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I’d like to tell you a story. Most stories that people tell have
a point. They tell stories to further their arguments. They tell stories to
make you feel a certain way. They tell stories for purely selfish purposes.
I’ll probably do the same. It’s why we have stories.
Long ago a certain blacksmith forged a
sword. Into that blade he poured all of his knowledge. With each blow of the
hammer, each pump of the bellows, each fold of the steel back upon itself, the
blacksmith whispered everything he’d ever known. He whispered the secrets of
folded steel, to be sure, but he also spoke the secrets to a woman’s heart, the
difference between edible and deadly mushrooms, the constellations in the sky,
and the names of all his children. He whispered and hammered for years. He
shaped the blade perfectly. He balanced it exquisitely. He polished it to a
mirror finish. He lovingly wrapped the handle with the choicest leather. He set
the pommel with a perfect carving of his own face. He tooled his sigil into the
leather of the sheath and the sigils of all the blacksmith masters who had gone
before him into the leather of the belt.
Even then he did not stop whispering
secrets. The sword hummed and vibrated with the old blacksmith’s knowledge, but
he still found new things to imbue into it. He learned that beach sand would
polish the steel more finely than river sand. He learned that his eldest
daughter loved the cobbler’s son. He learned the shape of the clouds could tell
the coming weather. Each day he continued to refine his sword. Each small
change made space for the new thing he’d learned. He neglected contracts. He
stopped bathing. He stopped returning home from the smithy at night.
One by one his children went to him to beg
him to stop. “You’ve already made the most perfect blade in the world,” his
oldest son said. “No one will ever surpass this feat,” his second son said.
“Your legacy is secure,” his eldest daughter laid her hand on his forearm as he
worked oil into the leather of the handle. Still he worked; still he whispered.
His children came to him sometimes weeping, sometimes begging, sometimes
furious, sometimes cold and numb. Still he whispered. Finally his wife came and
stood between him and his tools. She took his bearded, unshaven face between
her hands and forced him to meet her gaze. He stared at her with gray,
searching eyes. His mouth worked silently. She wept.
Still he spoke his knowledge into the
sword.
One
by one his children left. They grew old. They married. They found work. Not a
one of them took up smithing. No apprentice came to the blacksmith’s door. No
one offered him a contract to shoe a horse or forge a weapon. For lack of money
he took to making his own charcoal. He scrounged for fallen limbs so he could
make the forge-fire to continue the work on his masterpiece. He repaired the
handles of his hammers with castoff spokes from the broken wagon that he no
longer used to deliver his wares. But when he cut a piece of skin from his
thigh to patch the bellows, his wife, who had stayed with him through
everything, finally, tearfully, left.
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