The Assassin’s Tale 

I’d been watching Moe for years, decades really.  I was aware, the way one is aware, that we would meet finally.  Moe was a scholar of the past glories of the Middle East. While the dark ages swept through Europe, he would point out, there was a magnificent renaissance of art and learning in the Arabian peninsula.  He could effortlessly recall  scholars, poets, artists and politicians and use them casually in conversation. He wrote volumes on seminal moments in middle eastern history. But as the decades shape shifted into modern times, try has he might to stay informed and relevant, Moe stood on the sidelines and, gradually, stopped giving a shit. 

He was comfortable, camouflaged behind a legacy of being well informed without doing any of the leg work anymore. His books were rarely. included in anyone’s scholarly syllabus. Mo was no longer creative or hopeful. As the years wore away at his knees and hips and heart he knew that there was always going to be another apocalyptic event. It dawned on him that, without much trouble, he could skip an entire world crisis. He could actually not know anything at all. 

“Sure,” he would nod, and ask questions. “What’s your source on that?” he might say. “Can you send me the link?” (He said that a lot.) “That’s interesting. Can you send me a link?” And take out his fountain pen, without writing anything down. He liked the sound of the cap snapping on and off. He held the pen in his fingertips. It was golden.

It dawned on Mo that his utter ignorance did not affect his few friends, or world events in any way at all. No one noticed or cared. If a butterfly’s wings could cause a violent hurricane on the other side of the earth, it turned out that those particular diaphanous wings were not his. 

He found he could stop flailing away as he had in younger days when he was encouraging uprisings against an endless stream of wars, one on the heels of the next. He could sit in his garden trimming his  potted maple trees and read Chekov, take an occasional pull on a spliff, and the balance of power in the world did not waiver, flicker or flinch.The gluttonous didn’t die from their gluttony, and the good were not rewarded for their integrity nor their suffering. 

I watched him carefully during this gradual descent. I wondered if he could maintain his footing as he tottered forward. As the stones slipped away beneath his feet, I found myself circling overhead.

The flowing stream of his  compelling voice merged with the gravel and mossy bottom feeders.  So went the thought that he would be consequential once again, even revered, at least a fucking elder.

Moe continued to keep his home and his teeth  clean. Moe was like one of those rainbow trout he’d caught as a child, hopeless, but still gasping for air.  

And then it happened, one day in an early Spring, as the last sparse rains fell, and another year of draught began.  As simply as closing a leather bound book, he was done trying to make sense of it all, he stopped caring altogether. 

It was still easy to appear thoughtful as he sat with friends. He continued to seem concerned over dinner. But he was a passenger now. Not sad, nor resolute. He looked out the window. He gazed at the world outside, as if he were seeing it for the first and last time. 

Surely he knew I would be coming. I almost felt sad for him, expecting him to call for help or turn and fight. I was behind him as he walked down a long hall and then climbed the stairs, trailing a leg, as old men do. I wondered for a second  if he was trying to escape. He was keeping ahead of me, but by now I was as light as a gathering storm. 

He was waiting for me there, standing perfectly still in his study, one hand on his favorite chair, ready.  I saw his joy return, in those last moments. 

As we merged I knew he really did love the way the tears felt, as they spilled like a mountain stream across his burning eyes.