He’s only a speck when he comes to town, before he grows larger, becomes recognized at the edge as a man. It’s the Western movie opening principle where guns will blaze, bad men die, and oh if some good ones are slaughtered at the beginning or along the way, then there’s the added bonus of a thirst for righteous revenge built into the story.
The articulate ones wear black hats, and if not then they beat black hearts, and are doomed, once their word bank runs out, their exhortations and orations, their damnations and supplications, their last pleading before bleeding, all having hampered their prudent escape. It’s true, it’s the quiet one who gets off the faster shot, he who has the final say, he who speaks the last wordless word.
Then he leaves town as quickly as he came, fades into the sunset, grows to just a speck again, is gone, a ghost, perhaps literally so, for that tragic terminal gut wound suffered by the unknown gunslinger in the exchange of bullets in the final showdown.
What was his name? Maybe, as it sometimes goes with tragedy, no songs will be sung about the unknown stranger, no words written down, he’ll simply fade into a memory that lingers and is gone, this heaven sent judge and jury, cosmic justice come and sentence delivered,
all fade to silence,
all fade to black,
throw your trash in the cans near the exit doors in back.
Lanning Lee 