It had been many years since the old cobbler had last seen the potion maker, and he was rather eager at the thought of their reunion. The countryside had changed in many ways, but he remembered the old road and the way it curved around the base of the mountain towards the village. He remembered the view of the lake beyond the village. The water green and clear in the sun. He remembered the bed of the lake was heavy and rich with clay, and the villagers made great use of it to craft pottery and jewellery and even large sculptures. And he remembered the potion maker’s sign at the base of the mountain, signalling to a narrow footpath up the hillside:

Potions for Sale. Cures for Life’s Pains. Paths to Life’s Riches.

As he remembered it, the footpath had been well-worn and nearly always bustling with visitors. The villagers for their own part had grown well accustomed to the potion maker, and they came to visit him when occasion arose, but more and more only for situations of dire consequence. It was travellers from abroad that crowded the footpath in a snaking procession, seeking remedies for this and private elixirs for that. Rumours and stories of the potion maker were told well beyond the village, and what was told most readily was that he was the last of his trade. From across the neighbouring lands, the desperate and the hopeful, all came to visit in search of something.

And the old cobbler had been one such traveller, all those years ago…

~

The old cobbler, then yet a man of middle years, had come to the potion maker seeking a cure for a great and unbearable heartache. The dearest love of his life, his best-friend, his guiding light, his one true companion through it all, had been taken from this world. The pain in the cobbler’s heart was such that he could barely walk. He could barely rise from bed. He could dare yet even open his eyes. He cared for nothing, and could scarcely go on living himself. He wished truly to depart the world as well, and perhaps be reunited with his love. If belief carried such powers.

Yet it was for a small but remaining love for a few gentle people in his life that he wished to overcome his grief. They were the souls who had rallied around him, and reminded him of his waking life when all he wished to know was darkness. They had saved him yet, and he wished not to add to their loss by taking his own life as well. He wished not to subject them to the very pain he so suffered. And so he had been advised to visit the potion maker…

He had travelled alone and on foot. He wore rope-sole sandals of his own craftsmanship and a light canvas cloak with a brimmed hat to keep the high sun from his bald head. For days he walked, carrying nothing but a small leather canteen for water, which he refilled when he could. He ate nothing, and he felt his hunger greatly. There seemed a certain penance in his fasting. He could not explain it, but he felt the need to suffer, the need to punish himself. Without knowing it, he blamed himself for his love’s death. Even as it had been by some cruel hand of chance and accident, he believed in his heart he should have been able to prevent it. Such was the nature of his heartache, and so he indeed wished his journey to be arduous and long. He deserved nothing less.

When at last he had reached the village under the hot sun, the old mountain road had been loud and dusty with traffic. Carts and wagons clattering and mules and donkeys snorting and braying. The clay merchants called aloud to make way and to load up. It appeared to be a shipping day, and all of the carts were packed high with carefully stacked yet rickety works of pottery. The cobbler made his way at the edge of the road, admiring the carts as they passed, until he spotted the sign for the potion maker. He had been told to watch for this sign, and to follow the footpath when he found it.

Already there was a long line of eager visitors snaking their way up the hillside from the edge of the road, and even a few yet milling about near the passing carts. The cobbler joined the end of the queue and progressed in slow shuffling steps. He sipped frugally from his canteen, mindful of how long the line appeared ahead of him and the high sun above. The man in front of him had a habit of belching and farting every few steps, and for this the cobbler was less than thrilled, but otherwise his spirits were high for having reached the potion maker’s venue. His heavy heart was somewhat lighter in anticipation…

The potion maker lived alone in a high cave in the mountainside. There was no further sign or post but the one by the road, but the footpath lead in a single course up the mountain right to the mouth of the cave. In any case, the cobbler simply followed the procession as it slowly diminished ahead and also seemed to grow behind him.

At long last the footpath up the hillside reached a level plateau dotted with many round boulders bleached from the sun, and a few spindly trees. There was but one large sycamore tree that proffered some shade to the landing. When the cobbler reached this spot, he was compelled to stop, and from there wait his turn.

When it was that the flatulent fellow ahead of him was ushered forward, the cobbler spied over his shoulder and saw the potion maker sitting on the ground below the sycamore tree. He had a wooden mixing bowl in his lap, churning a powder of ingredients with a stone pestle.

The flatulent fellow squatted on the ground next to him, and for some time they conversed. The potion maker seemed to shrug once or twice, and the fellow shook his head. Then, after a further moment, the potion maker lifted a small leaf-bound bundle from under his foot and held it out to the man. The flatulent fellow took it at once, then stood and hurried back to the top of the footpath. He brushed past the cobbler rather roughly, giggling to himself and a small fart escaped him. Then he was gone.

The cobbler wondered for a moment what the man had asked for and what indeed had he received, but he was also eager to be on his own way next. He turned toward the mountain cave and crossed the clearing to meet the potion maker.

The potion maker was a curious looking person. He gave one the impression of someone you had met before, perhaps in a dream, someone you could almost remember.

Coming up close to him and taking a seat on the ground, the cobbler was surprised at just how at ease he felt. It seemed he could say or ask for anything…

“How may I help you?” the potion maker said.

“I have a broken heart,” the cobbler said, rather shocked at his swift and candid answer.

“Oh, oh yes…” the potion maker said. “I know of broken hearts. I have just the thing for you…”

The cobbler was rather surprised at this, having just witnessed the exchange with the fellow before him. He had been expecting the potion maker to scrutinize his request, to require some reasoning for what he asked, and then perhaps even shrug his shoulders and send him on his way.

But instead the potion maker rose from his work and went inside his cave and in a moment returned again with a small bundle wrapped in a sycamore leaf. He presented it to the cobbler.

“Drink this,” he said. “This will cure your heartache.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. I swear it.”

The cobbler took the leaf-bound bundle. “How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“As you see fit.”

The cobbler gave the potion maker all of the money he had brought with him. The potion maker accepted it gratefully and stowed it away under his knee.

“Thank you,” the cobbler said.

“You have lost someone dear to you?” the potion maker asked.

“I have lost my whole world,” the cobbler said. “But I believe I must go on for the sake of others still.”

The potion maker nodded gravely. He seemed to be thinking of something. Then he said, “Let me tell you this then. If you drink that potion, it will cure your broken heart. But in time your pain will return, and you will feel the need to cure it again. You will come back here, and I will gladly sell you another such potion. However, if you do not drink it, if you simply keep it with you always, your heart will heal for good.”

The cobbler considered the potion maker’s words. He looked at the leaf-bound bundle in his hand, and he longed terribly for his lost love. Then he thanked the potion maker once more and stood and went on his way…

~

Returning now along the dusty mountain road, all these years later, the old cobbler was excited to see the potion maker again.

The countryside had indeed changed. There were no carts or wagons clattering along the road. There were no clay merchants calling forth to their teams. The road itself had thinned and grown over with brush.

Looking ahead, the old cobbler wondered if he had in fact followed the right road, as he could not see the lake in the distance with its clear and green water. He could not hear the noises of the village either, as he remembered them. It seemed an altogether different and desolate place…

And then, squinting below the sun, the old cobbler discovered why he could not see the lake anymore. The lake was gone. It was dried up.

There was but the frail shape of its edges and the cracked bedrock, gorged out into a great hollow in the land.

It appeared whatever spring had once filled the lake with water had ceased to flow, and the great wealth of clay had been carved away entirely.

Coming around the bend of the mountain road, the old cobbler then saw the village also. A barren and abandoned husk of dust settled houses, overgrown with brush as the road leading into it. As some landed mirroring of the lake, the village and all the villagers were gone.

A sinking hollow filled the old cobbler then, and he was reminded for the first time in a long time of his old heartache. He seemed to already know what he would find when he reached the potion maker’s sign. And then he saw it…

Potions for Free. Take What You Need. Farewell.

There was no line of visitors up the hillside. The way was empty and tangled and the footpath barely visible. The old cobbler followed merely from the sure-footedness of his memory. He walked slowly, almost reluctantly now, up the mountainside to the cave.

When he reached the plateau, he stopped in his tracks.

A dark foreboding had been building the image in his mind — the sight of the potion maker hanging from the branch of the high sycamore tree — but now the cobbler let out a small sigh of relief.

The potion maker was seated on the ground below the tree with his hands in his lap. He was not working with his mixing bowl and pestle as the old cobbler had found him those years before. He was simply sitting in some idle measure of the day. His chin slightly raised. His eyes half open. He appeared simply there, as if no other place would have him. The old cobbler started across the clearing.

The potion maker remained yet a curious looking person, as someone you might have forgotten about and then now just remembered. He did not speak right away, as he had before, and as the old cobbler came closer, he saw that the potion maker’s eyes were grey in their depths and looking faraway.

The old cobbler’s footstep crunched upon a small twig and it snapped.

“Hello stranger,” the potion maker said. “May I be of some help to you?”

“Hello,” said the old cobbler. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all.”

“You helped me some years ago,” the old cobbler said. “You gave me a potion to cure my terrible heartache.”

“Ah yes…” said the potion maker. “And you have come back now for more.”

The old cobbler knelt down before the potion maker. He took off his pack and set it beside him.

“No,” he said. “I have come to say thank you.”

  He opened his pack and took out the leaf-bound potion that he had been given all those years ago. It was wrapped in the same sycamore leaf, untouched, unopened.

“I have kept the potion with me, as you advised, and it helped. I do believe it cured my broken heart.”

“Ah yes…” the potion maker said. “Then you may be the one.”

The old cobbler looked at him. “How do you mean?”

“With every visitor who comes to seek my potions, I tell them the same thing. My potions will cure your pain, or quicken your luck, or even change how others feel about you. But if you use them, you will only ever be wanting for more. If you keep them instead, you will carry with you a far greater potion. Hope. But it seems very few were ever truly listening. In the end, it had very little to do with potions.

Although the potion maker’s eyes were blind, the old cobbler sensed that the man was looking away down the mountainside as if at a familiar sight.

“You are speaking about the village and the villagers,” the old cobbler said.

“Yes.”

“What happened to them?”

“Some people only ever want more. And more. Until there is nothing left.”

“And this breaks your heart, doesn’t it?”

“It does, stranger. But why do you come here and ask me this?”

“Some nights ago, I had the most unusual dream,” the old cobbler said. “And I woke with a lasting feeling of it. Have you ever had such dreams? Dreams that are so strong they remain with you long after waking, and you cannot shake them from your thoughts.”

“Dreams are the true powers,” the potion maker said.

“My dream was of you,” the old cobbler said. He looked down at the leaf-bound potion in his hand. “And somehow I felt that you were now in need of this potion more than I am. I don’t know how your powers work, but I suppose you did give me hope all those years ago. And so I’ve come to return it.”

The potion maker nodded gravely and it seemed a small smile touched the edges of his blind eyes.

The old cobbler set the leaf-bound potion on the ground in front of the potion maker. Then he stood, thanked him once more, and went on his way.

The End