“Loving the Weary Traveler”
In my collection of short stories, this one sits as one of my proudest pieces. Within two hours (record time for my slow-writing nature), I dove into this fictional couple’s love story, finding it full of loss, reflection, and redemption. I embraced Greek mythology references and poetic-style repetition, making it one of my more eloquent short stories.
And, yes, I wrote it the day after a Hozier concert (what can I say, he’s inspiring - Hozier fans know ;). To fully immerse yourself into the experience I felt while writing the Weary Traveler’s story, listen to “The Butchered Tongue” (Hozier) on loop while reading.
“Loving the Weary Traveler”
by Bethany E. Kolb
He rolled in like a thunderstorm, green with envy for the limelight. He sang about temptation like it was sugar and the end times like they were worth dancing through. Crowds circled where he walked, hoping for a glimpse of his black coat or sturdy hands wrapped around a slender guitar neck. His frizzing hair draped over his shoulders - the closest to a crown he ever came, yet endowed with more power than a king. Everyone knew him: the Weary Traveler.
To believe he looked at me was foolishness. Yet, when he sang about howling at the moon and glanced up the hill, I met his eyes. They hesitated - rested on me like I was a lyric yet to be sung. Maybe I was. All I knew to do was nod in reassurance. Amid the covetous chaos, who begged nothing of him? So, I gave all I could from a crowd’s cheers away. He smiled then sang Blackberry Wine, and I lost myself to it all.
In leaving, I awoke from the dream - one shared by thousands and unique to none. But days later, he sang a new song on his travels, and something in the harmonies struck a chord only I recognized. “I drowned in the ocean at our meeting,” he sang. “A wilderness caved to the fame of me, yet the tree all along had me entwined.”
It was everything and nothing all at once. Poetic beauty about anyone, everyone, and no one at all. Any crowd, any place, any time.
That is, until the next song. “Forgive my silent stare; I’m but a man in the presence of gods, turned salt at your heart of gold. Make your good love known to my dire will.”
Little poetries about grander love escaped his lips, and I knew the notion swirled in foolishness. Yet, I engaged when the crowds slept and only the moon competed for his light.
Months later, they ran in the streets again proclaiming, “The Weary Traveler! He’s returned!” I raced to meet them, to catch a glimpse of his halo hair or ebony coat.
There he was - singing in the streets again about lost love and death in life. He’d exchanged his black for maroon, and the wind itself seemed to slow at his song. It was peace and tragedy and living in one’s prime. By some chance, by some play of fate, his eyes looked upon the hill as he sang Blackberry Wine. There I was - awestruck and dumb under his knowing gaze. This time, he nodded back to me, and I knew it was real. All his poetries were whispered beckonings, shouted from the grandest stage for ears only I possessed.
“When I’m reborn, I shall see your eyes in the heavens there. And in glorious death, I will beg the tree of life to extend her withered branches to you.”
***
Loving him in secret was tragedy worth the timing. I would have sooner spared the world of his light, veiling it for my eyes alone, than scream from the rooftops that he was mine. Yet, confinements stifled his wandering feet, and the road called to him like a mother beckoning her son home. When he couldn’t meet my eyes, he ensured I heard his love from distant songs. “The ears were chopped from women who didn’t know, and the sight plucked from men who never before saw you.” He sang of me to thousands who never knew me. What a thing to be intimately known by so many, yet only truly seen by one.
“Aphrodite envies your beauty, beckons Ares’ cunning to spare your soul to her. My goddess divine, may wine only remind you of my earthly touch.”
Old women gathered in droves to see him, cities assembled to glimpse his growing majesty of mine. A man written by a ladies' pen, blessed with haunting melodies, and bearing me like a secret sworn upon his Heart. And how good I became at secrets, as did he by the ninth town at the wind’s beckoning.
“How strange it is to have a stranger call you darling,” he sang one day, “when all I would do is offer my hands at your porcelain feet.”
Missing him came in silent waves, quelled every thirty moons when he escaped his fleeting life for some permanence in me. We met by the river under the willow tree, whispering sweet nothings until morning. He tasted like whiskey and freedom yet caressed my cheek like humility reborn. He was everything and nothing like the crowds cheered him on to be. The Weary Traveler was altogether more perfect and peaceful than his kingship allowed.
“How long we dwell in the bittersweet unknown, in the hands of fragile lovers when angels await in the heavens. Why do I linger when eternal gates await my return.”
***
They ran in the streets again proclaiming, “The Weary Traveler! He’s returned!” They passed me on the road - alas to miss his halo hair or emerald green coat. A king always, a king returned. And I’m not a queen but a simple handmaiden to the earth, to my city, to the tree embedded that stands when the wind blows through.
“He loved me like poetry and a warm hearth, but he loved the road like all fire and liberation. And the road led him back to me - how aged I felt, when the crowd lights only illuminated his youth. Old women wept as he sang about heartbreak and past lives, and young ones gleamed in hope as he sang of new growth in damp forests. “From tears spring trees, which flower and leaf, alas to leave me in the fall of us.”
“Never before had I abandoned his songs altogether, but the river sweeps away all things. Under the willow tree, he confessed my fears, and I released the trapped bird I loved. My bird flew into the branches, gathering twigs and dining with women, but never making a home.
“No guardsman retires the veiled heart, nor translates the blight that is unspoken goodbyes.”
“They called the Weary Traveler masterful, a weaver of words in baskets of emotion. Yet baskets have holes, of which he was also masterful. I made a home in doorways, waiting for him to return, only allowing sunrise to take my guard so he could always find his path. And perhaps he still could, after the willow tree. But as he drank from the fountain of youth, I aged and closed the door, for the wind caused bone-chilling drafts in my sanctuary.
“The Weary Traveler no longer visits,” they said in the streets. Crowds grumbled, and young women tearfully wished him adieu. My silence said all I dared, for losing him in secret was tragedy transcendent of mortalities like timing.
“When I’m foreign among the willows, I pray they thrive despite my watch. When the streams run dry, my thirst will carry me to the quenchless hereafter. When you love me again, I’ll sleep in blissful eternity knowing I’ve passed on.”
***
I nary believed them when they ran through the streets proclaiming his name. “The Weary Traveler! After all these years - he’s returned!”
My Beloved wished to see what all the fuss was about - though not my Heart, he was a good man. Though not nearly free, he was curious enough. He begged my company to hear foreign tunes, and I obliged, though internal despondence reminded me why I’d not lent my ear to them in years. Still, we floated to the town square. Women squealed in delight, and men took note of his hands fondling the neck of his slender guitar. I searched for green or maroon or royal purple, but all that sat in their midst was humble abyss. A shrine of black for a love long gone, illuminated only by the halo of windblown hair.
“At last, I embrace the caress of night, her silver skirts swishing about my cheeks, my beard in her bosom to remember what I’ve lived. For but a second of closed eyes is enough to recall the day, in all its absent light.”
It was everything and nothing all at once. Poetic beauty about anyone, everyone, and no one at all. Any crowd, any place, any time.
That is, until the next song. “Forgive my necklace of willow-bound noose. The gods no longer lend me your stare, so I begged for the tree you last wept under. The roots carried your tears, and the tree and I weep for you forevermore.”
Little poetries about grander love escaped his lips, and notions swirled in my mind like foolish youth. Yet, I engaged when the crowd cheered, masking my torturous conviction, and competed for his attention.
Then, by some chance, by some play of fate, his eyes looked upon the hill. There I was - awestruck and young again under his knowing gaze. He sang Blackberry Wine for the first time in years, and the crowd cheered, and I knew it was real. All his poetries were whispered beckonings, shouted from the grief of chances lost to the thief of timing. And my traitorous ears perked up at every word, Heart found in the weariness of reality crushed upon the covetous road.
“When I’m reborn, I shall see your eyes in the heavens there. And in glorious death, I will beg the tree of life to extend her withered branches to you.”
***
I retreated to the willow tree by the river - risen from the storms of late - and there he was. Lost love and death in life left to the parrots in the street, grandiosity exchanged for the quiet. It was peace and tragedy and loving in one’s prime.
“Weary Traveler,” I called, and he turned around into a man three years dead. “You’ve returned.”
For all others he sang, but for me alone he spoke. The stranger in the streets lifted my fingertips to his lips, whispering sweet nothings which were everything all at once. And I let him shatter my heart upon the foundation of all I’d veiled - two weary travelers at last alone to call each other darling. Perhaps branches need be withered to float, and whiskey need be aged to forget, but I found myself in the simplicity of a king dethroned.
“Wine runs dry, but my lips purse only at so many years absent of yours. Make your good love known to me, muse of Aphrodite, and let me pass into the great beyond of home.”
I feared the storm, for the storm brought winds, and the winds carried him away. But he grew steadfast with time - never abandoning his poetic justice against mortality, but instead staying where his inspiration lay. How lucky am I, a simple handmaiden among an ocean of loss, to have gained love in the short time I’m alive.
“As I envy the gods their eternity to stare upon your grace, they envy us our divinity in love found on earth. May fate and mortality dance in eternal amnesty of us, as I kiss you again under the willow tree.”
I debated on whether to write the last section of this story (after “When I’m reborn…”). This couple’s story is so tragic and timeless; their last longing look felt like the perfect ending. Deep down, however, I sensed a little more beauty waiting to be discovered. There’s heart-wrenching humanity in stories that end in “right person, wrong time;” yet, the beauty of writing is that not all stories have to end the same way. The two Weary Traveler’s rediscovered each other and found redemption, and I knew in writing his final verse that their story was complete.