The Conker King

Every year that he could remember Walter Emmerson had set out at Autumn to start looking for conkers.  The Autumn was Walter’s favourite time of year.  He liked the colours, the softening of the harsh summer light, the smell of the turned fields and the sight of hay bales lying at rest on their bed of stubble.  He walked every day with his little dog, Fen, out to the edge of the village that he lived in up the lane and towards the woods which covered  the land for five miles or so in every direction.  Walt knew the woods extended for five miles in every direction because he had walked it all, first with his mother, then with his wife, then his children, now with Fen.  Every year since he could remember Walter Emmerson gathered conkers from Edgemead Woods, and he knew he would do it every year until he died.  He was getting old and wasn’t sure if he would make another Autumn.  Walter Emmerson had hope though.  It was why he still lived.  And he had a job.  It wasn’t a job you could retire from.

At the start of the season Walt would carefully and methodically start walking the woods, checking on the old trees, encouraging the new ones.  He would need the right conkers, harvested  at the right time, from the right trees.  His mother had taught him all he needed to know about what needed to be done, he was an Emmerson she said, and an Emmerson must know Edgemead Wood as if it were their own front room, the moss and bracken their chairs and sofas, the high leaf canopy their ceiling, the trees their friends, come to visit, filling up their home with the smell of mulch and grass and the overwhelming greeness of the outdoors.  Walter loved Edgemead.  Now that he had grown old, he was often bent and aching by the time he entered the wood, but by the time he left he always felt taller, more upright, his old man’s face brighter.  Together he and Fen would walk home with a spring in their step.   Walter’s window of opportunity was small, so he worked intensively, gathering the conkers into the cotton bag he brought along with him.  His great-great grandmother had sown the bag a long time ago.  The outside was embroidered with a large horse chestnut leaf sown in sparkling green thread that caught the light.  It had come from an ancient tree, his mother had said, one of the first.  From it came one of the first conkers, gathered eons ago by one of the first Emmersons.  Walter carried the bag like it was a crown.

Walter had a good eye for the right conkers.  His efforts had never failed.  He had never missed a season since the job became his and he would not miss a season now.  Walt felt that this year would be a good one, a bumper crop. Each shiny beauty that entered his bag was the dark mahogany of old furniture, the surface of each conker dense with the grain of the tree that waited inside it.  As Walt and Fen wandered through the woods the trees whispered their ancient song to them, urging them on, pushing them deeper into the emerald green.  Birds flitted from tree to tree, rounding their tiny black eyes on the man and the dog as they foraged along the tree roots.  Walter knew that a good conker was not one you picked from the tree, but one that you plucked from amongst the fallen.  The Horse Chestnut must give you the conker, you must not take it.  Walter had often seen huge green casings high up in the branches, which could only have held conkers of monstrous proportions but to take one was a sin and, although he was often tempted, Walter always abided by the rules.

After two weeks of walking, Walter’s bag was full.  The new moon was here  and the time was  right for Walter to finish his job.  He took each conker out of the bag and laid it carefully on the kitchen table.  Using a tool that had designed himself, with a long wooden handle and a thin, sharp strong steel point with a needle-like eye at the end of it, he threaded a thin piece of leather through the first conker, then chose the next one carefully, and then the next and so on until he came to the last, the biggest, its brown exterior reflecting the light from the lamp under which he worked.  He called Fen to him and took the little dog up into his arms.  He switched off the lamp so that no light other than the pale shadows of the moon trickled into his kitchen.  Walt loved Fen, he had loved his mother, and his wife and his two pretty, brown eyed children.   It had to be done with what you loved best, and only in the years with the very best conkers, the biggest and brownest.  He kissed Fen on the head and then stuck his home made braddling hook through the dog’s eye, twisting it into Fen’s little brain  so fast  that there was barely even a struggle.  Walter stood up and carefully  put the crown of conkers on his head. Cradling Fen’s limp body in his arms and with blood dripping down his hands he turned his face towards the dark sky, his features transformed by the deep shadows cast by the conkers.  I am The Conker King,  Walter started up his sacred chant I am The Conker King, he whispered at first, his voice getting louder as he walked in a tight circle with Fen’s body held to his chest.  Tears settled in wet lines down his face as he felt his strength grow with each circle.  He was The Conker King, he Walt Emmerson, was the last and could never die. The dark trees demanded his sacrifice, the  tree spirits trapped inside the conkers spoke his name calling him out to the woods.  He crept along in the moonlight to the place where he had laid them all, the ones he loved, the ones that were his, and put his beloved pet amongst the bones so that he could live another year.