The Last Philosopher: Part One

Trying to do right

Four months earlier, not long after the ancient sorcerer's first nightmare — far to the west of the continent — a strange figure was escaping a stranger prison.

Nothing about this baby-faced man gave the impression of a convict. For one thing, his ever-changing frown was often somewhere between perpetual amazement and advanced calculus. Combined with his weary blue eyes and the grey streak in his hair, it gave him the look of a scholar. To complete that image, he needed a beard, but his smooth face could never produce more than a slight fuzz.

Herschel I. Pensador was trying out a new idea: non-violent resistance. Just one of many notions this gifted thinker had about how things should be done. But it hadn't evolved into hunger strikes or protests. Instead, the non-violent part only meant that his escape should bother no one else. Not even the guards.

"At least the breakout is almost over, and I haven't even broken anything," the long-haired oddity said to himself.

Doesn't that make it more like a sneak-out? Which isn't as bad, you know, an encouraging multi-thought eased his guilt about running away.

The previous night, this middle-aged man had waded through the maze that was the prison's sewage system. His gown told the tale. Normally, a bit off-white, his was tainted with every shade of filth. The loose-fitting uniforms had been chosen for comfort, not for practicality in an escape. And to be fair, no clothing would've been up to the task. Even his jet-black hair, draped over his one exposed shoulder, was soggy with waste. His choice of exit was just one reason for the long arguments about his escape. Sometimes with his gaggle, and when they weren't around, with himself.

"Why don't you just go over the wall?" a friend had suggested.

Indeed, there was little to stop him. Because whoever built the low, shoddy prison wall wasn't concerned about it keeping people in the prison.

Even so, Herschel's answer had been, "No, that would go against what I'm calling the first principle of escaping, which is not getting caught."

That first principle still wasn't as important as his personal motto: trying to do the right thing. But it'd never crossed his mind that the right thing would one day mean climbing down the stone tube of a four-seat privy. In the middle of the night no less, since that was the only time the clumsily named things were even remotely private.

"You're braver than me, baby-face, or dumber," Soc-To said when he told him about the plan. "I wouldn't go down there. You don't even know if you can get out that way."

The sun's first rays guiding Herschel to the duct out of this labyrinth had proved big man. Here, the sewer was narrow and cone-shaped, getting tighter the closer he came to daylight. But at least it was an exit.

The Socks were the first to call us baby-face, his nostalgia reminisced as he squatted in the duct to freedom.

Let's not start missing them just yet. There'll be plenty of time for that later, his objectivity thought, but his frown turned homesick.

Herschel already wanted to go back to prison-life and the Socks, because the gaggle of philosophers had been his first real friends. People who accepted his misfit ideas, even when they didn't agree. So, the reddish-brown vista of the desert held no allure, even if the colour matched his skin.

Leaning forward, he caught a glimpse of the ocean. Now that was alluring. Then again, anything would be compared to this trickle of sewage oozing over our sandals, his disgust thought.

In an attempt to avoid the stench, he tried breathing through his mouth.

Okay, so now we can't smell it, but it's still going in our mouth, his over-thinking added, and isn't that more disgusting?

"Perhaps?" Herschel rubbed his bare chin. "But at least thinking helps. Even if it's only thinking about thinking, or even thinking about thinking about thinking."

But that's far enough. His reason put a firm stop in his logical loop.

By accident, he'd stumbled onto the best distraction from the odour, thinking about anything else. Among other things, he pondered the nature of regret. Because ever since he started planning this escape, he'd had a surplus of that guilt.

"I should be pleased, the plan is working, I'm almost free." But his frown showed his ambivalence.

Crouching near the exit had made his legs go from aching to numb. But in return, he got the occasional breeze of fresh air. It would flutter in and relieve the stench for a few seconds, but even that really helped. So, Herschel stuck to the plan — which was either genius, or simple stupidity.

We're going to walk away under cover of night and hope no one notices, his planning added with just a hint of smugness.

Unknown to Herschel and his planning, if he succeeded in leaving Zig-Zig, it'd be the first time an inmate ever left the peculiar prison.

Updated: 18.10.2024