Story 9 - A Matter of Substance

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Welcome. Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is an anthology series that utilizes the wisdom of the Delphic Maxims. In this episode, the ninth episode, Cassandra returns to a lesson that should be fresh in our minds. She did just go over it, after all. But then again, I suppose it isn’t hard to misinterpret this lesson. Or it is the sort of thing that can fall victim to the winds of untethered enthusiasm. Fortunately, there is often time for correction. There is time to see that what you are can change–and likely should–as times and places change. 

So, icon, be thyself, thy true self.

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On the day the statue of the mythical founder was erected in the city square, the weather was absolutely beautiful. The sun was generous in offering its light, but the heat normally associated with such a sight was kept at bay. As a result, the colors of the world were vibrant, and the people did not have to pay the normal price. It created yet another picture-esque scene to add to the myth of it all. Or so everyone was inclined to think. From that day forth, the citizens in attendance would say that clearly the skies and heavens above were shining down favorably on this tribute to the legendary Tibauld the Mighty. The original hero, to whom the heavens had already bestowed great favor, was a hero of generations long past, no matter how long ago that was, there was a moment in the present, there in the city square, that all of them could be a part of it. And no one took it for granted. Through their excitement, the air came alive. And somehow in some small way, so did the statue. 

With all of this going on, the delicately carved piece of marble soon figured out what it was and what it was meant to be, though it could not fully comprehend the details. It knew nothing of stories, be they inherited truths, affirming fantasies or some other entity entirely that it could not comprehend. What did it need to know about anything like that? About the various purposes a tale can serve as dictated by the hands that spin it? Such things do matter to people but not to statues. 

A statue can only know what it serves as an image of and what that image is supposed to mean. Just as the surface of the stone is shaped to a specific end, so is all that lies beneath and extends beyond the surface. Transformations are always more thorough than you realized, but that is a conversation for another time. Each statue, in short order, soon learns the details of the face and body carved into it, not just the patterns but whether the lines are sharp or delicate. Through this, it soon learns to convey strength, comfort, or whatever virtue is assigned to it, but even that is conveyed through a sort of momentum, through knowing where or how it extends and the reaction of people on the street starting up at it. 

For the statue of Tibauld, a Tibauld in its own right, you could say, it could feel the way its lines were meant to carry a load, a great weight in fact. There was fortitude there, strength, and endurance in its body. It was a hero, and it felt the admiration and fascination from the crowd below, owed to such a figure. They loved it. They loved that statue. They loved this image of their grand and noble hero, the glue that held their city-state together. It served them as something they could gather around and anchor themselves to, figuratively speaking, as their fledgling nation caught its footing.

They need something, the statue thought, something that only I can provide. 

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There would be no other statue like it. Not just because this figure had no equals or rivals in this people’s history. But rather, it was too great of an expense to be issued again. This Tibauld had been carved out of the finest marble slab that could be found and paid for by a modest treasury. Only the best for something so important, it had said, but the final bill sucked the air out of the speaker’s lungs. Such a phrase would never be uttered again. 

Regardless of what happened in the world beyond the statue, this is how the statue understood itself. This is how it came to see itself. And from atop its own pedestal, it looked out over the world and–for a short while–down on a palm-sized rock on the ground below.

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It hadn’t been there long. While the statue was waiting to be revealed and hiding beneath the fine silk cloth, the rock in question still hadn’t arrived. It had come in with the crowd, being kicked along the way by a child too young to understand the pageantry and awe of the moment around her. She just saw a rock at her feet, kicked it once and enjoyed the way it seemed to fly. The child was thoroughly amused, and as for the rock, there were certainly more comfortable ways to travel, but the rock did not mind the bumps that came from cruising down the road this way. It didn’t mind the smacks of the foot or the pavement. Frankly, it was just happy to travel a new road, to feel the excitement of a new crowd, and to continue on whatever adventure it would have. The rock enjoyed its life of near constant movement from place to place. To those who found themselves in its presence, it would hardly matter for a moment, if that. And there came with a type of freedom. Not that a rock could fully understand what freedom was. It just knew momentum, and it could draw some conclusions from that.

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The rock landed at the ground beneath the Tibauld statue, out of the child’s reach, which was how its journey came to an end. The girl forgot about it instantly when she saw the height of the statue everyone was enthralled by. It towered over her though that does not mean much when it comes from a child so small. 

On the other hand, the rock was certainly unimpressed. It had seen plenty of larger forms before, and as for the distinct pattern on the statue–that which a human knows to be marble with its fluid lines and speckled surface–the rock had its own strip of such material along it’s curved edge. So what if the statue had more of it than the rock? Even still, it was hardly a point of interest. Neither was the size of the statue. Once upon a different time, the rock had dwelled on the mountains with pieces that large if not larger before a rainstorm ferried it away to another era of its life.

Now, the storm wasn’t an ending, or that wasn’t how the rock saw it. The rock did not believe its stories had endings or beginning, as those were things it could not understand. Timelessness is the product of being without those things, and both the rock and statue believed they were timeless. But for different reasons. The rock felt the novelty of inconsistency while the statue felt the power of consistency.

After all, as an icon, the statue had a purpose to its presence. It had a task that it could not sway from. It was the foundation for the world around it. It served as a heavy anchor, immovable by any ordinary force. Unlike the rock before it whose presence the statue was aware of but little more. These are objects, remember? What means of communication would they have? None, I tell you, but there are some conclusions each can draw as they sit in their places, drawing once again from lines and emotions coming from the crowd. And for the statue, all of those conclusions pointed to a certain superiority over the rock and all others like it.

For the rock, the energy of the crowd hardly meant anything, and the statue was hardly worth remembering. It would come and go as  everything else had along its journey. In time, it would no longer remember the statue. But for the statue, the rock–and the many like it in the surrounding area–were worth a bit of pity. They were pointless and by the statue’s estimation–worthless. It is a bold assumption to make, though, is it not? But it was what the statue had come to understand as a result of its circumstances. It clearly served a purpose, and from that purpose, it drew importance if not outright power. The rock could not say that. The rock had, in fact, been beaten about and would continue to be so. No one cared about it. No one treasured it. It couldn’t be treasured. Unlike the statue. 

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The cheers of the crowd emphasized the point and seemed to linger in the air as they dispersed, leaving–for the moment–the statue and the rock, together but not. A few days passed with the two in each other’s presence: the statue on its pedestal surveying its domain and the rock on the ground, each just waiting. People would come to gaze at the statue and step around, over, or even on–if they were unfortunate–the rock. There was no message to be found in that, but the statue drew one. The rock merely waited. Something would come up, the rock was assured. Another adventure, however small, would come. It just had to wait. And it was content doing that. After all, it had not been taught or led to want anything more than what it thought of as adventure, exploration, and what some would even call discovery. 

In fact, it could not relate to the statue’s plight, as the rock was inclined to see it. The statue would be stuck in place for all time, eventually forgotten about once the novelty wore off. That same thing had happened to the rock once: it had been left in a garden amongst other, similar rocks around a flowering plant. The plant was, as its caretaker said, beautiful. That was why it was brought to the garden and tended to so well. As for the rocks, that question remained open. For what must have seemed like a grand idea in the moment was quickly discarded in the next. But the rocks could not be cast out so easily. They were left in that place in the garden until the time came to reconsider the entire garden, every plant and every rock. 

What came next is a bit unclear. The rock could only remember the feeling of sinking into the soil as seasons changed but little else did. 

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The statue didn’t have that problem. The problem of sinking, of course. The statue was well supported. The statue would be well cared for in the years to come. Long after the rock traveled onward, in the pocket of a student who stumbled upon it and saw the strip of high grade material along the surface. From that first sight, the student called the rock their good luck charm and stuck it in their pocket, carrying it to their next exam. Not that the rock did anything to help besides provide some sort of hollow reassurance. Then again, that was all the student really needed. Purpose served, at that point, but it was a recurring purpose, one that could gently rest against the rock’s delicate slope. And when it could no longer do that–when the student moved on either in their academic career or became less superstitious–the rock would be on another adventure, perhaps kicked down the street again or collected by a small child fascinated by the world around them. 

A rock like that served many purposes. A rock like that could change and adapt with the circumstances it found itself in. The rock could be a part of a thousand stories just as it was. And in an existence like that, there wasn’t much to complain about. The rock knew no alternative. And even if it did, it wasn’t inclined to be critical of whatever alternative it found out about. And whatever discomfort came from a story would only be temporary.

But the statue was forever, or so the statue thought of itself. 

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There was no need to think otherwise, no crack in the facade to challenge these inclinations. The statue was great, noble and righteous in its stability and rigidity. Unlike the rock, it would never travel and its purpose never change. It was meant to bask in the sun and remind everyone of an important story. 

Those who first had a hand in making it would have agreed. It had been their intention. This statue was meant to endure as an unshakeable mooring point for a citizen that was still finding themselves and their way. But such things were found, eventually. A fledgling nation caught flight and grew into its dreams. And much like children who grow up no longer need their parents’ home, these people no longer needed their myths and legends to comfort them in their struggles. They hardly had any struggles. What was the point of promised harvests when people could fill their own table? When industries provided much, and trade could bring in whatever the industries could not produce? Those things took care of the people who no longer had the same sorts of needs. They certainly didn’t need their statue anymore, and so they thought of it less and less. The splendor faded. The gawking stopped. 

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And when a history student with the sort of time on her hands that only stability can provide came and outright disproved the myth of Tibauld the Mighty, it was the final stroke of the clock. Everyone in this new nation came to realize that this statue, old and hardly tended to, had become incompatible with this new reality, but the statue could not change itself. It did not understand this incompatibility, but it knew it to be true. And yet, it could not move through life into new roles or positions. It just was what it was, which was–after some time–an obsolete figure, waiting to be decommissioned when the world turned over again.

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Cassandra’s Tales and Truths is a production of Miscellany Media Studios. It is written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey with music from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. Transcripts can be found at oracleofdusk.online. That’s one word. Oracleofdusk.online. Thanks!