The Guild of Fear

Meet the fool who's hubris chokes him each and every night. I would give you my name, but a searing brand of humiliation forbids it with shooting pain that torments any formation of social gaiety.  When another calls it out to me, I must affirm only through clenched teeth.  My words are no doubt strange to you.  Just imagine if the tangled chords of fate which sprawl endlessly regardless of direction were to incarnate for just one night of pleasure.  Soon after putting a jug of wine to its lips, the alien found a secluded clearing to sleep off the intoxication.  Now with equal imagination contrive the face of a peasant that had only known oppression, unforgiving labor, crooked accounting practices, and a series of misfortunes that gresseed the one pole jutting from out his customized hell into fair lands.  Give that broken hireling some chicken wire.  Whisper a conspiracy of rebellion into his ear, and tell me if he would not strangle the neck of that indifferent weaver of stories?  He would do it and regale the impoverished tenements with his tale of liberation.  However, I am not the product of a carefully plotted daydream.  I am a feeble man who wasted a golden opportunity.  One day, a gorgeous chariot drawn by a team of clydesdales was rerouted through our shanty town for the sake of speed. It appears that our property value is evaluated as a shortcut to grander destinations. I say it was a chariot, except it was not a tea cup holding one master.  You must forgive my parlance.  It was more akin to a tabernacle on wheels.  Your spirit would have evacuated had you witnessed it.  The carriage was arrayed in reflecting gems big enough to fill one's hand. Masterful carvings were etched into the doors.  It had windows like a house and exploded with royal colors.  A man and woman stepped out of it, but separately.  The man exited first scouting the area.  Then after a moment of approval he held out his palm having it clasped by a delicate gloved hand. After taking slow measured steps down from the mobile art piece, she spun around in a pale blue gown that was more fitted for a banquet hall.   I had a spear which I could direct within inches of any target for bluffing purposes.  And if I wished there to be a fatal outcome, it was only a matter of concealing my location.  It is not by the wages of a crooked industrialist that I feed my family.  Boars, rabbits, and geese were no match for my accuracy that always had the sufficient strength to conclude the life of any prey item.  The man wore his hair long and styled it not too dissimilar from the woman.  His suit looked to be of a foreign cut.  It clung to the body much like a butcher would wrap slabs of meat after a made purchase.  I raised my javelin with ambitions similar to any of my hunting excursions.  This man was a standin for all lords that abused their station.  I could avenge every impossible order barked at me that always came with punitive deadlines. It wasn't bad enough that we were doubled over in agony from the work, the deductions to our pay started to rhyme with ancient captivity that could be found in scripture.  To relieve this interloper of any precious substance he traveled with only seemed justified.  It was a chance to balance the sheets; to reverse the mercantile plunder with the violence it deserved.  Closing one eye for depth perception, I pulled my weapon past my shoulder.  Then the woman began cooing and making silly faces into the carriage.  I had a clear shot of the man's long aristocratic neck when three little tots tumbled out of the vehicle pointing at the trees and collecting pine cones.  My resolve melted within me.  I trembled.  No!  What of the children that slept on floors and drank more water than they wanted to quell hunger pangs?  What of them?  Did they care for our little ones?  I resumed a throwing posture.  Just the man, the others could escape with their lives.  One of the boys spotted me and picked up a stick of his own to imitate me.  I panicked as the father swiveled in elegant attire having his attention redirected to my whereabouts.  We locked eyes for what seemed like an eternity.  I hurled my implement of death with the ferocity of ten lions.  A squeal rang out to the very boughs of the tall trees.  Making my way down to the ambassadors of courtly affairs, I pushed my dart the rest of the way through a flailing juvenile pig.  It wasn't even wild.  The sow belonged to my neighbor.  I was promptly scolded by the mother about a margin of error that could have resulted in the injury of her children.   I sheepishly offered the pig as a token of my regret.  It was not only refused, but was sneered at in the custom that only landowners could manage without a stage director.  The man told me that he would make a report of this incident to the authorities.  It was later revealed that he was one of the owners of my massive debt.  I let the banker and his wife steal into the night guiltless of their codified mendacity.