the emissary.2

The Emissary was dazed upon...

waking...

And we just wanted to know...

Anything at all...

Anything we could...

To better stand...

or to fall.

The one physician among us made his assessment...

"There is nothing physiologically wrong with him..."

He'd said.

Countless hours and...

Inquiries...

Psychological...

Surgeries...

But the man remembered...

Nothing.

Nothing about the past...

Nothing about his journey...

Here.

Hours begat days that bled...

Continually.

The man fluttered in and out of consciousness.

I vaguely remarked how...

Though he had already been among us for some...

Time...

No one had thought to wipe the blood away from his gaunt and vapid...

Face...

His clothes...

Tattered and gore adorned...

Come bilious unto our peaceful...

Sleepy...

State.

None of the elders knew quite what to do with him.

The Magistrate said repeatedly...

"Though he clearly comes from a war torn place, we must not permit his chaos to enter into our...

Space."

The deaf and dumb attended him.

This was deliberate,

Of course.

So as not to perpetuate or propagate his...

News.

I had been sent with a host of others out unto the fields to fortify the perimeter with...

Gates.

As if the wall had not been enough, but...

Clearly it had not been...

Enough...

For the Emissary had nevertheless come unto...

us.

A torrent of turquoise and blue took hold of winds and usurped the crimson horizon unto an...

end.

Soon abject darkness had its say and the dreams attached to colours and sky just blew...

away.

The elders had taken to keeping vigil over the Emissary.

Six of them sat at his right upon wooden, twine-bound stools...

While six others sat at his left upon smooth and perfect stones.

They debated endlessly the inevitability of the conflict that would arise once the man awoke and began spewing his venom unto the peaceful ether that they had forever breathed and beheld with reverence.

Six of the elders suggested that...

The deaf and dumb care givers be removed from that quiet hovel so that the physician among them could simply put the man to...

Sleep...

So to speak...

As it were...

Whilst the other six vehemently opposed this point of...

view.

I was out in the fields...

awake at the gates...

I had made with the others...

But amid the passing of those long...

hours...

None of us could agree whether the man who had come to us was a blessing...

Or just some...

blasphemy.

Eventually the tension became...

palpable.

One either believed the man had come to help us or...

to destroy us.

There was no...

in-between.

The physician pronounced a new affliction that had

descended

upon

us

"tumult"

But this quickly became a point of contention for the advisors to the...

Elders.

At every rung, there was increasingly...

contention.

One of the elders handed me a satchel full of coin just as the sun was again setting...

And the colours of the sky were again...

raging.

A satchel full of coin just so that I would impose our...

stillness...

Once...

again.

"Make sure that the Emissary never speaks a word... never poisons the minds or the hearts of our people, and you shall take your place amongst the astral ones for...

sure.

Nights on end obscure the...

dawning...

day...

When one welcomes...

conflict...

When one...

craves...

it...

As if nothing else in life...

matters...

Though some will swear that nothing...

does.