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The Mule, the Sandals, and the Shadow of Doom · Cinema Yūgen

• 0:16
  Burt Benton. If only he had been a poet, then maybe he could have worn a waistcoat well.
• 0:24
  This was one of the reasons, but no excuse, the day he really lost his mind
• 0:29
  and started killing people.
• 0:31
  I think if pressed, you would struggle to find an explanation which would wholly satisfy the curious.
• 0:39
  It is one of the things you think about during bad days.
• 0:43
  When some lowly dog cheats not once, but twice during the same card game.
• 0:50
  Their reckless abandon takes on a torturous quality which stretches the limits
• 0:56
  of the kingly virtue, which is courtesy.
• 0:59
  So one day, he snapped. Now they are all gone, the human race on Earth. Or so he thought.
• 1:08
  Chet the Firewalker had reached his limit. The dusty road ahead was without
• 1:13
  end, and he was in no condition to continue.
• 1:16
  Above his own panting and the dry wind, he heard then the faint hooves of the killer's mule.
• 1:23
  It was ominous but slow.
• 1:26
  The footsteps of doom were not healthy, so when the lean silhouette of the scourge
• 1:32
  of mankind came over the horizon behind him.
• 1:35
  It came at a snail's pace.
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  Chet, his hands on hips, parched beyond belief and sucking in air as though
• 1:44
  it were water, watched as his death came into full view.
• 1:50
  The killer on his mount seemed to stop for a moment then, as he had for the
• 1:54
  duration of recent memory.
• 1:56
  He followed Chet's tired footprints, one at a time.
• 2:01
  The mule from this distance looked as though it were fashioned of volcanic glass,
• 2:08
  but the wine it let fly with after a dozen steps gave it back its earthly and ragged making.
• 2:15
  The killer fell with the animal into the dust.
• 2:18
  The fire walker's split and dry lips, for the first time in a long time,
• 2:25
  nearly brought forth a chuckle.
• 2:28
  Chet looked off down the road, ahead of him now, with his second wind,
• 2:33
  in a little hope back in the twinkle of his eye.
• 2:36
  A twinkle that burnt out the second it flourished into existence when the life
• 2:42
  of the former firewalker was snuffed out, ended by a bullet from a man who sincerely
• 2:48
  made the devil seem affable.
• 2:50
  The dead man fell, revealing the killer striding confidently toward him,
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  on foot now, with his pistol drawn.
• 3:01
  Taking a seat beside the corpse, the first thing the dark man stole was Chet's sandals.
• 3:08
  They had been the height of fashion in the dais when Jesus walked the earth,
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  and not even this evil spirit was prepared to disagree with the Son of God on this score.
• 3:20
  He would rather the sandals than continue barefoot any longer.
• 3:25
  Next on the agenda was food, anything at this point, but Chet's satchel was
• 3:31
  as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
• 3:34
  The dark man was not perturbed. He would eat the mule, which was the way of
• 3:39
  things out here in this place far from heaven.
• 3:42
  A warm wave of nostalgia swept over the killer as the chill of night descended,
• 3:49
  and he made a fire on the roadside among the bones of the retired.
• 3:56
  Contentedly eating the roasted meat of his expired beast of burden,
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  the sky above dancing for him.
• 4:03
  The dark man was at peace now. They were all gone, all of them,
• 4:08
  the poor wretch being slowly carried away,
• 4:12
  piece by piece in the form of bloody morsels, trapped in the beaks of grateful Crows was the last.
• 4:19
  He rested his head on his coat, the color of the shadows, and allowed his eyes
• 4:24
  to close. How long had it been?
• 4:27
  Days, nights, months, years, time itself had become as forgotten in this place as life.
• 4:35
  The silence was what calmed him now, the silence that walked behind him during
• 4:40
  the day and blanked him at sunset.
• 4:42
  His feet, gnarled and painful, relaxed, and were soothed by the cool wind that
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  moved, moaning its way over the empty earth, like the tormented spirits that
• 4:55
  wandered there, aimless.
• 4:57
  The killer couldn't remember the last time he slept deeply.
• 5:01
  That time existed in an age where men fought to keep what they had,
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  Fighting, looking into each other's eyes.
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  Not like the world that fell.
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  A world where death came swiftly and in the back.
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  You could kill or be killed, and no one seemed to have the strength to muster concern.
• 5:23
  A birth and dream was upon him when something put him back in the game, back on the edge.
• 5:30
  That something was a sound, a rustling among bushes, somewhere out there in the dark.
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  He rose and awoke the fire, thrusting a stick of wood, deep into the embers
• 5:43
  until the flames returned, then out into the blackness with torch in hand.
• 5:49
  The wind was animating the dry brush now, but that was not what the dark man was in search of.
• 5:56
  He sought the dirt, and to put a finer point on it, footprints in the dirt.
• 6:02
  There they were, coming and going to this place just inside of his fire.
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  They were small and heavy, yet hasty.
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  Whoever it had been, was or had been on the killer's heels, yet had some point
• 6:17
  of retreat as the prince scurried away to the east and far off the road,
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  that road he had been on for a lifetime.
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  A road lined with death.
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  He would wait now, awake and alert.
• 6:31
  He would wait for the dawn and follow the footsteps.