Bokor Sen'gir

An old troll sits cross-legged on a flattened blanket woven of fibers once vibrant in color. Now the ends are frayed and the colors mere whispers of what they once were. A red clay jar sat before the troll coupled with a strange fishnet wrapped gourd. A handle of ivory unevenly wrapped with shark skin. He slowly stood up for a moment and he leaned on a wooden carved staff that had leaned unnoticed on the wall behind him. He seemed short for a troll with bent shoulders and hunched back. His leanness made him look alarmingly fit. Giving the impression that had he not the staff to lean on and entice the sense of frailty, he could withstand the bluster of the gusty wind. However wrong that assumption may be.

His cloths made of thick skins and chainmail hid swaths of faded and time worn skin. Thick as vellum and marked by a world weary mass of years. He settled back down in his cross-legged way and continued to wait.

The closer you get to this old shaman, the more things are revealed. The blur of people passing without pause for the old troll didn't bother him. He was no beggar so there was no need to seek attention. He knew that with a little patience things and people always come his way. A single breath let loose from dried and cracked lips. A falling leaf caught in mid air as the bustle of moving bodies created drafts of wind to dance upon. The troll carefully seized it with thick fingers covered in bumps, which were the signs of slowly creeping arthritis. Yet, he could still move mountains. He would raise the leaf to his lips and inhale its scent, knowing the damp and musty smell. The leaf, in a way, was like him. Brown, dry, and crippled edges already starting to twist to the center; the same as his old spine. He thought about such an impressive resemblance and he involuntarily smiled with a corner of his mouth.

Closer still you creep, till you can see the yellow tallow of his tusks. They were not massive but simply the right length and girth for his size. Carved with intricate angular stelae in geometric shapes recurring in long symmetrical lines. Clearly made to fulfill a religious purpose. Thin strands of stressed leather and blackened animal gut wrapped around his tusks here and there. Holding the weight of tiny bird or rodent skulls painted and stuffed with feathers and tree sap. Motionless in the moment.

The trap now sprung as the eyes of the old bokor now watch the watcher. Captured by volumes of knowledge within his gaze. Chapters upon chapters of experience and a treasure trove of truth rolled together behind an ocean blue. Piercing blue and crystal clear, they don't lie, they don't need to. The skin of his face was an ancient map. Crafted from the finest material but now faded with age and toil. Like meandering rivers, each and every furrowed wrinkle has a tale to tell. Pleasure, pain, delight, and despair. The story of his life - the exciting story that it is. Only there for those who care to hear it, laid bare for all to see. It was hard to determine his age. The old Bokor, obsessed with his own dreams, bent his head to his shoulder, and one could notice a deep scar on the left cheek, closer to his long ear. The scar did not hurt anymore, however, it remained an everlasting memory about his young, and tumultuous years. He had spent his best years on the fields of war, fighting for life and hope. Where he caught the kiss of an errant blade. It was his moment of truth, when one millimeter decided whether he was destined to live or die.

The troll beckons you closer still and all the surroundings seemed to sink slowly into darkness. the shapes set out before him blurred and lost their definition. Sun rays dashing away from the encroaching night. His electric blue hair gave a snap of light as electricity crackled up the tall mohawk. Fossilized in place on the pot marked and sun spotted head of the old troll.

"Jou've come tah see deh old Bokor Sen'gir, ya?" Those eyes staring with brumous visions of nebulous webs entwined in ancient wisdom.

"Jour history books ain't deh past, deh past is deh exact pitch of deh whisper'n leaves around vast fields of gold as deh wind blew trew dem. It is deh very crumb of ever'eh meal eaten or missed by a myriad people trew deh ages. Most of whom nevah even made deh slightest dint in dose historical record books." The troll took in a ragged breath. "History, on deh otha hand, is deh stuff dat we remembah. Deh records we choose or are lucky 'nough tah unearth. Deh weave an pattern we make of em tah explain deh past... and deh present. Deh past here, be a complex one..."

The troll held up the desiccated old leaf and suddenly crushed it in his hand. He smiled that crooked smile and sprinkled the remnants of the leaf into the red clay jar.

“Deh world at deh time Nordrassil fell was both familiar an bizarre. Tink jou’d undahstand bein’ exhausted wit war and catas’rophe. Hav’n anxiety about deh decline’n morals of a new generation or of deh societies in general. Do jou tink, mon, dat jou’d identify wit deh simultan’ous sense of doom and optimism which charac’tarizes deh mood durin’ a time of dat kind of historical significance?” The troll began sprinkling in different ground substances and mashed up herbs. A hand reaches for the decorated rattle assun and the sound of disjointed snake bones chitter and chatter in the hollow gourd.
“In deh saddest an most gris’leh way possible, deh murder of thousands fell inta nothin’ness.” The lid to the red clay govi jar was placed on top and the assun rattle shaken in a rhythmic rain sound around the jar. Then the lid was taken off and an explosion of smoke and small dots of light spilled out. Like the birth of a galaxy, there was an expanse of spiraling stars around a center. Instead of a star or glowing mass at the center though, there was a tree. Leaves, just like the one crushed, alive and teaming in the many boughs and branches of the tree. As the dust began to fall from the air and the image began to fade, it was now silent. The troll had vanished without a trace, but, there sat the red clay jar. The govi enticing the curious with the black depths of its open top. The small chitter of snake bones as the assun rolled on the ground to settle next to that jar.