The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (31 page)

The waters fell & we warkd across.

So easy.

The iland is a simpl plase. Sea sky sand grass. The wind & the rain & the everchaynjing lite. Other rocky ilands across the sea. A handful of houses a cupl of hotels a cafe or 2. The cassel. Ther are fishermen & fishing botes in the littl harbor. A church & a ruwind church & a feeld full of graves. A center for pilgrims because it is a holy plase. Sometyms the pilgrims stand deep in the water & sing hims together & pray for peese. Sometyms they stand crosses in the sand & weep.

We ar surrounded by the birds of the sea. Bonny puffins dash by in littl flocks. Ther are seals which swim close sometyms & show ther wiskerd heads abov the water. We hav seen dolfins dash by just beyond the harbor walls. And wons won splendid day ther were wales rolling in the swell not too far away.

We live here in an upturnd bote. It was dilapidayted at the time of our arival. We are given leev to liv in it as long as we restor it. So we fill the gaps in its timbers & we paynt black pitch on it & we nayl the broken bits of it rather like we did with the statews. It is hiy enuf to stand in at the senter. The keel poynts to the sky. The flore is sand. Soon it wil be like won of those I saw in pictures so long ago.

At nite we all dream of floteing upside down across the stars.

At nite a lite from a litehouse turns and turns and darkness becums lite and liteness becums dark agen agen agen agen.

The stars ar astounding here. As is the sea. As is the sand. As is the land that streches away beyond the shore towards the mountans. As is evrything. Everything.

Mam has customers for her hairdressing. She goes from house to house with her littl red bag & her hairdressing things. She goes to gests in the hotels & to the pilgrims. She is much admired & much loved.

She goes alone without her sissor carryer.

Elizabeth draws pitchers of anshent saynts & of beests & birds & sells them to pilgrims. She draws pitchers in the sand of how things used to be & lets the water wash them all away.

I catch fish with a line. I cut them open with my nife. I cook them on a fire. They become part of us & us of them.

I rite. I rite here on the iland wer monks wons wrote with fethers on the skin of beests. The plases wer they rote hav long been blown away by wind & tym.

I write with a pensil. I sharpen it with my knife.

Today I write in the sunshine. I sit on the sand rest the paper on my lap lean bak agenst the boat.

The writing is almost at an end.

Its said that the wars ar coming to an end as well. Its said that the world is tired that its had enuf that ther will be peese. Perhaps its true. Ther ar fewer enjins of destrucshon roreing throu the sky & making the waters shudder in ther wake. Perhaps there are fewer bomers fewer boms fewer Blinkbonnys fewer deaths fewer pepl screeming arownd the world. I dont kno. The days of my poseshun ended long ago. I am no longer engulfed by the horrors & the afterlife. This pleeses me. I hav had enouf of death. I turn my eyes towards the lite.

And we hav a son, Elizabeth & me. He is alredy 1 year old.

We hav naymd him John a simpl name. He is trying to wark. His mother holds his hand and he splashes in the water with littl naked feet. He laffs & laffs. He turns & waves to me and yells out Daddy! He tumbls down into the water giggls and his mother lifts him up agen.

Perhaps 1 day he wil read what I have wrote.

Elizabeth will read it very soon. She has red non of it yet. She has encourajd me to start it and to go on with it. She has told me that the way to discover how to write it is to write it. She has helped with spellings when I have askd her. She has helped as Mam has with the gathering of memrys with the assembling of truth.

Truth. Is it truth? Maybe everything did not happen exactly as I remember it and exactly as I have told it. There is so much confushon. Facts and dreams and peopl and gosts get all mixd up. The tales of 1 person mingl with the accounts of others and what we dred and what we wish are all mixed up with what we kno. The living & the dead are all mixd up. But that is how this world is. That is how the mind of Billy Dean is. So that is how this tale must be. And yes. Everything is true.

Perhaps beyond Elizabeth & my Mam there will be no readers. Perhaps the wars have gone on and all the world is turnd to ruin and to wilderness. Perhaps the rubble is inhabited only by the dead. Perhaps this book lies in the dust and these pages turn in the wind and turn to dust themselves. Perhaps like Missus Malone said, that is whats been intended from the very start. If that is so, then so be it. Let all the destruction be done at last. Let us be gone. Let all the words be dust. Let there be peace.

I let the sunlite and the breeze and the sound of the sea move over me and throu me. I hear my son.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

I sharpen the pencil for a final time as he dances in the sea and as the rainbows flash around him. He splashes and laghs and calls like the bird that dances in the air abov his head.

Like the sand the stars the sea he is astounding.

I watch him. I write him. And Elizabeth draws him.

He is in our words and in our pictures but he is also far beyond them.

My final writing is a simple hope in simple words in a simple place.

Let the wars be done. Let us continue. Let my child grow.

I wave to him.

I call his name.

“John!”

He turns and waves to me.

He calls me.

I put down the paper the pencil and the knife.

I go to play in the water with my son.