Midgard's Rest

An almost entirely true story.

Alone in the confines of a small metal room, I traveled to ancient places in the pages of paperback versions of banished tomes. Egypt, and the stories of Ra, Horus and Hathor. Oden’s ascent, in Asgard. The Morningstar, Lilith and the fallen. It was here I found tales of the beginning of new worlds from tattered ashes. The beginning of gods. Respite from my own nightmarish ending. So much is to be gleamed from books, histories. Yet, we cannot know our own unmaking, or the undertow of oceans awaiting to capsize our ships.

I accepted that my story on earth had ended, for my flesh began to ache, and my mind went askew. The path I’d traveled all my years had worn down in the soles of my shoes, finally causing the blood in my veins to curdle like spoiled milk, but above the ankle. My eternal life however, would not allow me to slip through the gates of the cosmos so easily. No. I must sacrifice more than my body, now, for I have spent to long in a world where I did not belong. I needed to find the seer.

In a place where the humans dwell, there lived but a man. This man was not strong, nor beautiful, but did he offer comfort in his home. I found him on a dirt path, on the edge of nature, and the human world. His home was built from calcified mud, and sat affixed between two others just like it. The chimney did not bellow with smoke, nor did the hearth lay cold. A map, found below the ground in the forest led me to this man. Seeing his hut, I questioned; What could I gleam from such a man?

I’d traveled much too far to turn back without quenching my thirst for wonder. So, I wrapped a fist upon his door. Long grey and black hair, sticky with rest, fell around his shoulders. The smell of dust, waft toward me. He was very tall, towering above me. His eyes were quiet, yet knowing. His skin seemed neither to sag, nor stretch fairly. It was impossible to know his age. He stepped out onto the stoop with me as he greeted me, staring off onto the horizon. His feet were bare as he stepped into the grass while we talked of my travels. I explained how’d come to find him. As I spoke, he crouched to the ground, plucking a single wildflower. Once I’d finished, he turned, and pressed the flower into my hand. “Come in, child. I may not have what you seek, but I will tell you of the path you travel.” So I did.

He left me in the main room of his home, alone, for quite some time. I could hear him tinkering, and digging through his belongings. The chair I sat in was near to thread bare, and the floor covered in age beneath my feet. The hearth across from me lay quiet, but the warmth never left it. In the center of the room, knee high to me seated site a table covering in a shroud. There were strange markings on the walks, not unlike Runes, but with light curves connecting them to one another. A mirror, marked with an “X” hung over the hearth like the portal he traveled within had been permanently closed.

When he returned, he carried a small, wooden box, aged with the eons. Its seems to be regrowing roots at the bottom, I noticed, as he approached the shrouded table before me. He removed the covering to reveal a thin later of oblong glass, held on both ends by ornate iron rods. He lay the box down in the center, and left the room again without speaking. Upon his second return, he carried a chair. It was tall in the back, wooded, with stirrups for feet. As he sat, he placed his feet in them, and watched me as I observed him with caution. “If the pads of my feet below me touch the same ground as yours, I will see too much within your mind. It will damage the true vision of your future, given that you all taint it with your fears, doubts and desires.” I nodded.

He opened the box to reveal a deck of tarot cards. The cards where old, I could see, and smell their age, but there were not worn. He pulled them from the box and handed them to me. “Place your questions inside them. Make five piles of five cards each without looking at them. You may ask five questions.” So I did.

He sat, almost bored with me, as I lay the cards into piles. When I was finished, he scooped them up into his hands, putting the others back inside the box. He then began laying them out on the table, in a similar oblong order. He did not speak until all the cards had been played. When he looked up at me again, his eyes were wide, as if in a trance.

He explained that the left side of the center line of cards was the past, the right— the future. He told me of a the life I’d just left behind, but described a hidden agenda of three women who had cursed me. He they described the center of the table— four cards. My life line. I would travel a far distance to find what I sought, yet come back to my home to visit, made new. I would die, old but with many friends and comforts, and, yet my soul would not return. He told me of my future now, a man I would meet, and marry. That he would have a son who was like me, a traveler. He warned me not to make deals with a woman, for she would destroy me. When he was done speaking, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slouch in his chair.

Finally, after a moment of rest, he spoke again. “We must all write our own song”.

I drew a sketch of the cards, at his request. Then I stood to leave, but he touched my arm. “You are weary, come sit for tea.” As we walked into the kitchen, the kettle was already warm, but with no sound. A woman sit at the table weaving a tapestry. She did not speak. She only smiled at me as I greeted her. So I sat.

The seer then poured the tea, and began to talk of his life. Death. He had died thrice, once in a lake, he’d drowned. Again, on the road he’d been robbed and left for dead by smugglers. His most recent death, he’d drank a vile of poison gifted in the form of a healing tincture from a dear friend. All the while I did not sit in fear. A large black cat had jumped into my lap sometime during the story, and I pet him vigorously while lay purring. The woman also continued weaving. It was as if we did not discuss death at all, but lives he’d lived. My tea was hot and sweet in my throat, and it wrapped ribbons of comfort around me.

He finished his story, with a final word “We are careful now, not to wish ill, but to seek our own truth through reflection, are we not?” I nodded.

As he walk me to the threshold, I turned to him. I thanked him, and he held me in his arms for a short embrace. I walk back to the path, turning to see him close the door.

He was just a man, but not a man at all. On the outskirts between Asgard and the world of the humans, this small dusty hut. With one final look, I begin to walk.