Tallest Stories by Rhys Hughes

Author:Rhys Hughes [Hughes, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gloomy Seahorse Press / Eibonvale Press
Published: 2015-02-03T21:00:00+00:00

10: The Golden Fleas

The girl in the wood is playing her pipes. I want to chase her down the hill to the sea. My nature compels me to run after any woman who places lips to reed, but there is a haunting quality to her music, a spirit I have not heard for a long time, so I watch in mute appreciation, peeping at her from the depths of the olive grove.

My fleas are troubling me again. “Hurry up, old fool!” they snarl. They make me dance; not to melody which would be welcome, but to pain. “Hurry up, looks like rain!” Sometimes they call me names. Their satire is always biting. “Somebody got your goat?”

Once, like Marsyas, I challenged Apollo to a music contest and lost. Rather than flaying me alive — the usual punishment for defeat — the archer king cursed me with sentient fleas. I have to consult them on all topics. A condition of the curse is that I am not allowed to rid myself of the pests. I have to avoid water and take shelter in a cave when clouds knock together.

Rain is sweet on Kérkira, as infrequent as the willing kiss of another man’s wife, but I have to huddle under rock and wait. No dew must splash my legs, no juice dribble down my chin. Created by the god of light, my parasites are burnished gold. Water would wash the colour out of them. If this happened, Apollo would be displeased. My skin would make a rug for his burning feet.

Yet I know I will be rescued one day. In dreams I see my saviour. He comes from a distant land on a fast ship. He combs the fleas from my fur and takes them back with him. Not even Apollo can oppose him. But his actions are founded on a misunderstanding. This life of ours is a harmony of mistakes, each blunder a note on the stave of reality. What my saviour does for me is not what he ought to do.

I will say nothing, I will not betray my luck. On the slopes of my island’s highest peak, I gaze at Illyria’s distant shore. The city of Butrint, full of cool stone and heated baths, nestles just beyond the range of my slitted eyes. There are only villages on Kérkira, the rude dwellings of a pastoral people, but we do have shrines where shepherds leave offerings to the nymphs and satyrs. The gods are given wine and honey, but we are content with milk and flowers.

Apart from my fleas, I am plagued by another entity. A bronze man called Gnathon shares my domain. He tells me he was forged on Crete by Daedalus. Unsatisfied with the result, the great inventor cast him into the sea. For nine years his hollow body was buffeted by the waves before being washed onto one of our beaches. A crack in his mould means all the truth has leaked out of him. He can only tell lies.

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