BelAmi**
foggy morning
When I was a boy—maybe ten years old—I found myself at the end of summer on a nearly empty beach at the north end of Pawleys Island. I say ‘nearly empty’ because there was one old man sitting on some driftwood, reading a fat book—which seemed a peculiar and slightly suspicious behavior to a ten year old boy who hadn’t voluntarily read a book in his life. Since I was bored, I decided to pester the old man. I went to him and asked him what he was reading. He said “Le Morte D’Arthur.”
He could tell by the look on my face that the title meant absolutely nothing to me. So he told me it was the story of the death of King Arthur. I’d heard of King Arthur of course, but it was a massive big bastard of a book so I said there must be more to it than King Arthur dying. The old man told me it was about Arthur’s birth and all the events of his life, and the events of the lives of a lot of other people, all of which would lead inevitably to Arthur dying.
And then the old man did an amazing thing. He read to me. I’d never heard anything like it. The language was oddly intoxicating—but it was what the language described that seized hold of my imagination. I still remember the scene he read. A knight writhing with love, and going to sleep by a broad water, laying his head on a shield while a dwarf held his horse, and then some other knight sneaking up and stealing the dwarf. One moment I was a bored and obnoxious ten year old boy on an empty Carolina beach, the next moment I was on a foggy waterside somewhere in a mythical England populated by questing knights and noble ladies and horse-holding dwarfs.
The same thing happened when I saw this photograph.
The north end of Pawleys Island is gone now, swept away by Hurricane Hugo. But because of that old man, I’m still a ten year old boy when it comes to reading. Before the week was out, I’d cadged a ride into Georgetown, found a bookstore, and bought Le Morte D’Arthur. All because of that old man. And this:
Sir Beaumains had no rest, but wallowed and writhed for the love of the lady of the castle. And so upon the morrow he took his horse and rode until underne, and then he came to a broad foggy water, and thereby was a great lodge, and there he alighted to sleep and laid his head upon the shield, and betook his horse to the dwarf, and commanded him to watch all night.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
