An Earned Calm
by Craig Rodgers
The turmoil had no one name. It had a hundred names, each a unique tang of dread.
The storm clouds gathered and spread and in time they blackened the skies above.
The engineer said when the rains come the river will rise and flood and the dam will not hold it back.
The seer spoke of horrors the storms would bring, things unimagined in the light.
The informer whispered of skulking and plotting by those who would take advantage of this moment.
The king spoke with them each alone, taking in what they might share and noting that which they might not. He spoke too with the courtier, retelling each warning in great detail. He said to the courtier, my doom comes from all directions. He asked the courtier, what do I do?
“They say the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world,” said the courtier.
The king nodded, and he contemplated, and he returned to each member of his court one by one. He told the engineer to build the dam bigger, take the river and bend its flow to my will. He told the seer to look past the horrors to the light beyond the storms. He told the informer to deal with the skulkers and plotters in such a way their machinations deserved.
The king told the courtier what he had done, and the courtier he did nod.
“But the butterfly’s wings yet flap.”
The rains refused to stop.
The dam contained the river and the river became a lake and in its rise the engineer was swept away and drowned.
The seer looked to the light and was there stricken blind, and in this unalterable dark he was surrounded and driven mad by the horrors that found him there.
The skulkers and plotters were murdered by the informer who then himself began to skulk and plot.
The king returned to the courtier once more and relayed all that had come. He wept and pleaded, what must I do to save my kingdom?
“There was ever only one way to quiet the wind. You must see the butterfly dead.”
The king wept for his kingdom, and he wept for the butterfly, but he called for his general and told him what must be done. The king’s armies went into the forest and into the mountains, they went into the desert and the frozen wastes beyond, and wherever they encountered the butterfly they smashed and sliced and stomped, and they pursued them until their fragile splendor was extinguished from the earth.
And when the rains had stilled, and when the seer’s wits returned, though his vision never would, when the lake’s waters fell and the river returned with its flow, when the informer fell to his knees and begged forgiveness, the king did return to the courtier and he asked what now, what must be done now, but the courtier only smiled and said, my king, all is right in the land.
Craig Rodgers is the name appearing on several books ghostwritten by a gaggle of long dead Victorian spirits.
COLD SIGNAL 