The Rebellious Son: A Fairy Tale -- Part 16

The boy stayed the night in the barn with the rats. The lady tied him up so that he would not flee.

“This is for your own good,” she said. “So they can trust you and love you and soon enough obey you.” She went on to say more, “If you scream I will not hear you. The wives don’t sleep at night, they spend every waking hour torturing the husband. This makes an awful lot of noise. So you will not be heard. The rats won’t like it if you scream. Remember my boy, stay calm and try to sleep. Some will have their fun with your ears and toes but try not to be bothered. They have been waiting for you. I’ve told them all about you.”

The boy did scream. He screamed until he lost all hope.

The rats bit his toes and scratched his legs and arms. They did nothing to his face except crawl upon it or sniff it. Every once in a while they wriggled their wormy tails in his nose.

When his voice became hoarse he simply cried, his desperation giving way to defeat.

He laid his head on the hay and closed his eyes wishing he were in Claudia's care. It was the first time the boy wished for his old mother. The way she sang and prodded him with her stick.

He softly sang the old song, “We Are the Sufferers.”

We are the sufferers

Oh, how we suffer

Oh, how we suffer

Every hour we suffer for You

The husband was on the roof and watched the little lady walk from the barn to the pond. The moon was out and brightened his land. He loved his land. He loved his house but rarely entered his own home. The wives occupied that space, all of them, like a collective mockery heaping insults at him like a thousand hatchets hurled his way. The husband could not put up with it much longer.

He looked up at the moon, “What should I be doing?” he asked in desperation.

The moon was silent as always but seemed to the husband gazing upon him with kindness and understanding. The husband felt a rush of warmth, something like love, reverberating from the cosmos. And right then, like a sign from the heavens, a great fiery rock with a tale the length of the sky slid above like a soaring serpent.

The husband guarded his head with his arm and crouched, nearly tumbling off the roof.

The lady halted before picking up a bull frog and fell over on the grass, her too, covering her face from the bright bolting star.

The wives laughter silenced to the resounding overhead and the windows were lit as if the forest were suddenly ablaze.

Jamis, at the foot of his wife’s grave, calmly watched as the burning star made its path before God’s galaxies. There was no fear in him. He knew this was another omen. Pestilence would come to the village. Jamis, the tired prophet, would have to warn the people tomorrow of the great torture that lay ahead.

The three children on the porch of the tavern awoke and each of them stood and saw the bright light above. Before they could comprehend the star they were lifted by that fierce light, the great hand swiftly releasing them from this world forever.

The boy, all tied, did not pay attention to the noise above. But the rats altogether rose on their hind legs, their pointed noses sniffing upward, their front mealy paws waving in praise to all things that give power and to all things that take away.