Good and Evil?

I was, again, trying to keep a veneer of order in my mind, it is a waste of time, you know.

As soon as I get some resemblance of tidiness in my Archive, there comes Elf with an "urgent" need for something and everything is back to a huge mess on the floor of my mind.

But I keep trying, and getting the same answer when I remonstrate with the impish goblin, to wit:

-Sorry, I am busy with more important matters, so I cannot lose time in these petty things.

And here I am, sorting adjectives, nouns, verbs, the whole mambo-jumbo, and placing them in their correct location to wait for the next foraging from Elf.

I was finding some difficulty to correctly label some adverbs that look like adjective and vice-verse when I heard a loud cough from behind the file-holder furniture I was trying to organize.

I just ignore it, but to ignore Elf is as you try to ignore a thorn in your eye!

There was another loud cough and the file-holder trembled as if there were an earthquake, which was impossible, in my mind.

Elf

A second later a spiky ear showed from behind the furniture and a muffled voice said:

-Oh! I didn't realize you were here.

-Stop pretending, -I said irked, -you saw me trying to keep a kind of order here, but never offer to give a hand, your only concern is to ruin and spoil all my work, and it seems you enjoy doing it, I should add!

-Oh! I do, do I? -the sprite was dancing on his toes as if he were commanded by a puppeteer.

- And, do you remember how many times you reject my advices and make yourself a disgraceful figure, while I suffer shame in front of my people who laugh at the certainty I have to make a valuable human being from you! yelled the imp with a red border in his pointed ears, sign he was angry.

-Shuddup, you goblin! -I shouted louder, and added, -nobody asked you to come and meddle in my life, you... you... -I was short of adjectives to qualify this little bane of mine!


-What!? -Elf was violet all around, and the colour was so strong that it seemed his head was surrounded by a violet cloud, -What!?, -he repeated, and choked in his own breathing.

-Nobody asked me!? -I started to be afraid he would develop a heart condition, then I got confused thinking I do not know if he has a heart.

-You know, you, small piece of an old ungrateful shirt -I never heard Elf using strong words, he always finds a euphemism to express his thoughts, and this is an example.

-I was asked to mentor your worthless self by a higher echelon, where they think you should develop into something, something... -He seemed out of a word, too. As if defining into what I should develop was very difficult.

-Well, it is not important, but you should know I WAS asked, so stop being deluded about the significance of your tiny, insignificant being, if I were not here, you would be lost forever... He stopped yelling gradually until he reached a normal level of voice at the end of the sentence.

He was asked, if not I would be lost... What was this imp implying, moreover, what was he talking about?

I asked him, knowing it would be a pointless question:

-What do you mean? I would be lost? lost how, and why?

-Just forget I said anything, you moron. Can't you see that if it were for you to know, you would already know?

Elf looked somewhat frayed at the hem, as if he feel guilty to have said too much. I thought I could press him more to tell me what I wanted to know... Especially if he was pulling my leg as he always does.

-Maybe, I said diffidently, -if you tell me a bit more of all this I could work out your meaning here, and maybe, I could manage Evil and Good in a better fashion. I thought I was being clever.

-Evil and Good, my foot, he recomposed quickly, -What do you know about Evil and Good?

There was contempt in his voice!

This is the "core" of the reality: the real shifting sands. -He added with a trembling voice, I thought he was afraid of something, but I should know my goblin. He was trying not to be angry at me.

-The real quicksands, -he added, and went on in a sad way.

You cannot have anything valid on quicksands. You do not understand, not yet. My best bet is that someday, somehow you all will understand. Of course, it is only a bet.

Your perception of Good-Evil is blurred by your own lack of knowledge. You come from a long way to be told that because you ate the fruit from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you received, in a magic way, a method to learn how to separate one from another, but my guess is who told you that was not telling you the truth. I mean the whole truth.

And we know how dangerous a quarter, a half, or a three quarter truth is.

I can accept human beings to respectfully differ, in the light of their poor understanding, but I cannot be at ease with the idea that they know the clear difference between Good and Evil in all the billions of minds on Earth, and unfortunately, that is the place where all Good or Evil comes.

With this forlorn comment, he turned and went quickly into the darker corners of the Archive.

I was stunned, how have we reached this point? I only was trying to get the mess in my mind addressed.

Always happens the same, we cannot have a civilized conversation, we start taking opposite position and end arguing about things I do not know if are true or just a big scenario invented by Elf to confuse me, and I am not sure I believe all of it at all.

Himmeldonnerwetter!

Now I will be thinking about this things for quite a while, and maybe I will lose hours of sleep trying to unravel the yarn the darned imp imprinted in my soul!

Himmeldonnerwetter!


The music is a fragment of "Winter" from the Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, performed by Mari Samuelsen as violin soloist, and her ensemble.

© 2013 Od Liam.