The Green Boar: Part Seven 'The first story'

The story so far... Leanne has taken Le’Roy to work with her and made him hide under the counter. He has promised to keep quiet and tell her all about himself and Cl’mentine. (This means that I have to decide what they are...)

“I must begin with a confession. I have put you in a grave danger.” Said Le’Roy’s disembodied voice.

Strangely, this didn’t scare her, she'd expected it since they met. Dying of boredom, she felt, had been an all too close run thing before that, and right now she could deal with dangerous, as long as it was exciting too. She'd been living a half-life in utter boredom for too long.

It was not enough that Mr Ashburton daily proclaimed her the best thing that ever happened to ‘Cobblers and Keys’. At the end of the day, she only helped people through doors they had been through already, or tread in shoes that forever walked the same path.

This was a chance to alter her own path. She wanted to be more than a good employee all her life. This was a chance to change things, whatever things they were. She decided that she wholly bought into the idea that things, whether they were in the world around her or people in general, could always be better than they were already. Nonetheless, she was amazed she now thought along these lines. Danger and effort together, that’s what Le'Roy's task would take, and until now, she had always believed herself to be a lazy girl.

That was really the fault of her parents, though neither she nor they realised it. They raised her to know she must earn her place in the world, work hard and be tough. Of course, she believed them completely; they were well-meaning parents, they thought they doing their best to prepare her for the harsh world beyond their own magnolia walls.
For a person with even a hint of innate ambition it probably would have worked, but Leanne was not ambitious at all. Far from it. Once apart from parental influence her will to make any kind of impact on the world faded, slightly, just a touch, then it was gone. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she and the big, scary world would be better off if they simply ignored each other’s existence.

Strangely, her de-motivation did not apply to this new world. Afterall, why shouldn’t there be a parallel reality to hers, and there being such a place, why should not creatures other than man populate it. She imagined a place where beasts like Le’Roy did everything her dad did, from reading the paper, to cycling to the pub, to chuntering about the local council with the other retired men, or rather retired miscellaneous beasts in comfortable trousers and old jerseys. She felt comfortable with the idea that danger and excitement existed there for her and not here. Well, it didn't seem real enough yet.

At least if I fail to be useful, she thought, and then nobody here will know I have failed. It will not be like being caught acting stupid on telly.

So, in reply to the matter of dangerous situations and being summarily involved in them, she casually said, “That’s okay. I don’t mind.” as if she was giving up her right to the last piece of cake.

She could hear him draw a cautionary breath, “But my lady, when you know our tale, it will be too late to change your mind. Now is the very last time you can change it.”

His voice began to waver with the intensity of his sincerity, “Though it truly pains me to make this offer, for I wish more than anything that you will concede to put your wondrous skills beside ours and agree to help, but nevertheless I must make it, for it is only fair.” He continued. “I promise that you can tell me to go and I will. And what’s more, I will never return, and you, dear lady, shall live on in peace and never be bothered again by myself, or my kind again.”

She wished he would get on with it for she did not hover on the cusp of indecision. On taking leave of Cl’mentine, she had already known that she would return. Though the bear had vacillated in mood from murderous to pathetic, she, and it still felt a little odd to think of her as a she, had persuaded Leanne that at heart she was noble, clever, open, inquisitive, though a bit split personality.

They seemed to her like the elderly couple that you might get to know. Who live down the hall, or next door, who perhaps through grief or innate eccentricity have become detached from the world you share. That, as they turned their heads away for what felt to be the barest moment, changed beyond recognition to a place where they could no longer communicate.

Cl’mentine asked her to become a conduit, to explain this strange world to them and show them how they could make themselves anew. Leanne felt she could do that. No problem. It did not even seem dangerous. It was this thing of Le’Roy’s that could be dangerous, but in for a penny in for a pound went the old saying, so she did not let her confidence waver while she prised open the PG Tips tea bag tin.

“I don’t want you to go. I want to help.” She said, sorting through the tin until she found a pyramid shaped tea bag, she preferred those, though she knew they were no different to the others. “Do you drink tea?”

“I don’t require sustenance when I am in my alter form.”

She hadn’t thought so, but it had felt rude not to offer. They might not even know what tea is, she thought.

The kettle began to heat up, the steam shushing from its spout made a fifty pence sized patch of condensation on the wall under the shelf. It was a bit worrying that he was asking for her help and warning her not to do so at the same time. She hoped her newfound confidence wasn’t misplaced.

“I want to help,” She assured him,” and I want you to tell me who, or what, you are, what you do, and why you need me. You keep saying I’m important. Well... that’s good, I’m glad, but please tell me why I am, because maybe it will explain a lot of other things.”

She cut off his reply, half because she wanted to prevent his overwrought congratulations, followed by his heady exclamations and his rushing off before telling her anything. Because this seemed to be the manner in which he handled news. And half because she wanted to explain why fully, even if was just so that she could hear herself say the words.

“I’ve always felt different from everybody else, and I’ve drifted about never really latching on to anything. All my friends have had families by now, or amazing careers, or if they haven’t then they have a better reason not to than mine. But I never found the thing that I wanted to do, so I ended up here.” She gestured to the stockroom, which eloquently demonstrated her status by doing precisely nothing.

“I got stuck her. I guess it was comfortable.” She pursed her lips, thinking of how little she could imagine Mr Ashburton working anywhere but here, “Some people probably love that... it suits them, but I always thought something else should happen to me and now it has. So fire away. Tell me all about it.”
She stared interrogatively at the kettle as she spoke, imagining it to be Le’Roy instead of having his voice remain bodiless voice helped. She didn’t know if he could see her at the same time. She’d have to ask when she remembered. There were so many questions to ask. “You can start with why Cl’mentine was going on about being optimistic.”

“That,” he replied, “is a thing of her device. A slip of shiny paper came through the door. When they started to arrive we thought someone was trying to contact us at last, but then Cl’mentine noticed they all seemed so different, and that was when we realised they were from your world, and not meant for us at all.” He made what she thought was a boary chuckle.

“You see, when people drift off and forget what they are doing; sometimes our world becomes visible to them. But you mustn’t worry,” he said quickly in response to her surprise, “they never comprehend what they see. Many times we have taken delivery of parcels and letters and the man doesn’t notice that a blue bear big enough to flatten him offers to sign his slip of paper.”

“But how don’t they see you?”

“I don’t know, but they don’t. As to the paper about the optimism, I don’t know what it says any more than I know what it means. Cl’mentine does all the reading and writing for both of us. Anyway, I suspect it is something that only bears understand; they are emotional creatures, not like we practical boars. You must ask her to enlighten us both on the matter.”

“When will I get a chance to do that?”
“The day after tomorrow; she will have a delivery for us to make.”
“Oh, so I really am a courier. To where?” Leanne was genuinely surprised.
“Of course you are a courier. I do not lie.”
“But you omit the truth sometimes.”

“It is difficult to always tell the truth. As to the destination, I don’t know yet. I rushed out to see you as soon as I woke and learned of your difficulties. My esteemed friend was most upset that she had scared you, she was worried you would never come back and help us.”

“But I will. So that’s okay. I guess you’d better begin at the beginning instead then.”

So Le’Roy the Green Boar filled his intangible lungs with cobbler shop air steeped in the aromas of boot polish and cut brass, and told his story:

***

A long, long time ago, and before then for a period much longer than that, when we knew of nothing such as Time, the Sun and Moon, who were then still nameless, held us spellbound with their never-ending dance. As we watched them rise and fall, their fingers entwined in the dawn and dusk, we questioned nothing and therefore achieved no answers.

We lived, died, and were reborn. We were born from blood, sweat and heat and we died in blood, sweat and heat. That was as it was meant to be. And we know now that we were fortunate because in forsaking knowledge we also forsook lies.

Then one day one of us decided to want more.

That one suggested to us all that there was more to life than the moon, the sun, and the reflection of our hairy faces in the sweet fresh water, beneath whose ripples, rocks and mud continued ever onward to become the earth from which grass and trees grew.

What they suggested sounded wondrous

Each of us, they said, held a quality shaped like a beautiful shining stone that twinkled like sunlight falling on the ripples of the greatest lake.

They said each species had a special quality, a character or a skill, which was different to all the others.

They said we all shared all qualities in a larger or smaller way, but just one was our defining character, and knowing it would make us great.

Of course, all the animals, those who walked on four legs, or two, or who flew, swam, or slithered on the ground, each wanted to know what thier special quality was.

So we asked then our first question. And we asked it of humans, for of course, they were the ones who discovered the existence of the stone shaped qualities.

We all asked: “What is my special quality?”

Only some of us came forward to ask it earlier, and because of this, the humans thought we were great.

And we were happy about that because they had discovered the qualities and therefore were known to be clever and resourceful.

Also, we knew we were amongst the first few because we were cleverer, or faster, or stronger, or more aggressive than the ones who came later, and because of this, we felt ourselves to be superior.

Despite our arrogance, humans afforded us privileges and we had such good times, for a while at least.

Of course, that is until we learnt that if you did not ask questions you would hear no lies.

First, they told the boars that we contained the qualities of instant and courageous action and that we were incapable of deception.

They cursed us forever with the inability to lie. Our actions would forever be true to our innermost thoughts.

Then they told the bears they contained the qualities of the endless search for wisdom, twinned with ferociousness in battle.

Bears were cursed with a thirst for knowledge yet with no application for it, for they are doomed to be feared.

In battle, they have to drop the books of learning and retreat to pure berserker rage. Bears are always on the front line, never in the planning tent making battle strategy. This is forever to their shame and regret. As fighters, they are too good to spare the field, yet their knowledge, if it could be tapped, might prevent such wars ever occurring.

Six more creatures of earth were with us at that time, asking to be told their special qualities, but what we all failed to realise was that we had been seduced by visions of what we could achieve, and that we each valued our own qualities too highly above those of the others.

We became competitive with each other. We didn’t notice that it was always the humans who drew us all together, and that it was only when they did, that our qualities became truly useful. Together we could not be defeated, but apart we were as weak and flawed as we had always been.

We had become the ingredients of a great pie, but only one would eat the magnificent meal.

It was, of course, humans alone who would eat.

But at the time, we trusted them and in return, they elevated us. For a while, we were gods. They gave us thanks, and made our forms in wood, clay, straw, and even stone, so they were reminded of us when we were not present.

And when they wore the skins of our relatives over thier easily marked skin and fed their children from our bodies, they was grateful.

We shared an understanding that this was how it was and would always be.

It seems to make no sense to you that we would accept that he should kill us, yes? Well, those of us who were ferocious felt they had equal standing with humans, and accepted that each one of us had the right to kill in order to live.

Those who were prey and had always been so, the grazers; deer, oxen, goats and elk, and the fish, understood part of their number would alway fall, but that as a whole, they would continue.

But of course it could not last, for humans proved to be deceptive and we were all under their spell.

Once they understood our qualities they took them for themselves and achieved complete mastery, and no longer bothered to venerate our forms, or to care for us at all.

At this point humans, who no longer saw themselves as an animal, and the animals who knew what they were, parted ways.

As the animals fled their qualities dropped like the stones they were onto the dark earth, which closed protectively over them.

Ever since, the memory of our more closely related past has remained in the earth, and she has passed it to the sun and moon, the sky, and water. They remember what humans properly are; that we were originally all the same, and once could have been one.

A remnant of memory also stayed in the minds of men, but they remembered mostly our feats of valour. Some of them even translated these into threats against themselves. But soon they turned against one another, being the over sensitive and complicated creatures that they are. But you know more of this than I do, don't you? So I don’t need to tell that overlong and complex history.

We, and by that I mean the ones that can assume the alter form, are myself and my friend the blue bear, and also the red lion, the white hart, the black horse, the gold eagle, the silver wolf, and the brown hawk. We all hang our forms on nothing more than memory.

Though those rocks the earth keeps hidden hold us, they are simply remains from an earlier time.

We are both given form and trapped in our reality by three far less tangible things: By our own rememberings of when we all acted as one, by the memory of the world, and by the minds of humans, who barely remember a whisper of who we were, but are her eminent beast.

We are, of course, not creatures of flesh and blood as the original beasts were, as beings we are quite apart from their hard reality. We consist of qualities. Concepts and ideas make us more tangible than material things do.

As far as I can most delicately put it, it would be most correct to say we are the manifestation of the qualities as man described them to us. We are shaped by their ideas about us, as much as we are by the figures and abilities of the animals we originally were.

***

Le’Roy stopped speaking at that point and there was an awkward silence for a second or two, then Leanne said, “Blimey.”

It didn’t feel quite like the appropriate thing to say, but then neither was it inappropriate. “That’s... um... quite a story. I suppose the, um, how did you put it, ‘manifestation of qualities’ is why your doors get to make their own minds up?”

“Yes. I still find it hard to believe yours don’t, it seems like such a waste of time.”

“Likewise.”

“There will be many things we shall both have to get used to.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed, looking at her watch. “It’s time to open up shop.” She hurried out of the cupboard without her tea, because all the boiled water was still in the kettle. She had been so engrossed in the tale that she had forgotten to pour it.

There was already someone on the other side of the door. As she turned the sign to ‘open’ and started to unbolt it to let them in, she whispered to Le’Roy. “So that’s what you are. That’s amazing. But what are you doing here, and why does Cl’mentine live in a brewery? Oh, yeah, and where do the furies fit in to the picture?”

“So many questions!” Breathed Le’Roy’s voice in her ear, it still felt very odd. “Which do you want me to start with?”

Leanne leaned against the door a second longer, her head turned away from the customer, “Mmm, start with the furies. They sound horrific. I think I’d rather know about them first. Now, you realise I can’t talk to you while I have someone in the shop, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Replied the boar, “So I shall tell you the furies’ story.” And he launched straight away into another most peculiar tale.

... to be continued...