Pence Read online

  Chapter V

  The gardener rolled his head back until the skin of his neck was taut and his gullet jutted out like the sun rising over a hill. He leaned forward to cough and retched out a pluming black cloud of dust from his mouth and nostrils. The smallest motes of it were up caught in the air like tiny moths; the rest floated down to land on his beard, his tunic, and the ground, where later that morning it would all appear no different than so much scattered dirt. His eyes flared with indignation and he raised his chin high, but only briefly, then he sagged and sucked up another tremulous breath.

  An unfamiliar weight tugged at his right arm. “Is this what I have sown?” he whispered to himself and to the garden. He knew what had happened without looking.

  He had two stumps now. Where his left arm was white, his right was black. Where his left was sallow and insipid, his right had become stone-hard wood charred to a crisp, splintered point–roughly the same shape as his hand had last made, lone forefinger extended to the boy. But he had brought the knife down hard: nearly the entire finger had been excised.

  “So, Pence, I think I know what it must have felt like to have your body whittled away.” The old man swallowed uncomfortably. “Last night, when I realized what was about to happen with you on the stump, well… I guess I should have used ol’ lefty instead.”

  Warm currents of low wind washed through the foothills and cascaded over the fence, banishing the chill. A butterfly grazed the old man’s nose and raced off. The telltale pulse of Pence’s heart echoed out its cadence from within the russet husk of the potato from whence he was born, now at rest a step away from the gardener’s left foot.

  “So, you won’t speak, but you’ll busy about in the middle of the night like a fieldmouse trying to find a warm hole to nestle in?” The old man chuckled when he saw that the opening of the husk had been turned face-down to the earth–no daybreak light or worldly concerns would disrupt the boy until it was rolled over. “I don’t blame you, my boy–that was very much a harrowing night. I think we both nearly saw our last stars, truth be told.”

  When it became apparent that Pence was not going to materialize at the sound of the gardener’s voice, the old man leaned back and tilted his head sideways as if emptying cluttered thoughts out his ears. In a trance, he silently whispered, “I walk in the shade of the White Tree. I eat the fruit of the White Tree. I sleep in the arms of the White Tree.” His eyelids fluttered shut. “Though my body returns to the earth, the color of my mind is–”

  The potato skin gave a start, then rolled over toward the sun, revealing its lone window to the dawn sky. A green glow drifted out of the husk as the daybreak light set Pence’s gemstone eyes ablaze. And then the boy stepped out of the parched peel and climbed up to strike a pose atop it, his back to his creator, his arms akimbo and every bit of him from his bold grin to his backside both as bare and as proud as you please.

  Pence stared directly into the sun as it climbed over the top of the rough-hewn fence. After luxuriating in a back-crackling yawn, he said, “Good to meet you at last, sir,” and extended one arm in order to shake hands. “I hope you won’t sour if I say you’re more roundish about the middle than I remember from last night… yes, a gladsome deal brighter, as well. It would seem these early hours agree with you! You’ll have to tell me your secret, sometime–when I woke up this very morning I felt like an old, spoiled tomato… Pardon me, sir, but why do you not shake my hand? I thought it customary between gentlemen of fancy, such as ourselves?”

  “That’s the sun,” the old man croaked behind him.

  “You’re the Sun? But of course you are! Ha! In fact, your reputation precedes you: You are a man of few words, no? I’m much the same.” Pence nodded again to his outstretched arm to remind the morning star that he still thought it proper for them to shake hands.

  “The sun hasn’t got hands,” said the old man.

  “Yeck!” Pence jerked his hand back. “Why hasn’t he?”

  “Quiet, my boy, the winds find unguarded words–”

  “How primitive. No hands… To think!”

  “Yes, why don’t you try that? Thinking.”

  “Funny,” the boy said to himself, still staring full-on into the sun, “that the voice in my head is telling me to think. But isn’t that what I was already doing? Or is there some secret way of thinking, better than what I’m doing now? For a voice in my head, that’s a pretty conceited thing to say.”

  “No, no, no,” the old man hastened to correct, “I am not a voice in your head. And the sun does not commune–”

  “This is very odd,” muttered Pence–one blocky hand tracing the chip-chop contour of his chin–even as the gardener spoke. “I can hear someone, but I see no one at all. Oh, I hope I haven’t damaged my nice new eyes staring into you, accursed Sun!”

  The gardener continued, “I am the old man who made you, and the sun is the last of those to mistrust–”

  Pence put his hands over his ears. “Now the voice claims to have made me, despite itself not having any arms or hands! What if… what if the voice is in cahoots with the Sun!” He crouched down, hands up and balled into little fists cocked to punch anything that invaded his personal space.

  “I’m behind you, Pence,” the gardener informed him.

  Pence shot straight up. When he landed, he hunched over and covered his head like a man about to be pummeled from above.

  “I’ve got arms… sort of,” said the old man. “And a hand, too, strictly speaking.”

  “Then maybe you should have used them to put these eyes on the other side of my head, genius!” snapped the boy as he stood back up. “Instead, I’ve been aimed at the Sun over here all day like an idiot!”

  “Too true,” granted the old man. “Had you considered using your legs to turn yourself around? It works quite well, I find.”

  “Of course I had,” Pence lied. “I was just… warming up a bit, first.” He half-heartedly feigned a leg stretch.

  “Take your time.”

  “You try sleeping in a wrinkled, dry, old skin,” Pence pressed on defiantly.

  “Somehow that sounds familiar,” said the gardener.

  “I was cramped up all night. I’ve got cricks in every joint. It could happen to anybody.”

  “Anybody that could fit inside a potato, certainly.”

  “Hey, it’s my first day here,” Pence hotly retorted. “It hasn’t been easy. You could try to be a little more supportive.”

  “You are absolutely right,” the old man patiently agreed. “You’ve only been up for two minutes but you’re right, I do owe you that much, and a penny more. So here is my support: a lesson to learn on this, your first day in the world.”

  “A lesson?” Pence groaned. “You mean like school? You’ve got to be kidding me! I was thinking more along the lines of financial restitutions–”

  “Listen,” said the gardener, “you must learn to think before anything else, my boy. I gave you that rock in your head for a reason… and it’s already proving sharper than a diamond. So use it! Think before you speak. Think before you act. Think on what you know, and that much more on what you don’t. Think of what has happened to you after each and every step you take; of what might happen to you before you take the next. Think before you do anything, Pence. Think before you even turn around to see me. Can you do that?”

  Pence’s silence was prolonged. A halo of green light drifted like dockside mist around his eyes, but all the old man could see were the lumpy, telltale marks of the whittling knife on the back of his head.

  When at last the boy answered, “No,” was all he said flatly, shaking his head once. And a moment later he affirmed, “No, I just don’t think I can. To be frank, now that I’m here and I’m out and I’m free, I would live a life of risks and riotous thrills!” His voice was giddy, teetering. “I want all the sultry pleasures in the world for myself! I crave the rarest and most spurious passions!” He raised his arms, gesturing uninhibitedly as he spoke. His voice spiraled hig
her and higher. “Give me adventure to draw my blood and tears! Give me the romance of the stars and the moon! Give me mystery! Merriment! Mirth! Moral certainty! Eternal-immortal-indivisible glory! Yesterday I was a potato,” he stated plainly with a steep decrescendo. “Today, my roots are cut. My bond with the earth is unmade. Why shouldn’t I fly? I have nothing else.”

  “Well spoken, my boy,” said the old man, “but that is not exactly true. The bond you speak of has never been stronger.”

  As Pence thought about these words, only the rhythm of the heartseed could be heard.

  After one more stubborn leg stretch, the boy turned to meet his creator at last.

  Part Two