The lion and the goose

Wrote this last week but just typed it up. It isn't written to be an easy read, but I don't think it is difficult either.

557 words.


The lion and the goose



A soft candescent light brushed against the lion’s cheek. Glimmering rays on paths unknown; down from the sun and through the hills and glens. Wandering, lost; the rays would roam and fill the world.
Night encroached as the sun descended to rest. The sky appeared as bloodied and torn; clear of cloud to reveal the sparkling diamonds upon the blackened velvet of the beyond. The palette of colours still held the ocean blue of daylight. A dash of white and grey appeared to have been dropped on the canvas without thought or reason. In the twillight the wind did not know if it should rest or blow.
In the lion’s mind it was still day; he danced under the sun upon the golden fields of the Vale.
Here. There. Everywhere. All would become night.
Quietness abounded. Silence spread as fire to leave the lion in solemnity.
The walls, charred. Windows, dusted and barred. Crops, ashen. All now cold. All was darkened afore the lion.
“Was I not magnificent?” boasted the lion. His barrel chest protruded towards the mirror.
“You were the most magnificent m’lord, yet no cheers,” chided the goose.
“Do you not see the makings of a king?”
“I see a goose,” said the goose.
“Yet it was I, the lion, who was victorious. It was I, the lion, who destroyed their homestead and tore their walls asunder,” the lion raised his voice, a sonorous rumble that nailed the goose where he stood, “it is I who shall rule Novia.”
“Yet here you are, a goose, pouting before a fallen mirror. A figure within a ruin, hidden away on the Vale.”
“I am a lion from a great house of lions. My crest, a lion; my family, all lions. I am courageous, as a lion.”
“My lord, you have forgotten yourself. You are a goose. I see it true for I am a goose too.”
The sun no more atop its perch. The room passed to unrelenting darkness, yet through the crack in the roof a wandering lunar light peaked through upon the lion and the goose.
Here. There. Everywhere. Fragments of light
Silence and solemnity. Once more.
The lion started back at the goose. No movement, naught a twitch; no sound at all. A lick of wind brushed through the door and whipped the dust along the floor like scurrying mice.
“Is this madness?” whispered the lion.
“This is madness,” whispered the goose.
The door creaked ajar. A soft patter of footsteps followed after the wind. Who was there? Another goose?
“My love what have you done to yourself?” that voice. It was familiar feminine voice. Sweetness; a dulcet and soft warmth of concubinal love.
“Nothing… I’m here. I became caught in a dream. Nothing more.”
“Why is there broken glass upon the floor?” the feminine voice became charged. She gasped. “The mirror! It’s broken. What have you done?”
“I did not choose it. I was told to do it.”
“Did you gaze once more upon the moon? You cannot, must not, let the shattered moonlight shine upon your soul for it will be reflected within you.”
“Do you see a lion?” asked the man.
“I see a man who should be my husband; a man, a lord and a leader of people… but who is troubled by the shattered moon.”

 

I enjoyed this work. I read it as the moral dilemma and self doubt in a humble man upon whom the pride of leadership had been thrust, perhaps after a long day of victorious but, as a lion, brutal battle. To me, the imagery of the broken moon represented, and shards of the broken mirror reflected, the morality being broken along the lines of his conscience (as a goose) and what he had become (or was becoming) finding himself to be a lion. But I might have gotten a little lost there, as later I took the fragment of moonlight to have a negative connotation. I got a chuckle at the end as we see the true root of the dilemma...a love leading him on to glory, perhaps changing him from who he is to someone else. Or this could be all wrong. But it is how i heard it on first telling. Thanks for the story. Good work.

 

That's a pretty close interpretation of what I was intending.

The shattered mirror is an allegoric reference to the shattered moon. Looking in the mirror can be hubristic, but it may also reveal a truth: how the man sees himself. He, like the moon and the mirror, are shattered. The reflection of the moon within the man (or man's soul) is a nod to the Nietzschean abyss. So there is definitely a negative connotation of looking at the mirror / moon too long and becoming shattered.

The goose is intended as a counterpoint, rather than an opposite. The latter would be more dualistic than I'd prefer. The goose isn't tough, nor a great warrior. It is soft and mostly docile.

I would not say that the woman is the cause of the dilemma but rather an added quandry. The man has he dilemma of how to hold himself in a "professional" sense, i.e. being a conqueror/ provider / protector, versus being the lover (and potential husband). The man has strived far to be a great warrior and leader but at a cost to his relationship. Of course, much of this is only hinted at. There can be many interpretations on these themes.


Thanks for reading and giving feedback. Highly appreciated.