The Straw Man
Within the alabaster walls of the city, P.W. Thice stumbles upon the shell of a scarecrow, blown from some distant quarter onto the land he halfheartedly farms. Cold sunshine frustrates his balding head to the point of delirium, and he rescues the new friend from greedy shoots struggling towards a slice of atmosphere. He carries the scarecrow to his ramshackle barn, deciding to feed the stranger straw.
The scarecrow eats until the body becomes a bit less emaciated, the legs a bit less puny, the arms less frail, more manly. Last comes the face. Thice shoves straw laterally, vertically, in bizarre geometric patterns, but the face remains poised in an uncomfortably direct, judgemental smile. No matter – his friend certainly would not wish to bear the shame of complete unemployment, so Thice props him onto a T of cherrywood and posts him in the garden, just outside the humble kitchen window of his cabin.
The morning routine of raspberry collection yields conversation.
"God gives a man riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires; but God does not allow him to enjoy them," murmurs the scarecrow.
"I have heard some in the town say this! Are you their teacher? If so, tell me more, friend," replies the pupil.
The scarecrow obliges. "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils."
"Why, what then shall I do?" The bare head scrunches in unseemly confusion.
"Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys," booms the scarecrow with chilling authority.
Joyful fear coloring his steps, Thice sets about his farm labor with new vigor, heretofore unheard of in his quadrant of the alabaster. Every morning for forty days, he rises and picks berries for a meager breakfast, and every morning the scarecrow says the same, or sometimes nothing at all. Thice grows every day more certain that diligent work is good in its own right, and he gladly toils under the warming sun.
The farmer's meager shoots grow tall enough to stoop down with heavy fruit, and the tilling hero waits to gather them in his wheelbarrow until they visibly boast of sweetness. P.W. had never cared to produce more than would feed his own loudmouthed stomach, but now uncomfortable excess threatened to rot atop his land.
"Scarecrow," says P.W. Thice, remembering the first directive of the teacher, "What does one do when a virtuous toil brings about too much material for one to righteously enjoy?"
A piercing directive follows: "Sell your possessions, and give to the needy."
The wheelbarrow struggles along the cobblestones as P.W. politely stops the townsfolk in request for modest pay for the berries. P.W. generously tells the interested passersby to pay what they believe to be fair, that the proceeds will go to the needy, and the passersby give more than the berries are worth. P.W.'s wheelbarrow returns home full of money, and his heart fills with gratitude for neighbors who part so readily with metal coins.
"As long as I do nothing with it but serve the poor and give it away," Thice thinks to himself, "this money is not a scourge on my righteousness." He nods through the window-pane to his ever-smiling friend, glad to have found such an affirming companion.
The next day, the sun shines its validation down on vain berries, and in their swelling pride the farmer determines they must be extinguished by hungrier mouths. He takes them to their judgement, and returns home with another wheelbarrow of riches. For forty days, much of the same follows, with modest fluctuations in the weight of the wheelbarrow on either end of the journey.
Each day, Thice would search the white walls for signs of where the needy could be found, but no clue presented itself. He thought harvest time must be profitable for everyone, and perhaps the money would be needed in the season of intense sun and hard ground.
The harvest ends, and P.W. Thice can no longer see through the windowpane of his hut for the riches stacked on every surface of his home. He feels no discomfort, as he has not spent a single farthing and fully intends to use the post-harvest season to return the wheelbarrow loads to the townspeople, one day at a time.
"What a lovely reversal it will be! To give, take, and give again," he thinks. Through the window, he can barely make out his friend's smile.
As the celestial sphere begins to scorch the ground to the point of punishing unusability, P.W. shovels the cash into the wheelbarrow and hauls his happy burden to town.
In the square, he stands in the middle, momentarily unsure how to disperse the funds. Surely it should not be a spectacle, for that would give him wrongful pleasure. No, no, better to withhold the credit from himself.
He leaves the money on a popular street corner, with a sign that reads, "Take as much as you need!"
He sneaks off home, proud only of the advice his friend has given and his solid attempt to follow it.
The next day, upon returning to the square, P.W. Thice detects no change to the wheelbarrow since last he saw it.
"Excuse me!" He hails a widow passing by, "Why has no one accepted kindness from a stranger?"
She brushes him off, casts an odd glance, and coldly replies, "Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? It is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. The teacher told us so."
"Odd woman!" He thinks, but restrains himself and instead asks, "What teacher?"
Two separate eyebrows knit into one as the woman casts a skeptical glance in Thice's direction.
"You know him well." She bustles hurriedly to her pious destination. P.W. glances around the square, and discovers that a wide berth has been given to both him and the wheelbarrow.
"This is no place for greed and excess!" Bellows an authoritative man from a bell tower.
Thice, stunned, returns home with his wheelbarrow full.
As the toe of his boot pivots onto the rutted path to the cabin's front gate, the vases of clouds crack, burst, and spill the last rain of the season onto the already-baking ground. He brushes through the unlocked gate, slips from soil to porch, and briefly rests his back against the hewn wooden doorframe. After a moment of wonderment, and watching the small ruts become little canals, he slips through the front door.
An old oil lamp gives Thice just enough light to perceive the scarecrow slumped in Thice's father's old armchair, that inane smile unchangingly plastered on the straw man's face. Every command of the friend, the fiend, now crashes back into the farmer's mind with a clarity that only accompanies the recognition of evil. The villain had removed himself from the cherrywood cross Thice made for him. Surprise gives way to confusion, confusion to anger.
"Who knitted you together, who did you teach, and why were you found empty on my land?" Thice pours out in a heated rush.
The scarecrow, meeting the end of his regurgitative capacity in the face of an honest question, replied, "Knit together by the men of the alabaster town, I read from a book they had but could not read, and I taught them industry. When everyone had more than enough to eat, they began to fear their money and to fear life without it, so they emptied me. You were the one that filled me again."
"Industry!" P.W. cries with indignation. "How can a body toil, sell, enjoy the idea of blessings and fruit, hate money, strive to give, and accept charity all at once? I have followed your word, and I have been spurned by those that gave to me, by those that I fed, and by those I strove to clothe and feed in turn!"
The scarecrow smiles.
Thice's eyes rapidly move over the gilded stacks on every surface, catch the scent of rotting fruit mulled by rain; he decides in an instant to flee and find the Author of the townspeople's book.
One door slam and ten minutes of storm later, Thice finds himself without the walls of the alabaster city, gazing upon his small cabin on the outskirts. Thice's sunburned scalp could predict that the prodigal sun would soon return, bleaching the walls a more painful shade of white, baffling the wealthy citizens forced to receive it.