Jon Hofener

Messenger

“The wind is always knocking things over,” remarked Travis.

“Why don’t you go and have a talk with it?” someone answered from across the porch.

This was the fourth time Travis felt stupid since taking his usual seat on the porch after lunch. It was now 12:45pm. Noting this to himself, he stared back at the wooden statue of a mythical dwarf holding an axe, which the wind had rendered sideways.

“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted Emma, “That thing is carved all wrong—there’s no balance. The little guy falls over every time a mosquito sneezes.” Travis laughed loudly. Nobody joined him, and he felt stupid for the fifth time that afternoon.

“Ten dollars poorly spent, if you ask me,” continued Emma, “I’d rather have a birdbath or something reasonable in front of the store, but my brother thinks dwarves are some kind of good luck.” She scoffed, remembering the conversation. Emma often gave in to her brother, especially concerning decisions about the store they owned together. This was not because she was timid, or a pushover. In fact, she was very difficult to push over, standing in a rigid posture, and taller than most of the men in town. She certainly could have stepped on her brother’s head, holding both arms behind his back, and insisted on a birdbath, but she believed in letting people make mistakes.

Ignoring her, Emma’s stubborn brother rose from his seat in the corner of the porch and tried to focus on a distant object.

“What is it, Ed?” someone else asked.

“I don’t know. Look.” Ed pointed, still discerning the figure’s shape. The group began to take guesses at what it could be as it slowly approached the porch—with the exception of Travis. He had decided to correct the fallen dwarf, and was repeatedly lifting it to its feet and then watching thoughtfully as poor workmanship and gravity quickly undid his work.

Just as the group had reached the nearly unanimous conclusion that the stranger must be a stray goat, the figure bent over to tie his shoe. Moments later, he stood before them, a small man, a midget, actually. A bag tied to a stick rested over one of his strong shoulders. His skin and clothes were dirty from a long walk, which had worn almost completely through his canvas shoes. He did not have the pronounced facial features that would make a man his size look like an adult in a child’s body. Usually, the only thing that anyone noticed about his face were his fierce, green eyes which, at that moment, were nervously glaring at Travis who was still pulling the dwarf statue upright and letting it fall on its face.

“I would like to buy a new pair of shoes,” the small man said. Travis looked up, finally distracted from his hopeless task. He had never met a real midget before.

“I’m Travis,” he piped. With a lopsided smile, he stuck out his hand in invitation.

“Judas,” he answered and shook the odd man’s hand. “Do you know where I might find a pair of shoes for sale?”

“There’s Peterson’s store up the road,” Emma interjected. Judas nodded in acknowledgement, and turned to leave.

“I could show you there,” said Travis.

The crowd on the porch resumed studying their drinks and shaping their faces into stares of deep inner thought.

As Judas and his new friend walked to Peterson’s, the heat of the sun intensified, making sure they noticed what a hot day it was. They passed all the places a traveling midget would expect to see in a town that didn’t quite make it onto the state map. The large front window of Mickey’s Barbershop revealed a single, empty chair inside. In front of city hall, he saw aging wooden stairs, a gray cat sprawled on her back, and a dragonfly dodging the cat’s punches. A woman cheerfully whistled Whistle While You Work as she cleaned tables on the outdoor patio of a family restaurant, stopping mid-chorus and blushing when she noticed the passing midget.

Judas didn’t break pace to look more closely at any of the shops or stations, but he could have recited the name above every door, months later. Judas’ father would’ve explained that this is the result of a heightened sensitivity to the world’s images that develops in people of small stature. “Much like ants,” he would say, “have developed strength and agility to survive in their own gigantic environment.”

“Ants,” Judas’ mother would suggest, “are crawling on the wastebasket, and it would be nice if the trash could get emptied, whenever the science lesson has finished.” This conversation and many similar ones dominated Judas’ childhood memories.

Travis asked many questions along the way, but only learned that Judas was a traveler who did not seem eager to discuss where he had been, and did not know where he was going, but knew he needed new shoes to get there.

“Where are you from?” he began.

“There’s no point in being from some place if you don’t intend to end up back at it.” Judas replied.

This confused Travis; he squinted one eye and tilted his head.

“You could say I’m from the road,” Judas clarified, “cause it’s the place I remember best, and the place I plan on getting back to.”

“Oh,” Travis slowly nodded, “where are you headed?”

“Out of one storm, into another, no doubt”

“What?”

“It rains an awful lot on the road,” Judas explained, “but when it stops raining, it’s starts to snow before a fellow can wring his socks out. Then the snow fades away and the sun starts shining, and it gets so hot that you can’t help but beg for the rain again. The whole thing repeats itself, one way or another.”

Eventually, Travis gave up trying to figure him out, and spilled out the details of his own life. He talked about hanging around the store with Emma and the guys. He talked about being ignored and how people thought he was stupid. He talked about watching a screen door open and close with the wind for hours one day, and swore that it had spoken to him. He started to explain about the incredible, strange dreams he had been having when Judas suddenly pointed out that they had covered a lot of ground on a short walk.

“Nice meeting you,” Judas said. They had arrived at their destination, and the shoes in the display window easily distracted the sore traveler from his companion. Travis started back toward home.

“Thanks for your help today,” Judas added. He gave a wink with one of his impossibly green eyes and turned again to the store.

All night, Travis could think of nothing but his walk with the stranger he met that day.

* * * * * * *

“Hey, boy!”

Judas stopped sharply and felt instant tension in his muscles.

“Hey! Now come here and listen to me, boy!” growled the voice.

He slowly turned toward the side of the road to face the owner of the voice. A man stumbled across the front yard of the house Judas had just passed. The man appeared to be in his seventies, and his hurried pace was causing him great difficulty. Judas waited in the road for the man to approach. Being stopped on his way out of town was inconvenient enough; he had no intention of meeting the grouch halfway. The old man continued with his demands as he came closer to the midget he believed was a boy.

“Boy! Don’t stand there staring! Listen, I’ve run out of bread and I can’t be troubled to walk to town in this heat, you’ll—“ It became suddenly clear to the old man that he was not speaking to a boy. “Oh! Well, you’re a little man!” The two stood facing each other now. The taller man let out a spurt of laughter, which ended in a coughing fit.

Judas stared back evenly, letting the uncomfortable silence sink in for a moment.

“Well, don’t you speak, little man?” the old man asked.

“Only when spoken to by an adult,” Judas responded.

“Ah, I—“

“What was it you started to say before?” he interrupted.

“Oh, well, nothing. I meant to send a boy into town to buy me some bread, for a nickel, you understand. I meant to pay a boy a nickel to do it, only…now there isn’t a boy.”

“No, there’s no boy.”

“Right,” the old man agreed. He rolled his lips inward and turned to walk back to his house.

“I will get your bread,” said Judas.

“I wouldn’t trouble you further,” the old man replied.

“You’ll need your bread, won’t you?”

“But, I wouldn’t bother you for that,” he said.

“I won’t let you go walking in this heat. I haven’t seen a boy on this road since I arrived this afternoon; I’ll get your bread.”

The older, taller man paused in near shock.

“Well, thank you,” he answered finally. He handed the bread money to Judas then reached into his shirt pocket. “You’ll take the nickel,” he added.

“I’m afraid I have no use for your tall people’s currency,” Judas answered. He nodded politely and headed back down the road he had already put behind him.

People were now eating dinner at the family restaurant Judas has passed earlier. He glanced up and saw the whistling woman taking orders at a table inside. At the next table, he noticed Emma’s prominent figure. She was sitting across from her brother who was waving his arms dramatically, trying to communicate some very important point. A sign in the window announced that tonight’s special was potato soup and fresh bread, with blueberry pie and homemade ice cream for dessert. This made walking by the restaurant very difficult for people who had yet to eat dinner, even for Judas who was on a mission. He stepped inside, if only to catch the scent of it all before going his way.

“Good evening, welcome to Mistler’s,” said the woman. She immediately tried to hide the surprise on her face after noticing the visitor was the midget she had seen walking by that afternoon.

“Hello, I was wondering if you sold your fresh bread by the loaf. I’d like to take some to somebody.”

“Sure we do. Would you like to come in and have some dinner first?”

Judas had to seriously consider this. He had intended to take the bread to the old man right away, and then put a few miles on his new shoes before dark, but the smell of warm blueberry pie was working to persuade him.

“I’m not sure if I have time,” he answered.

“It won’t take long,” urged the woman. She was an expert in convincing hungry people that delicious food was the solution to all of their problems.

As Judas took a seat in the dining area, he heard Ed and Emma in a heated debate behind him.

“You’re just afraid one of my ideas will work and then you won’t be able to say you told me so!” Ed whined.

“Ed, every time you’ve ordered some great new thing for the store, it has sat on the shelf untouched. Every time you’ve rearranged the store, people have complained. Your ridiculous statue has not brought us any good luck, but instead spends all day lying face down in the yard. The very last thing I’m afraid of is one of your ideas working.”

“You say that every time I want to try something new!”

“Yes, that sounds right,” Emma said.

“We’re keeping them, Emma! We are not sending back that crate, and I’m sure we’ll be ordering another one soon!”

Their argument had Judas’ full attention at this point, and he wondered what could be in this controversial crate, but Emma suddenly sighed and leaned back. This was her familiar way of announcing that she had given up, for now. Ed, however, huffed and stomped out angrily, leaving her alone at the table, a conspicuous sight for the rest of the dinner crowd to stare at nosily from the corners of their eyes.

Judas had just licked the fork after eating his slice of pie when the waitress brought him two loaves of fresh bread, wrapped in wax paper.

“Taking one of these to a friend, you said?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he responded.

“Did you want us to tie a bow around it?” She smiled.

Judas laughed at the thought of the grouchy old man opening the bread like a Christmas gift.

“Oh, it’s not like that, I’m only just running an errand for an old man outside of town.”

“Really? We deliver every Monday to most of the old folks around here. Make sure and let him know.”

“You could tell him yourself sometime; it’s the bright yellow house just up the road. But be careful, he’s a crabby one.”

They shared another laugh.

“You’re talking about old Mr. Green. He’s a crab all right,” she continued, “but he can’t eat this, he has an awful wheat allergy.”

* * * * * * *

The center of town was completely quiet at night. Travis liked to sit down in the middle of the road, and look straight up at the sky, waiting for one of the stars to try and run away. But tonight, he was on the lookout for something much closer to the ground. He thought he heard a noise from Ed and Emma’s store. He looked around, but still seemed to be alone. For a few minutes, he kicked a rock around in the dirt. Then, finally, Travis saw what he was waiting to see. An officer of the law was coming down the road, with a small man handcuffed at his side. A small crowd followed them at a distance, trying to find out what was going on. Lights turned on in a few of the buildings. A few more people started to appear, to see what was turning into a commotion.

“What happened, officer?” said a lady from the crowd.

“Where are you taking him?” said another.

“Judas!” shouted Travis.

Judas lowered his head, refusing to speak.

“Judas, I came!” Travis yelled.

People were starting to surround the prisoner, and ask the same questions. The officer waved his arms to speak.

“Calm down, everyone. All I can tell you is that this little fellow is suspected of assaulting a man with a loaf of bread, and I’ll be locking him up at city hall, pending further investigation. Please go back to your homes, and—“

The noise of an explosion interrupted him, and the people screamed and covered their ears as red and blue sparks shot through the sky. The firework sizzled as it died in the air, directly above the store with the dwarf out front. Smoke lingered above the rooftop; the explosion had come from behind the store.

“You’ll have to hold on a little longer,” said the officer to Judas, “I have to see what this is about.”

He headed around back, with Judas still at his side, and an even bigger crowd following behind. They found Ed and Emma shouting at each other, in a cloud of smoke next to an open crate.

“What’s going on back here?” the officer asked.

Emma stopped to explain that the crate was full of fireworks, that she had threatened to send them back to the place where her brother had gotten them, and that this had resulted in Ed lighting the biggest firework in a dramatic protest.

“I wouldn’t hurt anyone, officer!” cried Ed. “I was only trying to make a point!”

“Calm down,” he answered, “Everyone is all right.”

He was about to disperse the crowd a second time when the sound of wild shouting came from the front of the store. The procession moved back in that direction, now with Ed and Emma bringing up the rear.

As they came around the corner, they saw the front porch being swallowed in flames. Then they saw the next building was on fire too and, looking around, nearly every building in sight was burning. Travis, with a torch in his hand, was laughing and shouting gleefully as he spread the flames. The crowd ran around frantically, the officer bounded towards Travis, and Ed put his head on his knees and sobbed. Emma looked around for the garden hose. Judas, still chained, was left standing in the road in front of the store, at the same place where he had started his search for new shoes that afternoon.

The officer reached Travis and, diving, knocked him to the ground.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I was lighting the town on fire,” Travis answered.

“Why?”

“He told me to, in my dream,” Travis squirmed under the weight of the officer’s body. He wasn’t sure why this man knocked him over, or why he wouldn’t let him get up.

“What? Who told you to?”

Travis pointed across the road at Judas. “He did! He told me to, in my dream.”

Judas looked on calmly as the fire moved rapidly through the old, wooden frames of the buildings. He sighed as walls started to collapse, and people screamed for fear of watching silently. He smiled slightly as the flames reached a crate of fireworks and sent a dozen colors into the sky at once, in celebration.