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"Ignore Your Chains"
Mar. 5th, 2023 12:37 pm"Ignore Your Chains"
7/17-7/21/2022
I.
The long dark night came to Josef Jubilec without warning. He sat up gasping, trembling, in the center of his hand-carved canopy bed. The fine linen sheets were soggy with his cold sweat. What was wrong? Automatically, he swung his head aound to see that the small green and blue lights were blinking steadily on the headboard panel. No intruders. No one had set foot on his island off the Georgia coast.
Nor were there any servants in the building. After Lucy and Sunny Jim had left his employ to get married and start over on the West Coast, he had gradually let his staff go. The chef, the groundskeeper, the two maids had all been discharged with a generous bonus and references to another good job. He had been left alone in the eight million dollar house. That was what he had thought he had wanted.
Josef took his pulse, finding it was rapid but coming down to normal. He could not remember any nightmares that might have alarmed him into waking, nor any dreams at all. He didn't feel sick. In the darkness, he fumbled over to his nightstand and picked up the advanced Trom device his team called a Link. He took his vitals. Temperature was 97.1, so he had no fever. Blood pressure 110 over 70, blood oxygen level 99 per cent on room air, EKG showed a heartbeat so regular and strong that no variations could be seen.
Then what was wrong? Why had he been jolted awake so dramatically?
Still not turning on a light, the Blind Archer reached over to the wall at his right side. Propped up there was the yew longbow he had fashioned himself and a V-shaped leather quiver holding twenty arrows. These were seldom out of reach if he could help it. As soon as he had been big enough to walk, the instructors of his sect had placed a bow and an arrow in his hands. Yet now, with a deeply troubling uncertainty, the bow felt foreign to him... as if he had never touched one before.
Wearing only the plain cotton pajama pants, Josef stood up in the gloom. Nearly fifty, he had the sharp definition and sleek musculature of an Olympic athlete barely twenty. His survival had hung on being fit. By then, he had caught his breath and was steady on his feet but something was still terribly wrong.
For the first time, he wished he had retained at least a valet. It was rare that he felt the need to talk to someone but this was no ordinary night. In the darkness, he left his bedroom and went out into the hall where a tiny blue nightlight shone in a corner down by the floor. Two original oils by Rouchard hung where he could see them each morning, one showing a sailing ship in a storm and another a rearing white horse against a starry sky. He did not even notice them now. Josef padded on silent bare feet down the stairs and reached the front hall. Without knowing why, he urgently needed to be outside.
It was a clear, chilly night in late October. As soon as he stepped onto the porch which ran the width of the house, Josef felt some relief but he was still uncomfortable. He lowered himself to the top of the five steps leading down to the paved courtyard and buried his face in his hands. What strange pain was this? Not the usual broken bones or pulled muscles, not another stab wound or the battered bruising he was used to, but a deep heavy aching inside his entire body.
Miserable as a mute beast suffering in silence, Josef Jubilec sat motionless for what seemed like hours. He wasn't consciously thinking but something was stirring in his mind he had long forgotten. Eventually, inevitably, faint rose-colored streaks began to show to the East. At the first hint of dawn, relief eased his pain. The Blind Archer rose slowly, stretched and swung around to head back inside with the eagerness of sudden understanding.
( the rest of the story )
7/17-7/21/2022
I.
The long dark night came to Josef Jubilec without warning. He sat up gasping, trembling, in the center of his hand-carved canopy bed. The fine linen sheets were soggy with his cold sweat. What was wrong? Automatically, he swung his head aound to see that the small green and blue lights were blinking steadily on the headboard panel. No intruders. No one had set foot on his island off the Georgia coast.
Nor were there any servants in the building. After Lucy and Sunny Jim had left his employ to get married and start over on the West Coast, he had gradually let his staff go. The chef, the groundskeeper, the two maids had all been discharged with a generous bonus and references to another good job. He had been left alone in the eight million dollar house. That was what he had thought he had wanted.
Josef took his pulse, finding it was rapid but coming down to normal. He could not remember any nightmares that might have alarmed him into waking, nor any dreams at all. He didn't feel sick. In the darkness, he fumbled over to his nightstand and picked up the advanced Trom device his team called a Link. He took his vitals. Temperature was 97.1, so he had no fever. Blood pressure 110 over 70, blood oxygen level 99 per cent on room air, EKG showed a heartbeat so regular and strong that no variations could be seen.
Then what was wrong? Why had he been jolted awake so dramatically?
Still not turning on a light, the Blind Archer reached over to the wall at his right side. Propped up there was the yew longbow he had fashioned himself and a V-shaped leather quiver holding twenty arrows. These were seldom out of reach if he could help it. As soon as he had been big enough to walk, the instructors of his sect had placed a bow and an arrow in his hands. Yet now, with a deeply troubling uncertainty, the bow felt foreign to him... as if he had never touched one before.
Wearing only the plain cotton pajama pants, Josef stood up in the gloom. Nearly fifty, he had the sharp definition and sleek musculature of an Olympic athlete barely twenty. His survival had hung on being fit. By then, he had caught his breath and was steady on his feet but something was still terribly wrong.
For the first time, he wished he had retained at least a valet. It was rare that he felt the need to talk to someone but this was no ordinary night. In the darkness, he left his bedroom and went out into the hall where a tiny blue nightlight shone in a corner down by the floor. Two original oils by Rouchard hung where he could see them each morning, one showing a sailing ship in a storm and another a rearing white horse against a starry sky. He did not even notice them now. Josef padded on silent bare feet down the stairs and reached the front hall. Without knowing why, he urgently needed to be outside.
It was a clear, chilly night in late October. As soon as he stepped onto the porch which ran the width of the house, Josef felt some relief but he was still uncomfortable. He lowered himself to the top of the five steps leading down to the paved courtyard and buried his face in his hands. What strange pain was this? Not the usual broken bones or pulled muscles, not another stab wound or the battered bruising he was used to, but a deep heavy aching inside his entire body.
Miserable as a mute beast suffering in silence, Josef Jubilec sat motionless for what seemed like hours. He wasn't consciously thinking but something was stirring in his mind he had long forgotten. Eventually, inevitably, faint rose-colored streaks began to show to the East. At the first hint of dawn, relief eased his pain. The Blind Archer rose slowly, stretched and swung around to head back inside with the eagerness of sudden understanding.
( the rest of the story )
