Slicing wood, one gloomy, Monday morning

For the fire fuel, at home hardly burning

A chilling fright, a voice my stomach churning

Behold with the mist! A ghostly figure yearning

 

Gliding across snow, he moved as one lifted

Towering tallness, size like a bear, gifted

Intensly white, through the darkness he rifted

And when he spoke, almost soul from body sifted

 

“Much excuses, kind sir, of this heavenly abode,

To tempt from your lumbering with the axe in your hold,

I search for a house, compared to yours, two-fold,

Creviced by a dark lake and a mountain of old.

 

A concern of uptmost importance, is this here letter

To bereaved parents, a most regrettable matter

A brave youth, found killed, dead in a fetter

Fought with the enemy, who got the better.

 

Much fatigue, I have endured in travels, kind sir

Journeying through lands, heard of only in lore

Would you perhaps of cool water have more?

To quench the thrist of a wayman, poor.”

 

“I certainly know the house of which you speak

Just yonder this forest, is your mountain peak

Forgive my absence as I’ll your refreshment seek”

With fear I turned shaken, humbled and meek.

 

But retraced to find to utter surprise

Alas! Just a dream! As I rubbed my eyes

The body dissapeared, gone without goodbyes!

Not a whisper or footstep divulging his size!

 

I embraced relief! What a horrible vision!

Such a fearful man on such a dreadful mission!

With laughter, grasped my axe, ready for fission

Suddenly I screamed, incapable of emission!

 

My eyes widened, my tool, grasped tighter

My heart thumped loudly, even through my sweater

Turning wildly, to glimpse the vanisher,

For on the stump, where my axe must mark – the letter!

 

Tempted to almost strike it in half,

But pity saved me, on the parent’s behalf

It must be delivered, no point to ask!

Axe in hand, I proceeded, resigned to my task

 

Persisting through the forest of which I told

Slicing through branches with the axe in my hold

Till I came to a house, compared to mine, two-fold

Creviced by a dark lake and a mountain of old

 

A place I had seen on many an occasion

Holding a fearful, an intriguing infatuation

Since a child, to intrude it – a temptation

But rumoured all who did, disappeared into cessation

 

I stood now shaking, childhood’s fears surfaced

Tentative knocks, knuckles sweaty and nervous

A grown man with an axe reduced to cowardly service

The door creaked open to an aged eye through the crevice.

 

“Kind sir, I hope you might pardon my intrusion

But I have here a letter especially for your inclusion

News of your son, long lost, I believe it makes mention”

Upon that his eyes widened as if he saw illusion.

 

And with his eyes, the door also widened

To reveal a small man, time had wizened

He took the letter in amazement heightened

His wife by his side now, curious and frightened

 

“Young man, you are most certainly a noble saviour

For years we were unaware of our son’s whereabouts or behavior

But never priveleged to learn from a teacher or reader

We ourselves are illiterate, could we ask for one more favour?”

 

Knowing of the letter’s content, I was hesitant

But their kind, old eyes were so persistant

Suddenly curious, reluctance evanescent,

I opened and began to read the letter at present…

 

It read – “In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Gracious!

The Breaker of tyrants, The Elevator of peasants

The Expander of hearts, The Constrictor of coffins,

The Shaper of the stupendous, and all things malicious!

 

I write about your son and unacquainted you are with me

I hope this letter of his fate, comfort to him, might be

So I placed this letter in a bottle and then the bottle into the sea

And prayed only to Allah, that it might somehow find thee

 

I regret to inform that your son, in the winter just passed,

While guarding the borders of our blessed land, tasked

Captured by the enemy, with torture they asked

He never relented till, in his blood they basked

 

His bruised corpse was found on the bank of a river

Buried the coming morrow with full military honour

Yes, I lament that your son was a sinner!

I was too and so I write you this letter

 

You see, the nights on which we were not on duty

Were spent with strong wine and women of beauty

Cards and dice, wages were waged keenly

And disputes were settled with fists obscenely

 

Until three nights past, after your son’s parting

While I lay heedless in sleep, consciousness departing

He appeared before me in vision, in a coffin confining

Alas! In a bed of fire, in torment frying!

 

‘O soldier, who so loyally guarded my side,

What evil causes you such anguish?’ I cried!

‘You won’t have long to wait, just a moment here bide

He’ll come very soon, an assumption tried!’, he replied.

 

Sure enough he came, a most gruesome figure

Black face, black eyes, black nails hither!

With wafting stench to make a mother’s love wither

He drew close, straggling, shouldering a boulder

 

Right up close to the lump that was my comrade

And moaning with a groan filling me with dread

The fiend lifted the stone, weighty and of lead

And brought it crashing down right upon his head!

 

Horrified, I ran up next to his body

His face crushed, teeth in eyeballs bloody

With strange insides, his nose ran in flurry.

When suddenly! His face reformed in a hurry!

 

‘Do not worry over my plight, old friend

This is for the Quran, Allah did send

As youth learning, to it we’d tend

As adults to implement it, we’d end!’

 

With that he sat up as if on a barber’s chair

For the beast returned with a hook to tear

He placed it in his mouth with heartlessness rare

I turned my face, with gore well, I didn’t fare

 

Besides, his scream was enough to fright

Unable to bear, I thought to look, I might

I almost died from the ghastly sight

Half his face had been wrenched into the night!

 

There was only one eye left and half a nose

Half his brain visible from this pose

‘This is for slander we did – of all God knows

Of much more penance this soul owes’

 

His voice, before sleep, I remember it still

Can you imagine the sound half a tongue would instill?

And his lips, to form the vowels that he willed

Were forced to smile with all the pain that he feeled

 

Suddenly I wanted all this to end

No matter what becomes the fate of my friend

It was then he emitted a smell, which did offend

Even the putrid beast followed my trend

 

Marched forth, reeking, dirty and naked

He was into a fiery oven thrown and embedded

Forget its size, it was its heat to be remembered!

Millions like him inside, all being burnt with embers

 

‘Save yourself! Don’t join me here!

The chastisement here is too intense to bear

Here dwell adulterers and these companions swear

Of their short pleasure they neither remember nor care!’

 

His skin, known once to be the whitest of white

Charred to a colour, now darker than night

But the flame, you see, is such a terrible fright

For I saw there kneeling, even kings of might!

 

I wish I could say it did all end there

When into a river he was swiftly thrown bare

A river of blood, aghast I did stare

Smelling of meat rotten and animal hair

 

He tried keeping aloft but was clearly drowning

Each time, he went down, he was mouthfulls swallowing

He struggled to the shore with all might trying

But there the beast into his mouth was stones casting!

 

Resigned, he returned back to the depths

Sure to return, when running out of breaths

To me he turned urging me to swear to my death

To never near usury, I’ll suffer similar lest

 

Suddenly the blood, it started sinking

To the shore he rushed, swiftly swimming

I grasped his hand to keep him from falling

For a giant hole, to unknown depths was appearing

 

‘Let go,’ he cried, ‘from this you can’t save me

It is for the arrogant, punishment you must let be

Till Judgement’s Day we shall be here falling free

Falling faster and faster, till we’ll recoil our knees

 

But please I ask you of just one favour

Return with all you’ve seen back to my mother

From our Lord, ask her, to make just one prayer

Forgiveness. A mother’s prayer, to Allah, dearer.’

 

With that he was bereft from my grip

I awoke stunned, suddenly and in a fit

From that day on, into sin I never slip

As I recall boulders, hooks, flames and whips…”

 

I concluded the letter not sure what needed to be done

I looked up to see white faces, suddenly older, orphaned of fun

I turned to leave them to be alone with remembrance of their son

Wood needed cutting, before the setting of the Sun…