The Knocker (Toraun Part4)

Young/Old man wiped the blood from his face and wondered at the strange bird that had just become jerky. He walked over to the bird and examined it. A tiny tendril of smoke lifted into the air from the main body of the bird and floated in an odd pattern toward the mountain. Old/young man squinted his eyes and pursed his lips as he watched the smoke float away. “How odd,” he said. He stuck his finger into his mouth and then held it in the air. “Just as I thought the smoke is floating into the wind.” He shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the bird. The few feathers that remained were made of metal and the beak as well. He picked up a stick and poked at the bird. “Now that’s odd,” he said as he revealed burnt flesh under the metal wings. “I’ve never seen such a thing.” He shrugged again, and pulled on one of the wings. It tore away from the main part of the bird easily. He smelt it, bent it, and even tasted it. The last bit brought a bitter taste to his mouth and he quickly spat several times onto the ground.

While tried to rid his mouth of the foul taste the air grew chilly as a cold wind swept up the small hill from the valley below. The old/young man rubbed his arms as he realized that it had gotten cold very fast and that he had best find some shelter soon. He gave the feather one last bewildered look then placed it gently into his pouch and looked around once again. Now that the sun had set, small lights appeared in the valley below, and he saw tiny huts nestled up against the base of the mountain.

Now the huts really weren’t all that small, they just looked that way due to the distance from which the young/old man saw them. If he had been closer he would have realized that they were quite large. In fact I wouldn’t call them tiny at all or even small for that matter, but I would think of them more as your average home built in the 20^th century. Anyway as he got closer (you see he started toward them) he too realized that the huts were much larger than he had thought in the first place. And in order to hurry the story on we will dispense with the walk, and just skip to him arriving to the first house.

Old/young man stepped up to the first home, and knocked without reservation upon the solid, wood door. This of course hurt more than he thought it would because, let’s face it, solid wood doors are hard, and to hit them without hesitation is going to hurt a little. So he stopped hitting the door without reservation, and decided that the metal knocker would be a much better way to knock on the solid, wood door.

The knocker was not your ordinary knocker. Now you may wonder about knockers and the significance a knocker can play, but truthfully all you have to do is recall the story by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, and then you can let your imagination think of how significant a knocker really can be. Seriously, if Scrooge had just taken the omen given by the knocker then the whole story would have been over before it began. He could have realized that he had better not go into the, obviously, haunted house, but b-line it to a nice little tavern and slept the night there. Or gone to his nephew’s house if he couldn’t spare to part with his precious money. I mean seriously.

Anyway….