Story #70 - Wor

Wor

Rosson’s hand came down onto the top of his head, sending shivers of pain down his spine. This was new – the older man had obviously been investigating different ways to inflict pain.

“Freak.” This was expected. The voice of the man standing above him held only contempt; even venom-tipped anger had been drained over the years, sapped during beatings uncounted and Wor’s steadfast refusal to stand up for himself or fight back.

Why bother?

Wor had learned early on in life that he was different, and different enough that he was cast as the villain in any unfortunate piece which played out in the village. He was cursed; but over time, he’d simply come to terms with it.

Slumping forward in the chair, Wor didn’t try to struggle or even keep his balance. Today, Rosson had bound him, perhaps afraid that Wor would finally snap and lash out with too-long arms slabbed over by thick plates of muscle. The younger man wouldn’t – and if he did, the tiny ropes wouldn’t have been able to stop him – but Rosson didn’t want to believe that. Wor had told them all many times how he felt about violence, but something about his curse just seemed to inflame them, incite them to vicious actions of their own.

They’d been surprised Wor could speak at all, given that he had the “head of a demon” as the local medicine man had announced at his birth. Ten years passed before Wor had seen himself in a mirror and while his features didn’t exactly match those of the rest of the villagers, there were no characteristics that marked him as anything other than human. With massive round nose, dangling ears and a mouth large enough to eat his own substantial fist, Wor was hardly a beauty, but was not, in his own estimation, demonic.

Wor’s first calm and articulate words had been met with silence, followed almost immediately by laughter. Soon after, the beatings began.

There was nothing he had done that he knew of to incite their anger, no specific phrase he had uttered that made him such a threat, but they tore into him as though the scores in his flesh could somehow protect them, somehow stop the rains from running or their livestock from dying.

They misunderstood correlation and causality.

Wor wasn’t the cause of their ills and he knew it; his presence was merely an oddity that corresponded with the appearance of some odd phenomena – things that would have happened regardless of his existence.

He sighed as his chair tipped forward, carrying him face-first into the dirt floor. Above him, he could hear heavy air being sucked into Rosson’s lungs and then expelled at a rapid pace; such violence took energy.

Wor made no move to flip onto his back. If Rosson wanted him there, he’d move him or go find a few willing hands to help. They had to be at least moderately careful about how they treated him; they would need him to work in the fields as harvest time drew near.

“Wor,” Rosson said. It was the first time the name had ever crossed his lips. “Why won’t you struggle? Why won’t you fight?” There was a tone of desperation in the voice.

What an odd turn of events.

Wor waited; others had asked him questions but wanted no answers, and the first few times it happened he had been foolish enough to respond. He had no interest in perpetrating violence but he had desire to receive more pain.

“I mean it, Wor. What’s your problem?” Rosson’s voice was stronger now, the old anger creeping back in. “Answer me!”

Wor tried, but his mouth was solidly planted in the hard packed earth underneath him. Rosson kicked the back end of the chair, giving Wor the momentum he needed to flip onto his back and causing the wood to protest sharply underneath him. Very little furniture in the village would bear his weight even when applied delicately.

“I will not fight you,” he said softly, “I bear you no ill-will.”

Rosson knelt down, taking the back of the chair in his hands and grunting as he heaved upward. With a groan from both man and manufactured wood the seat rose, carrying Wor back to a vertical orientation and resulting in a sharp jolt as his feet hit the ground - only his own excellent sense of balance and well-trained muscles kept both his frame and the chair upright. The older man came around to the front of the chair, kneeling down to meet Wor’s eyes.

“How is that possible? After all we’ve done to you?” Rosson’s eyes were dark and Wor could see the shadowy circles under each eye – the man was exhausted. He was a study in contrasts, this one; the few times Wor had been allowed to watch the Council meetings Rosson had spoken passionately about justice and community, and yet he beat Wor with a ferocity bordering on madness.

Rosson dropped his head. “After all I’ve done to you?”

“You are ignorant, Rosson.” The man’s eyes snapped back up, fire banked suddenly seething. He raised a single, knobby hand; broken more than once from meetings with Wor’s thick body.

“What?” The tone was dangerous.

“I’m cursed; my body marks me as different, unknown. You fear the unknown, and therefore fear me. Your response to this fear is violence. I can endure your beatings, your fear, but could not bear to hurt one of you. It would wound me to do so, and I will not permit you to force me to that end.” It was the longest uninterrupted speech Wor had ever been allowed to make, and for once, it appeared he was being heard.

Rosson pulled a knife from his belt and then quickly cut the ropes binding Wor. Stepping back, he gestured to the door.

“Leave.” It was an order; Rosson had made a choice, and was willing to live with the consequences.

Wor stood easily despite the punishment he’d endured and started for the door. A sharp pain at his shoulder slowed him for a moment; odd aches and pains came to him suddenly these days, struck randomly during a day in the fields or a night under the care of the villagers. He shrugged it off and dashed outside, long legs carrying him quickly through the village and out into the forest.

It wasn’t until the stopped for the night, back against a tree, that the pain came again. Reaching over his shoulder, he found Rosson’s dagger buried to the hilt in his flesh, a trail of dried blood marking his back.

Human bodies were fragile; Wor was fortunate his was more robust.

Human choices appeared to be the same; Wor’s would have to carry more weight.

- D