There was a man who had lived for a long time on his own. One day, while walking in the woods, he met a woman and they fell into love. One night, a few quick months later, she fell into labour, and while the doctor and his midwives attended to her the man went outside for a walk.<\/p>\n
He headed out into the woods and there was met by men recruiting for the army, and very quickly they impressed him into service. He spent many years away, and was forced there to fight incomprehensible battles in unknowable places for increasingly unclear reasons. He became so weary and distraught by this life of constant toil and terror that it was only his dreams of returning to his wife and child that kept him sane.<\/p>\n
Eventually there came a battle the army could not win. A bullet struck him in the lung and he fell down among the corpses of his colleagues and stayed there. When the battle drew to a close and the victorious walked among the wounded to deal them their final blows, he lay still and pretended to be dead in the hope that they would pass him by. <\/p>\n
The true corpses attracted the crows. But the crows left his body well alone, for his stench was not yet to their liking. The soldiers drew ever closer, and he feared he would soon be found.<\/p>\n
\u2018Crow,\u2019 he called. \u2018Please come here and feed upon me, if only for a little while, so that I may look as if I am dead. For if I am found alive I will be killed stone dead, and never will I be able to return to my love, who I was snatched cruelly from, nor see the face of my child, who was born scant hours after my abduction and whom I have never seen at all.\u2019<\/p>\n
Even though the offer was a poor one, for if the man was dead the crow would have his whole body to eat rather than a mere moment\u2019s bite, it took pity upon him and hopped up onto his face. And as the soldiers approached the crow pecked out his eye.<\/p>\n
Convinced the man was dead, they passed on by. When it was safe again to speak, the man thanked the crow. \u2018And you may have my lung as well,\u2019 he said. \u2018For it is dead now inside me, and shall only rot and fester there around my heart,\u2019 and he reached into the bullet hole in his chest and pulled out his lung from within him, much like a magician pulling handkerchiefs from the pockets of his coat.<\/p>\n
In thanks for this kind gift, the crow told the man where he was, and how he could get home. The way was long, however, and it took him many years to make his way back. One particularly cold winter in the hills he lost his toes to frostbite, and one especially hot summer by the sea he lost his hand when a mouthful of water stolen from a king\u2019s fountain was punished as severely as could be.<\/p>\n
It was well into the sixteenth year of his exile when he finally arrived home. He knocked on the door of his old house and a woman answered. <\/p>\n
\u2018Is that you?\u2019 his old love said.<\/p>\n
\u2018It is,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018What happened to you?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I lost a lung to a bullet, and my eye to a crow. I lost my hand for water, and my toes to snow. But all these years I have saved my heart for you.\u2019 And he opened up his chest and pulled out his heart and placed it beating in her trembling hands.<\/p>\n
\u2018What would I want with this?\u2019 she asked. \u2018What could I want with it? I hardly know you. I hardly ever knew you. You left and the world went on for all of us. You didn\u2019t save your heart for me. It was always yours, and yours alone. The dream of me that kept you alive was a dream, and was not me. And it was your dream, and yours alone. Give your dream-wife this heart, and leave me to mine.\u2019 <\/p>\n
And she handed him back his heart, and went on with her life. And he, eventually, with his.<\/p>\n
__________<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
1. Written in February 2015<\/em>
\n2. This was first published in November 2018<\/em>
\n3. In An Outbreak Of Peace<\/a>, edited by Cherry Potts, and published by Arachne Press<\/em>
\n4. Which is a very nice book<\/em>
\n5. Filled with very nice stories<\/em>
\n6. Much better than my own.<\/em>
\n7. Also in 2015, this was adapted into a song<\/em>
\n8. Also called The Man Who Left<\/strong><\/em>
\n9. By Vom Vorton<\/a><\/em>
\n10. And which you can listen to below:<\/em><\/p>\n