As part of a seven-part book report, my sophomore English class was required to write a short story that either involved characters from the book, used the same style as the author of the book, or was at all related to what the book was about.  The book I chose to read was titled ‘Mad Merlin’ by J. Robert King.  So, I coerced Merlin the Great into telling my the epilogue of his life …haha, yeah.  Anyways, this is what my strange mind came up with.

Merlin the Mad

Autumn is dying slowly into winter, the world slipping into an icy era and what has happened of late will fade into memories, warped by the passage of time and molded by the perceptions of those to follow.  Our tale will end when I, too, perish from this earth, and I am both filled with fear and delight for my time is nigh.  Autumn is a weary age, and I but a weary soul, wandering these shadowed paths of memory and the land, waiting for what must come to be.  Seldom are things eternal and there hasn’t been a mortal being to endure longer than forever yet, though legends last beyond the end of our lineage in the future generations to come.  Sometimes, even I feel the awe of that …and I haven’t been truly awed in so …so …long …

            The wind is turning chill, can you detect the change?  In the wee hours of the morn, as the sun still sleeps, there glitters frost upon the painted leaves blanketing the ground.  The tree limbs are naked to the cold, cold rain and a hollow, haunting howl echoes across the land.  Winter is a time of hibernation for all creatures great and small, mankind and fey alike …the world is drowsing, battered and exhausted and so even we children of legend born must toddle off to bed so the earth may take her rest.  A moan is rising from the land and our voices lift in drained response, the glorious golden sun sinking low in the sky as deep night crawls across the heavens above.

            The wolfhounds are baying as the forest is illuminated one last time by the dimming rays of the twilight sun, crimson and orange and all the muted tones of autumn exploding in a final, vibrant display of earthen magic that, too, is leaving.  The mourning cry of the great beasts falls onto my ears in a solemn requiem as heavenly to me as the isle of Avalon and her caretakers.  This dreadful keening, so beautiful despite what it foretells …I have heard this song before, the day Arthur, King of Britannia, fell to Mordred’s sword.

            “Merlin …my son …my child …” A voice I have not heard in nearly as many years as I have lived, in whichever form of the moment, one of the three voices that can make my heart leap and twist with joy and honest affection.

            “Mad Merlin, Madame,” I whisper, my voice gruff and choked, “even to you.”

            Gentle laughter tinged with understanding and sorrow drifts to my ears, insubstantial arms wrapping about my shoulders …I can almost imagine feeling her warm breath against my cheek, the fragrant scent of apple blossoms wafting into my nostrils.  There are tears in her chiming laughter and in her voice as she holds me close as if I were a little child.  “Oh Merlin, Merlin …Mad Merlin of Camelot, Advisor to the fallen king, son of sorcery and darkness …so many weighty titles, so heavy is the burden you must bear.  Mad Merlin, my son.”

            “Mad Merlin must join his liege, mother …Mad Merlin must perish from the earth just as all things eventually do …the world begs of me for it to be, so she can rest.” I am slowly sinking, my heart and mind filled with all the pain, rage, grief, joy, love and hatred that I had seen and felt in my long life.  Life now, a legend in the centuries to come, made immortal by pompous mortal beings just like me, self-righteous little twits who think that they have a feeling for the truth of what happened long ago and far away.  Bah, there is only a truth in the living moments, not in distorted stories or sketchy memories, the truth of my life is right now, this very second, but the truth of my past is a stranger now to even me.  It is foolish to long for the past that can never come again, and to live out one’s life in memories, but everyone is a fool …perhaps I’m just becoming pessimistic in my golden years, or perhaps I’m only just now seeing the truth of the matter for what it is, hah.

            Mother is weeping, I can tell, her feelings wash onto and over me as if they are reflections of my own.  Strange, how those gone and dead may still exist around us, still holding the potential of emotion and rational thought.  I’m truly mad, for I’ve been able to see those dead from this earth since the day of my creation, my birth …they say visions such as mine only come to the terribly old or the loonies.  Bah, the fools.

            I should be dead already.  No person in this age ought to live as long as I have, not with all the poverty and war and the tedious, tragic stuff such as that.  Mmm, yes, when watching others fall beneath blades slick with crimson blood becomes something in the background of the mind and heart, when the earth herself is pleading for stubborn souls to depart, when one is no longer awed by much of anything …it is a sign that you have overstayed your welcome.  Everyone I have ever known in life has fallen to the grim touch of death, and still I persevere and I know not why.  The days are dwindling by now, creeping to the standstill of winter and I imagine that no one will even notice that the earth is slumbering.

            People think of the seasons as in the passage of a certain number of months, four seasons to a year and all that, but they’re wrong.  The seasons last lifetimes and millennia, not a handful of weeks.  Autumn, the bloodiest season, the season of power and mourning, the season of change …ah, autumn is sinking into winter and my old bones are growing cold.  It shan’t be long now, and I am startled at the twinge of fear deep inside.  The one thing that no human creature has ever been able to absolve themselves from, the fear of the uncertainty.  Passage into the greatest mystery of life: Death.  How utterly ironic.

            “Dusk is settling in, mother,” I murmur as my eyes watch the burning ball of muted orange dropping beneath the horizon, shadows dancing into being as the colors of the world darken.  My eyes are tired as well, tired like the rest of my body, like my soul.  I can feel mother taking my hands as she steps up in front of my and suddenly my hands are young and alive in hers.  My eyes widen with wonder and a boyish laugh escapes my throat.

            “Come, Mad Merlin, off to bed with you,” Mother calls, her hands holding mine tightly as we follow the last fading beam of sunshine into the dark, into the world of dreams.