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In the town of Torun, Poland, oral stories passed down generation after generation since the days of the Commonwealth tell of a certain enigmatic character; one so far removed from his fellows that nothing could explain his words and actions but unrighteous theories of fantastic content, instigated by tales sourced from his own mouth.
The man claimed to be from a city known as Shabelskie, though no Polish cartographer or traveler had ever heard of such a place. A grand settlement— grander than Torun, if his unenthused manner when presented with Torun’s respective grandeur provided any hints. The rose-red rooftops, clay-brick walls, monuments, and pieces of history meant nothing to him.
He called himself Grzegorz Prokop. A fine Polish name, for a man who spoke fine Polish— what set him apart as peculiar in the eyes of Torun’s people, aside from his tale of Shabelskie and his disregard for Polish architecture, was his total lack of knowledge of contemporary Polish politics and major history. He knew nothing of the geography, culture, or people of his motherland, yet was as much a Pole as the king. Copernicus was just another man to him, and the royal family as well. If asked about recent wars and conquests, he’d stare confused, as though he’d never heard of Bohemia, Wallachia, Austria, Russia, or the Turks. He knew naught of Krakow or Gdansk, nor of the Lithuanian union— even the word Poland itself brought no light to his vacant eyes.
Interested parties often saw him pacing around the river, or pondering on benches before the cathedral or leaning-tower; these were the only places where a sliver of humanity flashed upon his face, showing emotion and longing for something gone, or something forgotten.
When questioned on the location of his home, Shabelskie, he would only respond with mysterious allusions to other unknown locales: “It’s west of Keslawa, north of Reckeela, and directly south of Sdetask.” When those names also elicited no recognition, he fell into more physical and cultural descriptions.
“It had formed during the ‘Endoic war of 432’ as a northeast forward camp which never dissipated. The military presence remained strong in the town ever after, but it became a cultural hub as well, with a cathedral larger than Torun’s,” he proclaimed. “It would host many tournaments and gatherings for royalty and other faces of import throughout its time in prominence, but fell somewhat out of relevancy over the past fifty years.”
The presence of a cathedral told of Christianity in his city, yet the Christian world remained a mystery to him: he knew no Pope, no emperor, no England and no France. He spoke of God and Jesus just fine, however, and could recite passage after passage of the Old Testament— but when asked of the New, his recollections became inaccurate, and he seemed to, on the spot, concoct apocryphal dialogues which occurred not how he spoke them or not at all, and his name became whispered alongside the word heretic.
General opinion, though, recognized Prokop as a lunatic and nothing more. His words consisted of mere nonsense, and his wits were snapped, they said. Perhaps he was a dimwitted individual who never received the gift of education, but even that seemed unlikely to be a resolution, given his confident cadence in speech, his refined memory, and his articulate descriptions of what he believed his home to be like— the rolling farmland of wheat and orchards, cities of grandeur not matched by that of any in Poland, the green banners wavering in the wind, speckling the tops of gray fortress walls with bursts of color, the kindness and generosity always present within his kin— but never had an answer when asked what this claimed kingdom was called. He could speak on the sky-high cathedral-like rises present in even the smallest town, the clever Romanesque self-draining roads that crossed the oft-rained-upon countryside, and the way the sun beamed down through Shabelskie’s myriad stained windows, but never more than that, leaving it firmly beyond the reach of identification for the commoner. What scholarly types found interest in the story and confronted Prokop left just as puzzled.
There was no way to rationalize the man, and so no attempts were made by most. Over time, the initial interest faded to avoidance and scorn. Most interactions he had after his first three months in Torun were with those hoping to gain some sort of sick entertainment from an ostracized individual’s strife and potential mental disruption.
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One individual hitherto unmentioned took an interest in Prokop that was neither malicious nor superfluous: Gilgam Vodolski.
Vodolski was not a government servant or a guard, nor was he a skilled investigator. Yet it was he who took the most interest in the strange man, and who took it upon himself to delve into the aphotic depths of the damaged mind when nobody else would. Simple curiosity motivated him, but simple emotions can lead to complex discoveries.
Vodolski was a baker, and one of high opinion in Torun. Twenty-eight years old, married with a child, and considered an upstanding citizen by all those who knew him. Each morn he walked down the Vistula on his way to work, watching its sunlit waters batter the stone banks and feeling the wind-carried moisture as it passed over the town, taking a few minutes of airy calm before stepping before ovens and smoke. Vodolski lived near to his bakery and was wont to leave shortly before its opening, and thus never had time to speak even to acquaintances, except to give cursory morning greetings.
When Prokop appeared one day, leaning on a rail over the river, looking out at the sparse fields of grain, Vodolski made no attempt to interact. He knew of the rumors swirling about, and he knew the active shun the community carried out; however, that was not his reason for silence. If he could have, he would have spoken to him immediately upon recognizing his identity— but time clamped him on a schedule; one that he wouldn’t break without just cause.
All day in the fragrance of fresh-baked rye, gingerbread, and swirling pastries, the same blues and golds that Prokop stared so intently across blasted through the window of the bakery, guiding Vodolski’s thoughts to the man despite the focus his craft called for. Thoughts of the obscure origin and faculties of Prokop became a fascination; it interrupted workflow, brought about errors. He’d burn a loaf of bread in absent-minded fantasy or miss a customer’s words because he was scheming imaginary ones of his own. That disruption of concentration made his anticipation more ferocious— he needed to see the man, to speak with him, to hear him. The bakery closed at nightfall, however, by which time Prokop had retreated to whatever lodgings he frequented, giving no opportunity for conversation to stifle the growth of intrigue.
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Vodolski would leave home earlier than usual the next day; he had no other option. Since seeing the leaning Prokop, the call of mystery ate a hole in his head, where it would stay until filled with the knowledge it wished for. It’s a strange quirk within the human psyche; what should be frightening to us, and what is under certain environmental and contextual changes, can be a source of pure exhilaration and fanaticism. To one such as Vodolski, hearing for the first time a story so full of outlandish mystique as the one he’d heard about Prokop, causes such a frantic effervescence of untapped fantasy to explode within the mind, that until a firm resolution is presented, the hypothetical inner-ramblings and conclusions will become endless and increasingly dramatic. Vodolski could not read and did not know of any Dantes or Homers; his mind was virgin and untouched by the fantastic, but like a nest of wasps disturbed by the slightest intrusion, could not be calmed in haste.
He woke at sunrise, kissed his wife, Klara, while she slept, threw on a coat, and left after a glance at her sleeping frame; he would eat a breakfast of leftover bread at the bakery as usual and didn’t delay with a meal or lengthy preparation.
The river was a bath of energy in the flame of the morning sun, and the fields beyond burned under a streaming glare. Long shadows sprayed down behind every rise, whether that be a building, signpost, or person. Prokop’s pitch-dark carpet of a shadow gave him away, still staring into the distance despite the overwhelming brightness. Thinking, maybe, or looking for something within the brilliance. Aside from a few other early commuters, Vodolski and he were the only two people on the street.
Vodolski said nothing in introduction but leaned his elbows on the rail alongside Prokop, fixing his stare towards the same shining horizon, eyes immediately overcome with stinging water. It was strange how the soft blue of the sky grew in the presence of an emanator so harsh in its displays of power.
“Can I hear your story?” Vodolski said.
He thought he hadn’t heard, but Prokop said at last: “You know it already if you’re asking.” A distant-sounding voice despite proximity.
“I’d like to hear it from you. Others... dilute the tales. I don’t know what to take as honest retelling and what to take as malicious fabrications.”
“Sobeit.”
Prokop took a long moment, as if absorbing new sights from the distance; a distance that must have been etched into his eyes by that point.
“I was a merchant. A wealthy one, at that. My father was too, as well as my grandfather. Our hereditary home was large. Likely the biggest in Shabelskie, though I never compared. Of course, I speak without elaboration on the general topic of Shabelskie because I’m aware of what you must already know, for you to be speaking to me at all. Shabelskie will be out of reach for your imagination, but I can use comparison to nullify its effect. Its land was this.” He nodded towards the aureate fields, full of growing life and sustenance. “It was this, but it was not called Poland. We spoke this tongue, but it was not Polish... what’s worse is that I no longer recall what my people called themselves, nor what our land was named. But... I remember the fields. Fields like these.” His voice was that of one on the verge of tears, but no alteration came to his face.
“I passed them every day, and I never took more than a glance at them, never really considering what they meant. It hit me when I came here that without those fields, there would be no nations, no cities, no people. When you look at history through that lens, it puts a lot of events into perspective. Sumer, Babylon, all the likes of those ancient peoples— if you know of them, of course —they fought for food. That valley was prosperous and fertile, and as much as it was about the land or their religions, that land became farmland, and that farmland helped build empires. The backbone of every great economy must be agriculture, or else the empire won’t last. Torun is doing well on that front... oh, I apologize. It’s difficult to keep my thoughts in one direction these days.”
Time ended the conversation there, but the two would meet in the same spot each day thereafter to continue where they left off. There was no friendship in the meetings, no questioning or ulterior motives. Just a listener and a speaker, the latter never adjusting his focused gaze from its lock on the distance.
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Though Vodolski ate leftovers for breakfast, Klara always made dinner. That night, a stew with fresh-picked mushrooms. Soft, savory, and rich. It was hard for him to eat with all the compliments he felt obliged to send her way for the cooking— mushroom dishes especially forced that out of him, with the added labor and thought they required. His son, Jakub, wasn’t always as enthusiastic, but he still ate what was put in front of him.
Vodolski didn’t enjoy delegating Klara to do all the work, so he brought home a sliver of his own cooking each day in the form of... yes, bread. The backbone of every great economy must be agriculture. He wasn’t a farmer, but Prokop’s statement made him smile.
Once dinner finished and Jakub was put to bed, Vodolski found the chance to speak about the morning’s conversation.
“I met him today, Klara.”
“Who?” she said, gathering the dirty dishes.
“Grzegorz Prokop.”
“Who is that—” She turned to look at him with a bewildered gape after recalling the name. “Why would you do that? He’s the crazy man, yes?”
“Yes, well, that’s what they say. He seemed very-much lucid to me. I saw him standing over by the bridge yesterday, just looking into the fields. There were things on his mind, I thought—I was right. Something is wrong with him, I confess, but he is sane. He’s hurt more than anything.”
She sat down on her hands, staring at the empty pot of soup, and argued no more. “Just be careful around him. Don’t get caught up in his strangeness.”
“I won’t... I have you two to worry about.”
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“I have a wife back home,” Prokop said, orange sun hitting his face and defining it with angular shade. “It’s been a year since I last saw her. Since I saw my home... things were so peaceful there. I worked most of the time, but each night when I came home, Michele and I would lounge around the hearth-fire, drinking tea. Sometimes my work required travel; mostly up to the sea. Those few weeks apart every couple of months were the largest and only stressors in my life.” He sighed and looked away from the fields for a moment to rub his eyes. “I look back on those times I took for granted, not with sadness, but joy. Even though they’re gone now, the happiness still bleeds through the memories. I was a merchant—a scoundrel who extorted coin, upcharged, sold poor product, what have you—and I did not deserve her care. I deserved the pillory.”
Only two days had passed since the two men first spoke, but already the fields had changed. The stalks of wheat stood taller, and their tips grew larger. Harvest season wasn’t far off.
“That’s the greatest gift of all. You never know it at the time, of course, but it is. You always feel it eventually. If I had just dialed it back a little, perhaps we’d still be together, perhaps I’d still be there. Maybe not, though... whatever brought me here did so for its own reasons, I suppose, but that’s just where my mind wanders. If I never left, if I never went there, if I never took it, if I never kept it, if I never... God, I can barely remember her face...”
He paused introspectively, before returning to the world. “Ah, you must go, I presume.”
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“What is it?” Klara asked, after noticing a prolonged stare from Vodolski.
“Oh, nothing. I apologize.” It wasn’t a conscious action, but one brought out by Prokop’s earlier topic. He felt drawn to her, like he’d just sobered up and gained a double awareness about his environment. The things which Prokop spoke of were cryptic and unclear, but within them were emotion and regrets so pungent that they were impossible to ignore, even without providing detail.
“Actually... thank you for all you do for me.”
“Where is this coming from?”
“From nowhere. I just want to let you know that I appreciate you,” he said, smiling.
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“One of my mercantile trips brought me to a small, remote island in the center of the northern sea. I was selling a stock of hides I’d purchased from a local hunting group. What would you call them... hare, moose, deer... others too. All sorts. All were fine enough quality, but nowhere near what I charged from them; tripled what I paid, I did, and that’s including coins only. The boat was full-up when we left. The skins were stacked high and unboxed... we brought no bedrolls or blankets or spare clothes, because we had all the furs one could need stocked just below in the hull. Stupid decision retrospectively, but it seemed fine at the time.
“It was a two-week voyage: we traveled from Shabelskie to the sea, which took two days on foot, the on-ship travel was another three days, and we’d spend four days there on the island selling our stock and buying some of their local exotics to profit with back home. They were pagan folks; worshiped old gods that we had no introduction to nor prior knowledge, and neither did our fellows back in Shabelskie, of course. That’s what made the peculiar things so valuable... their idols and relics and objects of worship were like nothing I’d ever seen before. Carven from local volcanic rocks and other sorts of rarely seen stones, some sparkling, some not, but all wondrous to behold with the exotic workmanship they’d been crafted with. I wouldn’t call it mastery of any sort— their art was crude, but crude in a way that garnered attention, like how a pure artist with no training and guided by intuition alone can stumble their way into creating a masterwork, then afterwards lose their touch after the formal introduction of rules and standardized technique to what should be a personal endeavor. It was like that— a raw display of prowess and intuitive work.”
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When Vodolski kneaded and molded and scored his puffy dough blobs that day, he thought of those exotic idols, and the things Prokop said about their workmanship— and he found truth in the statements. Just by the act of tuning out the world and ignoring the motions of his hands while pondering this subject, he had subconsciously created loaf after perfect loaf. Golden brown, flaking crust, aerated innards, the perfect alignment of ingredients and sweetness. A few days before, the same thing had brought about disastrous bread, unhappy customers— he didn’t know what changed.
“Wonderful today, Pod!” a customer said while leaving. He knew it to be true.
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“We bought up buttloads of those idols, I tell you. They were small things, but we filled two or three chests with them. They charged us hardly anything, and we just kept buying and buying. Who knows how many they had from all their years of isolation... before us Shabelskie traders and others likely from the lands still further north, they’d been untouched, working with their little stone-idols for millennia. You ever heard of Atlantis? They were like that, I think. Isolated from everyone, just living on their own. Uncontacted before us.
“They had few large animals on the island, so in truth, my upcharging might not have been as egregious as my conscience portrays it— but it felt like we were robbing them blind. All those idols— the humanoid ones especially, but the more abstract animal-like and theological ones as well —would fetch monumental prices in the markets back home. For such strange, foreign things, people would pay fortunes, and I knew it. I knew it the moment their chieftain emerged with the first box of them, also engraved with some abstract glyph... a three-headed bird, if I saw correctly.
“That bird symbol told me of the things’ immense value, even before I’d seen the idols. It’s a misconception that a lot of folks have— which I don’t blame them for, of course —that beauty is a standalone factor in the world. It is not. Those idols, without knowing whence they came or what culture crafted them, they wouldn’t be worth another glance. Beauty is inherently an act of comparison. The green of trees is appealing because we know the ruin of autumn; an infant is the epitome of innocence because we know what horror man can create. Beauty is birthed in fear. Begotten by the horrid. The most stunning works of art are those that leave the beholder aghast... or, look at this— would the sunrise truly be as overwhelming as it is if not for the dark of night that precedes it? Those idols were the same. They scared me, but it wasn’t a fear that made me wish to flee. I wanted to get closer, know more, but all of them I could— and so I did. I did...”
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Seven days had passed since their first interaction, with the depth and intricacy of Prokop’s life steadily building in Vodolski’s mind each day. Via the short, sometimes only few-second long talks, he felt like he’d come to know the man more than he knew himself, more than he knew his family. His habits, relationships, and history all laid bare; the story of Shabelskie and the kingdom within which it resided, the most interesting events of his time, the whimsies of his childhood, the emotions felt from day to day. That acquired knowledge and his obsession with the story allowed him to notice the pronounced change in Prokop when it occurred.
One morning, Prokop ceased to lean over the rail and stood erect. The air was different that day, and it wasn’t just because of the smell of wet soil from the overnight storm. An action he’d never seen in the man took full prominence: a pivot of the neck, a motion of the head. He looked around, not staring at the obscure distant point, but looking at the town. This said nothing in itself— it was rather strange that he hadn’t done so in any previous meetings —but the signal that turned it from a coincidental decision to a sign of something further was the face that Prokop made when the two men’s eyes met for the first time.
The extent to which Prokop held his emotions at bay during the following talk was shockingly apparent to Vodolski. He fidgeted with an item in his pocket, craned his head around up towards the town’s red-shingled roofs, down to the paved stone pathways, and everywhere in between, all while avoiding any further contact of the eyes.
When Vodolski took up his usual spot, this time facing the opposite direction of Prokop, the man settled himself enough to talk, though his voice held a tone softer than before.
“Today I’ll bestow the last of my memories of my home. They’re spotty, I mind you, but I shall tell what I can; what I must for you to understand...” He bit at a cuticle during a pause, and a spot of blood welled at the site.
“It was winter. Shabelskie is near to the sea I spoke of before, so the cold is thick. It weighs down on you, passing over the land like the world itself is a ship on the water. The little mercantile vessel I’d rented gouged through the waves on the way back from the island, high and frigid, with a hold of coins and artifacts and idols weighing her down. A few times— I’d only been on open water once or twice, you see —I could have sworn we were close to capsizing. None of the crew seemed as concerned as I, though. The captain just shouted commands in his native tongue to his crew, who shouted back affirmations, and we kept sailing even through the roughest of times.
“Once we landed, and the hired crew turned over the cargo to me and my partners, taking a share for themselves, and the chests were almost too much for our horses to bear. They bore it, though, for a time. It wasn’t a long ride back to Shabelskie, but the snow made it grueling, and my partners both took shelter in the first town we saw. They heeded me to do the same— I didn’t, and went on, thinking back to the determination and stoicism of the sailors amid nature’s roughest blows.
“The snow grew thicker and more intense immediately thereafter, and if I wasn’t as pious as I am, I would have led myself to heretical thoughts. I knew God would never send such a battle down to one of his faithful, but what of the islanders’ gods? What might they do to one who reaped their icons and intended to profit from them? Was bringing down the wrath of the winds and snows and waves that had assailed me to that point beyond their abilities? Not that I believed in any pagan gods, but that’s where the mind goes in times of strife.
“Whether nature or divine in cause, the snow became too heavy to struggle through, and my horse gave out halfway to Shabelskie. I felt lucky then despite that, because it had done so near a small village—I could see its church-spire cresting through the buffeting drifts, vague in the swirls, but there. With the chests so full of precious items, I could never make it on foot, however. I took them from the cart, buried them in the snow off the mainly trodden section of the highway, and left the horse where it lay. I still think about that decision; it encapsulates my monetary aspirations more than anything. It wasn’t dead then, but I left it there.
“The village was farther away than my initial glimpse portrayed, and the church not as tall. The snow sucked at my boots, and my thin jacket whipped wildly against the wind’s onslaught... as I said, we limited our stock of furs and other warmth-providers given the amount of animal skins we had piled within the ship. If I had known the weather would have taken such a drastic turn, I would have prepared more accordingly— brought an extra jacket maybe or kept a few of the exchanged furs to keep me company. Anyway, I marched for fathoms before I finally entered the town; still my vision was affected by the snowfall, but the buildings around saved me from the brunt of it and gave me the gift of a limited awareness of my surroundings.
“I could immediately tell that the place was abandoned, robbed of all warmth and life. The homes were old, wood and rock, and deteriorated beyond recognition of their former style if ever they had one. I peered my head inside a few, and their partially collapsed roofs had already admitted many mounding piles of snow in the short hours of the storm.
“The feeling which overtook me while walking in that frozen, desolate place cannot be told in words. Only the remotest explorers have experienced comparable feelings of isolation and distance from humanity. It’s likely that there were inhabited villages just a hill or two away, but they might as well have been across the planet. I had no bearing on my greater location, nor that of any other life, and walked the paths of that abandoned village as one would the remnants of some ancient leftover city of a forgotten race. The stone looked magnificent, the church, a generationally constructed cathedral— both undecorated and crumbling in truth.
“Without an alternative, I hid in the first enclosed building I discovered, though even that admitted chill winds from outside. There was no hope of flame— all the wood I found was hopelessly drenched or molded, so that any ignition and repose from the freeze was impossible. I placed my pack over myself in the absence of a blanket, huddled close in the firmest corner of the wall, and prayed that my limbs would still work when I woke in the morning, if I woke at all. I tell you: I have never felt such cold as I did that night. Never. Sleep was scarce, because as the night drew on, it grew colder. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed that my blood froze solid in my very veins; the ice clutched at my heart like a spectral hand, and movement of my muscles to stretch or adjust became laborious and painful... but I slept. I know not when, nor how, but I slept.”
His face contorted here, before leveling to neutrality again. Vodolski said nothing, afraid of further disturbing the man, and took his leave.
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The bakery’s door-chime rang as a customer entered. Without looking up from his oven, Vodolski said, “Be right there!”
The bread sat on a large wooden paddle in the flame; when Vodolski pulled the perfectly crusted loaf from the oven and turned with it in his grasp, the sight of Prokop standing at the counter caused the balance to shift and the bread to slide off into the floor. It crunched, and flour and crumbs scattered around his trembling feet.
“You—” Vodolski started, before resolving to a bewildered shaking of his head. He didn’t acknowledge the dropped bread.
Prokop looked both terrified and exhilarated as he locked Vodolski’s eyes, not averting them like he had in the morning. The same airborne feeling from earlier came back in strength, swirling around the bright bakery, dancing with the little exhausts of smoke escaping from the ovens and chimneys.
“I know you,” Prokop said, eyes firm.
“Yes—”
“No, not that. Not this bakery either. I’ve seen you. For years. For years.”
“What... are you talking about?” Vodolski didn’t follow, but the panic was contagious. Maybe he really was insane?
“You lived there! In Shabelskie! I know you!”
“No... you’re mistaken. I’ve lived in Torun my whole life.” Nonsense. It was nonsense, just like they’d said.
“I don’t remember your name... here or there... but it was you. Mustached and deeper voiced, but... you. It must’ve been. I have seen you so many times. Every day, we crossed paths on our ways to work. I think you were an administrator of some kind. I never asked, but I think that was it. God, how is this...” He clutched at his face and hair as though they were preparing to slide off his head like the bread from the paddle.
Though frantic himself, Vodolski crossed the counter and held the man’s shoulders to prevent a delirious collapse.
“Calm! Calm! Man, calm yourself.”
He took him to one of the few chairs in the small dining space and seated him, kneeling to closer comfort the man and repair his deteriorating mental state.
“What you speak of is ludicrous, but I will not call you mad. I will not. Just take a moment to collect your thoughts... I’ll grab you a coffee.”
Prokop’s face was strained and sweat-soaked, and the churning behind was clear in the bulge of his eyes and their flickering motions, scanning the bakery, scanning Vodolski.
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The coffee seemed to reclaim some of Prokop’s missing reason, and he regained speech and intelligent mannerisms. Vodolski, seated now at the table, gave him as much time as he needed to recuperate. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a few would-be customers turn away, disappointed by the closed sign hanging from the door at its earliest ever mark. Even when they noticed him and Prokop at the table, he didn’t give them attention. Instead, he sat in silence until Prokop was ready to continue his exclamation, with a much more contained voice and calmness in expression this time around.
“I apologize... I grew much too excited. Thank you for the coffee.”
“It’s quite alright, I just hoped you were okay.”
“Thank you.” He hovered over the cup, letting the steam waft over his face. “It’s just that, in that moment, when I saw your face... I realized I might never return home. Over this past year... this strange, horrible year... never did the hope waver from my heart that I would find a way back; that I would see my wife again. Seeing your face at last, though... feeling that recognition... There is just so much I’ve forgotten, so much I remember that doesn’t fit. All my education, all my knowledge... it’s either gone, or not applicable in this place, and I’ve started to accept what that means.”
Silence returned, but Vodolski was determined not to let Prokop wallow alone. The only way that he could think to help was to listen— it’s all he’d done since they met. He was not a talker; he was a listener.
“Would you like to finish your story?” he asked in the same voice he used when Jakub awoke with nightmares.
It took a moment more of coffee-staring, but Prokop said, “I will.”
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“I did not freeze that night, and all my limbs survived. My hands and feet still held all their digits, and my blood ran warm through my flesh. I laid there that morning for an indeterminate amount of time, thanking whoever for my continued life, before I realized that the cold draft was entirely vacant where it once whistled through each crack in the walls and foundations of the decrepit building. I felt no airflow whatsoever— not the subtlest gust. The room was windowless, so it took my opening of the front door to recognize the absurd change that occurred whilst I slept: the sun burned brightly in the sky, and the world was all blue and violent green. There were no signs of the previous night’s storm; not even streaks of muddy runoff or slush hanging in the shaded parts of the rooftops. Striking yellow flowers and weeds grew up outside the building as though there had never been a layer of snow at all— how portentous a thought...
“It was that— the warmth, the green, the stark blue sky, and the obscurity of the town the night before —that hid the wholesale madness of the thing that... well, I won’t infer anything, nor place any suggestions in your mind, but I will describe what I saw and what I thought, and let you come to your own conclusion about what stole me away from my home, and why I felt so shocked upon seeing your face. I reckon somewhere in your head you’ve already theorized.
“My vision the night before was diminished, yes, but I still saw the emptiness of my surroundings, the tumbledown structures and homes, the cracking pavement and unkempt layout of former residence... and above all, the simple-yet-enthralling steeple. All of that I saw, with eyes and internal sense, but I tell you— and my wits are in-tact when I say this —the village that I emerged into looked completely different from the one in which I slept.
“The stonework of the streets and foundations was firm and unperturbed by the years, lined with basins of heavily watered vegetables which spilled out on their vines. A rural grandeur impossible in populated centers held itself in the buildings, with white-painted board walls and un-shingled rooftops sloping elegantly down and connecting to one another; the place certainly held an ancient feel, but upkeep and subsistence had staved off decline. In the air was the smell of mirth and prosperous, easygoing life— they had little monetary wealth, I could tell, but these people were rich in culture, far beyond anything I had seen theretofore.
“I could not believe such a place could even exist within my country, but low-and-behold, the first person who saw me waved and greeted me in my very own tongue. A man younger than I, but hearty and stained by work and effort. I wanted to ask where him and the others had been the night before, how such incredible sights had hidden behind the falling snow, how I’d been caught so deep in the well of illusion to misrepresent their home— but a surprise came over me before the words could leave their tight-knit spot at the bottom of my throat. No amount of forced swallowing could rid the blockage, as the sight drew all the saliva from my tongue. I wasn’t scared, though; with all the strange beauty around me, I wasn’t scared. It was just a brief, stunning moment of awe that drew me away from myself.” He cleared his throat. “What I saw could result from no illusion or preceptory misfire, no trick of the light. The imposing church that the day prior had guided me through the snow, looming so high above the village... it did not exist. There was nothing there. Nothing at all.”
The words hung around the room and drew the light out of the building, faster than even the fleeting sun could. Prokop was right; Vodolski did come to his own conclusion on the topic, but it was too absurd to verbalize. Both men sat in silence, listening to the crackle of the oven-flames across the room. Vodolski was off and running in terms of ideas— all horrible and all fantastic.
The logical thing to do would be what the rest of Torun did: call Prokop crazy, kick him from the store and demand he never return— but Vodolski believed him. It was the way his eyes glossed over as he spoke, the emotion displayed in every terrible point of focus, the memories that crossed the gap of space and implanted themselves inside Vodolski’s own mind.
“But is that... even possible?” He was asking himself as much as Prokop.
“I’m here now, am I not?”
“That’s just—”
“I asked every person I met for the first six months of my time in Torun. Not a single one had ever heard of Shabelskie or any other place in my country. I don’t know how to rationalize it, but the fields of my home are not these. They glow the same, and the sun that shines on them to make that glow is the same, but they are different.” He turned and looked out the window; stars hung low on the darkening horizon, and the wheat-plots were a stain of dull yellow in the absence of light. “Your town is pretty. I once thought it was amazing— that was when I first arrived. But it is different from mine. Very much so. My home is not here.”
Vodolski didn’t know what to say. There was no comfort he could bring to one in such an extraordinary circumstance— a situation so far beyond of reality’s bounds that his mind couldn’t comprehend the very problem itself, much less what had brought it about— there were no words to quell the sorrow that must have raged in Prokop’s heart.
“In Shabelskie, we have an idiom applicable to almost any situation; positive, negative, neutral, whatever.” He held his coffee near his face but did not drink. “When orange roots rise, the time has come to roost. It’s in reference to a type of bird: the yellow spare... oh it doesn’t matter; you wouldn’t know it. The meaning, though, is this: when symbols rise around you in the world, take from them their meaning, and act accordingly.” He smiled a little. “My roots rose when I went into that strange village, and I must act now. I should’ve then...”
Prokop drank the rest of his coffee, likely cold by then, before rising and stretching. He said, “Thank you, sir, for your company and care. I apologize if I frightened you today,” and pulled a small object from his pocket, placed it on the table, and walked to the door, where he stopped.
“Tuutone—Tuutone was my kingdom’s name.” Laughing, he stepped out into the night. Vodolski watched him cross the broad windowpane before he disappeared beyond its length. Distantly, he thought he heard a series of elated hoots and hollers, but with the sounds of the ovens and the river lapping outside, he couldn’t be sure.
Vodolski spent much of that night motionless in the bakery, ruminating and staring out the window where he last saw Prokop. He felt like he’d been taken on a journey without leaving the building’s walls; like he’d ended up somewhere new. He had hardly spoken throughout the long conversation— if it could be called such —but Prokop acted as if he helped lead him to an inner epiphany. Vodolski pondered that, but mostly the outrageous tale of wonder. Not in disbelief, nor in judgmental scorn, but just letting the wildness shine over him. Hearing a story that breaks the boundaries of what one considers possible, whether a fabrication or real, can change one’s life and mind forever. It’s for the same reason that literature and religion were never the same after The Commedia—once a perspective is changed, it can never return to what it had once been.
Sitting on the table where Prokop had placed it was one of the charms or idols from the island trip. Rough, dark, but stunning. Evidence of sanity and truth.
––––––––
On his way home, Vodolski stopped at the spot where he and Prokop met, holding the little stone idol. It was a peculiar thing; the black stone sparkling in the moonlight like it held some mirror-like quality hidden beneath the dark, the shapely design of representation, and the precious rings of metals around the neck. It was clearly some sort of fertility charm judging by the mammary protrusions on its abdomen, but something about it differed from any he’d seen before. There were some preserved in the town’s archives and museums from the barbarian tribes of old, but those bared only a small resemblance to the idol. The face was a smudge of unclear, long faded-dye, and the stone was interwoven with a fibrous paste, like hair and grasses and rope had all been meshed with the still molten magma. The darkness of the material and the geometric back-side designs coursing over its surface screamed out that it was not made by any normal means, nor by any normal men. Holding it pressed a feeling of extraterrestrial wonderment into Vodolski, one that fell unplaced on the boundaries of the rational— for even in its modified state, Vodolski’s mind was incapable of grasping fully the incredible tale which Prokop had just strung him. Could it truly be that this object and the man he had just spoken to came not from his earth? That they inhabited some other place, not altogether different, but changed enough in custom, culture, and history, to make the alterations discernable? Could a crude icon carved from igneous stone divulge such extensive truths? What oversight of God could allow such a substantial mistake in natural order to happen? It was too much for one night.
When Vodolski returned home, it was far past his usual hour, and Klara was already asleep. She left out a pot of soup, but he was not the slightest bit hungry. He rolled into bed next to her, placing the otherworldly relief on the nightstand, where he stared at it until sleep came upon him.
––––––––
Vodolski conjured fantastic dreams that night of a city he took to be Shabelskie, and of the sparkling countryside thereof. The towering castles that rose above the rooftops; the tremendous churches that towered even higher; the black shapes of cloud-shadows crossing the scene at intervals and showcasing the inherent glow throughout the city— all of it was tinted through a lens of smearing imagination and a sky-down perspective, as though he was a deity hovering benignly above the scene. He saw the people going about their days, the workers tilling plains of endless wheat, and the guards carrying flags that held no resemblance to any he’d seen through his limited knowledge of history. There were beasts that resembled horses or dogs or hogs, but were not so, given away by a stray horn here and there or a misshapen skull, leg-structure, or vestigial limb-nub poking out from an unnatural place; the plants that grew were tall and vibrant, even taller than the buildings in some areas, and the towers that leaned above them did so with a supernatural control over gravity despite insignificant visible supports.
There, in that city of atemporal wonder, where the unreal was real, and the special was ordinary, he could sense the presence of Grzegorz Prokop. Somewhere in the tangle of avenues and rooftops, exotic flora and fauna, and forgotten medieval wonder, there lived a wife happier than all the other happy people, for her husband had returned after a year away.
The dream was beyond pleasant, beyond joyful, and as it faded and faded into the obscurity of a deeper sleep, he felt a conscious thought somewhere inside— a yearning. The desire to be admitted to this superior land, to revel in its awe himself. Even if fancy alone had crafted the dream-world, he grasped at the image as his awareness receded. It was strange— Vodolski loved his life, his family, and his work; he wouldn’t give them up for the world. But this fantastic sight, just beyond the veil of dream, called to him, beckoning him forward and into its bright and golden world of trouble-free existence and pronounced majesty. He’d wanted that ever since he heard the name Shabelskie first whispered.
––––––––
His dreams were vivid, but that was not indicative of a restful slumber. Prokop woke before the sun’s rise, far earlier than he wished, spurned by subconscious desire. He wanted to see Prokop again, to gaze upon the spectacular avenues of Shabelskie, to hold the little idol of extradimensional proof up in its rising sun and watch as it took in all the brilliant sparkles of day.
After stepping outside, he didn’t realize in his determined stride the sights which had appeared around him. Once he did, though, he nearly collapsed to his knees and stifled a joyous shout. Jutting from the ground were titanic walls of Arthurian grandeur, ferns as large as people, buildings taller than mountains; sea-blue rooftops covering perfect yellow walls from view of the sky, wall-length murals painted with pigments only seen in the garb of royals, statues of mythical beasts and figures. Bushy-tailed reptiles scavenged in drain-openings, and yellow birds picked at protruded roots in extensive greenspaces. All the creatures were delicate, even the predators which watched from treetops, waiting for their chances to swoop down; accipitrine things which were not quite avian, not quite mammalian.
Vodolski’s footsteps were soft on the stone, as though the look of another’s eye would break him from the dreamscape and send him whirling back through universal causeways to Torun, where the rest of his days would pass with the withheld knowledge of greater things dormant in his body.
There were no sights of the norm— even the smallest trivialities were altered, but still recognizable. Doorways were larger than in Torun, streets wider, grasses of different lengths and frequency, flowers of strange species barren of stamen and stigma. Streetlights burned through the day without visible flames, and music projected from the street itself as though hidden synchronized bands were buried beneath its stones and tuned by some invisible conductor. The cathedral at the city’s center dwarfed any he had seen, and the sweet smell of untasted cuisines drafted from its direction, doubtless from markets and grocers before its halls. Light was everywhere, even in shadow, and everything was grand and perfect.
It was an impossibility, yet an undeniable truth: the fortress which enclosed him was Shabelskie, a city of wonder unknown to Europe, but with a Euro-architectural style executed to a level of perfection never achieved in Rome, Prague, Vienna, Paris, Antwerp, or anywhere else. More amazing than anything his imagination could produce yet surpassed by even mightier cities elsewhere in wonderful Tuutone. Vodolski walked within a realm of fantasy, a dream brought to life. The colossal walls hid them from sight, but Vodolski knew beyond were fields of flowing wheat and barley, turning the world gold, matching it to the life-bringing sunrise beams. He didn’t need to see them to know their beauty.
But the grandeur’s initial wave only gave way to realization. There was no river there, and there was no bakery. When he turned to look at his home— the one he had entered the night before and left only minutes ago —he could not pick it out from the symmetrical rows around him. Shabelskie was not Torun; it was not his home. He understood Prokop completely.
When Vodolski finally held the icon up in the sunlight as it reached over the crenellated walls, letting the beams glide over and permeate the porous stone, witnessing the iridescent contortion of light and its reflection on the metal bands... he felt nothing. The same sparkles that captured his attention the night before glistened in the solar warmth, but they no longer seemed so worthy of spectacle. Another stone on a rocky shore. He realized then that in his morning rush, consumed with longing and anticipation and fantasy, he hadn’t kissed Klara goodbye, and he couldn’t even recall her being there when he awoke. When he thought of her and Jakub, the associated faces in his mind became smudged beyond recognition.