Fauldon's Dream and the Karier of the Task
Chapter 2: Scene I

He was just an ordinary man—why should I have chosen anyone else? To be simply answered: it’s because the simple man is the one who often brings about the biggest and greatest changes. And so he walked, hands in his coat pockets, eyes set forward through the bustling city crowds, on towards a small stand-alone booth of hope, his mind and heart progressing more swiftly than his anxiety and tired body could meet. Etched upon the wood paneling read deliverance to any city tramp: HILTON’S WORKS & HIRE. For work in such times was packed and the economy was complicated to say the least. Most would hold a job if only for a single task in a single day and have to resort to scurrying about for another job. All that to say, the life of a city tramp hinged upon a day-to-day existence—a never ending pit of seeking.

So seeing a “works and hire” would most obviously spur excitement and crowds as many would rush the opportunity to land a career job. In light of such, I should have admired more the timing of the choice being as there was no line awaiting him, for he now stepped into the booth—a small trickle of nervousness touching his spine. Before him a single desk resided, behind which sat a stout man in suit, hat, and tie. He took the cold steel chair in front of him, straightening his coat as he did. A sense of desperatecy to the occasion held him at the edge of his full potential, but that could have mattered less to me. Every man gets desperate. It’s what he does in it that should be of consideration. He was a respectable man.

“What is your name?” the man asked.

“Mr Fauldon,” answered he all in attempt at dodging the frog in his throat.

“Are you a respectable man?” sir Hilton, the interviewer, asked (for that was what the name Mr Fauldon could make out from the tag clipped upon his left).

“Why, yes, I do strive to be, sir Hilton,” replied Mr Fauldon, utilizing the awareness and hoping for the best.

The man showed a smile and leaned his arms upon the desk. “Good,” he said, “and it is good that you can read, though I’d hope you wouldn’t try anything too bold.”

“By no means whatsoever!” Mr Fauldon alarmed. “The thought would never have crossed my mind and neither would I ever conceive myself as doing such a thing.”

“So, you must be in your mid-thirties?” sir Hilton asked.

“Thirty-four, to be exact,” Mr Fauldon said with much dignity and pride, his nervousness starting to rub off.

“Mind me asking what it was your previous occupation might have been?” the man proceeded, flipping out a pen and loose leaf paper from his sleeve.

Mr Fauldon pondered for a moment.

“Never mind that,” sir Hilton added. “It’s the events at hand that you seek and that make you, not a reminiscence of the past. Now, why should I trust you with this job in comparison to, for say, the man who had come in before you? He too has looked worthy.”

“Feats of honor and heroism I may not have to offer,” Mr Fauldon answered with much considering, “but I do promise you my utmost effort and care in any and all tasks.”

The light flickered above him as the ground quivered to the tiniest and most insignificant earthquake to a city too distracted to notice. For the city’s structures were built tall, brave, and proud and able to withstand such accustomed occurrences. He sat there waiting for it to putter out and when it finally did he returned his gaze from the ceiling to the man in hat and suit. A whole new look had come across the man’s face as if he had just remembered something of greater interest to him. That man, folding up his loose leaf paper and putting away his pen, abruptly stood and pushed back his chair, not a single occurrence to his mind that he still was giving an interview, or that Mr Fauldon still sat in his cold steel chair waiting.

It was only a matter of moments before the man left the booth—Mr Fauldon utterly confused at the events. Not only that, but the man had exited through a rear door (there had only been one when he’d entered). To his surprise, having turned around to see if his own door was still there, he found it not! Queer—the look on his face. The kind that reminds you of a man who has struck such an un-knowing-ality of his surroundings that he is suddenly unaware of his own existence and perception of what had been reality to him.

He could only ponder for so long before his curiosity took the better of him (and I could quite agreeably agree.) Straightening his coat once again, he stood and proceeded to the rear door. I would be content enough to say he simply wanted out of that small booth now—though indeed he did want the job. Reaching out, he grabbed the door handle like any other ordinary man would in any other ordinary circumstance (which dealt with opening doors, that is). Also like any other ordinary man, he stepped through it—the slightest bit of disappointment crossing his mind to a much anticipated interview, seeming at abrupt end.

There he stood utterly dazed.

Before him was a world he’d never seen (one of more splendor than he could even possibly dream of—and I say “dream” because that was the look on his face). Colors filled the skies with streaks of vivid hues, and streams of silky wateriness flowed freely and independently high above him. Plants and shrubs and trees alike were of quite overly-peculiar shapes and in-proportional sizes. It was all nearly too much for him to take in (and much of it he didn’t).

Behind him, the once familiar booth now turned to earth and crumbled down upon itself. To make matters even more abnormal, a gigantic cloud tree sprang forth from the ground and began raining down upon the rubble—turning it to mud and flowing hence forth down the opposite side of that hill.

He stood dumbfounded looking at a slender man who had suddenly appeared as he always did in a bright suit—as if to find some certainty he hadn’t gone mad. He found no certainty of any sorts. Instead, the man lifted his head upright in utmost satisfaction, saying, “Shall we carry on then?”

“Carry on?” Mr Fauldon exclaimed, “I just saw a man walk through that door naught but moments before. Sir Hilton was his name. Have you seen him?”

The stranger seemed astounded at the preposterous thought of yet another person. “Sir Hilton you say? Never heard of him. Now, if you please, Mr Fauldon, might we progress?” He (the strange man in suit, of course) motioned with his body down the winding hill.

“And who might you be that I’d follow ever so blindly?” Mr Fauldon asked, not moving an inch.

“You may call me sir Knowington, dear sir. Now honestly, if you don’t mind, shall we continue with delay of pointless conversation or jolly well got on our way?”

He had no choice but to follow (or rather he had simply not thought of anything else more reasonable to do). And who might blame him? He’d long since lost sight of reason as he knew it, and so they proceeded through the all-too-queer land of some totally different reality. He was led down from the hill—the cloud tree still raining its mist and growing larger, and the pile of once familiar rubble now a puddle of mud that ran down and began gathering further on at the foot of the slope and began forming a pond of memories and reflection.

“Well, hello there!” came a distant and filled voice (as if drunk yet retaining some sense of awareness and intellect). And there, in but a blink of unawareness, now resided a table covered in white cloth with a bearded man in blue tux—obviously over-worn and under-washed—and hat sitting behind it (the first impression of course being a gambler of sorts). But that would have been an understatement and quite unfairly a far-fetched conclusion. Upon reaching the table closer, Mr Fauldon could make out several cards spread neatly over it. On each card was a symbol—a simple one of no foreseeable purpose, or so I have come to know.

“Oh, not now!” said sir Knowington in a discontented voice. “Mr Fauldon has no time for such games and business.”

“But alas!” the man intruded, “Might I not, in the least, introduce myself?”

“He might as well,” Mr Fauldon replied. “Not like nothing else is new….”

“That’s the spirit! Welcome to Serve Per Card’s Place—where the deal is and always will be! And just for giving of your time, I shall deal you your first card on me!” The man spoke with such enthusiasm in his work as he drew a single card from his white-spaced deck that he’d flung from his sleeve. The card fell face-up with the symbol showing.

“Hm,” he mumbled, scratching his beard, “the ‘Inquisitor’. It seems your life will be filled with questions I’m afraid.”

“Oh, well what good that is to my situation…” Mr Fauldon sarcastically remarked.

“Don’t ask me!” the man said, “Ask the card! Or can you not read?”

“I can to read,” Mr Fauldon pronounced, “and I need not a card to tell me what to do.”

“It hasn’t told you anything yet,” the dealer laughed. “You haven’t asked it anything!”

“Foolish this is,” said Mr Fauldon, handing him his card, “Here, have your card back.”

“Hmm, very well then. Perhaps another?” the dealer asked, a childish look of anxiety awaiting a positive response (for that’s all he seemed to do with his life—drawing cards).

“Mr Fauldon seems to have had enough, let him be,” sir Knowington said.

“Ah, well too-ta-loo! But here, I’ll at least give you another card free for just having met!” The man’s huge smile was accompanied by a firm open hand.

But before Mr Fauldon could reach out for it, the man had jerked his hand away, quickly adding, “Never mind that one! Would have hated for you to have Misfortune. Here, have this one—it was mine, but I give it to you!”

His face lit up as Mr Fauldon took it. “It’s blank?” he said.

An even bolder smile stretched across the man’s face. “For now, yes,” he answered, “it is.”

“Very well now!” burst in sir Knowington (who felt as though the whole conversation had been too long already). “Shall we?”

“Where is it you’re going?” the dealer asked.

“To Chestleton,” replied he, and the both of them were off—Serve Per Card’s Place disappearing behind the curve of the road.

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