playing a rather moving piece with his eyes closed and tears streaming down his face. “Even if you have certain thoughts on the nature of evil, what makes you so sure that you are right about them?”

He shot me a piercing look—I sensed him look straight into my thoughts—and he smiled before looking away and taking another swig. “Certainty is a luxury not afforded to us, boy. Take what I tell you tonight with whatever doubt remains within you. I cannot convince you of anything—I can only tell you stories.”

“Stories?”

“Aye,” his face darkened, and the jubilant madman seemed at once to be a grave and deep thinker. “Stories are all I can give you.” He looked me in the eyes. “Why have you come here alone tonight? Are you the consort of loneliness?”

I could not tell if his mannerism was in earnest or not. “No, my friends were simply busy with other matters I suppose…” I did not need to tell him that they feared meeting him.

“They feared meeting me! Hah—pity” he offered with his laughter again.

“How did you—?”

“I do not care for pretensions, young man. Your spoken words betray those unspoken.” He finished his drink and asked for another immediately. “I have found in my life that people are deeply afraid. Not of things, no. Sometimes, things. What everyone is afraid of, deeply—to their core—is a challenge to their reality. I cannot blame them—my acceptance of a lack of reality has made me the madman you see before you!” He looked at me seriously before bursting into laughter again. “You need to ease up, young man. Partake!”

I finished my drink. “Very well. Go on.” I waved at the bartender to bring me another.

“In my youth, I was much like you. Less afraid than my friends who were too scared of meeting strange travelers in taverns with stranger tales to tell” he winked at me. “But do not take your relative interest to signify lack of fear. You, too, are afraid of losing your reality.”

“I suppose that is fair” I thought for a moment. “What has this got to do with evil and morality?”

“A great deal!” His face was grave again. “A great deal indeed.” He took out a lighter with a rather large gas chamber. He lit it a few times and flung it into the fireplace. I could not process what he was doing before it was too late—the lighter exploded, and pieces of wood flew everywhere—the fiddler’s moving notes did not change in the slightest, and the bartender simply brought me my second drink.

“Why on earth did you do that?” I was in shock. I looked around, one of the passed out drunkards had been hit in the eye and I saw blood dripping down the side of her face. She looked familiar—I could not quite put my finger on it. I took a look at the fiddler, playing with even more passion, and back at the madman I was speaking to. “Are you the devil?” I asked, unsure if I meant my question in earnest or not.

He laughed his forced laugh again. “If only it were that simple!” He finished his drink and ordered another.

“Walk with me.” He got up, pointed a finger at the corner where the fiddler sat, and then started to walk out of the tavern. I followed him outside, and took in a deep breath of the cold autumn air. The sound of the wind rustling leaves of the trees around us reminded me that I am not quite in the state of sobriety. I could hear waves crashing on our shores at some distant. I could still hear the fiddler—I noticed he was following us, playing as he walked behind us.

“No, I am not the devil. Of course not, that is absurd. Let us discuss evil! What is this evil?”

“Well, isn’t that the question! Suffering—infliction of suffering, perhaps. That very quality diametrically opposed to goodness.”

“Very well.” He started walking towards the homes alongside the shore. “Are there evil people inside of these homes? Sleeping with their loved ones? Eating evil food?”

I thought he was joking, but his expression was very serious. “Well, there is no such thing as evil food, of course. Perhaps there are some people in our town who have done evil things—I don’t know enough about them to call them evil…”

“You don’t know enough?”

“Well, no.” I responded, slightly confused by his questions. “Are you joking?”

He laughed his laugh again. “No, I am not joking, young man.” He walked close to the windows outside of a home and looked in. I followed next to him.

We saw a young mother tucking her young child into bed. Her countenance, the very way she was looking at her daughter as she tucked her into her bed, was intoxicated with love. Love, in its most profound sense, was battering against the gates of her heart, only to embrace her young daughter. There was something beautiful in that feeling, I felt as if I was filled with her love as well. I felt as if I would sacrifice my entire life just to protect that young, innocent child.

“That mother over there,” he looked at me. He looked back and slid up the house window.

I tried to stop him, but by the time I managed to react, he was almost inside. He waved at me to follow him. I looked back at our fiddler—he was playing quietly now, his eyes fixed on the moon. I ended up climbing through the window as well.

I stepped inside, and as soon as I looked up, I realized I couldn’t find my guide. I searched around the house, where in a hallway, I ran into the young mother. Shocked, she stared at me. There was a profound sense of fear in her eyes. I did not have much time to think, so I tried to explain, “Look, I apologize, I was just—”

She started crying. “You! It was you!” she started screaming, and in my confusion I did not know how to react except get behind her and cover her mouth and beg her to stop, lest I get found out as a robber or something to that effect. Why was she screaming so much? Where did she know me from? I needed to leave her and her beautiful young daughter in peace. I waited until her screaming subsided, until I finally let her go. She slipped through my arms, heavily, and crashed onto the floor. I found this rather strange, but I had no time to examine it, so I leapt out through the window and traced my way back to the tavern. In the commotion, I had also lost sight of the fiddler.

When I arrived at the tavern, the fiddler was in the corner, playing his usual songs about his long lost (unrequited) beloved. I saw a woman with tattered clothes sitting at the bar. I started to walk towards her. She had a rather gravitating air about her.  As I approached, she turned around and started laughing.

“Oh, there you are! Why, I thought you weren’t going to come to me.” She scanned my clothes and looked into my eyes. She had rather piercing, but deeply attractive eyes. She laughed a rather unusual laugh—almost as if she was pained.

“Hi! My name is—”

“I don’t care about your name, young man.” She retorted rather quickly. I turned around to look at the fiddler. He was playing a different song, but his eyes were closed and tears were streaming down his cheeks. The fireplace in the tavern looked slightly destroyed—I suppose I hadn’t caught the news of what had happened to it. There was a dead drunk woman on one of the tables, a strange site I suppose. “Sit down next to me. So you’ve come to learn about Evil is that it?” she brought me out of my question-filled thoughts, and ordered two jugs of alcohol for us.

I wondered if that was something I particularly cared about.  “Not really, no.” I sat down with her, and we drank the rest of the night in silent enjoyment of the state of drunkenness.

I frequented that tavern a lot after that night. I met many people from the town and around the world—they all came to sit with me and ask me what I thought about Evil. The sheer absurdity of their question! Hah. I couldn’t help but laugh at them.

I sat in that tavern for years, and never did I meet anyone who had the depth of soul to learn how absurd their questions about Evil were.

A year or so after I started frequenting the tavern, I was approached one night by the local investigators. Some poor soul had lost his wife and young daughter on the same night—hadn’t had a clue how it had happened.

They asked me if I had met anybody that seemed culpable—on account of my deep acquaintance with many inhabitants of the town.

I told them no, of course. A shameful story—the love lost by that man on that ill night all those years ago. I wonder who it could have been.

I think of my old days, the first night I went to that tavern. I had just arrived in the town, my clothes were tattered on account of my long journey. A few inhabitants approached me and asked me what I am up to. In my exhaustion and drunkenness, I laughed at them and told them to talk to me to learn about evil and morality! Ha—what gullible souls.

Of course, I never knew much about evil. And, dear reader, I assume neither do you. It is quite elusive…yes, quite elusive.

Certainty is a double-edged sword! That is what I have learnt in my long years. Certainty—yes, it creates truths where there are none. We are, after all, desperate for understanding. We are longing for truth in this mess of chaos, and we just might create our own and pretend it was there all along—and forget that we were pretending. Curious animals, we are. Quite so.

Do you know what today is? No, of course you don’t. Why would you after all?

Today is the day when, years ago in my youth with my desperate attempts at discovering truths about evil, I met a man who claimed he understood it all! What an absurd claim the poor soul made—I wonder if he is still so arrogant in his sheer ignorance.

Yes, those were fond memories of many years ago. I lived in quite the town, you know! It was quite the town. Mountains, forest, and the sea. Have you heard of a better town to visit? To live in? The mind of the townspeople alone—what ripe grounds for infestation in all that isolation! Yes, quite the town.

Do you know what today is?