James Green-Armytage

The Thieves

         Walking. They lit the fire, three men around it, under open sky. The fire was born out of itself, the air and the dry wood, leaping upward. The men sat down. One took the food out of his bag, mixing it with water over the fire. It was a mushroom stew, heavy with peyote cactus. Soon they were eating. After dinner, the other took out a wooden pipe, into which the third stuffed a mixture of red and green leaves and buds. They passed the pipe around slowly and quietly, taking deep breaths, holding it in their lungs. The trees nearby rustled in the summer wind. After time, the low red fire in the pipe went out. "It's dead," said the other.

         "Tomorrow night we come to another village," said one.

         "The moon is high and the air is colder," said the other.

         "The village comes in sight as we reach the top of a low hill. On the hill there is a tree. Under this tree we leave our full bags," said the third.

         "The village is by a small lake. As we walk down the hill we hear the sound of crickets. We have come to fill our sacks with grain, so we walk towards the storehouse," said one.

         "Although we walk without sound, there is one in the village who is already awake. He has been wakened by a dream of his own death, and so he is outside, waiting for us," said the other.

         "We see him and he sees us, but he does not call out to wake the village. He draws his knife and we draw ours," said the third.

         "We fight. He is very strong. He kills you before we kill him." said one to the other. "We walk back up the hill with your body," said the third. "We bury you in this place just before sunrise."

         The three thieves still sat around the fire. One and the third had their heads bowed. The other was open-eyed and shaking a bit. He saw before him his two companions burying his body, only time was reversed so he saw himself rising out of the ground, cold and empty and with blood on his mouth and throat. He knelt over his body and wept.

         After time, he was calm. "Who will remember this when I am dead?" he said, looking into the fire. "When I was a child, I used to sit by myself under a cypress tree next to a stream; I can still see the sun reflecting on the water. At night I would look up and see the space between the stars. And in my fifteenth spring, just before we were outcast, I was too shy and never talked to the girl I was in love with.

         "Everything I have seen, I have thought, I have remembered, is gone. Every moment, every truth, every gain and loss, they are all bubbles, flecks of foam."

         The other smiled.

         As the sun rose after the second night, one and the third walked away from the unmarked gravesite in which the other was buried.