Martin From an earlier diary 2003

In the history of the Valley there has never been a more touching story than that of Martin Ques. His is a story of true heart ache and loss and in the very core of all who lived in the Village, the hallmark for exception to rules…

Martin was a goodly man, industrious and fair minded. He lived in the middle area of the Village, not the rich shores of the Village elite, nor the hilltop homes of the poor, but the buffer lands of those who had neither excess nor want. He owned a small goods bizarre and headed up many of the local charity events and on Sunday, he himself headed the choir. Martin Ques was a goodly man, with a goodly heart and soul.

In the latter part of Early Year, Martin met and fell quite in love with a young lady named Tracey Spencer. She too was from the mid lands of the Village, he daughter of a meat cutter.

Tracey was not overly beautiful however she was not plain by any accounts. Her physical charms were of average desirability yet she had a most curious mind. It seemed as though Tracey could hold conversations with the most unnatural things and it also seemed, that what ever she spoke to, well told her things that were nearly impossible to guess.

One case in point would be the day that Wes Hamilton was having problems out of his four piston steamer. The foolish contraption seemed unwilling to move for the man any faster than a snails pace. This infuriated him to no end.

Tracey saw the commotion and walked up to the ailing machine and with a few simple words to it. She told Mr. Hamilton that there was a clog in the main pipes of the steamer.

“The poor thing needs a good cleaning.” She smiled to him and danced away.

Not more than one day later, Mr. Hamilton went to the girl and thanked her for her help. It seemed there was a salt deposit in the main distribution pipe restricting the flow of steam to the pistons. One good pipe cleaning later and his steamer was running better than ever.

Martin and Tracey only courted for one full turning of the calendar before they married in the latter half of Early Year ‘45. Everyone in the Village was there. They all spoke of how lovely she looked and how good they were for each other.

Everyone danced and sang and offered gifts to the young couple, then as the sun began to set on the far side of the hills, Martin and Tracey bade everyone farewell and went into their home for their first night as a married couple.

The lamp lighters went about their rounds singing and lighting lamp, however on special nights like that one, they stopped outside of Martins home and sang three special songs to them.

The first is the “Well Wishing” song, meant more as a prayer for the couple to know only prosperity in their lives. The second song, “Words of our Love”, they sang in memory of all the lost loves, as a reminder to them to always speak with open hearts. The final song, “Carry Me”, a reminder that no marriage is truly successful if there is no aid. After all a marriage is the blending of two people into one, the true image of god and without that blending, there is no union.

Their marriage was a true balance of two people sharing one life. Martin was dutiful and hard working for his wife and she would spend her time tending house and helping people find solutions to their problems, who would then pay her a small but proper stipend for her help. They were very much in love and happy.

Three years into their marriage Tracey was with child and she found herself to be the center of much attention. It seemed that everyone who she had helped in her life came to her aid in the most inane ways. They held doors open for her, helped in carrying packages and bags, some even helped in the daily routines of house keep when she needed it most.

One night just before bed, Tracey was setting at her window speaking to the air, this confused Martin and he asked what she could be up to. She explained to him that her angel was setting outside the window and explaining the nature of her birth and how he, himself would need to be strong for all three of them.

You see, the angel told her that she would not live to the face of their daughter, she would have problems in childbirth and that Martin would have to choose one life for the other.

Martin was worried by this. He began to wonder if the weight of giving birth was taking a toll on his poor wife and begged her to take more time to herself and her rest. She promised she would and there was nothing more said to the matter.

Soon Tracey took ill and was forced to her bed. All that could aid in her recuperation were at her side day and night and no matter how hard the Village prayed and labored, her illness grew worse.

On the day of her delivery, the doctor went to Martin and told him that there was a hard choice to make. Tracey would not make it through the delivery, her body too weak to stave off the ravages of her illness and bringing new life to the world would surely kill her.

He told Martin that if they aborted the child, she would live, or they could save the child at the cost of his wife, but the choice would have to be his. Martin told the doctor of his wife’s conversation with an angel about the very thing and she made him swear that if the day should come, the child was to be born, no matter the cost, and so it was that Anne Marie Ques came into the world.

Anne Marie Ques was a most striking child. She bore all the best attributes of her both her parents and more. Her wit was beyond compare, some said she had a very old soul and this only added to her great beauty.

At only seven years old she had already proven her keen intellect and aided her father in his bizarre after the schools had closed for recess. She also had a bit of her mother’s endowment as well, speaking to animals who needed help and people of their lost.

Martin was wary of this gift. It unsettled him to think that she could one day see such tragedy in her own life, and tried his best to discourage her from doing so. It was as always a fools request and when Martin was not in sight, the little girl would prognosticate and relay messages from the beyond whenever possible.

On the night of First Day, as they had always done, when Martin would set Anne Marie on his lap for a nighttime story, she mentioned that an angel was setting on the stairs listening to the fable and asked if the angel could join them.

Martin was sharp in his response and told her never to speak to the angel. Angels are not real and only a figment of undisciplined intelligence. He would have no talk of angels in his home and sent her packing off to bed.

Anne Marie was not sure how to feel about her father’s mistrust of such beautiful things and spoke to the angel anyway. It told her that soon she would meet her mother and they would be happy for all time, all she need do was wait one year and they could be together.

Anne Marie on the very next night sat on her fathers lap and in the middle of their fable asked about her mother, who she was, what she was like and the sort. Her tone made it clear that she would not let the subject go.

Martin placed the book on the floor, buffed his pipe, lit it and began the story of her mother. it was a tale of great wonder and joy, tearstained moments and giving without measure of herself to others, only to have such enterprise returned five fold to her.

“She was a miracle to me and all mankind to the very day she died.”

“How did she die father?” She asked gently.

“An angel told her that to bring you into the world she would have to leave it. And so it was that you were born.” He tried so very hard to hide his tears.

“It’ll be alright father.” She looked down sheepishly. “My angel told me that mother and I would meet in one year and we would happy for all time.”

Martin wanted to say something, he wanted to discourage the belief in such folly, however he had seen too much of her mother in her and could not say or do anything to alter the message the angel left to her, so he took her in his arms and carried her off to bed.

In the last half of Latter Year, the fog had lain thick on the Village and the snows lay even deeper. It was a hard time for everyone and Anne Marie was struck ill. Martin had closed the bizarre to devote all his time to her and her recuperation.

He spent all his savings, sold his bizarre and did all he could to save the life of his child. Everyone in the Village put hand in pocket and gave all they could give to restore this poor creature to health. Most worked extra hours and came about the house constantly offering aid of any kind to the man in the name of his ailing child.

Doctors from all three settlements could find no cause for the disease, nor could they find cure. It was as if she were meant to die, as she had prophesied almost one year ago.

Martin finally gave up. He closed the doors of his home to all who came by and took no more doctors nor medicine to his child’s room. It is said that he spent his time tending his child, reading her stories and asking her to beg the angel in his name not to make this prediction a reality.

It was the night of First Day, one year later that Martin Ques walked out of his home and to the house of the parson. He asked for a best burial he could give his daughter, although his meager fortune was spent. By noon of the second day of the year, Martin was the richest man in town. All the money of the Village was given to him by every man woman and child in the name of Anne Marie.

Villagers who would have never spoken during any other day of the year spoke as though they were dear friends. The rich rubbing shoulder with the poor, the work hands standing side by side with the task masters, all shedding tears and supporting each other and Martin as only a true community can do.

There was not one life that Tracey and Anne Marie did not touch in the Village, not one soul who had not been approached by them in one way or another and to loose them was to have lost a piece of the Village itself.

Martin buried his daughter beside his wife in a most ostentatious coffin the Village could afford. Soon after a mausoleum was erected over the graves to commemorate the two and not long after, it became a sight of worship for those who needed help with sticking door jams, or finicky, sluggish steamers.

Martin, however, did not survive the year. It was at Mid Point when the lamp lighters were singing, that one noticed the lights going on and off, one by one, room by room, in Martins home.

Not more than a moment after the last light in Anne Marie’s room went out, the Lighter saw the muzzle flash and heard the sound of a single gunshot. Martin Ques could not live with his family so far away from him.

The rains fell heavy at his funeral as the parson spoke of a good man, a loved man and a loving husband and father. He spoke of a pillar and a rock, of a man who we all should try to model our lives after.

The parson spoke of forgiveness, of the need to be forgiven for all manner of wrong doing. He spoke of the sin of suicide, and how in all cases they were to be judged unworthy of the lord’s holy love.

He then cast away all his trappings of priesthood and stood only in his pants and shoes, casting his head to the sky and pleading for god’s forgiveness of this man. He threw his heart into the heavens screaming like a madman at the god he had sworn to love for all days.

The Villagers, one by one, dropped their rain gear and fell to their knee’s praying singing holy words, and holding their hands to the sky demanding that god take his son to heaven to be at rest with his family.

The parson fell to his knee’s kneeling on the casket sobbing inconsolably at the thought of such a good man’s fate in the after life. It was a great sorrow that fell over our Village, until, in the middle of he deluge a single break in the clouds allowed but one sliver of silver light to fall on the mausoleum of Martins family and we all knew on that great day that there are exceptions to every rule and that love, pure unrefined love of yourself and others can move even god himself to forgive that which cannot be forgiven…

From that day, whenever anyone in the Village was beyond consolation, beyond all known forms of aid, they would walk to the Ques mausoleum and set there, sometimes sleeping overnight until the aid they desperately needed was given to them, for this aid money would be left at the door.

This money was spent on the upkeep of the Ques home. It was never lived in again and became a shrine to anyone who came to the Village. It had a message for anyone who looked upon it and for those who worked in it, said there was a feeling of great peace in its walls.

The message of this story I will leave to you and if you find a message in it at all, I would ask that you leave coin on your doorstep as recompense for the aid it offers…

In the time that passes from birth to adulthood, there is a struggle between keeping that which you are about to loose and accepting that which you must endure. I had a particularly difficult struggle with letting go the rose glasses of youth for the silk glove of maturity.

My father could no longer find work in the Village. There was no need for a carpenter and at his age, he could no longer easily learn a new skill. It was time for us to leave our home. Mind you, I had only been alive for a decade, but what a decade it was and as much as my life was only just starting the Village was the only place I knew as home and to leave it was to end my life, to end all that there was of me. It was the decimation of my innocence and the reformation of adolescence.

The Greater Depression was indeed a vast area and in Latter Year ’75 my family moved form the Village to the Hamlet. My father had secured employ in a small yet sable carpentry mill. He had dictated to my sisters and I that we were to pack our things and be ready to leave by the dawn of the following day.

I hated the thought of leaving everything I knew and loved behind. The Village was my home and all I ever knew of life. The time for putting my rose glasses away had come and I was not prepared.

The Hamlet sat not more than a day west from the Village. It was much larger than the Village and there was so much more for a child to do. She shops were larger and most of the buildings were brick or stone. It also sat in a valley, not as steep nor was it bordered by water but land locked and stripped of most vegetation.

On the morning before we were to leave, I sat in my room looking out the window, staring into the massive green peaks of my home wondering if I would ever see the people I knew from my life ever again. As I sat gazing out into the world around me it began to rain and I felt something within me change somehow.

As the rain fell down I could feel my memories, the story of my life flow out into the wilderness, flowing and ebbing through the streets, passing into the horizon and beyond. All the little cherished things I held dear to me, pooled in waves of sorrow and joy as the conjuring of them wrapped me like a blanket and hugged me as they began to pass away.

I resolved that in the face of coming change, I would not allow my world to change. I would be the person I was forever and ever and that would be the way of it. I found myself repeating; nothings gonna change my world.

Slowly, inexorably I began to pack my belongings into a small wooden box. One by one the memories associated with each item flashed bright in my mind. I could feel my room fall away from me as I resigned myself to recounting memories, one million lights which danced in my head bright and fading, giving way to the next.

My thoughts drifted on and on across the canvas of my life, my fingers feeling every thread of the tapestry that was my short, yet powerful existence. I was swept away, blind to the currents and tidal pools of such emotion that can only be felt by a child who stood on the brink of adolescent, defiant in the face of change, ignorant to the true meaning of what was about to come and still reciting; “Nothings gonna change my world.”

I was nearly blind to the stream of tears that fell from my eyes as the few years I experienced were carefully placed in no real order, in the box that sat before me. I swooned as I stumbled across the metal soldier I had received from my grandfather, the telling of our people’s heritage still fresh on the paint of it and his death not three days later.

The haunting ghosts of laughter as I placed a small, toy shovel in the box and my first time digging snow with my father s we stumbled and fell into the great white blanket.

I remember the ease in which the memories flowed and how each one would call forth the next and so on as the epic of me played in my mind. Memories like fireflies danced to the love of my grandmother, the ecstasy of a new sunrise and the dread of the fog that rolled in during Latter Year now more than a million suns in the landscape of my recollection.

All that I was now compacted into a small wooden box on the floor of my empty room, lay before me as the rain fell through an open window of a rainy afternoon. I lay staring at the box intently as the tidal forces of emotion crested and slowly drifted further back into the basin of my soul.

Sluggishly I fell to sleep in the comfort of my room, for the very last time. I slept as a child would sleep, shrugging off the troubles and woes of the day, drifting ever deeper into the deepest recesses of incorruptibility. Only a child whose heart is still so pure can know that great peaceful slumber. It is something I miss to this day.

I woke to the sound of my father pulling the steamer to the front of our home. I peered out the window to see him throwing box and bundle into the back of it, packing the thing full.

Reluctantly I grabbed by box and made my way down the stairs. I saw my father setting on the floor of the great room puffing on his pipe and looking about the house. I saw in his eye, the same sort of sadness I felt in my heart as he scanned the corners of the room.

“You’re done then?” he sighed as he saw me standing at the base of the stairs.

“Yes.” I wanted to plead with him one more time to stop this foolishness, yet it was the only word that would come from my lips.

“Go get in the steamer, its time we were gone.”

And so it was that I was no longer a part of the Village. No great ceremony, no night of revelation, simply finding a place to set down with my box containing all that I was and a slow procession out of that which was my life.

By mid day, the sun had gotten blinding so I reached into my box and pulled out my rose glasses. They had always made everything so much better and less complicated, however this time, they did nothing at all.

They did not make the sun less bright or less blistering. The tree’s by the roadside did not look as green as the tree’s back home. The small ponds and rivers we passed were a dirty brown, not blue or clear and pure. My glasses had somehow broken and were of no use to me any longer.

With a great swelling of sadness, I took them from my face and carefully placed them in the box of my belongings. The magic of the Village had faded. There was nothing I could do about that, it was gone as much as we were no longer a part of it and try as I might, I could not feel that bond to hearth and home.

I was wrong, something had changed my world, and I was lesser for it.