The Story of Orlen Marr
By Aneirin Menelaos
The lute strikes a soft, steady rhythm, mimicking the slow lapping of dark water against weathered pilings
Spoken word
The lanterns glow red in the damp sea mist dawn,
Where a gull wheels and cries, and the shadows grow long.
Come listen, good folk, to a tale of the bay,
Of a dock that has vanished, and debt none would pay.
In Port Eridanus, salt-worn and gray,
Master Orlen Marr labored by night and by day.
No drunkard, no slacker, no fool with a line,
He was careful, too careful, the dockworkers' sign.
He checked every timber, he tested each crane,
He spoke of the rot in the hoist and the chain.
"The iron is rusted, the winch holds a strain!"
But the others they laughed, they needed the pay.
Then came the dark morning, the timber gave way,
A crack like a cannon shot out, over the bay!
The heavy hoist splintered, the beams split in twain,
And panic ran wild in the cold autumn rain.
Amidst the mad chaos, and the shriek of the wood,
Little Elira in the ruin’s path stood.
A child of the harbor, terrified, small
As the silvered pier collapsed one and all.
Did Orlen run backward? To save his hide?
Nay, he bounded straight forward into the gray tide!
He snatched up the child, and cast her to land,
He gave her,her life with his dockworker's hand!
She reached the stone quay, safe, breathing, and whole...
Ere the sea claimed the pier, and the timbers, and soul.
The rhythm pauses, turning low and somber
O, dead men speak nothing! Dead men cannot plead!
When the harbor hands gathered to judge of the deed.
"The hoist was well-tended!" someone may have lied,
"The fault was the worker's who drowned in the tide!"
They buried his honor beneath his own name,
And left Orlen Marr with the burden of blame.
Decades swept past us; the girl grew a maid,
While the dock that had fallen was never remade.
And Orlen? A whisper. A caution. A stain.
A cautionary story of ruin and pain.
A swift, airy flourish on the strings
Come Pella Bramblewick, gentle of brush,
Who loved the damp harbors in a morning's soft hush.
She painted the waterfront, barnacle-clad,
The warped planks, the vessels, the merry and sad.
With oil and canvas she captured the bay,
Just as it looked on a long-vanished day.
She painted no dock that was no longer there,
The green-blue of water, the pale hazy air.
And when it was finished, she put down her quill,
Satisfied, smiling, the image was still.
No figure stood there on the end of no pier;
Her memory was clear, and without peer.
She wrapped up her canvas; it gathered the dust,
Through decades of storage, of forgotten trust.
Yet somewhere in silence, a spirit took hold
A pulse in the dark, and an urge to be told.
The tempo slows to a tense, echoing strum
When they pulled off the cloth in the light of our day,
A tiny lone figure stood over the bay!
At the end of the lost dock, where silent tides roll,
Stood the shade of a man, not a curse, but a soul.
And stranger, far stranger! He turned to the room!
He looked from the canvas, not into the gloom!
Not gazing at harbor, nor vessel, nor crew,
His pale, vague face fixed directly on *you*.
His face was a shadow, his features half-caught,
A memento mori that memory had wrought.
He stood on the threshold of canvas and thread,
A spectral presence demanding for the dead:
"Do you know how I perished? Do you know what was said?
Will you leave me with slander beneath the cold tide?"
The music swells with a steady, uplifting chord
Then seekers came forward, and truth was unbound!
Two faded old initials 'O. M.' they were found!
They spoke with old Garrick, they traced down the line,
To Elira Fen, saved by a hero's design!
They cleared his good name of the rot and the blame,
And gave back to Orlen his honor and name.
And look to the painting! Look close to the frame!
The shadow has shifted since we spoke his name!
No longer he gazes outward in plea,
He has turned his back now, looking out to the sea.
His question is answered, his story is clear;
He reposes in peace at the end of his pier.
The lute fades out on a gentle, lingering note