Michael Hanson

An illustrated story. 10”x8” acrylic, on 300 lb watercolor paper

Delicate Arch

 Pg .1: I forgot my name. I’m forgetful. My mother reminded me of that always. That—I never forgot. Sometimes only a cruel mother’s scorn remains in an old man of nothing. I don’t want to remember who I am. It doesn’t matter to the isolation. The mind of the forgetful is fickle. Fragmented. My worst moments remain hot branded within an eye that cannot see. 

Pg. 2: How many battles did I fight? A war I was forced into, conscripted. I never wanted to hurt anyone but I did—out of fear, out of duty. How many did I kill? The smoke from the blasts in battle blind the shot’s final landing. Nothing blinds the bayonet when the another’s eye fixed on you stiffens without reflex. I’m glad I was crippled by that Minié ball. It shows. It reminds. I wish I had the dignity to die with them. Still. I go on with nowhere to go.

Pg .3: I don’t blame my wife for leaving. I was impossible. Not company for the decent. She knew I loved Caleb more than her, even though I never spoke his name. He was there. Then he wasn’t. After Antietam, standing there. Soaked. A field of bodies that once were men. Most believed it couldn’t happen to them. Your own death remains an impossibility in the mind of a living soldier, even though your instincts know better. I never found his body. All the entangled stiff limbs were his body. I can’t explain. I cry. The release brings nothing—solves nothing, proves nothing. 

Pg .4: Far out west, the harsh high desert. I came to dry necropathic flesh. I picked a place Iu thought nobody would want. Then the man came to my door. Burnt from the sun since birth. He asked if I was here to own the land. I said I own nothing. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing claims nothing. He asked if he could take one of my withered cattle. I said yes. He asked if I would starve. I said yes. He asked if he could visit some other time. I said yes. He took nothing with him. I never saw him again. 

 Pg. 5: I feel unstuck in time sometimes. An illiterate, failed farmer who knows little. I remember even less. I tell you this though—Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery. 

* From Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press. 1998. Chapter 11, page 304.