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Chapter One
Talk about itch! Walter had never known a time when he did not itch. Even as a baby when they all lived together in the small hut at the edge of the canyope forest. Father scavenged all day in the woods around the house, finding titbits for the family to eat. Mother looked after him and their fifteen other children. and scratched herself all day. But then she seemed almost unaware that she was scratching. But Walter. He had become aware of the itch soon after he first bawled in defiance at his mothers admonishment at him throwing his food all over the tiny cabin walls. But then, as a baby, it had only been a mild irritation at times. Nothing significant. Got worse though as he grew older.
Walter hitched up his loin cloth again, scratching the small of his back as he did so and set off into the fading light of the evening. Since he had come of age, an indeterminate figure really, just that time at which he felt he was ready to ignore his parents and do things his own way, he had wandered the highways and byways and any other ways of his home country trying to find whatever it was he was looking for. Working at odd jobs here and there. Never settling down. Then again that was the way of things for everyone here, always searching, never satisfied, forever scratching. He was well and truly old enough to marry, have a family, kids, the whole nine yards. If only he could get rid of this infernal itch. It crawled over his skin, sometimes fading in intensity until he almost thought it had gone, then it would reappear behind his ear, or left elbow or somewhere equally difficult to get at with an irritating reminder of its perpetual presence.
No. he could not settle. He had to get rid of the itch first. All he really knew about it was that it got more annoying the older he got. How he envied some of the people he met along the way. Hands ever moving scratching some part of their body, like his Mother, apparently totally oblivious to the presence of any itch at all. Once or twice he had actually met someone who didn’t scratch at all. He knew they had the itch and had it bad because their skin would twitch and pucker of it’s own volition. But not even a cursory rub would they give themselves. It was almost as if they welcomed and enjoyed it. Walter did not stay long around those types. Just being in their presence was enough to make him break out in itches all over. Then he would run away scratching with both hands as those fellows laughed and jeered at him.
Casting his eyes around, the fingers of his right hand idly rubbing and scratching his left nostril, he looked for a place to rest for the night. No hostels out here on the edge of the plains, so he selected a large tree growing by itself a little way from the forest and plonked himself down in the dry grass and accumulated leaves underneath. He watched the sinking sun loom the western sky with a vermillion haze, hitched up his slipping loincloth once more and closed his eyes against the night. Scratching his right side as he curled up to sleep. Perhaps tomorrow he would find the answer.
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