The Enemy

It was so dark there in the old junkyard next to Beggars Swamp, that Josh lost all sense of direction as he felt his way around. The foul reek of the neighboring mires had long ago settled on the rusty and crumpled discards, and Josh couldn’t help but feel defiled touching first a tilting washing machine here, a pile of crusty rags there, groping along into the heart of the darkness.

Josh heard the old man’s approach long before he saw him. Heavy, boot-clad feet dragging through the litter-strewn dust let him know that the appointment had not been the hoax that Josh had hoped it would prove. He dreaded this confrontation, knowing full well that it was as inevitable as the downfall of rain in April. Of course, he knew, no riot of May flowers was as sure to follow...only the assurance that he would be torn apart and away from all he loved and cherished.

The old man lumbered relentlessly closer, likewise feeling his way between the stacks of thrown away whatnots, some of them creaking and groaning, others crashing over unheeded in his wake. Miraculously, two glimmering points of light suggested eyes to the waiting Josh as he rooted himself to a spot next to a Pisa-tower of tractor tires. The approaching eyes were the only lights to be guessed at in this oppressive gloom.

Somehow, the size and shape of the closing figure was outlined against that gloom as the faint, blinking eyes of the old man hovered like fireflies several feet higher than Josh’s head. The old man’s shuffling, lumbering gait surely didn’t mean that he was sick, weak, or even fatigued. The rumble of his breathing was deep and sounded as capacious as the fifty-gallon oil drums that rattled here and there as rats and other scuttling prowlers disturbed their aging slumber.

“Well?” the old man said. His voice was like the pedal-tone of an organ’s fattest pipe, yet it purred like an elephantine feline just aroused from dreams of devoured prey.

Josh’s voice was steady, but sounded reedy and weak by comparison. “I...I am impressed. You’re much larger than I expected you to be. Of course, I’d heard plenty of stories about your exploits. Every country...every city, village, family...they all have such colorful tales. You...have my compliments for--”

“That’s enough.” The dark giant’s breath made the fetid air swirl around Josh’s face. “Your words are wearisome to me. What do I care for colorful tales or the hearsay of your feeble race? Every story is the same. Every one has the same ending. So shall it ever be. Your words cannot change what is.”

Josh brushed hair out of his eyes and glanced right and left. The dark felt closer, as if it were a living thing--a growing menace expanding inward all around him. “So,” he said, “you have nothing to say to me? You are the one who arranged our meeting, you remember...”

“True enough,” answered the old giant. “Yes, young Joshua, I have heard of you as well, if you must know. I’m sure you’ve been enjoying yourself, meddling here and there with my affairs. Boasting to all and sundry that I’m not the man I once was. Even mesmerizing your admirers with your little bits of flash and trickery. I heard the reports and could hardly believe them. ‘Who does this little upstart think he is, pretending he can poach on my territory and meddle with my slaves,’ I said to myself. But I figured if I could manage a parley, maybe you’d see reason, little man.” These last words were spat out in a kind of choking hiss.

“I’m always willing to reason, with somebody who’s truly reasonable,” Josh replied. “But I’ve discovered that so few people are. Reasonable people are willing to set aside their own interests and view things from a neutral perspective. Somehow, my friend, I doubt very much that you are willing to set your own desires aside. Your endless travels...your terror and your violence...your lust for blood...your--”

“Silence!” the looming behemoth roared. Josh’s hair was blown horizontally behind him and he raised both hands to shield his eyes from the blasting breath. “You little creeping maggot! You sicken me with your words...words, words. Words prove nothing. You know as well as I do that what I do is all I can do. What I have ever done. What must ever be done. Do you think it is so pleasing to me that I’m feared? Hated? Loathed? Fought against at every turn? Arrrgh! Even my allies shy away from me! No friend in the world for me, only cursed, writhing, pitiful, creeping insects like YOU!”

“No friend in the world...?” Josh took several deep breaths to calm his nerves. Then, he slowly spread out his hands toward the old giant in a gesture of peace. “Would it surprise you to find out that I could end your misery? Be the friend you always craved?”

The towering monster made a noise of disgust and impatience, his flickering eyes turning aside as if shaking a fly from his head. Silence grew between the two of them until the croaking of frogs and fowl could be heard a furlong off. Finally the old man stooped a little toward the waiting Josh.

“You don’t LOOK crazy,” he growled in a cavernous whisper. “And I can see well, even in the dark, little man.”

“I don’t doubt that your vision is excellent,” Josh replied.

“But I have known my share of demented dreamers like you,” the old man said. “And many of them have pretended to strike bargains with me. What make you any different?”

“But I don’t pretend to strike any bargains, sir...I have none to offer. What I’ve come here to offer you is nothing less than your FREEDOM. You have stalked our world for long, long ages, aimlessly wandering, searching for release from your own slavery.”

The monster-man stooped even lower, his eyes now level with Josh’s. “I am known throughout your race as the MASTER of slaves...how is it you know that I am one MYSELF?” His voice was now as soft as lint carried on a breeze. Josh bent forward ‘til their faces almost touched.

“A little bird told me,” he said.

“But if you’ve heard that about me,” the giant mumbled, “then you must have heard that I cannot be freed from my tasks until every drop of debt is paid back. And after all these years, there is still enough out there to turn every swamp into a mighty river.”

“For one who is weary of words,” Josh whispered, “you are becoming quite poetic.” And Josh could almost hear a gentle chuckle catch in the old man’s throat.

“Poetry or no,” his friend fretted, “the debt is far from paid for--in fact, it’s growing all the time. The swamps stink with it...the cities belch it out like smog...and every lousy debtor on your wretched planet must meet me in the end.” He bowed his head. “Including you.”

“Well,” Josh explained, stroking the giant’s scaly head, “let’s talk about me, now that you’ve mentioned me. This ‘little bird’ who told me all about you, he had some surprising information about myself as well. You see, I was sent here on a kind of MISSION. And, believe it or not, my path and yours lead in the same general direction. Your task is to rule over poor, helpless slaves who are unable to pay back what they owe. And finally, to put them out of their misery...”

“Right,” the old man agreed.

“...And MY task,” said Josh, “is to bring people relief for their debts...to provide a brand new ending to the curse that caused that debt in the first place...and as a result, to offer YOU a new and glorious task!”

“And this is the FREEDOM you mentioned? But what kind of ‘glorious’ job am I good for?”

“You’d be surprised, my friend. You might not know this, but it was my own Father who gave you your job in the first place. And He is superb at giving surprising assignments to the most unlikely characters!”

“Nobody ever cared about me before. How do I know I can trust you?”

“Reason it out, friend. After all, what is your alternative?”

“Why, to KILL you, of course!”

And Josh smiled as a ray of sun began peeping through the mountains of rubbish.

“That is how all the debts will be paid. That’s how the end will begin. That’s WHY I’VE COME!"