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Dec. 23rd, 2004 03:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastgunslingerRoland has his ash stick.
Roland does not have two fingers on his right hand. He strips the case from one of his pillows, rips it into workable lengths, and wraps the lengths around each of his hands to serve as grips.
Meditate on the face of your father, he had told Jake. Advice that he himself had not taken, when Cort had told him the same thing. Roland tries to see the face of Steven Deschain now -- drooping handlebar mustache, blue eyes like his own. He always seemed -- weighted. Weighted by care, by concern, by politics, by civilization. Irony: that the only way civilization could be maintained in Gilead was through a ka-tet of men who were everything civilization was not. Fake. False. Hidden behind a hundred thousand deceptions and courtesies.
Roland has learned this: gunslingers are simple creatures. And when all the tradition is stripped away, when their purpose of defending the Dark Tower is taken away, they are merely men with guns. Not even men: killing machines. Anything human, when the Tower is out of the equation, is taken away.
It is this aspect of the way of the gun that Roland turns to, now. He is not thinking about his son facing him in the trial of manhood. Not thinking about all the times Jake has died for the sake of Roland's quest. Not thinking about the way Jake smiles when he sees him, laughs when Eddie teases.
Roland Deschain is a gunslinger of Gilead. And now he is a teacher.
He picks up his stick and goes outside using the Bypass Door. There are preparations to be made.
Roland does not have two fingers on his right hand. He strips the case from one of his pillows, rips it into workable lengths, and wraps the lengths around each of his hands to serve as grips.
Meditate on the face of your father, he had told Jake. Advice that he himself had not taken, when Cort had told him the same thing. Roland tries to see the face of Steven Deschain now -- drooping handlebar mustache, blue eyes like his own. He always seemed -- weighted. Weighted by care, by concern, by politics, by civilization. Irony: that the only way civilization could be maintained in Gilead was through a ka-tet of men who were everything civilization was not. Fake. False. Hidden behind a hundred thousand deceptions and courtesies.
Roland has learned this: gunslingers are simple creatures. And when all the tradition is stripped away, when their purpose of defending the Dark Tower is taken away, they are merely men with guns. Not even men: killing machines. Anything human, when the Tower is out of the equation, is taken away.
It is this aspect of the way of the gun that Roland turns to, now. He is not thinking about his son facing him in the trial of manhood. Not thinking about all the times Jake has died for the sake of Roland's quest. Not thinking about the way Jake smiles when he sees him, laughs when Eddie teases.
Roland Deschain is a gunslinger of Gilead. And now he is a teacher.
He picks up his stick and goes outside using the Bypass Door. There are preparations to be made.
