132

(Note: Published a day late due to some blogger downtime)

The steps down into the sewers were slippery underneath Orphic’s bare
feet. He could feel the moisture squeezing out between his toes as his
weight compressed the moss. The passage way down to the sewers was
narrow so he carried the boy sideways. Hallie held the torch up
towards Orphic giving him enough light.

“Your feet.” The torch made a wooshing sound as she swung it towards
Orphic and pointed it at his feet. “You have no boots. It will be hard
on your feet down here. There are many sharp rocks.” Orphic could hear
her scraping rocks underneath her boots for effect.

“If we live I will gladly pay the price of sore feet.” Orphic was
almost at the bottom of the stairs and could now see the glowing
reflection of the torch in Hallie’s eyes. “Don’t act surprised. You, a
teacher in the temple know a furoo on sight. “Orphic stepped onto the
rocky floor of the sewer and faced Hallie, who had taken a step back
to make room. “It’s all right you know. I was in the temple and I
left. It was a long time ago. The way I live now doesn’t make me
happy, but shame…no. Where I live you can’t feel shame. Too much of
that, shame self-pity, and you’ll be eaten alive. People prey on that.
The evil ones will sense that and eat you alive. So we furoo, we leave
that behind.”

“But the old ones,” Hallie began to walk, “that is where they end up is it not.”

“Where? Shame?”

“Yes, isn’t that where the crumple men live? Ragged, blind drunk,
their eyes seemingly always on the very or tears or rage. Is shame not
their home?”

“It is. But they don’t last long there. They end up there when they
see that it’s ending. Too old for the old games, too old for any of
it. Then they make the mistake of surveying their lives. Of looking
back and trying to figure out what it was all worth, why they existed
in the first place. Then, then they feel shame. But it’s a mistake.”

“I agree, there is no shame in…”

“Not the shame,” Orphic said cutting Hallie off. “looking back on
their lives and expecting meaning. Hoping that old age would take
their life and turn it into some sort of story. A beginning, a middle,
and an end that would somehow lift them above. That is a mistake. If
there is any glory…” Orphic winced as a sharp rock dug into his right
foot. Hallie said nothing and let him continue. “…it’s in surviving.
Surviving when there is none to witness, there is glory in that. You
don’t need a story, life isn’t a story, glory passes by every minute.”

“I still think you need boots.”