The Sandman
by Karen Goldrick
There was once a young man who desired only two things from his life. The first: to be a Supreme Lawmaker for Bangalow. A strange desire this, for lawmakers were not held in high regard. The second — and more understandable — was to be the one true love of Isobel, the sea huntress.
Now there is no need to paint a picture of the young man, only to know he felt his reflection pleasing to the eye. He felt Isobel’s reflection equally pleasing. In fact there are really only two other things worth knowing about Leachlainn, (for that was his name). He achieved his heart’s desire on the eve of his twenty-fourth birthday. However he succumbed to an unknown malady of the gut, and died four days later.
On the night of his passing, his proud father cried bitterly at the loss of his only son, shaved his beard and cut his hair, as was custom. His mother shed no tear but kept her face hard and still. She cut off her long salty plaits, and tied her head with a coloured grief scarf. Kennen, his one true friend, also cut his hair and beard, and shed a noble tear or two. But Isobel defied the traditions of Bangalow, and continued to wear her sandy hair long and tangled with seaweed.
This is not the end of Leachlainn’s tale. His soul passed to the grains of sand as they were shaped into his likeness by the Sandman. His likeness was to be left on the edge of the peninsular, and he would then be joined by the rising tide with the sea. Leachlainn hoped Sandman would do a good job.
“I always do a good job.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, I always do a good job.”
“Oh ... then ... I can hear you? I can speak with you? This is unexpected,” and Leachlainn pondered his new state.
“Wrong. Oh so wrong. You cannot talk. You cannot walk. You cannot see. You cannot be.” The Sandman carefully sculptured Leachlainn’s fine nostrils.
“Then this is a dream. A passing vision on my journey to Eternal Happiness.”
“Wrong again. Why do they always speak of the confounded Eternal Happiness?” and the Sandman sighed, a long deep sigh which lifted a mist of sand from the almost completed likeness.
Leachlainn was sure he could in fact see the Sandman sit crosslegged on the moonlit sand, his long tangled hair and beard covering his naked form. He was sure he could hear the rasp of the Sandman’s voice, as he explained with timeless patience that the high tide would wash his soul from the sand, stretch it around all the lands, then divide it into bits to be used for others.
“Then ... there is no Eternal Happiness.” Leachlainn thought about the community meditations, the ritual morning mantra. The fasting. The sacrifice.
“No.”
“I do not wish to become others. I like myself, Leachlainn.”
“Bad luck.”
“I wish to go back to my family, my Laws. To Isobel.”
“Again I say, Bad luck.”
“Please.”
There was another sigh, like a sea breeze, and Leachlainn felt his hair shift in the sand. “Maybe I can arrange something.”
“Please. If you could.”
“ I could hold the tide back, but only for one day.”
“One day is better then nothing.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I will.”
“You will hate me for this.”
“I will love you forever.”
“I will want something from you in return.”
“Anything you desire.”
“Very well. Go to sleep. I will see what I can do.”
“I can sleep?”
The Sandman stood. “Listen to the stillness. Watch the stars. Feel the Silence.”
So Leachlainn listened to the stillness, watched the stars and felt the silence. There was a soft breeze. Cool. It shifted the sand around his feet. The grains danced across his face. The breeze grew and the sand started to sting his eyes and skin. It grew to a wind which shifted his limbs and features. It grew to a cyclone which sliced his body like the sharpest of blades.
“Goddess!”
“You are still awake.”
“It hurts.”
“You cannot feel pain, Leachlainn. You are dead. You are simply remembering the noxious sensations ...” and the Sandman’s voice faded along with all remembered things.
When Leachlainn next remembered there was a loud roar in his ears and water in his mouth.The sea played with his limbs, and he knew not which way was up. He was much alarmed, for Lawmakers did not swim well. After a short struggle, the sea gently deposited him on the wet sand, and slunk away.
When his eyes had adjusted to the dawn, he found himself on the main beach. The early light outlined the red sandstone towers grouped together in the sandhills. He was naked, but warm enough. There was water in his ears. His limbs seemed unusually heavy, and the ground further away than he remembered.
Leachlainn knew he must cover his nakedness before the village awoke. Today there would be no time to ponder or reflect. No dallying. No indecision. Leachlainn only had one day to regain his one true love.
He made for his family tower, hoping his parents still slept. As he walked crouched low amongst the prickly sand thistle and purple lantana, he heard the hunting call. Surely Isobel would be mourning. She would not join the Seahunt that day. No dallying. He walked amongst the tall sand hills. No dallying. He stumbled across the dried seagrass path, and saw his mother, up early, attending the family work.
Leachlainn realised too late that his mother also saw him. She did not avert her eyes from his nakedness, but there was no joy in her cold hard stare.
Leachlainn was puzzled. “Yeo, Mamet, the sun will be fair and the breeze welcoming.”
“Yeo, but a fair sun can be covered by cloud, and a welcoming breeze can carry sand which stings the eye.”
“It is I, Mamet. Do you not recognise me?”
“You have forgotten your clothes, Kennen.” she said, and turned away to tend a stinking cess pot.
Leachlainn could make nothing of his mother’s strange behaviour. Where was her shock, her unbridled joy, at seeing her only son returned. Then he looked to his feet, and they were not his feet. His legs were long, tanned from the sun. His fingers were long and broad. This was not the body of a Lawmaker, arguing in the top of the central tower each day. This body belonged to a glass weaver.
No Dallying.
Leachlainn allowed the shock, anger, disappointment and fear to overwhelm him for exactly five minutes. Then he pushed them away. His mother brought out some Lawmaker robes, and placed them in the sand before him.
“You are no longer welcome here, Kennen, beloved friend of my only son, Leachlainn. I know of you, and his true love, Isobel.” The nearby cess pot clouded his senses.
“How can you know this?”
“Do not cross this path again,” she said, and turned and walked away.
Leachlainn put on the clothes, then left. There was much to do.
He returned to the village as the high middlesun passed over, and the sea hunt returned. Isobel, the sea huntress, carried the catch with her father. This was hardest for Leachlainn, the knowledge that his true love did not mourn his passing.
“Yeo, Evain, Isobel, the breeze is gentle, the waves are small.” he said to Isobel and her father.
“Yeo, Kennen, the sea gives well today. We must prepare for the weaving.” Evain, Isobel’s father, carried the catch to the cleaning towers.
“It is too soon, Kennen my love. We cannot speak in daylight until the proclaimed mourning is over.”
So it was true.
“But you are not mourning, my love.” Leachlainn watched her long sandy hair drying in the sun.
“I choose not to cut off my hair. I choose to continue the hunt. I do not say I am not in mourning.” She followed after her father.
He felt a mere trickle of happiness. Maybe Isobel did, indeed, still love Leachlainn. But ... and the trickle dropped away ... he needed Isobel to love Kennen on this day. His last day with his one true love. Not when the proclaimed mourning was over.
Glass weavers rarely stirred before aftersun, so he entered the tower of weavers, and shut himself in Kennen’s room. Arranged on the sandstone shelves were the tools of a glass weaver: sand, fire and water. There were also many books. Leachlainn was a lawmaker. He was smart. He could learn. But he did not have a glass weaver’s fusion thought, born in the blood of every weaver.
Leachlainn sat, crosslegged, in the middle of the room and called on the Goddess for guidance. In the past, as Leachlainn, Lawmaker, she had always obliged. Now, as Kennan, Weaver, it occurred to him that her guidance had merely been a reflection of his voice. Now, as Kennan, Weaver, he knew there was no Eternal Happiness, just a rearrangement of the sand and water particles from which all things were made. And Leachlainn, for he still thought of himself as Leachlainn, was not ready to be rearranged.
But if there was no Goddess, there was one other on whom he might call.
“I have already given you one gift. Why should I give you another?”
Leachlainn looked to the likeness of himself, and saw it was indeed quite good. He knew Kennen to be trapped within this likeness.
“I will give you anything you desire.”
“Ah ... promises promises. You know not what I desire yet?”
“Anything at all.”
“You will hate me for this.”
“I will love you forever.”
“Very well. What is it you wish from me?”
Leachlainn looked to the eyes of his likeness. “I wish the tide to remove Kennen’s likeness from the sand.”
The sandman bowed his head in thought, his burnt back reflecting the late middlesun. “I see. Then you, Leachlainn, would remain in Bungalow as a glass weaver.” He looked back up. “But you cannot weave.”
“I can learn.”
“You cannot fuse. What if the weaving should fail. The sea would reclaim the land”
“You can help. You mould the sand that catches people’s souls. You can hold back the tides. The Goddess can work through you.” Leachlainn smiled beutifically.
“Oh she can, can she?” the sandman glared back, squinting into the sun. “That is two more gifts, Leachlainn. To give you life, and to give you weaving. That is greedy, my boy. For that my price will be high.”
And the sandman bowed down again, and spoke no more.
That night Leachlainn prepared for the weaving. he dressed in Kennen’s robes, and placed the azure glass circlet around his neck as he had seen his friend so often do. Then he walked, barefoot — for weavers do not cover their feet — to the top of the highest sandhill, to watch the sun slide below the sea, and wait for the clouds to reveal the moon.
All the citizens of Bangalow had gathered for the weaving. From his place amongst the weavers inside the stonering he looked for Isobel, but did not find her. He felt strange, and perhaps a little foolish, standing with this group of men. If the Sandman was meant to guide his thoughts, then he felt no guidance. If he was supposed to feel the force of their fusion thought, then he felt no force.
It occurred to Leachlainn that perhaps the Sandman would not grant him the last two gifts.
At two evenstrokes, when Leachlainn had cramps in his legs and longed to sit down, a runner made her way to the weavers.
“The waters have only just begun to move.” she gasped.
The citizens and weavers were puzzled by this delay. The tides of Bangalow always moved with the setting sun and rising moon.
“Then the time for weaving will be late on this night. The Goddess works in perplexing ways. We will stay.” said the Supreme Weaver.
This meant no supper, and was not a popular decision. but no-one left.
No-one, except for Leachlainn.
Unable to wait any longer, he crept from the circle of weavers and through the sandgrass and lantana down to the peninsular. Clouds covered the moon. He could make out two shadows on the sand. Leachlainn crouched behind a sandstone and waited for the clouds to move.
Once the clouds did move he could see there were two likenesses in the sand. Good likenesses. Well crafted. Already the rising tide licked at their feet. And Leachlainn knew, at last, that he would never again have his one true love.
For one likeness, to the sea, was that of Kennen, the tall strong glass weaver. The other, to the landside, was none other than his beloved Isobel, the beautiful sea huntress, returning with her lover to the sea.