Ichabod Crowley

For the duration of my life, I was never much of anything. I was never an angry man; never mean; never violent. Things change after what one can truly call life. I am not dead, I am trapped.

            My current situation is not the result of my misdeeds. In fables the wicked man gets comeuppance due to some act of badness, but I never acted in such a way.

            I also didn’t believe in anything supernatural, save for works of God. Now, I believe the opposite. I was a wanderer, just a man with no home or work. I fed myself with food that I found, having no skills in hunting and no place for farming. I had been a day and a half without food at this point, and nowhere near any kind of civilization. I prayed for help and my “salvation” came in the form of a stationary caravan. I approached it, but not being one for words, I avoided sight.

            I could hear people, and I was very hungry. Have you ever lied? Ever taken something you shouldn’t have? Why? It never does make any sense in hindsight especially when you are caught. I rummaged through one of their wagons, hoping to find some morsel.

            I did, and I took only what I needed to get by. It was during my departure that I was spotted and chased. Fortunately, being a lean man of great endurance, I escaped my pursuers. I sat down to eat, and saw a fire in the distance.

            Well, had these folks let bygones be bygones, maybe their caravan wouldn’t have been burned down. In chasing me, their men had left the place completely unprotected. The attack was most likely done by bandits who had been waiting for the right opportunity. It doesn’t mater though.

            Amazed by the inferno, I ignored any sign that I was finally found. An old woman, as cliché as it is, begged me to help save the caravan. I shrugged, telling her that it had nothing to do with me. I was in the right; a man trying to survive has no correlation to a man who torments for fun. I tried to maintain a certain distance from everyone, and I was punished for my self-interest in safety.

            I don’t pretend to understand exactly what happened, but the result remains the same regardless of the methods. I am now a scarecrow. I was left in that field. I have only just recently regained movement in my extremities.

            The straw-man does not feel. The greatest method by which men know that they are alive and well has been denied to me. I cannot see or hear either, yet I still have an awareness of my surroundings. I don’t know how I get my information, but it is torment. Being alone in a very dark room is the only way to describe it. Where the darkness is relentless and violent, and the silence is maddening. When most people would take this time to feel for surroundings and talk to themselves to rejoin reality, I am trapped.

            And I am hungry. I never got to eat that day, stunned with awe and interrupted by mysticism. I cannot eat, but I have felt hungry every day for the four and a half years that I have been this way.

            Soon, I will be able to move again. I can feel myself making progress. I was not a bad man in life. I was not mean, or violent, or cruel. Things change.