… Was a rather pleasant afternoon, a cloudy and rainy day of November, the kind of day I’m used to spend on the mountain near my home.
And so I was, protected under my heavy mackintosh, retracing one more time my favourite routes when, at a sharp turn of the path that should have brought me to a vantage point, I found myself utterly lost.
What was before me was a small clearing, a zigzagging path leading to its centre, where a small wooden cottage was erected. “Absurd” I thought, “There’s on one living on this mountain. There’s no place to build such house!” my mind went on. Intrigued as to how this was possible and angered not to have discovered this sooner, I walked briskly towards the cottage and its light-up porch. Had I known what was about to happen, I might have turned my back to the cottage and ran like hell… well, run anyways.
A balding man was sitting on an old-fashioned rocking chair on the porch, his face light-up by a dozen or so dripping candles, some taller, other nothing more than a stub, all placed on a table near him. His face, half-hidden by the smoke of the pipe he was smoking, was like a piece of leather left to dry to the sun, dark, tanned and cracked; the embers of the pipe glowed a deep ruby red, casting strange shadows over his face.
“What’s up, sonny”, he said, “didja lost your way? The deep rumbling of his voice made my skin crawl.
“So it seems. I thought I knew this mountain, guess I’m wrong”
“Oh, few can find my special place on their own, though from time to time I let them find it. Here, have a seat”, he said, while motioning me to a chair near the candles.
“And a nice place you’ve f… -wait, what to you mean *you* let them find it?
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Now sit” He said, a pinch of impatience in his voice
Something was definitely wrong here, I thought. “Look, I have to go” sounding more concerned than what I expected “they’re waiting me home”, I apologized. A lame excuse, but one I hoped would drag me off of this weird situation.
“Oh! I don’t think you’re in a hurry to leave, now that you won’t find the way back” said the man, pointing with his pipe behind me
“What do you mean… I said, turning “What the hell!?”
The path had disappeared. The clearing showed no evident way in or out. Turning sharply to face the man, I found him staring at me, a big broad smile on his face. “Now sit” he said, pointing once more to the vacant chair. “It’s not often I invite someone to chat”. Half-intrigued and half-scared, I sat, looking straight ahead, clutching tightly the arms of the chair, scanning the forest, looking for the way I entered. The man was still looking at me, puffing humorously at his pipe.
“My name is Pôl Gornek”, he said
“Strange name” I conceded, “not English, I bet”
“Indeed no. It’s old Gaelic. Means ‘The little horned’”
“Sounds devilish”. The man chortled, then laughed loudly. His gaze then glazed for a moment, and the pipe still in his mouth, he asked, quietly
“Do you believe in God?”
“I’m more inclined to believe in the Devil right now” I answered, still scanning the boundaries of the forest.
“Damn right! He bursted, “the bugger is so lost on his clouds that he’ll need a magnifying glass to see you now, paddling waist-deep in shit. A loving and merciful god? Ah! My ass… A lazy and arrogant jerk I’d say.
“Well, we can’t do anything about that” I said nervously “Things are how they are…” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the conversation; I didn’t like the ring “paddling waist-deep in shit” had…
“What? What? Of course *you* can’t do nothing, but I do! I’m the Devil! I can lie, corrupt and deface humankind!
“Errr… what?”
“Oh, sorry, that might have been a bit rude, I just got carried over” he said, regaining some composure. “You see, John, I’m the Devil”
“How do you know my nam- what?? You’re what???” I said
“Are you deaf or dumb, sonny? I’m the Devil, it’s just that sometimes, you know, I need some rest from the all torturing and corrupting business, so I made this place just for me and my visits, a “home away from home”, you could say.” He sounded old and fatigued
“Then prove it” I said
“What? Prove what?” he answered, startled.
“Prove you’re the Devil, insofar you’re just a crazy hermit, sitting out in the forest” The glare he shot me could have melted iron
“You’re asking the Devil to prove he is the source of all evil” he growled “you’re fun, John, but I’m warning you, you *really* don’t want to do this”
“No, go ahead, do whatever you want” I challenged
“Very well” he said. “Have you heard that saying “it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness? Have you ever thought about it?”
“No, not really”
“Well, it’s because what can be found in darkness… all our fears, all the monsters, all the pain comes from that darkness… but even the strongest of them melt away to the light of a single candle”. And with that, suddenly, the candles went out.
“Pôl?” I called. I could see almost nothing. It was a moonless night and the stars barely shone but to cast a gloomy light around the clearing. Slowly, as my night vision improved, I began to distinguish some details.
And then my heart jumped. Straight ahead, near the dark mass of trees I could see someone. Pôl seemed to have vanished, and I didn’t want to linger more, so I jumped out the seat to meet that figure and ask directions.
The figure seemed a good great deal away. I was running and running but I was nowhere near him. I stopped, breathless and then I noticed something strange. The whole landscape was glowing with a pale blue, as if millions of fireflies were camping on the grass. But they were not fireflies, but more like a dense, coloured mist, swirling around me. “Ok Pôl, I know it’s you, you can stop now, you’ve made your point” I said, sitting on the ground, “I’m scared shit you know”. Then out of the mist they came, thousand, hundreds of sad looking figures, pale, translucent, almost like ghosts, but they had some substance, for they were trying to touch and speak to me. It was both beautiful and terrific…
They were grouping around me, their ghostly hands passing through mine. Their offered no more resistance than the wind and left nothing but a prickly sensation. But something had changed; they were less ghostly, more… real. Suddenly, out of nowhere one of them grabbed me. I managed to shake him out, but then another gripped my leg. I kicked hard and the arm dissolved like mist.
I was beginning to feel alarmed. I ran back to the cottage, the misty horde following around, fighting to grasp me. When I finally got to the porch the ghosts stopped, like flung to a wall. They began to wail, a low, meaningless primal sound.
“Oh no, you stop that right now” said someone, coming from the cottage “Shoo, shoo you lot, let the boy alone, he has a good soul” It was Pôl, now in the middle of the ghosts, shooing them away, but it was unnecessary for they were fleeing him. He light his pipe and some of the nearest ghost screamed and vanished. “Just the light of a match” he said, now lighting each candle “with this alight, you have nothing to fear”. All the candles were light-up now. The ghosts had vanished.
“What were they?” I asked, shaken
“Man, you should see you face”, said Pôl laughing “They were souls” he went on “some of the souls of the damned. They always follow me at distance; light is the only way I can get some rest”
“Have you come for my soul?” I said totally terrified
“Me? Gosh no… You could say I’m on vacations” he said “besides, the way you’re living your life, there’s no way you could be on my list”.
“Then why lead me here?”
“Oh, I already said, I enjoy a little chat from time to time, but it’s getting late, you should go now” Pôl said. “Here, take this, so you’ll always remember me” he said, picking up a candle stub from the table “Small as it seems, this candle will always burn, this way, you’ll remember the importance of light. Now go!”
I woke up on me bed, startled and all sweated. “Oh thank God, it was only a nightmare” I thought. But I was fully clothed and, on my bed table, a small candle-stub was lighting the whole room.
I never went back to that mountain.
