Chapter & Verse
By RT Walton
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About this ebook
A collection of short stories and poems for contemplation and reflection.
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Chapter & Verse - RT Walton
FOREWORD
By way of an introduction to the stories and the poems in this book, much of the content was unlocked after undergoing a period of counselling as a result of reading M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled nearly three decades ago. The poem Alchemy was written as a tribute and in thanks to Easton Hamilton of The Reach Approach after my immersion into the rich dark waters of psychotherapy.
The Empty Window and Sky Bird were stories born from hours spent in the classroom as a teaching assistant, undertaking many of the tasks set during lesson time. The Girl Who Gave Everything Away, an attempt to protect one of my pupils, intent on running a reckless course, I hoped to discretely impart a warning by giving her the story as ‘reading practice’.
The short two to three line poems were my attempt at Haiku and though I might have been able to assemble my thoughts into seventeen syllables for the most part, am grateful for the feedback from an associate editor at Heron’s Nest a quarterly on-line journal. Nevertheless, I fondly include them here anyway, as mindscapes and meditations, and hope you enjoy reading them as I did composing them.
Finally, my thanks go to Christopher Baker, Easton Hamilton and Vincent Claridge for their encouragement and support in this project and for their loving friendship over the years.
R.T.W
2013
By the time one realizes there are
but a finite number of opportunities,
the simplest act of kindness becomes
something akin to devotion.For Christopher.
Part 1
* Chapter *
Greenheart and the Giant
Not too long ago and not too far away, in the foothills of the Great Mountain, there lived a giant. At the other end of the valley, in a small hamlet just around the bend in the river, lived the people of Satya, their friendly houses clustered together in comfortable companionship.
About them lay fields and orchards, yielding and lush in their grains and fruits. And so the people of Satya lived happily and gently, dancing with the seasons, accepting with joy what nature, in her own time provided.
But life was not so for the giant, where the barren and rocky land was swept by arid winds and burned by cruel frosts, so that no vegetation clothed the naked body of the earth. At night the giant took shelter in a cave. By day he roamed the rocky wilderness searching for insects and small creatures and they were his sustenance.
Now, as is customary among the good people of Satya, every child is named in the fifth year of life at the Choosing ceremony. And so it was for Greenheart, who as the Choosing implies, was bestowed this most fitting name in celebration and in thanks for a particularly good harvest.
At the end of the sixth year, when Greenheart had seen yet another full four seasons, the Choosing was still in place. And indeed, it seemed as though Greenheart had been born with the name and that the Choosing and the Child were one.
***
Late one day in the mid-point of the year, little Greenheart was returning home and having still some way to go, took the westward route into the setting sun and soon entered a strange and barren valley high up among the foothills of the Great Mountain. Little Greenheart knew nothing of the giant but the giant knew that someone had entered his valley.
For half an afternoon the giant had watched the tiny figure’s descent into the valley and now he could see it was a little child. All the while the giant brooded and scowled, jealous of his isolation, his brain filled with half formed plans of abduction and murder. The longer the giant watched the child, the greater grew