Once there was one who sailed the sea. He saw many foreign lands and met with many ambassadors, buerucrats, and emporers. However, he eventually tired of the roaming lifestyle and decided to settle down. He had accumulated a small fortune in his wanderings, and so bought himself a small, clean home on an island off the shore of a little country. There, he watched the seagulls nest and fly about the cliffs which separated land from sea. More than anything else, he wished to soar through the air as they did.
He was still fit, and spent his time on that island making boats. Occasionally children from the fishing village on the mainland would float out on homemade to his little island, and he would teach them woodworking and navigation while telling them stories of his adventures.
Time passed, and he aged. He did not need much; his garden kept him fed for half the year, and he fished and salted and stored seafood for the winter. One year, a particularly bad storm ruined much of the nearby fishing village. He housed the sick, wounded, and elderly on his island in his clean house as the young men rebuilt the village. He let those whose fishing boats had been destroyed use the ones he had made. He opened his old cache of treasure and gave out some money to help several families who had been particularly devestated. Eventually, the village recovered and life was restored to normal, with opinions of the man and his island much raised. Older children began coming to listen to his stories, and tales of the old boatmaker, and how he had helped the village, spread. These tales- as tales do- became more and more exagerated as they were told, until whispers of an exiled king hoarding a stolen treasury were passed back and forth in disreputable dockside taverns far up the coast. It was these rumors that caused a young Mr. Odysseus Sullivan, down on his luck, to gather a group of his friends and a vessel in order to seek out this king, and bring about a little more equality in the world.
The motly crew disguised themselves as merchants, and stopped in fishing village after fishing village along the coast. They claimed to be restocking their food stores, and asked nonchalantly about anyone odd living alone on islands off the coast. Eventually, a merchant told them about the old boatmaker and his little island and his small clean house, and so off went Mr. Sullivan to the fishing village across from the boatmaker. Some of Sullivan's friends insisted that they immediately go in force and ransack the place, but Sullivan himself decided on a more cautious route. He would vist the boatmaker with the other children and young men to listen to stories, and while there, either attempt to discern the treasure's location- or, at least, likely hiding places. Then they would wait for night and, if he had been sucessful, quickly nab the treasure and make good their escape. If he was not able to find the treasure, he would at least find where the boatmaker slept. That way, they could quickly ambush him and force the him to tell them where his treasure was.
And so Odysseus O'Sullivan joined the small group of boys who cast off of the fisherman's warf, and rode the rolling waves until they beached on the sandy shores of the boatmaker's island. They pulled their small craft up to dry land, and then made their way up the long winding path they had made between the rocky steppes which led up to the boatmaker's tiny clean house. They walked through the large wooden opening (tall enough for three men, standing on eachother's shoulder's, to walk through) into the spacious room beyond. The old boatkeeper greeted them in his usual booming voice, and launched into the tale of how he had rescued a Sultan's daughter from bandits. It was a favorite, and the group settled into comfortable positions around the boatkeeper, who had pulled up his old sea chest to rest his legs as he spoke. It was as if the boatmaker had cast a spell. As Sullivan looked around, his fellow human's eyes became somewhat glazed, their faces less alert- so entranced were they by the boatmaker's fable! Only Sullivan himself seemed to be unaffected. He realized, he must somehow be immune to whatever magics the sorcerous old exile was weaving. He was disconnected from the crowd that surrounded him. He had never been like them much at all. He had always been alone. He saw that now- he recalled the night he had become a man; fighting off those pirates who were harassing the demimondaine on the shadow-dappled steetcorner outside his uncle's house. She had taken him home and laid him out on her red silk sheets... and his mind felt nothing but disgust as his body moved on its own. He watched themselves crudely rut from somewhere outside of himself, the experience graciously cut off by her husband coming home. Elated, as the crunching fists came down again and again; first on him, then her. Roughly picked up, broken, and tossed out of the door, he felt as if he could float above the cobblestones forever. He had once tried explaining what he had felt to his peers. Laughs and a crude joke. He only hesitated for a second before joining in. Never since had he felt when others did, when he was supposed to. One of his friends, an oddity, a self-proscribed poet, spoke of love and women. Everyone else had nodded, understanding. The poet had put into words an experience they all before had felt, looks passing between them as they affirmed that the other also knew what each was unable to express. Sullivan dipped his head.
And saw that it was dusk. The old boatmaker had finished his tale. The group was picking themselves up. Sullivan left with them. By the time he got back to the others, he had had enough time to think. "The boatmaker is a sorceror," he said, "and has this village warped and wrapped up in his magicks. If we assault him directly, he will utterly wipe us away. Leave and hide around the cape for a week, and then return. I will remain and figure out his weakness. Make no mistake, he has been rewarded by Sultans, so surely still has some gold left." Grumbling, but fearful, the ruffians did as he said, and set sail, leaving Sullivan behind.
It was not until the day before his friend's return that another local group of boys set out to visit the boatmaker. Sullivan once again joined them as they cast off, beached, and walked through the tall wooden doors that led into the spacious living-room of the boatmaker. The group settled as the gnarled old storyteller took up his position on top of his sea chest. He spoke this time not of adventure and trial, but of the different people he had met over the years. "Things seem the most real when they're in here!," he pushed a finger at Sullivan's head. "I once knew an artist and an alchemist. The artist used to paint what he thought was beautiful: the wind in a field, a falling star behind the clouds... and the alchemist used to gaze at the artist's work for hours, enchanted."
"One day, the alchemist- through his experiements- discovered the secret of capturing time itself! He could contain an instant and put it on a piece of special parchment. Excited, he showed what he could do to the artist. 'Look, friend! Now I too can capture scenes as you do, only instead of it taking months, it only takes me days to capture them- perfectly!' The alchemist decided to capture his favorite scene from the artist's work: a falling star. He worked for many months, setting up his equipment every night and gazing at infinite sky, waiting for the perfect star. He missed many, he was either a second too late or his equipment failed at a critical moment. Eventually, through his preseverece, he did it. A falling star, in all of its perfect glory, trapped forever on his piece of parchement. I was there the day he finished developing it. As he pulled the special parchment out of its final chemikal vat, he was almost crazed with excitement. But when he saw his finished work, something broke inside of him. He passed the parchmet to me, and left without a word. I never saw him again. I still have it... here, look! It is as if I am holding a window, looking out and seeing the moment as perfectly as if the star was falling across the sky as I speak. But I think that the alchemist saw something up there and in the artist's painting, something that was only inside of his head. He thought that if only he could get exactly what he saw- perfectly- into something... I don't know. Did he want to share it? So he could give it to other people, and whatever he had in his head would be inside of theirs as well?"
"When I told this to the artist, the artist looked sad, and then said something to me in his native tounge. I could not understand, and he had to translate what he meant into this language. He said, 'It broke his heart, when he saw it. This unnoticed thing that is happening always. It is rap^on,' - I did not know this word, and asked him to explain it. 'Rap^on is, it is the space in between. When a person wishes to be seeing my work, sometimes they see more than I did mean to intend, sometimes less, but never exactly what I did see. What they see is depending on what they see before, but is different that what I see before. Yes?' I didn't understand what he meant.
'Here, here. There is world all over, right now us, we see different things, yes? You see table, I see... that bird, you see? It has action, where it goes up. I do not know the word for it, so I make work, work bringing to mind in me that action. But say you, you have never seen a bird before! My work does not be meaning anything to you! That is rap^on, the space from you to me. All I can do is tell and make work that brings your attention to what I am seeing and hoping that you will be seeing it too. If not and you be seeing something else that is good, that is good for me also. But it was not good to my friend, that he saw rap^on, and it broke his heart. If he showed this, they would all say of course about how exact it is, having never seen such things before. That he did not want, he loved the sky! But they would not see it as like he did, he knew. Rap^on. You be showing enough to push and remind, in a way just not to distract, and others will see what you do not show all more real.'"
This visit, the boatmaker was just talking to them. Sullivan looked about as words of remembrance and narratives and recollections rolled past him. There was no gold in the thick sea chest, he had seen into it as the boatmaker had rummaged through it for the falling star. Only other oddities from around the world. Once again, the group left as night began to fall, and Sullivan had no better idea where the boatmaker's treasure was. He got back to the town and hurridly made his way to the meeting point. His friends clamoured to hear his plan to defeat the sorceror- it had been a hard week hiding the ship, and they were impatient. "His weak point is in his eye.", said Sullivan, "That is where he stores his magickal power. Blind him, restrain him, and he will have no choice but to tell us where the treasure is." They were nervous, but somewhat giddy at the prospect of bending such a great power to their will by such ghoulish means. Now! They said. Let us do it to-night! "We must wait!" cried Sullivan. "He is at his strongest now! He is actually thousands of years old, but he is sapping the life from the villages every time they gather at his island. He compels them to eat lambs that he slaughters and annoints with his magicks, and as they eat, they become older while he younger. This is why it is primarily children that he gathers to the meetings. However, he ages abnormally fast as a side-effect of this dark deed, and must hold such a rite every week. We must strike when he is at his weakest, at the beginning of the ritual, when the sun is at its zenith." The pirates were silent. They now beheld the enormity of the task before them. They would end an enormous evil that had been plauging humanity since civilization began, an evil that had no doubt been accruing wealth the entire time. There would have to be a mountain of gold underneath that island, no less than a dragon's own hoard. They hid themselves and their ship behind the cape for one final week of waiting.
And so Sullivan set out for that accursed island for the last time. His local compatriots joked and talked as they drifted towards it. He hated them. The place loomed, and the jolt of landfall tore him to the core. He staggered off the boat, smiled at the unfamiliar hands who helped steady him, and began to work his way up the path. He was the first one through the tall oak doors, gnarled and knotted, hewn by huge rough hands. He watched the others file in. One by two by three, so slowly, they sat. Sullivan's heart was breaking, his head buzzing, his ears hot. And yet he still watched himself. The old boatmaker lumbered into the room, moved the sea chest to the usual spot and
He was still fit, and spent his time on that island making boats. Occasionally children from the fishing village on the mainland would float out on homemade to his little island, and he would teach them woodworking and navigation while telling them stories of his adventures.
Time passed, and he aged. He did not need much; his garden kept him fed for half the year, and he fished and salted and stored seafood for the winter. One year, a particularly bad storm ruined much of the nearby fishing village. He housed the sick, wounded, and elderly on his island in his clean house as the young men rebuilt the village. He let those whose fishing boats had been destroyed use the ones he had made. He opened his old cache of treasure and gave out some money to help several families who had been particularly devestated. Eventually, the village recovered and life was restored to normal, with opinions of the man and his island much raised. Older children began coming to listen to his stories, and tales of the old boatmaker, and how he had helped the village, spread. These tales- as tales do- became more and more exagerated as they were told, until whispers of an exiled king hoarding a stolen treasury were passed back and forth in disreputable dockside taverns far up the coast. It was these rumors that caused a young Mr. Odysseus Sullivan, down on his luck, to gather a group of his friends and a vessel in order to seek out this king, and bring about a little more equality in the world.
The motly crew disguised themselves as merchants, and stopped in fishing village after fishing village along the coast. They claimed to be restocking their food stores, and asked nonchalantly about anyone odd living alone on islands off the coast. Eventually, a merchant told them about the old boatmaker and his little island and his small clean house, and so off went Mr. Sullivan to the fishing village across from the boatmaker. Some of Sullivan's friends insisted that they immediately go in force and ransack the place, but Sullivan himself decided on a more cautious route. He would vist the boatmaker with the other children and young men to listen to stories, and while there, either attempt to discern the treasure's location- or, at least, likely hiding places. Then they would wait for night and, if he had been sucessful, quickly nab the treasure and make good their escape. If he was not able to find the treasure, he would at least find where the boatmaker slept. That way, they could quickly ambush him and force the him to tell them where his treasure was.
And so Odysseus O'Sullivan joined the small group of boys who cast off of the fisherman's warf, and rode the rolling waves until they beached on the sandy shores of the boatmaker's island. They pulled their small craft up to dry land, and then made their way up the long winding path they had made between the rocky steppes which led up to the boatmaker's tiny clean house. They walked through the large wooden opening (tall enough for three men, standing on eachother's shoulder's, to walk through) into the spacious room beyond. The old boatkeeper greeted them in his usual booming voice, and launched into the tale of how he had rescued a Sultan's daughter from bandits. It was a favorite, and the group settled into comfortable positions around the boatkeeper, who had pulled up his old sea chest to rest his legs as he spoke. It was as if the boatmaker had cast a spell. As Sullivan looked around, his fellow human's eyes became somewhat glazed, their faces less alert- so entranced were they by the boatmaker's fable! Only Sullivan himself seemed to be unaffected. He realized, he must somehow be immune to whatever magics the sorcerous old exile was weaving. He was disconnected from the crowd that surrounded him. He had never been like them much at all. He had always been alone. He saw that now- he recalled the night he had become a man; fighting off those pirates who were harassing the demimondaine on the shadow-dappled steetcorner outside his uncle's house. She had taken him home and laid him out on her red silk sheets... and his mind felt nothing but disgust as his body moved on its own. He watched themselves crudely rut from somewhere outside of himself, the experience graciously cut off by her husband coming home. Elated, as the crunching fists came down again and again; first on him, then her. Roughly picked up, broken, and tossed out of the door, he felt as if he could float above the cobblestones forever. He had once tried explaining what he had felt to his peers. Laughs and a crude joke. He only hesitated for a second before joining in. Never since had he felt when others did, when he was supposed to. One of his friends, an oddity, a self-proscribed poet, spoke of love and women. Everyone else had nodded, understanding. The poet had put into words an experience they all before had felt, looks passing between them as they affirmed that the other also knew what each was unable to express. Sullivan dipped his head.
And saw that it was dusk. The old boatmaker had finished his tale. The group was picking themselves up. Sullivan left with them. By the time he got back to the others, he had had enough time to think. "The boatmaker is a sorceror," he said, "and has this village warped and wrapped up in his magicks. If we assault him directly, he will utterly wipe us away. Leave and hide around the cape for a week, and then return. I will remain and figure out his weakness. Make no mistake, he has been rewarded by Sultans, so surely still has some gold left." Grumbling, but fearful, the ruffians did as he said, and set sail, leaving Sullivan behind.
It was not until the day before his friend's return that another local group of boys set out to visit the boatmaker. Sullivan once again joined them as they cast off, beached, and walked through the tall wooden doors that led into the spacious living-room of the boatmaker. The group settled as the gnarled old storyteller took up his position on top of his sea chest. He spoke this time not of adventure and trial, but of the different people he had met over the years. "Things seem the most real when they're in here!," he pushed a finger at Sullivan's head. "I once knew an artist and an alchemist. The artist used to paint what he thought was beautiful: the wind in a field, a falling star behind the clouds... and the alchemist used to gaze at the artist's work for hours, enchanted."
"One day, the alchemist- through his experiements- discovered the secret of capturing time itself! He could contain an instant and put it on a piece of special parchment. Excited, he showed what he could do to the artist. 'Look, friend! Now I too can capture scenes as you do, only instead of it taking months, it only takes me days to capture them- perfectly!' The alchemist decided to capture his favorite scene from the artist's work: a falling star. He worked for many months, setting up his equipment every night and gazing at infinite sky, waiting for the perfect star. He missed many, he was either a second too late or his equipment failed at a critical moment. Eventually, through his preseverece, he did it. A falling star, in all of its perfect glory, trapped forever on his piece of parchement. I was there the day he finished developing it. As he pulled the special parchment out of its final chemikal vat, he was almost crazed with excitement. But when he saw his finished work, something broke inside of him. He passed the parchmet to me, and left without a word. I never saw him again. I still have it... here, look! It is as if I am holding a window, looking out and seeing the moment as perfectly as if the star was falling across the sky as I speak. But I think that the alchemist saw something up there and in the artist's painting, something that was only inside of his head. He thought that if only he could get exactly what he saw- perfectly- into something... I don't know. Did he want to share it? So he could give it to other people, and whatever he had in his head would be inside of theirs as well?"
"When I told this to the artist, the artist looked sad, and then said something to me in his native tounge. I could not understand, and he had to translate what he meant into this language. He said, 'It broke his heart, when he saw it. This unnoticed thing that is happening always. It is rap^on,' - I did not know this word, and asked him to explain it. 'Rap^on is, it is the space in between. When a person wishes to be seeing my work, sometimes they see more than I did mean to intend, sometimes less, but never exactly what I did see. What they see is depending on what they see before, but is different that what I see before. Yes?' I didn't understand what he meant.
'Here, here. There is world all over, right now us, we see different things, yes? You see table, I see... that bird, you see? It has action, where it goes up. I do not know the word for it, so I make work, work bringing to mind in me that action. But say you, you have never seen a bird before! My work does not be meaning anything to you! That is rap^on, the space from you to me. All I can do is tell and make work that brings your attention to what I am seeing and hoping that you will be seeing it too. If not and you be seeing something else that is good, that is good for me also. But it was not good to my friend, that he saw rap^on, and it broke his heart. If he showed this, they would all say of course about how exact it is, having never seen such things before. That he did not want, he loved the sky! But they would not see it as like he did, he knew. Rap^on. You be showing enough to push and remind, in a way just not to distract, and others will see what you do not show all more real.'"
This visit, the boatmaker was just talking to them. Sullivan looked about as words of remembrance and narratives and recollections rolled past him. There was no gold in the thick sea chest, he had seen into it as the boatmaker had rummaged through it for the falling star. Only other oddities from around the world. Once again, the group left as night began to fall, and Sullivan had no better idea where the boatmaker's treasure was. He got back to the town and hurridly made his way to the meeting point. His friends clamoured to hear his plan to defeat the sorceror- it had been a hard week hiding the ship, and they were impatient. "His weak point is in his eye.", said Sullivan, "That is where he stores his magickal power. Blind him, restrain him, and he will have no choice but to tell us where the treasure is." They were nervous, but somewhat giddy at the prospect of bending such a great power to their will by such ghoulish means. Now! They said. Let us do it to-night! "We must wait!" cried Sullivan. "He is at his strongest now! He is actually thousands of years old, but he is sapping the life from the villages every time they gather at his island. He compels them to eat lambs that he slaughters and annoints with his magicks, and as they eat, they become older while he younger. This is why it is primarily children that he gathers to the meetings. However, he ages abnormally fast as a side-effect of this dark deed, and must hold such a rite every week. We must strike when he is at his weakest, at the beginning of the ritual, when the sun is at its zenith." The pirates were silent. They now beheld the enormity of the task before them. They would end an enormous evil that had been plauging humanity since civilization began, an evil that had no doubt been accruing wealth the entire time. There would have to be a mountain of gold underneath that island, no less than a dragon's own hoard. They hid themselves and their ship behind the cape for one final week of waiting.
And so Sullivan set out for that accursed island for the last time. His local compatriots joked and talked as they drifted towards it. He hated them. The place loomed, and the jolt of landfall tore him to the core. He staggered off the boat, smiled at the unfamiliar hands who helped steady him, and began to work his way up the path. He was the first one through the tall oak doors, gnarled and knotted, hewn by huge rough hands. He watched the others file in. One by two by three, so slowly, they sat. Sullivan's heart was breaking, his head buzzing, his ears hot. And yet he still watched himself. The old boatmaker lumbered into the room, moved the sea chest to the usual spot and
flight. Sullivan could see the whitecrests breaking far below, the entire ocean streching forever. Hot air currents lifting and tumbling and
It was over before he knew what happened. Distant screaming, panic. He blinked. The boatmaker's huge body slumped backwards, and fell off the sea chest. His childhood friends let go of the long wooden pole they had lanced him with as it snapped upwards. Already several of them were rummaging through the corners, expecting that gold would pour out of every nook and cranny. Others were waving around swords and shouting at the crowd to leave, that they were free now the evil magicks was gone. Sullivan heard none of it. He approached the body of the boatmaker, behind the enormous sea chest. The boatmaker, blinded, turned towards Sullivan. "Rap^on," the cylopes said, and smiled.
"Odysseus O'Sullivan has slain the Cyclopes!" the men cried. "We will sing of his victory for-ever!". Indeed, the blood-mottled monster lay slain, its one huge eye pierced all through. Sullivan just turned and walked away. His compatriots looked at eachother, shrugged, and began to pry open the sea chest to liberate any treasure inside.
There was a hallway which the toy-boat-maker had always emerged from, dusting sawdust from his hands, to meet the collection of tiny humans who had come to hear his stories. Sullivan found that at the end of this hallway, there was a staircase. He pulled himself up, climbing one huge step at a time. On the roof there was a woodshop with one wall completely missing, leaving an opening facing out over the cliffs, into the sea. Still freshly built, the human-scale flying machine sat in the center of the room. Sawdust, tools, and plans scribbled by huge rough hands on large pieces of parchment littered every open space. Sullivan approached the machine. There were leather straps and buckles, and handles to move the wings. He tried it on. Such power, he felt the gentle steady resistance of the air as he moved a wing. The seagulls called to him from outside. Before he knew it, the wooden floor was gone, the grass was rushing past, he saw an instant of rocky cliffs, and then there was just blue. He could see the whitecrests breaking far below, the entire ocean streching forever. "Rap^on," Sullivan said, and flew out into the blue for-ever.