MOCKERY
There lived a well-dressed man named Victor raised by wealthy parents who has contributed much to the town in which he lived, but had died early in a tragic accident whilst Victor was but a teenager.
Raised by reluctant relatives, he soon inherited the wealth of his family and spent his days striding and strutting around the town which he felt he somehow owned, as a result of his parent’s generous contributions to the buildings and facilities around the town.
He was sharp of tongue, quick of mind, and utterly convinced that every soul around him was a fool wasting their time on trivial matters and unworthy pursuits. Wherever he walked, ridicule and mockery flowed towards all that fell under his gaze.
One morning, he passed the baker kneading dough before opening his bakery. “Still punching bread like a poor peasant?” Victor laughed with theatrical incredulity. “Machines can do that now for half a penny. You’re a living fossil, baker. Don’t forget my father placed a new roof above your head when the Great Storm brought it down.”
The baker wiped flour from his brow and kept working – ‘How could I forget when you remind me every time you pass by‘ he replied.
At the cobbler’s bench he sneered, “Mending old shoes? How noble. The world is racing toward the designs of tomorrow and you’re still stitching the fashions of yesterday. I buy better newer shoes from the next town. Are you still using the large batch of leather my father gave you when you had no money to buy more?“
The cobbler nodded reluctantly and threaded his needle without further reply of his own unspoken debt.
He mocked the seamstress for her “endless pointless stitches added to old rags,” the fishmonger for “always smelling of failure for displaying so few fish,” the schoolteacher for “raising the next generation of poor idiots,” and the Priest at the town church for “preaching values to the deaf and blind of the town” – with the added reminder that his parents has generously given much of his family wealth to the upkeep of the church with a new taller spire when the old one had collapsed, a rebuilt pulpit for the sermons, new upholstering of the pew cushions for added comfort, new heating and lighting to provide warmth and light on cold dark days, and a community hall for the regular town gatherings.
But the one he saved his loudest, longest contempt for, was old Elias, who had sat every day in living memory on the same stone bench beside an old dilapidated disused well on the outskirts of town, quietly carving little wooden toys for the children.
“Look, here we find everyday, the town idiot himself!” Victor would bellow, drawing a circle of amused onlookers. “Carving dolls while the rest of us carve our own futures! Tell me, old man, when will you actually do something useful with what little life remains in your old bones? What a complete waste of a time you have become, you decrepid old fool.”
Elias looked away, embarrassed, ridiculed, mocked, trying to avoid the unwanted and uncalled for attention upon him.
One autumn evening, Victor had visited the local public house in which he had drunk much celebrating and feeling flushed with his own recent successes and achievements. He strode past Elias yet again, voice rising in fresh mockery but Elias was fast asleep, wrapped in an old tattered woolen blanket that covered him from head to foot. Not watching where he was going, Victor filled with his own contempt and laughing at his own brilliance, he tripped and fell against the loose stonework of the old well which collapsed inwards.
He stepped into empty air.
Down he plunged, thirty feet into black, icy water and jagged stone. The impact knocked the breath from him; the muddy water swallowed his cries. Above, the circle of moonlit sky shrank to a coin of fading light in the cloudy sky. His fine coat soaked through, his clever tongue tasted only bitter silt and terror. He shouted until his voice cracked to a hoarse whisper. No one came. Hours passed until time ceased to measure the cold and pain that numbed his body and mind.
In the growing light of the dawn sun, he heard the sound of scraping stone far above him as small pieces landed on top of him from high above. A weathered face appeared at the rim, it was Elias, holding a lantern curiously looking down having noticed the gaping hole in the side of the well when he awoke.
Victor’s heart leapt as he barely croaked out the word ‘Help’ to the old man he had made a mockery of the day before. Elias studied him for a long moment, as Victor’s thoughts then turned to horror. ‘What if the old man decided not to do anything to save me – after the way I have treated him for so long. Is he going to leave me here to die? I couldn’t blame him for all I have done.’
Elias shouted down – “Hold on. Don’t worry son. I’ll go get help.”
Soon, a gathering of people appeared. One by one, the people Victor had spent years mocking gathered at the well’s edge.
The baker brought the strongest rope from his shop.
The cobbler knotted it with sailor’s skill learned long ago.
The seamstress threaded extra cord through the knots making loops for safety and strength.
The fishmonger took up position as an anchor, wrapping the other end of the rope around him, arms strong and steady from years of hard work and honest labour while the strong hands of the baker gripped the rope with the strength only years of kneading dough gave him.
The schoolteacher kept the curious children back from the well and spoke calm instructions to the group to work together. The Priest called on higher powers to bless and bring about a desired end to the proceedings.
And old Elias, mocked the longest, mocked the loudest, knelt at the edge and guided the rope down himself.
When Victor’s trembling hands finally grasped the line, it was Elias who said, “Hold tight, son. We’ve got you.”
They pulled together, people whose lives he had called worthless, until Victor lay gasping on solid ground, soaked cold and shaking, and for the first time in years, silent and speechless.
Not one of them laughed. The baker draped a warm coat over his shoulders. The seamstress wiped mud from his eyes and face with the corner of her apron. Elias pressed a small, freshly carved wooden cross into his palm blessed by the warmth of a smiling and grateful priest.
Victor looked around at the circle of quiet faces, then at the little gift in his hand, and something inside him broke open like a dam too long mocked for holding back the flood.
He wept, and cried ugly, honest tears that tasted of dirty well-water and shame.
“Forgive me,” he whispered to every face he had wounded. “I was a fool“.
He looked towards Elias. ” It was me not you. I was always the fool.” Elias’s face shone and smiled, a deep smile of compassion and love.
From that night forward, the man who once proudly walked the town dealing scorn and mockery, humbly walked it instead, buying bread from the baker and giving it to those who had hunger. He provided a new batch of leather to the cobbler mending shoes for those had none, he gave lessons teaching children after hours, and he contributed greatly to the town church just as his father and mother before him, receiving gratitude from the Priest and people of the town who smiled and waved when he passed them by.
But, especially, he spent time sitting beside old Elias on the bench, next to the newly renovated, repaired and re-dug well, cleared of debris and dirt to provide fresh clean Spring Water for the town.
He learnt about the tales of Elias’s earlier life, listening slowly and humbly, about his journey spent in far off distant lands, climbing mountains, crossing deserts, serving in the army as a physician, saving countless lives whilst risking his own, and also how to find peace carving something from wood that might make another heart smile.
𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋
𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙣𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙙𝙖𝙮 𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣. 𝙈𝙤𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙝𝙚 “𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙨” 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙤𝙢 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙞𝙣 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪, 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝 𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙣. 𝙃𝙪𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙮; 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙪𝙥 𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙘𝙮 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙙𝙤 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚, 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙙 𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨.
