The Uncertainty

Posted on February 14, 2006 by Jenna

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We ask ourselves: is this bacon?

But it is not bacon.

There is a castle in the woods.

There is a knight who will ride towards it.

It is like this: his lady grips his hand, squeezing it between her own, and says, “Oh, do not go, my love.”

“It’s not bacon,” says the knight.

“Hm?”

“I’m pretty sure the castle in the woods isn’t bacon.”

The lady does not understand, and so she says: “You will die, my love.”

He knows that she is right, but still he pulls away.

“I have a mistress,” he says.

She stares at him.

“Not bacon,” he clarifies. “A woman.”

“If you were going to betray me,” she says, “then better with bacon than a woman.”

“Lady,” he says, gravely, “the sizzling fat would have done me a disservice.”

And she has no words for that; and he rides off through the trees and hamburger.

The air is full of birdsong as he rides, and his horse, he thinks, is not bacon.

And there is a bubbling stream that he also thinks might not be bacon.

And then there is the bacon, regarding which he is not sure.

It grows all around him in verdant abundance. It twists in the sky. It crows out its raucous bacon call.

And the castle beckons.

“It is a matter of honor,” he says.

Honor is not bacon.

“It is a matter of truth.”

Truth is not bacon.

“And I may survive.”

Then the twisting bacon descends from the sky. It is great and it is terrible and he shudders before it. He raises his sword and his shield and he struggles against it, but the bacon confuses him. He wants to eat it, and yet at the same time it wants to eat him.

Knights are not trained in such things.

He faces his death. He succumbs. He looks into the bacon.

“I don’t know you’re not bacon,” he says. His face has gone simple, peaceful, and kind. “I guess that people don’t really know anything.”

That is how the knight that did not know it wasn’t bacon met his end.

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