

The Seven Days of Wander

by Christopher Dutton

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"Why should we be in such a desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."

Henry David Thoreau

"When there are persons to be found, who form an exception to the apparent unanimity of the world on any subject, even if the world is in the right, it is always probable that dissentients have something worth hearing to say for themselves, and that truth would lose something by their silence."

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Dedication

Once upon a time there was a man who had two sons. Sad to say he didn't do really a lot for these two sons, though he did love them in his way.

For me, he did do one great thing once. When I was at a loss as to what to do over an addiction, he made a call. Friends of his sent friends of theirs. And they became my friends and I got better. I healed and changed.

That healing and change led to my life, my happiness, my love, my children, my grandchild, my searching, this book.

All because that man, my father, Thomas Desmond Dutton, now deceased, made that one phone call.

So I dedicate this book to him. Partially.

I also dedicate it to the other man who basically filled in most of the other parts of my father. My older brother, Brian.

You see, for some men, a lifetime may be summed up, perhaps, in doing one thing of good for someone.

For others, a lifetime is about doing good for others all that lifetime. That is a brother.

That is my brother.

An Apology

I would like to apologies to any women who read this book, to all women in fact.

Because the novel was set in biblical times shortly after the Death of Christ, I used discussions which were very much gender biased. Towards the patriarchal.

The writing, therefore tends to use nouns like 'man', and 'men' instead of 'people' or 'human'.

It was a 'failing' which I struggled with since it is not what I believe in but it made the dialogue seem to be more accurate for the historical period.

Wether this was fully accurate or not, I don't know. the extent at which women were involved in religious matters and discussions was, I believe, minimal in those times. That, of course, was society's loss as it continues to be today.

Like racism or slavery or elitism, no Society can be Just and Humane which excludes any members of that Society from full political, economical and theological participation. It is absolutely absurd when based on gender, thus attempting to exclude 50 percent of the population.

Exclusion is not 'God's way' it is 'men's way'. It is not human.

So I apologize again for the use of 'men' and 'man'...I pray I did not offend too much...

Thanks

How many people lead us into writing a book, through a book and ending a book?There are always so many people an author knows and works with who have helped him over the months and years write his or her book. Loved ones who tolerate his whiningfor time alone. Editors and friends who give sound advice and critique. We list those that inspire us by daily or past contact whom we know intimately as friends

and loved ones.

But there are more. Many more. These are the 'lost' voices to the conscious mind but surfacing again!!!!! There is the misted eye of the homeless man who perhaps on that day 'nudges' inspiration to continue question society's values. A young woman's laugh with her child two tables over. The contempt of an expensive tie passing you in the street. A prisoner being beaten on a cell phone camera. A very tired face at a coffee shop somehow finding the courage to smile at your friendly joke as cash changes hands. Broken teeth near an empty factory.A newscaster making announcements of political intrigue involving leaders you will never meet. Wether their coffee cup has water or coffee in it? Wether they are indeed left handed or right handed based on the cup's place on the desk? Wether or not the handle is turned towards them or away, signifying a culture either of 'grassroots' or 'old boy'. And realizing that mattered for the moment in your mind more than the death of a thousand protestors....because caring over and over and over again exhausts the heart...which is indeed the triumph of evil. And will one more typed sentence change any of that?

That I do not know...I only know for sure that silence will not.

It does not seem right, however, to thank the Silent for their desperation and despair which I have used to inspire the inner searches of this book. It would be better that I offered my apologies and shame than my thanks.

Thanking them for being alive to touch me, touch my soul....and for forgiving me for using their blood and tears as my paint. I do not do such a thing for evil, I would wish with all my heart that I had no reason, no materials, no human tragic oils to paint with.

So many have lived in brief and in too long, these man-made hells.

There is no good which can come out of that place, least of all...books.

I do not believe that evil is necessary to give background and shadow that we may see the good. If all the world was a transparent clear, we would not "crash" into each other. We see each other now and more react like mad bulls than crystalline angels.

Writing about good and evil is a circle. Always. It can be the circle of the hawk, the vulture or the dove. Or a kingfisher. Diving below the surface to recover strange looking metaphors.

Because Good men and women have difficulty describing their own evil and the Evil are always reconstructing their philosophy into seemingly Good.

So amongst all this are the Silent. Perhaps they speak a little but are difficult to hear.

They speak only with drops of blood. Their own blood. Their parent's blood. Their children's blood.

I thank them because anything humane about humanity; anything civil about civilization has come from their Blood; their Silence; their Suffering; their Waiting.

The Great, the Learned, the Leaders are nothing... who remembers the lead hyena from pack to pack, decade to decade?...

it is the rest of us... the common man... which is the Soil of all Human History...

We are given...and then we give back...

...that is my gratitude...for no one makes a better world than the man or woman dying beside me...dying with me...
Introduction

(written in 1992 at book's conception)

Dear friends,

Let any who come upon this weave of words and thoughts be reluctant in their scrutiny of its construction. Keep to the distance of wide vision, not that I fear the detection of flaws (though they are as much as I am flawed) but that as in you unravel the loose thread of the tapestry...what was grand becomes ..alas.. rags.. Becoming less and less to your eyes until a voice has become a drooling mumble. Then your ears can not heed a whisper from man to man , and we, reader, are lost and separate again.

For those who begin read and a mind is puzzled but a heart cries not, leave the pages be. Do not go on. For thou hast been spared , Friend, and your heart knows not the notes of despair in tyranny. Some parts of life or hell have touched you not. Cease reading, reader, I will not open that door to you.

For those of you who study without comprehension, yet your heart has such a grievous time that such as these pages grow heavier and heavier in the dampness of your tears, cease the torment, my friend. For it is a perversion against ourselves to take upon cruelty without reason; life is already too much a whip with an unseen hand. Rather go and find thyself a caterpillar, spend the days observing its slumber. This is my book. You need no more of the dark night; that dark cocoon. Your heart of pure and natural speaks already the yearn of flight.

There are those of you, who I fear, are plagued to grieve and having the burden of understanding, I beg read on. For thy sake and mine. For this is not written to impart knowledge or wisdom,( I am no teacher) but rather my hand moved across these pages as a hand gropes in the dark. Hoping. Begging. For another human hand, other hands, that reach too in this cold terror enveloping blank. So I beg read on, heed my whimpers, grope as I grope. We will touch, I know it. I can offer that hope, little else. I believe in the necessity of thy journey, as I believe in mine. I must. For I have grievous need of another human touch of hand in these dim and dismal times.

Synopsis of Novel

The beggar boy, the main character of this book, was the adopted son of Christ but was abandoned by the disciples after the crucifixion.

As a young man, he returns for seven days to the City to take up 'his Father's work, in an attempt to rectify his 'distance' from humanity, from his own soul, his own destiny.

He uses logic, reason and an appeal for human compassion to try to bridge to the people of the City but finds over and over only failure for himself as he cannot be ' inside the people' as Christ could.

Each time he sees this deeply as his own self-failure.

In Chapter Seven the young Beggar leaves the City in the company of a strange new prophet and comes upon a village carved out of hope and salvation but slipping again into despair.

Chapter one to three...Deals with concepts of creation, man, god; in that a god will have no greatness more than the man which creates it, and it, the man. Beggar boy sells mirrors to be the idols of their personal gods. Then , he must fight in court to disprove the crime of fraud against the people.

Chapter four. Beggar boy interrupts a 'beating' by schoolmaster of young boys. The discussion explores crime vs. punishment as a tool of 'change'.

Chapter five. Beggar explores extremes of poverty, leadership and tyranny as he progresses from poor hovels to an execution pit to the king's audience. He pleas for the lives of condemned slaves. Explores concepts of social order, tyranny, freedom.

Chapter six. Beggar interrupts argument amongst three brothers over law vs. assisted suicide for their father. The concept argued is wether conscience of 'I' is above conscience of communal law.

Chapter seven. Beggar leaves City with a mad poet who has started an alternative community in the mountains. Explores concepts that logic and reason alone cannot propel human development; passion of believe or blind faith is also necessary for evolution. Compares the fate of the individual vs. the 'needs' of society's historical destinies.

The First Day

In the market place, they sold their gods. The God-Merchants. In a circle of stalls at the centre of the Market square.

So the crowd would continually mill round and round. Deciding. Puzzling.

Most of the time there were ten or twenty of these merchants hawking their wares, in all garb and disguise from close and far lands. Hatted, bearded, naked, robed, all heights and widths.

And the Gods too, of every image and construction.

Multi-limbed, ugly, beautiful, gold, silver, clay, slender, bent. The only consistency in the whole mirage of display seemed to be that the merchants never fit their own wares.

Tall, thin in plain robes, held aloft in a bony grasp a fat plump sleepy image that promised more docility than greed. Or some enormous spread in velvet robe, held clay moulded to humble reflect.

The barbarian, who roared in fur, offered an ebony lamb. A naked merchant offered a cast of gold. In a form to the shape of a lion's head. The devout placed their heads in it when it was suspended by a thread high in a tree. There prayers were made for a blessing.

A small yellowish man in dark cloth offered a stone god shaped in the curl of a man. Those of wealth who would wish to make restitution carried the Stone upon their shoulders as a symbol of their love of man for a few minutes each day.

And more. Ugly men traded in beauty. The noble demean in shoddy; the whole in broken; the broken in whole; the quarters in crumbs and the crumbs sold a universe.

It was this contrast which gave all a sense of validity to the crowd. Though not openly said it was understood. As all that they sold was false, then they themselves must be true. And thereby granted to the people the illusion of faith. As merchants, they truly believed in the falsehood of their wares.

As false. Utterly. And in so doing, sold their own perfection of truth in tiny bits. Till all the falsehoods were depleted. Then more must be made and sold to convince again the crowd of the Merchants' ultimate evaluation of Truth.

For the crowd had come to purchase faith, belief; not a god as such. The false god offered was never to be debated as true or false. For the danger being that a shred of truth might be found within the god. And thereby, by the unwritten Law of contrasts, a shred of falsehood be found in the merchant. And the totality of belief or faith would shatter.

This faith, this belief could be called The Great Mask covering The Tiny Spreading Grin. As any individual in the crowd would move towards death, they would begin a smile of escape or anticipation like someone who knows they are being released from a death bed or leper colony. An impatience, an eagerness to shed the hands. Hands, which in all shapes and grasps, have plucked at an individual since birth. Like crows at some dead thing, they have torn piece by piece, the nobility, the dignity of individual existence.In this vast place of disease, always the clutching, wrapping, prodding, pulling, pushing of hands. Hands not to heal the one but rather hands to bind all together and the Species.

The Species must not die even at the cost of the individual's death. The Species in its frenzied, grim face,· looks upon all as a total greater than the sum. And, therefore, the total is more worthy of worship; more demanding in its need.

When a man meets another man, he becomes one of men; no longer a single solitary Man complete upon himself. He must give up a portion of himself to absorb the portion of the other man offered in hand. All thoughts, all spoken words must be reworked to fit the presence of the other man.

As the crowd grows, each man sheds, drips, decays more parts away from himself, till strangely enough, the man feels as if he can't be distant of the species or he w11l unravel and his very putridness will now be exposed.

Ah, but Death, sweet, noble Death brings back to the man its lost twin, Hope. A promise of a journey unique, outside the Species, senseless to its demand of sacrifice to the collective life (at all costs imaginable).

Death promises a place outside the hands, never mind some vague concept of hereafter; that is small in its importance.

What is vast, of great consequence, is the few breaths, a word, seconds as a Man. To be totally alive and alone with the dignity of oneself. And the short time leading to this; the visitations, the faint raps at the window, these are a delightful mapping, a hint of the great Vacation to come.

These being the Tiny Spreading Grin, which the Species abhors. Since its collectivity and perpetuality is nailed to each individual's cling to life.

So the Great Mask is worn. To masquerade belief in Death as a journey of all mankind. A progression of the Species upward, upward. Not a Death as a division, a parting, a subtracting away as each man finally tastes ultimate aloneness and therefore freedom from tyranny of submission.

If none wore masks, the oozing open wounds of the very bowels and hearts of a Man would lie in full view. All would see the wounds of all. All would see the tiny spreading grin of all. What man would hold another to stay his own Great path of Healing? What man would not help another as he would wish the other to help him?

And like grinning children holding hands all skip to the Abyss and take a laughing leap to Joy to Hope to Death.

This, the bitch Species cannot allow. Hence the suckled instinct in belief, in faith beyond just an individual Man. It was meant only to bring faith in the pack but the sap was too sweet the mob too bitter.The pack howled for more, broke free, went awry, and came hungry to at a closed door to grovel for a master.

So the man sits. So all sit, wearing the Mask of faith in a door to open.It never does. It is only until the last dark night that the spell can be thrown off the dog, the Mask ripped away and a wolf resurrected. A Man reborn to die. To run wild through the unknown forests, his teeth flashing a mad release of glee in the naked moonlight.

So the Merchants and gods and hasty built stalls and a milling crowd. Each one in the crowd moving from stall to stall in an ever decreasing spiral. For when they would stop to peer at the wares at each stall, both merchants on either side would pitch their sales, in a unique way.

Unique to the selling of gods. They would roar and shout condemnations and every demonic or superstitious label upon the one buyer standing before their neighbour's stall; accuse the looker, the buyer of all sins and vices because he dared to even look upon their neighbour's god.

In this way, the crowd was shamed to shuffle on and on. As soon as a man moved from one stall where, as he stood, those merchants on the right and left had destroyed his entire reputation, he would be greeted by silence from the merchant who had just declared him loathsome. For now that merchant was busy declaring the vileness of some new occupant at his neighbour's stall. That occupant furtively looking to purchase, but actually more attempting to escape each fresh spew of abuse.

As more people pressed from the outside, the inside was pushed tighter and closer to the stall, till someone would be shoved hard against a table and thereby, by chance , inherit the purchase of his god.

Two such men, their freshly bought gods in hand had just elbowed their way back out of the crowd. One a tall man, with a lean nose, was dressed in a long striped robe. He carried a tiny idol shaped like a turtle. Another man, shorter, fatter, kinder looking than the other; he carried a one foot long golden grasshopper. This man was dressed in a loosely wrapped white robe and wore a small white cap.

As they walked to the exit of the Market square, they fumbled and turned these purchases. Their faces had an unsure look as if undecided that these gods were agreeable to their wants or lives.

As if now wondering if they were indeed too large for the mantelpiece waiting undusted at home. Each had a hesitant finger probing the hollowness, scratching at the gold fleck or ringing its head for trueness.

Yet neither would put words of doubt to those furtive checks; would not speak to his neighbour the unholy vowels of disbelief. Each within himself acknowledged his uniqueness in simply wearing a mask for the sake of others who needed the falseness of this strength in the Ir lives. Each believed himself too kind to strike down another's altar and thereby cause another anguish in his emptiness. Each knew that they had strength of integrity to go alone but they also had much compassion of heart and therefore allowed themselves this pretense. A small lie for the other, the other who likely could not bear the jar of contemplation spread thickly on his daily bread.

So in exactly the same spirit that civilizations are born, each man dusted the frown of himself from the brow of his god, placed his neighbourly duty upon his own face, tucked virtue under his arm and strode lighter stepped in soul.

Side by side they walked and talked of the latest grape harvest and how that may affect the people in their choice of mayor. As they came to the exit, there was, leaning against the gate, an odd look of a young fellow.

He was obviously poor, dressed in rags. Except for a red coloured turban, which with his cocky hint of airs, gave him the appearance of a sultan's prince. A small thin beard too, and deep dark brown eyes, almost mystic, suggested a learned man or at least, very clever.

The two men would have passed by with a nod except the young scruff spoke out: "Good day, my noble gentlemen. A fine season for buying your gods, is it not?"

Now it is the normal custom to not speak of the purchase of a god once it has been done. An accepted thing since continual talk of "buying" lends a tainted stain to the belief, a reminder of the day and its less than genteel or dignified impressions.

Tradition decreed that all pretend to the assumption that a man had retained the same god all his life. This tradition was held till the next annual pilgrimage to the Market square. After purchase and the few necessary rituals, the Tradition was again religiously adhered to. So retaining the steady trickle of belief with no scores of mark on the Great Mask.. Though the two men had not yet left the Square, the young man was showing remarkable bad taste in alluding to their purchases.In fact, had they been outside the Square, he would likely have been arrested and flogged.

As such, to avoid anymore unpleasant interlopes,the two men ignored the query and began to pass through the gate. But the beggar stepped in front of them, held his hands to stop and laughingly spoke:

"Please, please, kind sirs.I beg halt. I am a stranger somewhat these parts.I only heard tell of the Square and this day vaguely. I would be humbled much in your grace if you would cast a few minutes to my need. Only a question, that is all, in truth, honourable sirs, in truth."

"First, your name, insolent pup, and your place of birth or at least whelping." jeered the tallest man.

The young man laughed at this quip. "Good, sir, good. A sweet jab more delicately done the droner the bee. My name, my title, my image, my destiny can be all said in the same three words: 'Beggar's young son.' That is who, what, why I am. As to where, I come from a place having not its own horizons; yet many horizons.The sun always shimmering at its ripple of border and to complete the puzzle is to answer: when. Well, I do not know when but do know I am not ageless. Therefore the when of then lies between beginning and end; for my shadow, at least, proves my existence right now.

"Pompous ass," sputtered the taller man of the two.

"No, sir. Forgive me," the young man smiled, "With my beatings about the winds of time, my true name has been blown out your ears. I am much less useful than a beast born to do the will of men for I am the Beggar's young son only."

The tall man stood with a rather angry yet puzzled expression, not sure if he had been insulted or not. While he dug through this dilemma, his shorter more glib friend took up the mark.

"And who is this Beggar that gave back to the world a less fair exchange for the coins that rattled his cup?"

A slight sadness came into his voice as the young man answered, "He was a beggar who sought to fulfill need."

The man chuckled, "Oh, you are indeed wise behind your ears, or is it beyond your years? For what beggar does not wish to fulfill his own need? Your description has not yet narrowed our choice of the countless bags of rags that flop on street corners in every town."

The young man replied, " You misunderstood sir if I can assume the capacity to do otherwise. As I now dumb I can by your sudden angry look. Forgive, I mean no insult. Sadness can turn a heart a sensitive rebuke. The fault is mine. What I should have said was, He was a beggar who sought to fulfill others' needs."

"Oh, I see," replied the man, rubbing his chin in a mock of gravity. "And how exactly is this miracle performed? Empty pockets bring forth coinage to feed the poor, pay the taxes, amuse the rich? I do not mock you, young man yet I am something of a teacher in the science of mathematics, and yet never heard of a formula where nothing added to something increased something."

"And the wind is nothing. Cannot be gathered or sowed. Leashed or herded. Counted or held. Yet is known to be as fierce as a mad bull and topple buildings.This we would call something. Have I not added nothing upon nothing till something is created?" explained the young man."

"But the wind is not a true physical presence. You speak in the realm of the spiritual oblique. Anything can be deemed true there as it cannot be proven false. You cannot make the same point in this world." said the man.

"What if you took all the coinage of copper in this Marketplace and added its sum? Then melted it down. Had the glob weighed to its metal value. Would the sums be equal? I think not." answered the young man.

The short man answered "I grant this is true but you have not stayed in the world of mathematics, you have not added or taken away. This is not reason but as a blacksmith in the act of transformation."

"You would grant that in this world a transformation can add or take away from the value and therefore the sum of something?"asked the young man.

"Yes, it is a simple enough thing. A pile of blocks verses a building is an immense change in value." the man agreed.

"Yes, but back to the coins and copper. Why was the value so different after the transformation?" asked the young man.

"I would say, of course, that society deems a certain worth to each coin in its market barter value. Here copper itself cannot counterfeit this, as all could just go to the hills and extract their wealth. Payment is instead due in the exact configuration of the coin." the man replied.

"So society deems the coinage of much higher value than the lump of copper.Can the individual do the reverse?" asked the young man.

"He can do as he likes but he would be mad."

The young beggar asked "What if the lump of copper was reshaped, moulded, carved into the exact likeness of his deceased wife, whom he adored for thirty years? Would it not have the greatest value now and would you still paint him insane?"

"For him alone it would have the greatest value and few would call him mad. But are you not again stepping into the world of spirituality;of love?"

Young man: " Except in its results, few would argue a difference between love of money and love of a person. Has not the man simply exchanged Society's values for his own?"

The man: "Granted. He has done so."

Young man: "Is he wrong or unlawful or immoral to do so?"

The man: "If it is his own money, he may do with it as he pleases.In his own home, he may maintain a value as he sees fit assuming it is unharmful to those in the same dwelling."

Young man: "These values; may a man have different than society within society or only within his home?"

The man: "By the normal natural decree of civilization,a man must subjugate his values if they contrast with his society's if he wishes to remain a member of Society, except in his own household. "

Young man: "Thereby assuming as a general principal all men are unequal , yet Society is equal, or at least uniform, then most men exchange cloaks of values as they pass in and out of the threshold of their homes. That if society's values be deemed a fence, then by nature's randomness half the men will have values strong on one side and half the men on the other. We can say a fence as seems Society takes upon herself the role of judicial to keep half the men from the throats of the other half.

From our examples of the coinage, the copper, the statue, there exists men who love money in their homes and men who love love. Both to the obsession of denying anything slip out of their grasp. And this can be allowed in their homes. But society demands a lesser value from both; demands a smaller love of money and some token of love from the coin hoarder ; demands a smaller love of love and some token of money from the statue hoarder.

And where, kind sirs, is this exchange to be done? What has society placed at the gate which gives breaks of communion in the fence? Who guards there? The palace army? Police? The Law? No. None of these.Charity. In its purer, open path, the Beggars. Those who have nothing. None of love or money. These are the channels, funnels open to the flow.

The rich man comes uneasy in his lesser clutch of Civilized garb, not used to anything but a clear pierce of want and avarice. But Society demands less. And behold! Before him, the Beggar wants! A coin jiggles and all needs are met. The rich man has his proof. Society's fence intact, unrubbed. The Beggar, his token of love.

The man of love comes; his cloth rent, torn in the convulses of despair. Like a hand in a grave site, he clutches coinage he has reaped, going homeward to his melting pot. Society, however, commands less than this totality of grief.

A glance at some disgust of unloved, brown coloured sheen of poverty defiled at the gate; a rag tent of some near-human beast ;its cup empty; its eyes unfilled.

The man almost weeps in comprehending that he, at least, hassomething to love and will not be as this discarded wretch before him. With that, he flings a coin as he passes by. A token given to the cost this beggar must stay behind and pay.

So you see, kind Sirs, though this beggar has no effect on the value of each man within his home, he has much effect when each man journeys into Society. As each man decreases his own values through the beggar towards society's values, then his value is transformed to a greater sum in Society's counting house.

Though only a coin is subtracted, nothing greatly increases

to something."

" Aw! What a waste! A full coin of attention given to a half a cup of wit!" squawked the tall man. "Time wasted while some squatter's whelp proves people think it's nice if the rich give to the poor. Philosophy for wine stools! That's what I call it. Out of the way, street rat, we've had enough of your crumbs!"

The short man rebuked him. "Wait. His argument was well done and speaks little of money. It is a debate of heart and mind; and perhaps, to balance, a soul. I would dwell on all this later.

Now, I feel it would be fair bargain to hear the question he first mentioned. So, Beggar's young man, speak your query but I caution against impudence." He nodded towards his rather red faced friend.

Young man: "I beg, sirs, not to keep you much longer in this glare of a spot, and ask this question not in mock, or to be boorish, or unduly of pry but as a wanderer unfamiliar to ways such as I have seen this day. I am no philosopher or teacher. How can I be thus? A broken lamb outcast from the sheep, who would hear my bleats? But in my daily imprison beyond the fence and into the hills, I watch. Even to long or pine, tis true at times, to join those forgiven and sanctified amongst all these good shepherds.

All day, I store the feed of my eyes, that I may curl behind some damp stone and cud upon the memories; memories of the ways and doings of my brethren below. Much is the difference between the eye of the beholder and the eye of the belonger, I have found. The eye of the belonger seems to hunger at 'How long?' Whereas the beholder gazes and wonders 'Why for so long.' So I beg mercy for this ignorant: part his wool and speak to his eyes to lower this fever of the burning 'Why for so long?'

The tall man interjected,"Damn it, we might if you'd ask the question! God in dust! He must have a deal with a god to build minutes in the hereafter by words down here!"

"I shall, Sir, I shall" laughed the young man. "My quest is this: If a man has more value in what he takes home than what he has in the street, and you Sirs (as it appeared by your growling complexions when you left the stalls) have little value in the Virtues tucked under your arms, will they become transformed to immense value in your homes? or, pardon an addition relevant to the first, is it, the coinage exchanged?; in that you must g1ve a 11ttle coin to those cast beggars of copper or gold because you have immense coinage of value at home?"

"THIS IS TOO MUCH!" roared the tall man as he grabbed the young man by his collar. "Call a palace guard! To the Law's ears with him. Let him jerk his tongue to the beat of a whip! Then out of the city with the rag. Let him remember that here we tolerate an open cup to the passerby but tolerate no insolent tripping of the pious and noble bearing.

The young man made no squirm or interfered no rebuttal to this shaking and ranting.His eyes merely contained, not impish amusement, but rather an earnest wait. He kept them fixed upon the short man's face, knowing that if any could leap the bounds of tradition, this old fox knew a way.

It was not so much that the young man wanted to know; he dared to know. Most men feared the burden of answers and rightly so. All were born to the fertile ground of doubts; of questions. A few seeds sown, sprout, die untended. Some answers, however, nourished and fed, grow till they would appear as if split through a man's skull. Stretch higher and higher. A great burdensome tree of knowledge rooted on a man's head; it's very bulk and might so grand it would bend his neck downward till a man could see nothing of his fellow man, his world, only himself.

This was answers; this was knowledge; a ponderous growth. Only a constant trimming, weeding, clipping, burning at knowledge would keep all a delicate wreath. To cultivate all through a pure heart and remove the dead, the false, the duplicate.

This was wisdom. With Doubt the constant trimmer. Doubt of Something, or of the All, or of Conclusion, or of One's Reflex of Ego . Doubt, not as the Mocker, but rather as the better cousin, the Prober.

Few men knew how to control knowledge and nurture wisdom. So most kept a barren plot. Safer.

Something in this young beggar's eyes showed a small flourish of wisdom.

The short man saw this. A good man, though caged in a society of compromise, he could not deny its faint rustle; could not deny his answer wings and go lighten upon this beckon of branch.

He spoke: "Wait a moment, friend. Though, by chance or no chance, he is discourteous, he is not necessarily unlawful. For the Law allows discussion of gods inside the Market Square, though I admit rarely is it accomplished with the din and den of God's thieves rasping from their perch. I admit manners and custom shun it but shunning is not the same as forbidding. That is for the arm of the Law. Manners and custom can rule by expression only; their arms are limp. So I suggest you drop yours away for 'tis only you who breach the law."

The tall man did so but grumbled, "Manners and custom can lead, however, to a change in the Law. Hopefully tomorrow the Law will flex her hand and gesture the Market Square unlawful for discussion of gods as well. Then this imp will dance, should he folly his mouth again."

Short man: "Good point, my excellent friend. You have described the Beauty in the Law. She is the Perfect Woman. Both handmaiden and wanton at the same time. Virtue unbendable and open-limbed Compromise. What no man can touch can easily be bought and sold.

For you are too right, my friend. Tomorrow, she may skirt a different door. But beware, she may lust beggars! Ruling no gods in the Square at all or perhaps no tall men. Then the whip curls the other way! So than there is a mighty virtue of New Law and Her Orders. To rule beggars over gods.

Yet the Merchants roar 'What of us, what of sales, what of coinage, oh Bitch?'

So those who make coinage from rule and those who rule coinage gather with the Law. Her favours easily bought innegotiations clinking loudly with good will but muffled behind great doors. Oh! Then behold! Miracle of New Wind, the Law is swayed, the Square given back to the gods, beggars scorned and She lies a richer bed. Her true danger is her wavering, shimmer-like Beauty. She is a Moon Goddess constantly changing, waxing, waning; yet everywhere there are dim and lost men who yearn her cold touch of guidance when darkness closes over their hearts."

Tall man: "I gather the drift of your reason, yet wonder it's need for such length. If I did not know you to be a better man, I'd vouch you had been hanging with beggars too long. Which is my point , Answer the upstarts' stumble. I'll wait. I am curious about the result, and then let us be gone, my friend. I have a desire to wash beggarly dust from my hands as soon as possible."

Short man: "I shall do this now. Give answer to the whys of the gods and where's the values. To which sides and when the coin flips in a trembling man's hand.

For you see, young man, that the gods are nothing in all this. Men make gods merely to and fro as the whims and aspirations of their hopes or deviations. Thus a personal god is never what a man is but rather what he wishes to be. But all created gods have a commonality since that is really the purpose of their creation. Immortality. All men crave immortality... through soul.

No god creates a man's soul. Men create their own soul. Man creates soul out of dread.

Men feel to have a soul. For this discussion of gods it is enough just to say that men feel a place beyond the physical. A sensation ,if you will, like a sceptre following them on a dark night. Not necessary an evil or a good feeling but rather, at least, the possibilities of 'more than'. That is to say men have a strange sensation and call that sensation: soul.

The Tall man exclaimed:" What sense of senselessness is this!?"

The short man answered " The sense of soul is that not founded also in senselessness? We have a word here...sense and also the other word, sense. One is of a man's ability to interpret 'feelings'; feelings which may be vague but nonetheless present in such a manner as to itch for attention. The other sense is for the way the logic or awareness of a man progresses from fact to proof; from means to end; from cause to effect. So a man can feel sense and he, also, must make sense of that sense. A man feels a soul, he must find cause."

The young beggar asked "A man feels something, but what is this something? why call this something, soul?"

The tall man "Yes, I think we give hats to dogs here. Why do we assume the rabble know of souls and gods more than they know of gas and bad wine?"

The short man answered both " There is a knowledge man has which is not just the knowledge of death but there is a constant vague awareness, daily, even minute by minute, of his own ending. The conscious of a man is 'unfortunately' elevated above mere animal by a self-awareness of time and death. it is this sensation that men call soul. A soul borne out of a falsehood for immortality, against Death, against Dread of his own death. His mind rebels against this. Against the wishes of his own body. For the body wishes Death."

the tall man " what!? though the body cannot prevent its end I give you true but it always moves away from that end. Why move away from the fire, why fear the high cliff, why carry a sword into the wilderness? Are those not the tells of a body seeking always life not Death?"

The short man answered "Which knows more fear...the body or the mind? Or, rather, should one ask..which creates more fear, the body or the mind? Especially if one asks which creates more fear in itself, the body or the mind?"

The beggar's son " I suppose one must define fear first. Since the body will flinch fast at the moment's danger but the dread of the mind, that is, in the mind, is sadly a thing almost forever known."

"Indeed" replied the short man " fear is known...bold in face like a drunkard's rage, but dread...here is the shadow born behind the candle of dim or darker reasoning."

The tall man "We are far here from our soul source, however, my friend. I fear you will makes us follow a beggar's weave through the narrower alleys of your mind."

The short man smiled and nodded "What I mean to say is that the source of soul in a man is the sense of his own death and that intimate dread which many do not acknowledge.

Soul is man's awakened consciousness of the death of that very same consciousness. And that mind, that soul is

disturbed. Disturbed for two reasons."

The short man continued: " A man sees death amongst men and is puzzled. Death of each living being gives life to other living beings, 'cept man's, or so at least, it would appear to men.

Why does a man die? Why should a man die?

Or more to the heart of the matter, each man asks ' Why should I die? Why must I die?' For perhaps it is less tragic that other men die...or at least...less puzzling...

Men see the flow of life into death; yet, each living being, wether a desert gazelle running in weaves before the doggish pack or a Cyprus bending its back to the muscle strains of a hurricane, desires to continue living.

Yet in each living thing is known the end of its days. Indeed, not just known, but sought.

Tall man: "I trust, old friend, that here you will not sink us into the obscure ruts of wheeling stars and moon shadow fingers pointing a foretell of fortune? As if man is birthed with his Book of Futures in his hand for any pretender to write!"

Short man (with a laugh): " No, sir, I need no ball or goat guts to crystallize this knowledge; nor smear our intelligence either. A man dies because his body so wills to do so.

Tall man "What!? Did not thou just say that all things desire, and I would add, greatly struggle for, to escape Death?"

Short man: " Life desires to escape calamity, escape pursuit, escape starvation, escape abuse. In fact, Death by Calamity is but Death by another power other than Body, hence is in a sense Death by the Uncontrollable. The Body desires the Living in order to Die by decay, by its own Control, its own power. Survival is not an instinct against Death but is more a reflex against Pain, Control, Powerlessness. The Body follows these escapes, yes, but the Body also decays. That Calamity prevents a death before decay does not mean that the original Death by Decay was not planned, not desired. "

Tall man: " How so planned? Disease and old age come unannounced, unexpected..."

The short man interrupted "Not so. Disease may be unexpected to the Body but what you call the decay of old age never was. For it is not old age which overtakes, entwines, and then suffocates the Body like a snake loving a rodent. It is rather that the Body makes possible, that is, literally ...causes, Old Age. In a sense what we call 'decay' is to the Body, victory! The medals, the laurels of that victory upon Time. Twin victories! For it, the Body, has become victorious over all calamities that have assailed it to bring upon itself any Unnatural Deaths. With this Life it can now embrace the Will of its Bodily Destiny. That destiny being its own willing demise. You see, Old Age is not a decay but is a place of stature where the Body achieves its own Will."

Tall man "What do you mean' its own will?' I still find it preposterous that this thing we call Body flees all death but the Death of Old Age."

Short man " Old Age is what the Body achieved by exercising its own Will of survival against Outside Calamity. And against Time. Till Body decides its Time. Just as the Body has the eyes, ears, smell to sense calamity and the legs, muscles, fists to flee and fight calamity, so, too, the Body has the powers and means to avoid Decay, but in the End, or at the End, of its Time; it declines to do so.

Tall man: "Declines, friend? Declines? Such a word infers that a man's body has the power to decline Death by even decay forever."

Short man: " So true, friend. many parts of a man can I take away; arms, legs, eyes, ears and will not the man live on?"

The tall man rebutted "Ah, many things can I also wound and the body of a man will not live on as well!"

Short man (laughs):" That is true. We have said that not all Calamity is surmountable. My point, however, is that the Body can heal, does heal...not only heals but can regenerate, can regrow. look at the skin. I can tear it, cut it, burn it away and in Time, it becomes anew, reborn."

The tall man threw up his arms " Lets grant you then a stretched point so as to avoid more decay in my ears. But what use is this recovery to our question of soul?"

Short man: " In healing, in recovery, the Body shows it has the means to forestall or even prevent Death in injury or calamity or disease.. If skin and flesh can heal a great wound, why cannot heart or liver be healed of a great age? It is because the Body choses not to. It has the mechanisms but denies onto itself the means. The Body could 'will' to immortality but, instead, 'wills' itself to Death."

Tall man: "Death comes by Calamity or Choice, what of it? Dead's dead.

Short man: "The inner mind of man is conscious of Death in a way beyond the animal instinct. An animal sees a body lifeless, sniffs it, moves on; the moment as remarkable as scenting dung or declining unappealing food.

A man sees Death, esp death of another human and realizes, he too must die.

Or must he?

The Body seeks to die, chooses to die, wills to die... but does man's inner mind?

Does the consciousness of man seek to die, choose to die, will to die?

If not so, than would not the Mind see the Body as a traitor?

Now who asks this question even but the mind of consciousness not seeking Death.

if the dog is heading for the boiling kettle, can we be a flea and leap to a better destiny?

The mind of man is as a rider upon a camel. he sees his destiny, or rather cannot see the end of his destiny..or , at least, cannot see his destiny as solely the place of desert where his camel decides to collapse.

For all men ride toward a golden city in their mind. That city is not necessarily a heaven or a hell but, rather, that city 'is'. 'Is' no end, of no ending. That is all that is important. No ending . Wether an eternity of pain or pleasure or the repeats of living futilities, it does not matter. No ending means..no end..of consciousness. That destiny. The image and illusion of immortality. That is what the mind wants from soul. From the creating, the painting of a soul.

Immortality of gods is nothing. It is immortality of a man that a man wants. Immortality as the perpetuality of a man's consciousness. Do not take this meaning, this wish for the grandiose, for the golden, godly giant's stature of a head in stars and feet bathing in an ocean of soothing oils.....a man's consciousness will settle for the moon's dunghill if he can but blink his eyes eternally just above it.

Tall man:" What!?! How did we end up in this celestial heap...had we not begun..been in..the Marketplace of the Gods?"

Short man:" Old friend, we have followed soul into this place. Or to know first the meaning of soul. Soul is the man-conscious pleading, fighting, denying Death. And the ally of Death, Body. The inner mind of a man sees Body deliberately cast down its sword of regeneration and die upon the final embrace of a Willing Death. Utterly alone, the conscious mind creates a soul, creates a sensation of soul as an answer to this Dread, this Ending of itself.

The young Beggar:" Why? Did we answer 'why'? Why the Body dies? Embraces death?"

Short man:" Perhaps we cannot. Perhaps, though, the Body as a purely natural thing, still follows the natural paths of feeding the Cycle.

Or perhaps, as do all other Natural living things, the Body still follows Death to make way for the new Living...the New Emerging...our New Born of our race, our species.

That the Old give food onto what would have hunted the Young.

Calamity requires new people. Old age requires that the Body exit the Living place; the Living space, leaving room for new people. Men die of old age because they don't die of calamity.

Men, Social Man, because of agriculture, medicine, government and cities, has built an unnatural place where it seems that Natural Calamity is forestalled. The 'hunted' no longer are 'hunted'.

So except for accident and disease, nothing would kill men but that they must for the most part, kill themselves.

The Body has lived in a Time when a small tribe hunting and foraging could not afford more mouths than the Valley could feed. Though Calamity fed well, there was still a need for the Body to find balance between the adulthood of protecting the young and the final ending of old Body to ensure enough food stayed in young mouths to grow.

Tall man:" Allowing for some truth in this Past, why continue then? Why, with food for all, does the Body still, as you argue, choose to die?"

Short man:" Perhaps old ways die off slowly...or perhaps the Body is not so willing to ally with this conscious mind of man which seeks immortality at all costs."

Tall man: " What costs could there be to living forever? What is worse than Death itself?"

Short man" Aw, religion, religion, I ask you, what is more tedious than the heavens but the ways to it! Why does the Body still die if indeed the City would feed all?

A City...a Society...a Species...thus Men, what purpose then but to become a collective god for does not then the collective make a collective soul? Not a soul of each man but rather a soul of all men!?

Thus our feeding City raises up a Collective God as it creates a Collective Soul. The purpose of soul is immortality. Then by this remarkable 'twist' the Species will not die out. Hence it is immortal; going on and on till the End of Time.

The Species does not separate wether each man is immortal or not...only that itself...men... is immortal or not.

We ask would this be the same for man and men? Can the soul of men be the summation of the soul of each man? And to ask as well, will each man be satisfied that though each conscious is not immortal...a greater summation of each and every man conscious is immortal.

But did we not say that soul was dread of mortality...more exactly...dread of Death of all consciousness. If City as Species is the summation of soul then it is the summation of all dread.

So that each man creates a soul to dread his death of consciousness, yet can that man willingly give that soul to a larger soul which will indeed in the same way swallow his own immortality as assuredly as his own death will?"

Tall man: "Damn, this...indeed...a dreadful discussion."

The short man laughed while the Beggar interjected " Let no one of man die then, both the Species and each man has immortality."

The short man replied " If then none died, how many Cities would we need to ensure the Species immortality.

None.

How many men?

One.

The only difficulty being to now choose the one man living who will live on forever, representing the Species.

Could all men weave through such jealousy to choose the One? No wonder men find it so easy to kill each other. Such intense competitions.

If a Collective soul, the City soul is chosen, then each separate man's soul is not.

If the One man's soul is chosen than the City is not, nor are men's.

A large gamble for the Species.

Beggar's Son: " Why limit from a City down to just One?"

The Short Man: " Because, ultimately, we must limit that number to a finite amount. And some souls must be outside that finite and must therefore cease to exist. Who will choose their souls, their dread...they themselves or the immortality of what's left? Perhaps here is the why and the where of the gods, the half-mortals and the mortals in endless combat!

But we can say that ,wether the Species or the City Collective, at least all are chosen or all are not chosen but dissolve into.

The way of the One is not that way. The way of many men or a few men or One man is exclusion.

For Species or City better all than the many. Better the All become one because the One excludes all.

The Body remains dying because imagine a One where the parts of the many could forever "feed" the immortality of the One. The many have a part in this immortality but not their consciousness, which was the original purpose of soul.

The Beggar asked " Is this not then the conflict of religion versus spirituality? That all must be consumed into one god? With no individualities?"

The Short man answered "Why is this abhorrent? Is it mere reflex against change? I daresay a solitary hunter of empty desert horizons of a thousand years ago would find our City an absolute nightmare. A nightmare of dilution of Spirit. Yet we have grown into it.

Of this One, is this the ultimate in cruelty, brutality...or merely... assimilation? Thousands, millions swallowed up for the One, or even if you prefer, the Few.

The Tall Man: " Is that any different than war...or great wealth amongst a sea of famine?"

Short Man: "Perhaps not. We will allow all things amongst men to be unequal except this thing of immortality. There indeed many kinds of dogs, weak and strong; the dog makes its pack with all other dogs. The dog will willingly give itself in defence of the pack...even give itself to feed the pack. But even the dog knows...or does not know and thus does not dread, that it will die and all will die. only the Species will survive. No individual dog. The dog does not really know this...only the Species, the sum of dogs knows this.

Men don't know this little or at least, think they know more. They know dread. Perhaps we as men will give all to men but not to a man...for if the man has calamity or disease, have we not all lost and are lost, onto the Species in the gamble.

I say again, too, that we would be willingly unequal as men to all things but immortality. Perhaps that is why men "sent" to battle do not fight as well as men led to battle.

There is a changing pattern in this 'way of things'. The wind shifting. Asa decay seems gone when the air drifts to elsewhere then our noses. That men have begun to believe that their 'salvation', their 'soul' can be found in the safety of numbers of souls, in the collective cooing and cawing of gathered City souls. It is a 'herding' response like cornered gazelles. They turn their better legs to bigger eyes before the wolves. it is not, however, the wolves outward they should fear but those newly sharpened teeth in the herd. Those few which inch the herd into a revolving banquet before Death's teeth. Revolving without their perception around the 'nudging' Few. The Few, who buy Time with nibbling teeth at their fellow's haunches, buying only Time...to buy Immortality.

Such a word...immortality...so like immoral...but at cross purposes..."

The tall man " What do you mean? If these men believe in immortality, why not embrace the Death sooner than later?"

The short man "Remember there is not necessarily much truth in Belief. There is illusion, lie, hope, dread. There are many dark corners and dirty windows in worship. the man who has a soul has a dread of death as well. For most men, courage is a walk between belief and dread. There are a Few, however, who put their gamble down on many more things than just belief. They build 'heavens' on both sides of Death, just in case.

Just in case there is a god and you will see him as easily as he sees you ... above the city of men as above the souls of other men.

Understand that it is a much different thing to await god than to await death. Those Few say 'Let the others keep death busy while we conjure up our better salvations.'

The tall man "Are you saying all leaders are cowards and run from death?"

The short man "No. I am saying that those 'who' wish for immortality a little stronger, wish for death a little less. One calls their souls 'stronger'; their dread, then, not as weak. The 'Many' see these 'Few' as enlightened, gifted, purposeful, guided, superior because the soul in them...the dread...the stature of men...is felt to be stronger.

We have defined the greater dread as soul-sense, as consciously-elevated men. What is this 'higher' conscious? What is this superiority of place, of mind as seen by the Many (told to by the Few) asThe Rightful Inequality of Elevations.

You see, my Beggar boy, a man alone has dread but he has no inequality of dread. Suddenly, or gradually, men have become better known by their dread, than their living without dread.

Souls are measured but never weighed. there is really nothing to them. then really what is it all?

Do you see it? The trick? Men become more or less equal by their being more or less men. dread, not death, has dragged all to the City...or created City...a gathering place for the flock...for the comparison of souls. There is no Man here. A man cannot be easily made into an insect. First he must become...Men.

Now men do not have a good history of maintaining equality, or even inequality based on actual quality.

A man alone is like a dog, a monkey, a tiger. He is a 'doer', an act of doing moment by moment.

Men are 'systems'. Systems devised by men to contain men, to control men. Control them not as individual man after man but as many of the same men. These systems are always flawed because they are invented by a conscious mind or minds fleeing Dread. Dread of itself losing its immortal mind. Understand the System does not develop that all minds become immortal but rather that some minds, a few minds, perhaps even only one mind...become immortal.

One above a Few. A Few above a Many. Many devouring All. The 'System' is always parasitical in its purpose but seemingly predatorial in its design."

The Tall man: "What difference does it make? Is not a parasite, a predator?"

The Short Man: "As a predator a system appears as a natural thing to men. The strong consuming the weak. Just as they remember it when men was more man than Men...that is in the pre-City days. When man was not safe except with his own kind.

Now in the City-days Man is safe from all but himself. The Strong in a City are not predators...lone dogs, tigers or wolves seeking a mere meal, another day of sustenance. The very Strong of a City are Parasites. They seek a Lifetime. Indeed, even more than a Lifetime.

The very best of parasites are not easily seen, are not easily known. They are inside Men, disguised as Men, and worse, disguised as any other man's chance.

These Great Parasites are disguised as the Equality of Inequality. We are told the City is a jungle. It is not. It is a Battlefield.

It is a battle between Species and Men. Species is a flow. A City is not. It is a dam. Different 'things' populate a river from a sea. Different 'things' rise to the top.

Naturally, men in small numbers, may not come to equality but they at least come to an inequality of ability. The spear thrower respects the fire maker who respects the game tracker. Abilities which ensure the survival of a man ensure the survival of Species. As Men of Man. As a hunter-gatherer-predator.

A City is not this. Simply put a City is a man with many, many, many legs. A city is an insect, a great seething coil upon coils of a singular centipede. Man has become wasp, bee, ant, termite...man has become a nest of men. Destroyer, Builder, Devourer, Enveloper.

This is a perversion of man. This men. This long thing where one man is as another man as is another...yet...there are amongst these men, some who are more men than men. By that I mean , the Few who aspire to be the One. Those who believe they are the summation of the Parts of the Great Citypede, the Great Citysite.

You see, young Beggar's Son, that in time each man of this long chain of men does not know that his sight is not his own. It is the sight of the one as the Few. But that they see out of these eyes then they see that they are equal in their place. They are perverted to believe that they could be emperor or king or of immense wealth or fed because some are so. They are told that this is because of abilities. They are taught to believe that those who feed on those who cannot feed do so by the Law of the Jungle. This is a Great Lie. Men feeding on men is not a Law of the Species...it is a Law of Men. It was created to allow the parts of the Many to sustain the Few.

It is a system of very long lies...and when one foot moves, all the feet move. Any 'system' is not the sum of the parts of the All as for Species. Any men system is the sum of the parts of the Many...to feed the Few.

This strangely enough, has not come from the Species, not from the Body but from the conscious mind.

It is men's conscious mind which has created City. Not to flee into safety from Natural Death...but, rather to fall into the Jaws of Unnatural Death. Man-made Death. Death of the parts to feed the Few; or ,the One.

This Mind began, firstly to believe in immortality as a god, as a soul then, as some chosen religion, as great wealth, than a little wealth, as social status, as art, as brutality, violence and control over others....on and on the list goes lower and lower...lesser and lesser...why?

Anything which will bring ourselves outside the 'pool' of the Many to join the Few, to be seen apart. This gives the conscious mind the illusion of some 'pre-selection' to eternity and thus have our chance at immortality.

Socially, men always fail to equalize, because they are, indeed, unequal. Not in ability, though that is true. Men have always been unequal in their abilities but the Species used that inequality to create diversity.

Diversity enables success as a Species but it is the opposite of a Citypede. Of a conscious mind as One.

The problem is in the power of Quality versus the power of Quantity. If, in a small tribe, our best spear-thrower owns a thousand spears and the rest own none, it does the Species no good. For the tribe will perish if attacked by wild animals or starve because one man cannot be a tribe to its full abilities. It would be even worse if the flame maker owned the thousand spears.

In the City, however, Quantity is what is used to control, to create systems. For where there are many many men, Quantity gives the illusion of plenty. A lesser man is only inches away from a 'full' man in the sense of grasping Quantity. What the lesser man does not know is that 'those inches' are in reality many many men long, the lesser man is fooled by the coil of the Centipede in the City. His place is very far from the Quantity, many feet would have to 'shuffle' for that reality to happen. What is important here to the 'system' of immortality of a Few is that all lesser men believe they are lesser only by chance. Thus Hope remains. That is all you need to give a hungry man as you, yourself, devour his parts for your own salvation. Hope. While you do that, you do not feel yourself being devoured. Only a very very Few can see in the City. The rest of us have given them our eyes.

Eyes...the Species would those eyes for the ALL to survive...man by man...The Great Insect of the City does not need many eyes to find its way to immortality. For It believes it thinks its way to immortality. It is Conscious only of that.

Beggar's son "A question. You mentioned a Few. You mentioned a One. What are these things?"

The short man "These are men...the greatest of men...if such a thing can have a greatness. The 'One' is both the summation of the parts of the 'All' and the aspirations of each of men to become immortal...especially if that immortality will come only to one men (I would not call such a monster...a man.). The Few are closest to this , they are the eyes and ears and senses of the Citypede which all the combined Dread of men, society, City, tyrannic power, politics, wealth, cruelty and religion believe could become immortal...could make men immortal. All these things have over all history created a soul, a god , if you will.

That god answers to no one. In a way , born out of the combined conscious will of men, it has become the Anti-Species. It seeks to destroy all that was man before Dread; before Man realized he can die and, thus, slowly began to cease to live.

That god as 'One' will easily destroy Man, men, souls, nature, everything...even life itself...in order, that it will realize Self-immortality.

that is why I call it ...The One. It has moved men from illusion to delusion. In each man seeking a way out of dread, we have created a thing far more dreadful to each man. Not only do we still lose immortality, we have also lost the Life which went before it.

Understand that this 'One", these 'Few' , this collective, this City is as a million souls in a flood all huddling, jamming, killing, fighting, dying together over an imaginary tiny boat. It is sad to wonder how many would have swam away and lived without it.

The tall man "I, too, wonder if we may have lived without all this? So a City is filled with men who think they can think past Death. Who make up a tale of gods and souls and what not. Who call their Bodies traitors. Who..."

Here the Beggar interrupted " Excuse me , my noble friends, but you have reminded me of what was said earlier. That the Dread of Death comes from two things. The one, then, is the actual death of Body. What is the other?"

To this query, the short man answered (while the tall man groaned) "The nature of Time.

There is a mystery in time for man. The past outside his past, the past of his of his own memory. For older men tell him of their past before even his beginning. So the man cannot deny a past before his own past.The past has 'been'. And though a man's mind can re-create the past, it will be mirrors, imperfect mirrors of what he has been told of the Past. Told by other imperfect mirrors.

The Past does exist, however. For a man does not wish for 'everything' around him to 'pop-up' into existence...moment...by moment...by moment.

If it is here than it was. How much changed from what was to what is, who can truly say. We say the mountains are eternal but outside the City's walls lies the dust of its breath. And I have heard of mountains exploding into the air and swallowing leagues and leagues with the fire and ash of its corpse.

Also as the moment to moment progresses we see 'is' slowly change and thus either life is changing or experience of life is changing, ie if I look in a mirror 10 years apart, who is older, my face... or only my eyes. If my face, than here is proof that the Body is winning and losing the battle with Time and Calamity. If only my eyes are older in their view, than the Past doesn't exist, nor Time exists, only my Mind exists and is it crumbling?

So that a Past was, it is now. But who knows what it was. A man looking through a glass of water into an imperfect mirror describes the world behind him; a past vague in recollection.

What does it matter?

Its importance lies in that which 'was' becomes 'is'.

'Is' then is made from what 'was'. 'Is' becomes proof of 'was'.

The mind cares less, or in Time, cares not if the Body dies; it only cares if the Mind dies. Though it is resigned to such a Body's defeat, it feels betrayed. Like dual warriors, one immortal, or at least believing so, but the other mortal and the victory dependent on both. No matter the highest valour of the mortal, his death in battle will seem a failure to the illusions of endless glory.

Remember, as in our tale of Body, once again a rider and a horse enter the race.

The rider has an expectation to the Finish; to the End...the Body only races...it does not race to win or to finish at some End...it races to be only...ALIVE.

Remembering only snatches of what hurdles over and over around him; the smells of flesh; the blinks of flying mud; of noise and danger and failure and triumph...all meaningless to the Mind which only wants to Finish at the End. Not its end but Time's End.

For if Time exists beyond The Mind's existence than The Mind does not achieve its immortality. It has been robbed.

Perhaps it is the fault of the rider expecting the horse to race full to the End. But who knows to what End or ends?

All fling their bodies forward into the great fog hiding the cliff.

Does the Rider, the Mind call it such? To avoid the other names, Chaos and Mere Chance.

Into these we cast the Mind and for its own sanity, it 'floats' up a soul.

Time makes no sense to men, only to a Man. For a Man lives only in the days of his days...he cares not of Time and Nights when he sleeps. Only men care about what happens to themselves while they sleep; for they have become Dreadful companions.

You see, Beggar, Time is necessary for Death to act. Time separates events so that there can be an Existence between Birth and Death for each man.

The act of Death is necessary to all men in order that there will also be an act of Life; of Living. Existence is only possible if there is Not-Existence. Hence, things, even men must 'become'...there must therefore be a 'before' and a 'beafter'.

If the conscious mind of each man were to win over each Body against Death than become, before, beafter have no separation.

The conscious mind, in destroying Death, destroys Time, destroys existence, destroys itself.

The Body remains its enemy in this. Yet the Body is destroyed nonetheless...why resists the beguile and lies of the conscious mind?

It is because the Body is partially owned by a Man and also partially owned by Men. The Species of Men has a gamble, a stake upon each man. Man's social success, the City, has built a world where the conscious mind has become 'self-obsessed' with its own demise. It 'hallucinates' a soul out of a madness of dread, self-delusion of importance and obsession against time. Time as a pathological sense of moment...moment...moment...yet all past, all future yaws on both directions like a man on a tight rope.

In a sense that is the 'existence' of consciousness. As a man riding upon a deaf, blind, bleeding man on a tight rope; the rope above a great fall, the rope coming from ...and leading to... a close dense obscure fog...

No wonder it learns...early...to pray.

So, within Dread, soul is created as an illusion of immortality. But immortality is prevented by the Body which understands that for men, for the Species, the end of Death is the end of Existence.

Each man dies for the Species. Each man gives his life back into Non-existence so there will continue to be Existence...continue to be Species. Full living Men.

Beggar:" If all men die than why does existence not end?"

Short man:" If non-existence dies than existence must live. It is existence and non-existence which are immortal...some would even say it is this flow which is the home of the gods..."

Beggar:" Each man ...after man...after man....becomes...the gods?"

The Tall Man " " Aw, so you at least agree to there being gods?"

Beggar " We should be careful here as I believe our friend means the god exists as the flow of the Species of Man, do you not?"

Short Man: " Yes. Souls exist not because gods exist but because men, for their very souls, wish gods to exist...

The 'gods' if you will, then are of two sources...

The lie of the soul as a vehicle of immortality; for as a mortal thing, men...cannot create an immortal thing. Therefore the Creator of the lie of immortal souls must be itself immortal...

The other source of the gods is the collective future of Man ...man by man...living...dying...as a flow...a river which if one man lived forever would cease...

This we have called: The Species, a natural god, if you will, and the Body its ally, perhaps even to call it...its Soul."

Species, where soul is the flow of men as a natural immortality opposes City. City is the conscious mind of men devouring all in an unnatural immortality."

Beggar "Why unnatural?"

Short man: " Species is as all things are...perhaps even as a god itself...City wishes to re-create itself as The One God above all gods, souls and species...it must destroy all or be itself destroyed by All...City is beyond aman's fear of death, beyond men's dread, it has become the ultimate terror of Life itself. Understand this, my young friend, City fears Death so much, it will choose the destruction of Life itself, the Cause, so that Death, the Effect, cannot exist.

For one can end Dread by Soul or end Dread by City-God...in other words, proclaim men as already immortal, indestructive...all you have to do now is convince each man that his own consciousness exists in that god only...that collective of souls of men called City, called History."

Tall man:" History now. City. God and gods...why bother...allowing that men create soul, why create gods? Why complicate things?"

Short Man: "A thing is created out of fear but if remaining framed in fear, how can Dread become Hope? Like the paint of smile upon a courtish clown, we must use illusion to change one thing into the opposite. As if again ,our mirrors, one after the other around in a circle till a gaunt man looks fat and fed well in the last. We must add something to reality since Fear only gave us reality and Reality, for the conscious man, only reaps fear.

Reality did not explain Death and Time...it only gives the conscious man, fear. To ' believe' we must have more. Let us have illusion. To elude we must have mystery. What do we need for mystery? The Unknown. The Unknown Creator of Hope, not Dread. The Gods.

Tall man: But again, I ask why cant

the man create this mystery?"

Short Man: " Because, my friend, it is not logical. Though I agree, the End is illogical, the means to it must not be. For it is created by the conscious mind of man. You may plunge off a cliff but you cannot fly to the edge...the way to it is step by step. If a man could create a soul which is immortal, then why does not the man just become immortal? For it would be within his means. Instead, is it not more logical that a Creator created a man AND created a soul...and the man must be led step by step to it.

If the soul is shrouded in mystery... and the Creator...and the Way to it, then the possibilities grow and grow.

Remember falsehood is clearly seen but truth can be as easily imagined as falsehood. In this light you clearly see before you, to say I am not would be seen to be utterly false. But in darkness...? If I did not speak? You, in truth, can know me to be here or not.

So beware what is called truth, what is called false, what is called reality. Truth is what we choose to believe is truth, in that there is no absolute...nor absolution.

Creating god, we have created a louder, better voice in the darkness. If so many hear it, can it be silent? Even if they but willed to hear it.

Religion is a land of willed and willing shadows then. A land where logic works well like the world outside mirrored inside a bubble. It all works the same, is the same, feels the same.

A man may feel his soul but he cannot see it, so they must balance that blindness with a cast of their gods' shadow.

In this place of shadow, though they cannot see the god, it is enough that they believe the shadow is of the god...not of their own blindness.

It is that simple act of believe, that the shadow is a god 'leaning' over them which creates all this. This Market Place, these idols, this annual pilgrimage, this discussion, even my tall companion's scowl all seemingly originate from this belief.

That being said it stands also that the greater the god's shadow, the greater their own soul, for what is large in obscurity can it not be also large in possibilities?

For the eye of Man is the prism in his world...between his worlds. The worlds of known and felt-to-be-known; wished-to-be-known. Just as a prism opens the narrow Unseen into a rainbow of fantastical so to our prism opens the shadow of 'what is' into a larger 'what could be'.

Now does thou know a little of the mathematics of levers, my young friend?"

The young beggar replied " A little. Some things on one end can seem to outweigh more concrete things on the other end simply by being further from the centre of the truth."

The short man laughed " Well put, beggar boy. Well then the eye is a prism between worlds and also that fulcrum of truth you spoke of, or at least, if not the actual truth..the belief that it is so.

Let us put the soul on one end and the god on the other. For balance then a larger god necessitates a larger soul, does it not?. No man desires the soul of an insect...all wish to be lions or suns or what not.

So a great shadow signifies a great god and that yields a great soul. Yet, too, with our lever, a small god a good distance away does that not also create a large soul closer to the eye?"

The boy looked puzzled " Do you mean to say that the further one is from the truth of their god, than the closer they are to their actual soul?"

The short man answered "No, the further away we place our gods the less knowledge we will have of them. They become greater shadows. The greater shadow weighs heavier upon the fulcrum of truth and thus lifts a man's soul to higher heights. Wether their soul is actually greater or not is of no concern...it appears to be greater. Just as a dog is very tall to a man sprawled on the ground."

The tall man interrupted, his arms waving his impatience "Curs and the shadows of curs! I do not hold that my religion grovels so low in the ground as that!"

" No, no. That is not my meaning, dear friend. What we discuss is that it is the nature of comparisons to allow The Infinite when one cannot define one side of the equation." replied the short man.

He continued " Even thus onto the shadow becoming full darkness, this does not lend onto each man despair as you would think it should. No one 'sees' god yet all believe such to exist. How can eyes see without seeing? They must be led to believe they see. If at the end of the lever there is only darkness, than there is infinity"

The beggar asked" Why not see the darkness, as emptiness, nothing?"

The short man replied "For two reasons. One, the darkness began as a shadow, but not as a shadow of hopelessness, but rather as hope. The eye does not in itself turn that shadow of hope into a dark night of hopelessness. Rather, it remains in the greater possibilities. The other thing is that the man still feels the soul...and that feeling of soul lends a weight to the lever to keep it 'up'; uplifting. To see hopelessness at one end is to deny soul. Few men will do such for the feeling of soul remains. If not soul, than what is the feeling?

Let instead the room be dark, a solid block upon the end of our lever. This lever, men, with their eyes, travel down upon as if a road. Let the god within be cast permanent in shadow. Its darkness becomes the number: infinity. Thus, too, the eyes are blind in their staring focus upon darkness."

The young beggar shook his head " This is a puzzle. For we have a dark room and darkened eyes walking to it. Men err much however. In their souls walking through life, how does than a blind man find direction? Would it not be better to have a Light... or at least, a beckon of light?"

Short man: "When I do a mathematical equation such as so many numbers equal an unknown, I have many possibilities to define the numbers.

Make no mistake, young man, if the sum is defined, than the numbers will become defined."

The tall man interjected "This is as absurd as four dogs and cats equal a horse. If the result is unknown, then all the parts are unknown. How does one make sense of such senselessness?"

The short man replied "Religion makes rules as one blind man leading another blind man from one false door to another. We, outside, as the Observors call such, absurd...but we have forgotten.

Forgotten the goal of the game, my friends. God. Mystery. Hope. Soul. End of Dread.

The 'mechanics' , the 'science' of belief my friends does not have to stand the test of reality. No. No. It must stand the test of Sense. If it is sensed to be true, than it is."

The beggar asked " But why then these rules and customs and inhibitions and restraints that one sees so much in religion?"

Short Man " Aw, my boy, the more you build upon a false house, the greater all will come to believe of that house. We move about, around and with each other with false tools and false materials all seemingly working together to build a great church of worship. That great multitude in dance has become the belief itself. We want to be deceived. Remember always that. All men want to be deceived into belief.

From this deception comes forth the Law of Contrasts. Men feel they do not add up....that the parts do not yield a full sum...as if in building themselves they remain always short of materials...as if labourers who move materials from end to end but never complete the house...

soul is created to fill this gap, in and of the walls, in and of the roof of their dwelling place....

..the larger the gap is felt to be, then the larger must be the soul they create in their minds...

The Law of Contrasts demands that the lesser of a man, the greater is his god. For cannot greater gods than ensure greater souls, greater immoralities? Or, at least, a greater chance of immoralities?

The further a belief is from its knowledge of a god, does not that lack of knowledge, so so tiny on one end of the lever, yield a higher elevation of god? Will not mystic yield revelations? Will not penance yield salvation? Will not humility yield grandeur?

The less a Man believes of himself; of his self without soul; then the more he has of soul; for when his cup is empty of the day's offering, it is thus full of tomorrow's spirit.

Light a candle and the Ceilings Above illuminate.

Curse a god and Hell opens its mouth wider.

A desperate prayer moves another world. Would not, than, a death, any death, the last whispering breath in death of say even a loved one be amplified by this Law into a heavenly chorus of welcoming gods; bring to the Lake of Darkness a fleet of immortal ships to greet the solitary worm-man awash with moon-glow, his limbs as weeds of motion in the tide waves...

Remember two things of the Law of Contrasts...it is all illusion...and it is all believed. If all believe, then, it cannot remain illusion. The power in the Law is in its Lie.

There are three kinds of men in this Lie of Religion. Those who believe very well in the Lie; those (the most) who believe not so well; and, those who pocket the difference.

Most men do not believe well; spend their lives and dreams in the daily dust but, from time to time, when a Death or Calamity brushes their congealed eyes a little open, they peek a little at Hope, at Soul. It is not really a welcome Sight."

The tall man "I thought you argued that all men seek hope from mortal death?" Why would they not welcome this?"

The short man " Men who do not dwell often at Hope are not as "practised" in deception of Self or Others. They are as uneasy with this as if they have awoken in a room with a dead man who was alive before they slumbered.

Now those who believe well (and these are very rare) would not care. For they are lost and happy in a strange world where their only business is their own dying. This is not as morbid as it sounds, young man. Though seemingly mad at times because of their 'extremes' in Belief, most men call them both comic and visionary. Prophets, seers, mystics and hermits, they are not really men but more like carrion birds circling their own bodies. Birds without legs. One senses in them that Hope has won; that these are not men who are living waiting to die but are as a man dead waiting to be born. As I said, they are rare and everyone, for a moment, wishes to be like them. The way a shipwrecked man might envy the fish just before he kills and eats it.

Those many who do not believe well however are uneasy with this dead man. They wish first of all to be convinced it is not a mirror. Though it is strange in a way that the living wish to be convinced they are not dead even though this would proof their immortality.

For who knows what Life looks like from the shores of the Immortal Dead? Just as the arrow looks upon the bird as a still thing!?

So how do you proof a man is dead? Well, you can watch him rot. Not a very comforting or fast solution. Remember that those who do not believe well (and they are the many) will not believe (with their eyes a little open) for long and so need answers quickly.

So, my friends, let us not proof he is dead. Let us instead make him alive. If living, then there is Hope, there is still no Death. Our 'watcher' can go back to sleep.

Enter the third man. The Difference.

The Pockets of Difference. Even Hope is for sale. That is the way of men...and their City.

With many thin breaking wires the dead man can made to walk and dance again. With candles and shadows see the face of Death change expressions in the Conversations with the gods. Listen to the noises of singing and bells...no one can hear the silence of Death breathing above that.

This is the law of Contrasts, Beggar. As simple as that. Made for those to profit in the Lie of the Dead man. Made that the Body dies of its own will but the Mind decrees something else for itself. Made because Time does not end but no man can see further than from one wall to the other wall of his skull. Made to allow the Many to slumber while the Few feed. Made so that a Conscious Man can remain amongst Men. Made so a City can replace a Species. Made so that men can become immortal if only as One. Or a system of men as the One. Made so that the opposite of a Lie is...Lie. And that becomes the only truth left for men."

Beggar's son: "Let me ask you this...in your heart and mind, are there no gods then?"

The short man: " Men create gods to create hope. Even a man at suicide jumps to some little hope, that hope. My intellect travels alone in hesitation. Few men in a room of absolute darkness can will their eyes completely shut...calling those eyes, useless.

I confess to you, my boy, that I yet strain to become an atheist. Hence, my purchase you see not so loosely tucked under my arm.

With that the men moved on, leaving the Beggar's young son to seek the dust of his own travels.

The Second Day

The beggar's young son had rested in that place free to all in the City. Given out by its Nature but used by only a few. The earth herself. Dirt. Dust.

Finding a semi-hole in an alleyway off an alley off an obscure street so as to hide from the City Guardians of the night. They, who at their worst, make sport of their victims with the iron tools of their trade or, at best, kick sleeping vagrants along to discourage any thoughts of a permanent habitat.

This beggar's hole sufficed to give solitude as there are always in a City places where even spears dare not swagger. The Field of Darkness making a better coward than a soldier out of these City Brutalions.

Alone then, the Beggar had isolation but rested little. His mind was full of the Short Man's philosophy. Debating its pros and cons; the backdrop of his night's dwelling of filth and shadow an accurate painting of the day's discussion ; a black landscape of death folded inside living shadows.

Though he had said little in rebuttal, he now debated the Short man's

explanation of the Law. The man had described a religion completely opposite to what his father had taught. Or so it seemed at first exam.

Death dwelt little in his Father's teachings, though he had at times spoken of such things as 'his Father's house' or 'believe in me and have everlasting life'.

It seemed to the Beggar, however, that his father emphasized life now, not later. The here after became an effect of the Cause of living like a human being now. As if one created a soul and a heaven and a hell by the living force of one's own humanities. One should not add hell he corrected himself. His father often rebuked that in his disciples. they, he remembered, or at least some of them, were quick to build an ideology of punishment against any non-believers.

His father called The Many...Unknowing...in their hearts...and Ignorance would not be punished; just as no parent would strike an infant for sins and wrong doings more appropriately condemning to an adult.

Those who knew, however, and did reject him, he did rebuke. Not for his own sake or for His father's sake but for the Many. For these Few were as snake coils of blindness seeking any eyes of the many who might wish to venture into...what...daylight?...humanity? Why is the pursuit of enlightenment so cursed he wondered. And the more cursed, not by those who don't know it, but those who would prevent it?

Seemingly, his Father loved everyone but did not like the Few.

He would have liked the Short man; he would have loved the Tall man. The Tall man would never have looked into his eyes; the Short man would have invited him for a meal and a long discussion into the night.

Why did he, the Beggar's son, lie here in the dirt then?

The beggar boy did not feel sorry for himself lying in the dirt all night. He had slept in worse, in mud, in dung, in far more danger than this. he had never really liked walls.

Other men liked walls because they held 'things' out, but he always felt to be uneasy around what the walls held in.

It was not so much the men they held in as what was held in the men. He preferred freedom and paid its costs but he had learned early from the disciples that one thing a caged man hates most is a free man.

This is where men differ much from their brethren, the animals. Even a dog. A chained dog will bark furiously at a free dog but if unchained will then run with that dog.

And no free dog will pick up that chain and place it on their own neck.

No, a man does not lose his way away from men but amongst them. For to 'survive' all 'man' must become a group. Like a flock of birds, some are ahead, some are behind but all are at the same height. Perhaps that is the Lie that is religion. Surely though spirit, spirituality is not.

Religion. The great devourer. As if the puppet masters become caught in their own strings. To make the One dance for their own ends, they all become dancers and cannot separate from the tyranny of the means. This was his Father now.

No son, no child wanted their father simply given to the mob. Or His ideals.

For it seemed to the beggar's young son that one mob, the people, the religious leaders had taken his body, his life and another mob, the disciples had taken his father's ideals, his very meaning.

There was great widespread talk of his resurrection of body later but before even that short time, the beggar's young son had been cursed and laughed away from the gathering.

Now he could see from the Short man's discussion what the disciples had done, had begun almost at the moment his Father drew a last breathe and forgave all.

They had changed the living testament of his Father's work to an Anti-death testament of his Father's crucifixtion and resurrection. It was not how he LIVED but how he did not DIE which became their religion.

To be sold to the people. Like all the other religions. The Law of Contrasts.

What is seen to have happened has not happened. Thus, to the Beggar's son's view entered the Tricksters, the Masqueraders, the Merchants of Immortality.

He knew he was bitter. Bitter of this.

At first, young, alone, grieving so much alone, he had been bitter at their rejection, their callous indifference to a son who had truly lost a Father. In his eyes, they had only lost a friend, a teacher. He did not see that, for most, they had lost their chance.

Now he knew that some were not like that but their nature would be used by the others to disguise a climb to power, to recognition. Religions are not borne out of gods but out of men...that maxim from the Short man he knew to be quite true, regardless of wether gods existed or not.

Could he undo any of this? Why would he? Go preach against those who used his Father's meanings, his ideals, his miracles, his very body for purposes of a political resurrection?

Talk. Talk against talk. Like the Short man had said... 'the more men point into the shadows, the more they believe what doesn't exist'...

His Father had existed. The Beggar's young son was not so sure with the disciples that He still did. Wether one applauds or boos the players at a bad stage, one draws a crowd to them. He would leave them and their masks alone.

The boy remembered in the Short man's talk that there was some hope, some love yet in humanity. We are not just animals becoming insects.

Often, his Father had used birds, not animals, in his parables of man and men. Perhaps it was because, though much attached to the flock, birds could still soar. Just as a man in the City of men can still soar in his soul. Bird and man. Flock and men. Equal because of flight. Fragile on the earth.

His Father had taught him that men did not exist in the eyes of a god. Only Man. That his Father's God did not see the collective...He only saw Man as One...each One. An individual being. A soul already.

Wether that eluded to, or brought on immortality, the beggar's son did not know. He did know it brought meaning.

Meaning to each man. It was not a trick but the more a man sees god inside himself the more he sees of himself...as a man...as a good man.

His Father had explained that all good lies within...is present inside man as a likeness of god is inside man. It is not god...it is His likeness. Virtue is not a god...but it is a kind of Soul.

As the Beggar's young son drifted of to sleep he was thinking it was a paradox...the more complete a man feels himself to be, the less he feels the need for soul...a godless man may therefore be a more complete man...yet remains in the full image of a god

Still the smaller the soul, the smaller the god, yet, the larger the man...at least the abstract realizations of a god decline ....the road he travels becomes less spiritual, more realist.....but this holds true only if one assumes the source of soul is the Dread of the Short man...

What if the source of Soul is some other thing...some other word than god or immortality?

...a man trades his dreaded soul for his other soul. that is to say..he will have one or the other...but never needing both...

Each man must find his own soul...souls cannot be bartered between men...only between the gods which own the souls..and the men who own each god....

When he did awaken, the Beggar's young son instantly knew what he would attempt to do. He would attempt to teach a little of his Father's work to the crowds at the Marketplace of Gods. In teaching, he also would learn. He did not believe that spirituality was simply running from death as religion seemed to be. Inside, there is more to a Man than fear.

On the way to the Marketplace he purchased some objects which he would use in his discussion, had them wrapped individually to sell at a minimum price to replace the wares of the 'God-hawkers'.

When he got to the Marketplace of the Gods, it was already beginning to be its bedlam of abuse, worship and commerce.

The Beggar wove his way gently around the outskirts of the milling crowd till he found an area less crowded. Here he set up his wares. It was close enough to draw some ears away from the main 'din' but still quiet enough for the Beggar's son not to have to catapult his words above the 'forth and foam' of the other Merchants.

Even before he began to speak some of the crowd, wether because of exhaustion at the merchants' abuse or curiosity of something new or awaiting their turn into the 'Swirl of Selection', turned to hear his forms of abuse against the milling worshipers.

He spoke, however, far more gently than any they had ever heard before.

"They say there is a journey towards god which walks away from man. I ask you, my friends, which way does a man lean in this journey? Forward to add weight to the god...or backward linger longer as a man?

For few men know their god; few men know themselves.

But by the Law, the lesser a man is, the greater will be his god. These are only passing words, an eulogy of something less...and we cannot be held to clap or cry for the death of little men...or indeed smaller and smaller men."

The puzzled look on some of the crowd turning to anger told the beggar that they had naturally assumed he had insulted them as that was the way of the Marketplace.

"Friends! No! No! I mean not thou. Thou art great men, better men but now are juggling for a place of Sin. That is the last place where a man will look for himself. In Sin, he looks for god, he looks for forgiveness.

If the crowd is Sin, is there any Man within? No. There is only god."

Now a merchant (a great mouth and beard upon very small legs) closest to the Beggar's spot had been drawn to this talk, anticipating the usual cascade of condemnation upon his own 'buyers' near his stall. The beggar was obviously a newcomer and ,worse, speaking out of form and custom and so the Merchant bellowed an interruption " You of Rags there! You cannot speak of gods and sins and laws! That is the great domain and license of myself and these fellow Merchants. No one can just enter this place of holy barter and, like a bad fruit stand, auction off flies for figs."

To this the Beggar replied "The Law of Contrasts is only that; in this Marketplace, all that is required for barter, for buy and sell, for cat and mouse, for beg and commerce, for gods and men is... difference...only difference.

I, if I may daresay, thus belong here, my friend, for I differ as much from you as any other voice spoken by man. Thou art proud, I am humble. Thou art artful, I am but simple. Thou art beguiling to the Great , I am only appealing to the small like a the smallest of cheese before a mouse. Thou art so high in that stall, I am even shocked you could see my tiny shadow at all. As if Thunder would shush the splash of an ant crossing a puddle...I am..."

The merchant, his roar of laughter interrupting the beggar's remarks ,sailed back " Enough, enough! Enough with your snake's tongue, beggar, it becomes a long hiss than irritates the ear. But we are all glad to hear your redress and note its return to rightful look. I for one discredit not a man unmeek in his lowly place providing his hands and feet stay away from the loftier steps of his sight. You are no merchant of god's chosen, beggar, though I see your ointment has attracted a small buzz of flies. Desist thy scratchings, for up here, with feet higher than your head, we are the True Sowers and Reapers. Given to scatter the seed amongst the flock. Uphold our Greatness, our Trueness and thou might stay and watch a greater feeding. Providing thy withhold thy tongue of false songs."

Young Beggar: "Done, sir, in all the humility of base to towering Truth. Except a question from this buffoon puzzled by his own lack of wit. Forgive the bluntness of this I can wrestle it out in no other way: Yesterday I heard of the Law of Contrasts here in the Square. If all such noble merchants as yourself be of great Truth and I be as False as a rat's grin, then does that not make my goods, my gods of absolute fidelity just as yours are complete in their falsehood?"

Absolute astonishment rippled through the crowd and stunned the Merchants. Though as said the law was unwritten, the Custom had never been broken. No one, before this daring rag, had ever spoken aloud of the Contrasts this near the Stalls of Worship. Though all the God merchants were horrific and, in truth, empty for a rebuttal, many of the crowd began to murmur consent and confide the question amongst themselves. Some in honest query, most to simply delight the merchants unstable stance and cornered shifts. They began to look to the merchant who had first spoke each thankful they had been spared this oration of puzzle. The crowd too looked to the merchant; all smirks at his tortured brow. And they waited awhile for his reply.

To himself he thought 'If I claim he is greatly false and gods a little truth and thereby much false, he will turn that easily upon us. That we are greatly true and our gods a little false and much true. This will lead to all sorts of agonies, I know. If I disclaim to answer a totally false question from a false man, he will answer that a man of Truth can answer any question truthfully whether that question is false or true. I will argue that as he is not a true merchant, the law of comparisons does not apply to him. Falsehoods and truths are unique in this way only to the Vendors of the gods.'

And so the Merchant spoke across the waiting crowd to the beggar "The answer to gain insolence, your unpiousness would be yes, if thou had any standing as a Merchant. You have not. You are false, an imposter who dreams of some higher glory than can be scraped from a rusted cup. But as you are as near a Merchant as dried dung is to a camel, you are false and your gods are false as no Contrasts apply. So take thy peddling elsewhere, that the crowd is not failed to what is Truth!"

The young beggar: Great mountain of the desert, son of great mountains of the desert, your tongue of hooves has drove much reason into this poorly wrapped skull. But also confusion still leaves a doubtless mirage of hope. I beg your wind blast its shimmering beguile forever. Answer this and I go. Was not the Law of Contrasts given as Unwritten as it is a thing of belief? If written, proof would be required. Logic in all things of the spirit is not welcomed we know. But if unwritten all can believe as they wish to believe. Do the people not each believe the falseness of a god and the trueness of a merchant; This is the Law unto the Merchants you say. But I deny this and say it is a Law onto the People. They use it. They may not build or proof falsehood but it is their way and their law to accept or reject it. Blindly so it may be argued but even a blind man is entitled to the Law, for who is not blind in the spirit: Does not the user own what he uses for its time in use? Where bought, borrowed or stolen? In this way the Law is of the people to use. If it was solely that of the Merchants then how would the people believe? Thou would have a poor supper carving the Law between yourselves. It has been said: When the Law is written it belongs to those who scribe to its purpose; when the Law is unwritten it belongs to those who believe to its purpose. You Merchants believe only in the wretchedness of the people, that is no contrast, it is truth! The people believe in your uprighteousness, that is no truth, it is contrast. What say you now, is the Law theirs or yours? And if theirs what right have you to deny their believe in anything of contrast in this Square? Whether they believe me false or true or my gods or your gods; who are you to demand disbelief? Who are you to demand the look of contrasts for yourself with falsehoods abundant at your perch while condemning upon such as I the sentence of like bears like?"

The end of this the crowd roared and thumped their feet in dust. Must could only follow a bit of the argument but sensed a victory for the beggar. Especially as the merchant's face began more twitched and forlorn as this last rebuttal continued.

The merchant knew the argument was lost. Best just ignore his cocky crows. Besides the crowd may like his strutting but unlikely to buy from his hoard of gleanings. And later the merchant would talk to some friends he knew. Influential friends who would think the removal of a beggar from the city a minor thing easily done. So ignoring the beggar's last response, the merchant simply turned to the crowd and began harassing them as before. The other merchants caught the hint and began to do likewise.

The crowd ,at first puzzled, then began to stammer at the Merchant for a reply. Others realized the now total victory for the beggar and gave cheer but it was a ragged thing as few came to the note at the same time. As well the milling had begun as the God merchants came back to full voice and lashed before their neighbors stall. Except the beggar's few. These the Merchants left to idle.

And the Beggar's young son began his ply as well but in a much kinder tone. As he had said he was no trained Merchant so spoke of truth about his gods rather than the sins before him.

"People. I would not dare demean your character and lay the sigma of 'follower' upon your persons. Yet I know you have come to this stall because you are bold enough to look above the dust for some more purer drought. Each year the thirst to your throat has dragged you onward from cool shelter to this public well. Your cups reaching, hollow in their ring, where hands grip the stone. And though the depths are shallow, the drop is far.

And people, forlorn people, hear this. For you see it is not our Thirst, our need, our vessel at fault; nor is it the depth or width or sweetness of the well. There is no stretch of man, no matter how giant, how enormous amongst his brothers, who can gather about himself the full length of this reach. Kings to paupers all are the same in this, all are equal in their inadequacy to the need. It cannot be done. Who of you rich as you maybe can buy another inch to your arm? Who of you, of great power and will, can add arm upon arm and close the distance?

Oh I know, Brothers, the fault and folly of all of us, both buyer and seller, in the trickery and gadgets we have attached to our cups. All these falsehoods to be lost, to slip from our grasp and plunge to the depth.

Brother! One would think that the depths would have surely rose to spill over the walls what with this constant add of inventive trappings. But the well is deemed as broad as deep. Our yearnings are but a splash to its eternity of volume; a noise in the dark; no more.

Then what are we to do? Stumble with the ache of a thirst which seems tear a throat to a great gaping hole of dust; whereby our entire being stumbles into? Is this our lot? A cake of salt for our bread and the wine of dust for thirst?

People, people we have been misguided by our own guides. Who have been guided by our laments of need. It is a simple truth in a simple change in direction. We have stared at the distance so long, we are blind, out of focus, to what is see. Is there only one well where this can be seen? Cannot any well give forth the same? The gods, the immortality, the quench of terror can this not be found in other wells closer to a man's hand?

What cruel jester or foaming fool weaved the riddle that worthiness equals remoteness? As if a man dare not love what he can touch or embrace.

If we reach for what is in this well but it remains oblique, why not reach where it is not. If what we see in this well can be seen in all wells, in all vessels, in all cups, then pray Brothers! What is the point of denial?

Enough! Enough!, I say of this blind grinding wheel of history! Let each man take into his hands the drink of destiny, the cup of received communion that he maybe blessed by what he sees, by what he feels, by what he is rather than cursed by what he is blind to, untouched to, and by what he never can be.

You seek gods? In this great well? They are there, seeking you! Where you look, they look. They areas blind as we are blind. They are as hollow as we are hollow. Where we look is nothing. It is what we look for that defines the god.

I do not sell gods. I sell wells, cups, vessels. My task is small; yours is enormous. And your task cannot be given to a slave, a servant to carry. It is solely each man's burden to be the altar of his own god to carry such covenant, such likenesses, such gongs and symbols as he believes worthy of his own god. And to endure the sting of contempt or drive away the clutch of envy as others

should mock or covet to look upon him.

These gods here piled behind me. Inert, stagnant outside your touch. These I offer not as a garden opened; not as a paradise regained but as an ocean of turbulent tears. I offer onto you a place where maidens overstep their skirts and delight the foam to their hips. A place where wise men cling to rocks and know the weight of the moon as it covers their lips, a place where sailors ride ropes and sing, sing for a wild wind in or a wild wind out. Tis no matter except the wildness. A place where pebbles count and massive rolling things don't. Because all is close so close a tangible bond in the infinite liquid that magnificent ebbs to minute and minute rises to awe and splendor. Again and again.

Yes, I know brothers, little of this is understood. But the knowledge of it is heard. Heard whistling down to your hearts brothers. Hearts that wish to go back and thereby go forward and race. Race plunging through this great infinite of expanse. Your gods, your religious, your awakenings piled behind me.

Take them upon yourselves, brothers. I would offer them free as they are never open to price. For in the circle of infinity does not mighty become delicate enough to hold in a palm? And does not priceless therefor become free? Free to those who know its worth, cheap to those who are blind to its preciousness?

But it is also written that doubt gathers the fruits of its own cost. And I know your doubts, brothers. And do not mock them. For the spark of thought is a doubt. And thought is the flame of liberation. So what is doubted must be paid for. Were your doubt to receive upon itself this free gift, it would swell in its disbelieve. And this would bring upon yourselves: the sceptic. And brothers you need not be one of those to dim already blind eyes. To be a doubter of your own doubts, to spend a lifetime defining one question with more questions. Thus the sceptic lives and thinks because he is unwilling to pay the cost of his doubt. Reluctant to place it open before his eyes; all eyes and chance truth written upon it. And thereby lose his doubt and his final cling to significance as he has defined it or crawled to it.

But you are not one of those brothers. They are rarely found so high above the dust. No, you

are seekers, not clingers. Your doubt is carried open as a candle. I ask a bit of its light. A title of 1/10 of what the other god merchants title. For this god you would purchase is only 1/10 as false. Why not absolute? Absolute truth or goodness?

Here I caution you brothers look not upon this god as absolute. For the state of absolution brings upon itself the state of perfection. Be not so cruel, so unkind, my Brothers, as to place this large stone upon the hearts of a god. For perfection yields upon itself the terrible compel of perfection in all acts, thoughts or creations. But did not this god create man; continues to create man? And is this creation perfect? The argument leans to yield yes even at this starting place but most would revolt such an assumption. Or we can give argument that man whether good or evil is perfect to the design he was created for. As if a wheel made half round and half square is suited both for travel and rest. As if the gods have made a perfect universe but order and chaos must abide together like dead and living flies in a cage.

But does this not mean Brothers that every act, every thought, every doubt, every squash of a but, every sin, all, all, all must be joined to some great perfect plan? Think Brothers how we would thus be laden these gods with infinite weight of strings to work this Puppet show. These strings! This life of song played on such a monstrous violin. Perfect the player so perfect the note but a long tedium of harmony till the final curtain falls to eternal call.

And thus of us, Brothers, we become now the perfect Puppets. Bond, chained to the perfect strings we cannot tremble a finger or bat an eye lest a vibration change the strumming tune. Bound, bound in this heavenly web. Where in the name of a perfect god, can will be found? Free will promised or cursed upon man. It is a blind man's circle, Brothers, to follow the will in search of perfection. As perfection itself denies the free will to search onto perfection. It is a closed door this way, my friends and will never answer to the top of your cane.

No go this way, Brothers. Think of a master craftsman. He labors months to build to create a chair. A chair of remarkable beauty and form. But somewhere minute but real is a flaw. It has no effect on the function or appearance of the chair but none the less is a flaw.

And say, we would purchase the chair. And use it to full gratification for months. Then one

day, while polishing the chair, we discover the flaw. Then what is our action, Brothers?

Do we then curse and condemn the master craftsman for the rest of our lives? Curse him for being one step from perfection while we ourselves would be yards away? Do we spend years arguing and lamenting if the flaw was intentional or not? Do we spend hours, Days, years at the craftsman's place begging, pleading, praying for a flawless replacement?

Or are we more merciful and decrease its punishment not corporal but rather continuous. Daily whipping or poked with not iron, perhaps? With a ludicrous large sign stuck upon it where reads: HUMBLY DO I THUS BEAR THE PENANCE OF MY ORIGINAL SIN. Do we continue this chastisement, Brothers, till all beauty is chipped and driven from the chair and its original flaw is forgotten to the sameness, to the marriage of hundreds alike?

ASK YOURSELF, MY BROTHERS, WOULD YOU DO THUS TO A CHAIR? A chair you valued and loved and paid dearly for?

Then why thus to your hearts, your minds, your gods? Your mind is your eye, your heart is a window. Do not rub years away over a slight soreness in one, or a slight smear in the corner in the other. Unfocus the dirt, my friends, and look out. To the bounty of your god freely given.

So I ask this test of your patience, Brothers, Take upon yourselves each a package, each a god. But before you unwrap this most precious vision of each reflect one half of an hour. Reflect between your heart and your mind or your god. Or of what a god would be if thou were allowed construct him. Let your heart and your mind work upon this plan in staid and earnest desire. Forget all other gods before you cept take upon your heart and mind any items you recall of joy or beauty. You need not take upon yourself any god of anyone else whether father, mother, teach, royalty. Build this image, this vision to a god you would worship, love, adore, give your will to, and die for. Build this god to such a breadth of wisdom that you would trod a million leagues to discern from it one great truth. Or build upon your heart and mind a god of such compassion and love that you could not help but become a funnel, a duct to it and feed love and songs of praise to all your brothers. Or a god of justice huge in his defiance of falsehood and evil. His crown a place of foresight for all to judge the ways of only their own paths, not others.

These are only hints, my brothers. Build yours as your heart and mind insists. For what heart has not yearned for a special god; what mind has not thought of a god and world that should be here?

Do this without annoyance or interruption. Do it as if the very fabric of your existence depends upon it. As if the vision you see will turn your very stagger of destiny. Put no limits to this god; remember that what you envision will be yours for eternity.

Then unwrap the paper and look upon your god. Yours forever. The one you envisioned, created. You, the creator of your creator.

And here I caution you again, brothers. You are creators. But who amongst us is of perfect mind or heart. Imperfect will create imperfect. So do not anger or dwell if you see upon the god flaws or imperfections. Remember it is the window as such not the scene. Look past them, these small flaws; look around them and behold the beauty, the joy, the life. Infinite in its possibilities and variations, now defined in its now god like state.

And put this God in the most prominent place in your house for what father would bind his only son; his heir to some closet out of shame before visitors? And put this God in the most lofty peak of your mind and heart. To be taken out of your house as you visit the world; for what father asks his child to keep ten paces behind like a shunned dog.

For, Brothers, your God should be open and in full embrace of the world. Its flaws and imperfections the mere stones and hollows of a path leading higher and higher. If then trip, then trip. This is no sin. But mighty is the sin of the stone heart halted before the pebble. And evil is the stone mind that counts the pebbles on another path.

Brothers, do not flounder, we are all ships pointed to the horizon of destiny; the golden sun of eternity. Do we build anchors or sails? Brothers, enough of this rattling of chains and stench of harbor swill. Unfurl the great pure white billow of your hearts; place vision to the wheel and lift the wake of lightened passage.

Here, Brothers, take these packages. Your buoyant cargo; your maps and compass. Mark upon them with your hearts and minds the lines and points of journey. A journey across this great Well of spirit. Throw down your meager cups and assemble your great Vessels.

Do not gawk and buy what is of lead or clay. Build, Brothers. Assemble. Sail. You are the shipwrights, the sailors, navigators, captains of your own vision. Take up these hammers to build, not destroy. Let each tap be harmonized with your heart. Let vision of your mind stay clean and sharp to the swinging arc. And rejoice the assemblage of your freedom.

"Create your God with your love and you will truly love the God of your Creation."

With this the young Beggar was finished. The crowd came forward and all bought the packages. For a 1/10 the price of other gods as was promised.

These they took home and all sat and meditated on the god they would envision and would love. Then they opened the package and looked; it was a mirror.

But few could ponder or reflect all the words the young Beggar had given them. Few understood his message and thereby felt cheated.

Knowing the young Beggars ways of persuasion, most feared to return to him and demand their money. As they feared to be beguiled or trapped again and thereby lose their purpose.

So they gathered before an officer of the law and brought forth their charges. The Law usually stays distant from the workings of the god merchants but in the face of this collective harangue, it was pushed forward.

The young Beggar's son was arrested (much to the delight of the other merchants) and taken before a judge to have charges addressed and verdicts laid.

The Third Day

And so after a night in jail....... ( Where in, the Beggar's young son caused a small riot by lecturing upon the other inmates that a heart and mind should be never imprisoned whether the body is jailed or merely hampered by the chains of normal society and its Laws and Customs. But some prisoners misunderstood and convinced all to rant and rave at the guards for unlawfully holding their bodies; as by default of natural arrangement to contain a body is to contain the heart and mind in it)

....the Beggar's young son was brought before the courts.

Similar to all courts its arrangement was thus: The judicial seat was loftier than anywhere else so that the vision and wisdom of the judge would not be clouded by the dust of the common scoundrel or the stirrings and diggings of the no less common lawyers. At the back on some benches sat most of the wronged party, all who carried their mirrors in case evidence was required or retribution was immediate. And it was odd for each was as like a hungry cat at an empty bowl, they could not keep their faces out of them. As if each one must continually practice his indignant and injured look to sway the eyes of the judge to these victims. Each would glance about as well to his neighbour's mirror. To ensure the face of righteousness was proper and well received from any angle.

With all this glancing aside and adding faces, the small crowd seemed to swell. Grew from a few to hundreds to thousands. So that it seemed to these judges at the lower bench that the Beggar had not cheated a few but robbed a nation, raped an Empire of all that was orderly and holy. In a sense, they had accomplished what the young Beggar had asked them to do. With a staring stone of hate, they had become invisible to their flaws and could now breathe great smudges of examination upon his. So like all who do crimes against the people, especially the folly of promise, he was condemned for far more than his original charges. A leader never stumbles; he plummets.

The Beggars young son was brought and placed in a wooden cage to the right of the judge's elevated chair. From this vantage point, he could see the crowd and it gave him much grieve to see their angry, cheated looks building on their brows. Despite a previous warning from the guards to behave and keep his tongue very much tied, he would have spoken to them but for the announcement of the judge.

All rose up as the judge entered. An archaic tradition left stand from old times when every man gave doubt as to his own acts before the Law. Whether the law of his own time or the Law of the time he would descend into. And who would dare sit before this Descending Horseman of Keen-bladed Retribution? Better to stand one's own deeds now than lay under those Hooves of Eternal Damnation. And so it came to be that only the pure in the judgement of their own destiny would dare site before man's Law. And so also fear came to be called respect; As only a single man can fear and cringe. Where there are many, a new name must be found.

And it was at this point, that all saw that the Judge was a woman, though her better features were near lost clad in a black robe and a large scarlet hood of Mercy. In her left hand she carried a staff of wood with a small golden vulture on top; wings half unfolded. This staff would be thumped on the ground to mark judgement or decree. Or the hawk tilted towards a transgressor in court to warn of her gathering swoop towards any contempt of her gaze.

In her right hand she carried a small leather box. Inside was a small device for balancing two cups. In this box as well was a pile of coin tokens. A black serpent was painted on one side; a white dove on the other side of each token. As a truth or falsehood is spoken by any of the defence or prosecution, the judge will place to the cup a token. The cups will rise and fall in balance to each other throughout the proceedings. And in the end, find that justice is served by the raising of a cup.

For it does not matter whether the token is thrown in for truth or falsehood. Truth weighs as heavy to the guilty as falsehood drags down the innocent. And though truth shall always set the innocent free; any strong falsehood can lever the rock from damnations tomb.

It is all the same; the judge has merely to indicate by her taste of the proceedings whether the contents of the raised cup be pure or bitter.

Only if the cups hover to the same n\height is calamity struck. For here the truth of one is no greater than the falsehoods of another. Everything is at balance. Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Right. As in the world, so in the court, so in the cups. Inertia prevails. As now all things move with all things. None can judge right or left, up or down when the signposts move at random. What was a trial becomes a failed experiment in gravity. A mistrial is called for no one can judge an act unless they be outside the act; but in the balance of good and evil there are no spectators; all hover on the high wire, gently nudging neighbour to neighbour. Only those too good or too evil will topple and fall and be judged by lower eyes.

The judge sat down and arranged her beam of balance and staff as suited her. Then spoke: "Let the court begin and let judgement and if required sentencing be of justice in the eyes and ears of all peoples and their gods."

The High Clerk (the rank of Court Clerks noted by the height of their black pointed caps) stepped to the cage of the Beggar's young son. He looked upon a sheet of parchment in his hand and asked: "Will the prisoner please state to the court his full name."

To which the young man replied "I am known as the Beggar's young son, your Clerkship."

With a look of infinite patience under great oppression, the clerk sighed and looked to the judge. "Your Honour, I have already undertaken the immense burden of speaking to this oddity of obstruction last night. He refuses to speak of any other name but this appendage. It is hoped that you may wish to send him for an interview with a few of the Royal Inquisitions that they may lighten the heavy load of his name from his clownish lips."

Judge: "Tis true, clerk, that Royalty has a habit of sending what's left of its miscreants to us, but I would rather not begin a traffic with them. These are cloudy days of civilization enough without throwing up that dustbowl of enormous herding back and forth. Besides I doubt a fair exchange between what is sent and what is returned. They it seems have larger appetites, as it should be with their different stature. The beak of Justice is most content when empty while the jaws of others would sing praise over heaps upon the ground. So let us hear no more of exchanging racks for beams."

Then turning to the young man, she spoke: "If a sparrow wishes the name of jay it is still nonetheless a sparrow. And must be tried for the crimes of a sparrow with the prejudices against a jay. In Court it is best to be one thing so as not to appear to hide the crimes of all things.

If your name, your true name, is one of hideous crimes in other lands, then speak it! For here in this court we try the man for the crime of the day. For what is retribution, what is compensation if a man must pay again and again if only for shame? We, the court would be of the greater guilt in taking again and again what was fully paid. And if thou has not paid for crimes in other lands done in another name, then speak it! For if thee are charged with theft on this day, are you then a thief because you murdered hundreds? No, my son, be reassured. The court must proof a murderer a thief or a saint a thief it is the same task. If you stole a sack of flour, we care not your morals of men's lives, we care only your morals towards sacks of flour. If you stole it to make bread or to use it as a stone to crush a man's head, we care not. We try the act of thievery only for the day of thieving.

And if thou hide thy name to hide a father's sin or generation's of sins, then speak it! For if the court will not heed the stamp of murder before the day of thievery, will it heed a father's stamp? No, a man is on trial for his deed not his conception. Beyond the courts, yes, a man must drag the chains of his family in glory and in infamy. But in the courts, a man has but one chain; the chain of his crime; his deed. To be unfettered or secured based solely on the innocence or guilt of his one deed.

But in the balance of justice, young man, the who is no more essential than the why. To the clerk, thou could have given a thousand names which though false would have rung true to his ears pressed low in his cap. But doggedly thou stuck to a name clearly inventive yet of some meaning to yourself.

Let it not be said that justice is a false exit in my court. A man who has a choice is given the dignity of pre-innocence. The court has no fear; for it is a clumsy thing in the hands of the false.

Choose who or why then young beggar. Tell us thy true name or tell us why thou prefer your epithet."

To this request, the young Beggar answered: "You are most gracious, Your Honour, and your own speech suits your deeds well. Yours is suited for your calling and mine is to mine.

What name I had before this label, in truth, I cannot recall. For I was an orphan; again how or why I shadow not. A street ermine, tiny feet amok in the fruit stalls of another place. There a man called by some a Beggar, by others a King adopted me. By no more legal means than the tug of a hand; the beckon of an eye. Obscure I know to speak of him as a beggar and a king. Yet for many he seemed a king with no state so noble his bearing; for many a beggar without needs so compassionate his thoughts. Some said he had forsaken kingdoms for pearls lifted up from the streets. Some said his heart was the purest jewel ever before found by man. Certainly wide were the variations of men who flocked to him whether for argument or comfort in words.

And I was with him night and day but mostly at a skirt of distance so constant was the press of humanity upon him. Always people with questions; always people with doubts. All received what they had asked for but more than a few were bitter with their gift. Huddled in mean little groups glancing and mumbling at where he sat.

Finally when the throng had dispelled for the night, we would sup. And then he would call for me 'Child' he would call or as I grew older 'Boy', sometimes 'My son'. He would ask me questions of what I had seen and heard in the day. Questions of what I understood in what he had said through the day. Many times my answers brought a smile and light laughter to his lips. These times he would rebuke his closest followers with 'See, the child knows me with his innocent and spacious heart.' What is the shuffle of old knowledge compared to his leap of faith. A child knows as a child only hears the notes, he has not learned to spend all his time probing for lies in the empty spaces between or he would say 'a child listens with his eyes; his eyes wide to another's garden. For all the glorious scent, his eyes will mark the thistles. A child listens to a hand gentle on his shoulder. The harder becomes the hand, the more guilt turns his cheek. And innocence strays from truth'".

With this the young Beggar stopped and looked upon the crowd at the back with such a stillness of commiseration that the whole court was hushed, almost hypnotised to await the ring of tear dropping in the dust.

After a brief wait, the judge softly interjected "And where is your father now, this kingly beggar?"

"He is dead your Honour. Killed by the others. Not by his closest followers I mean but by the people. He had made too many bitter, they could stand no longer the look of his gaze. Too old a terror in their heart they could not heed lover only the hollowness of accusation. They could not see what he had only what he didn't have. So they accused him of this and that, then hurriedly killed him. In order that he would remain as one of them and no longer ridicule their crawl by his gentle (but towering) stride.

I was away when it happened. He sent me on a long errand to another town. I suppose he knew it was going to happen. His followers were in a state of confusion. Some wanted to run. Some to begin a church or such like. Some a revolution. There was talk the Master had returned from the dead; some had seen it. Once or twice.

These things and what became of them I do not know. For I was quickly shunned and made to know my 'innocence' was no longer required for the building of Greater things. Just as well. For already in a day the thistles I saw sprouting in his garden brought shame to my heart.

So I left. I had come as a child with his innocence bundled on a stick. Lived as a boy with his father, fed from the plate of understanding. Gone out as a man; his shame carried in a sack heavy upon his shoulder. Child, boy, man; too short a procession to learn what we are called upon to see.

But as I walked this old path of distance; of solitude, my heart would not remain so bitter. My father's words and eyes came forth time and again. Let the others do what they will with his name and his words. All growers are given the same seed.

A son is different than a follower. When the king falls let the armies, the captains, the followers run, flee or do as they wish.

The son alone has his duty. To pick up the standard and renew the challenge, the fight. It is the destiny of the son to wear the tools of his father's trade.

So I choose too the beggarly walk of words and glances. A marriage to the people, a love of compassion. To let my rags and empty cups dispel hesitation. No man need fear me so all will give onto me. My heart will flourish in the rain of their truths. While their falsehoods and truths give my hungry mind great hard nuts to pick at travelling down the path. I try to give what I get; sow what I reap. But I am not my father.

In this I err constantly. Anyone can gather; few can number the seed. Fewer still the courage to guide the plow. As time wore on I began to see that many can become skilled to a trade but few are Masters. That is a special gift; an intimacy with one's tools. He needed no apprenticeship; I fear the same cannot be said of myself. None the less a toil embraced is its own reward; I do not seek his place only his footsteps.

Hence my name. For I could not journey as 'man'. That name is too common in its lack and too arduous, too elite in its fullness. I choose the Beggar's son to mark my lineage and vocation. And added young, not because there is more than me, but because it lends to the name the caution of inexperience yet a lifting of hope."

Judge: " Given the why of your name is it seems of far more value than the who other men place to theirs, the Court will accept Beggar's young son as a proper designation. Please continue, Clerk."

With a rather piqued expression (he had really hoped for the rack as a solution), the clerk wrote onto the sheets the beggar's name. He then asked the prisoner.

"What is the name of thy God that you may be sworn to it to utter no falsehood in this court?"

"Truth" stated the young beggar.

At this the Clerk began checking long list of God names kept by the Courts for this purpose. After a careful study and checking the list three times (with suitable mumblings) he spoke: "There is no Truth written with the List of Gods. Is it from your place of origin only?"

It wasn't till the chucklings around the court had died down with a slight tilt of the Judge's staff that the clerk realized this butt of irony, and at his cost. Ears slightly reddened under his cap he glowered at the young man and said "Truth is a conceptual thing and is not allowed as a God. Pick another."

The Beggar replied "If I swear by another, than I am false because I swear by something I believe to be false. I cannot then do a good thing by a bad means. That is to say I would not save a child stuck in a tree by cutting down the tree. Or save on oil for the lantern by plucking my eyes out. If, however, I swear by Truth to tell truth, each time I tell the truth I move closer to my completion and, therefore, honourable status of my vow.If I swear by falsehood to tell the truth, each time I tell the truth I move further from my vow. I would instead be compelled to utter falsehoods in order to remain completely true to my vow of falsehood."

Having absolutely no comprehension what this meant, the clerk returned with: "It must be a God so that you can be punished by that God if you deviate in your vow".

Young man: "Then with Truth one has the best God of all for the Court's purpose. Many other Gods can be bought and sold; reprisals, sins dispelled or bartered against. There are many men who seemingly have Gods of Falsehoods, Treachery or Compromise.

But Truth does not waiver. The act is; the deed is; the thought is. Truth will accept no compromise on this. The nature, the result, the intent can be judged or weighed but Truth is not changed. What was said or done is held eternally unchanged. No amount of incense or goat's blood will sway its vision.

And Truth has one other great advantage over Gods. When a man is caught by Truth he is immediately tried and judged. But a man caught by a God seldom sees immediate reprisal. God's exist in magnitude of their followers; if they killed them all or drove them away with severe punishment where would then the God exist? Therefore this state of penance serves the man and the God to allow resubmission and sustain existence of both. A man who swears by a God today knows he will largely have time for restitution at a later date. Evil, falsehood can be allowed today and persecution avoided later. This is hardly a deterrent if a falsehood will glean immediate benefits.

But Truth is immediate and unretractable. A falsehood today will bring the full force of her (truth) wrath today. There is no escaping; no delaying. No bargains or pleas, Truth has only eyes; no ears and no need of any man or men to exist to maintain Truth's existence.

Hence I choose Truth to ring for the hollowness of my words as each is spoken. If they ring false those here who are not false will note the discord. And justly punish me today. There is little sense in the need for a God to offer rebukes at death's door. The time for truth is now, not then."

At the end of this, the clerk looked up to the judge in an extremely oppressed manner and simply queried "Your Honour?"

Judge: "Can we deny if a man chooses the name of virtue to guard against deceit?

Should we ask a man to bend his will of believe that it may fit the common mold; and thereupon make him less than he was? When we wish judge all he is, not some lesser part; while a good deal of himself is kept aloof from the proceedings.

And if we find a part guilty can we pass judgement on the whole, the rest being innocent? Or at least untried.

But if in the name of his God, his Truth, he thereby offers all of himself can we ask more or less?

Your lists are common and average, good clerk. But in court we try the exact man to the exact crime. There is no need for an average height, or size, or skin, or God. All the facts, the facts fit the man. We want no part of a man carved to fit the facts. Commonness pollutes the elite. And in court, the man is elite to his crime since only he can be it's cause, no other. He is unique to it as it to him. This path of rigidity from crime to fact to the man is essential for justice. Wavering, averaging cannot be allowed. The paths grow so large that all become guilty of everything.

If a man wishes to swear by your cap, my good clerk, so be it! So long as it is precisely just your cap. He cannot swear by your cap but secretly mean another. For in court it is the exactness of Truth which is sought not conformity. Since by its nature conformity is false; all truly stand to the right or left of it.

I would rather this man stand with truth than rebuke his inability to conform from it. If in justice conformity is deemed higher than truth, than why are not his prosecutors, those who bring suit of collective damage, his judges as well? Because Justice as Truth cares only for the one man and the one crime; did THIS man do THAT crime; whether done against one or hundreds. Those numbers are weighed in the sentence not the verdict.

Only the exact truth must be allowed. No compromise. If Truth is not on your lists, will I aggravate the error and have it said I would not allow truth in my court? For the sake of conformity, not justice?

I think not. We will allow the prisoner to have his god, truth. May they both serve each other well. Please continue, clerk."

"Thank you, your Honour" the clerk replied though his face denied any sincerity.

Turning to the young man, he asked "Does the prisoner have any BRIEF objections to the judge chosen this day to try your case? If so, another can be arranged if the objections are deemed warranted."

Judge: "As you are a stranger to our city, let me explain that this law was introduced to help reduce retrials due to objections as to the fairness or skill of a judge. This especially became excessive as judges of my gender became more numerous. Men first expected leniency but when justice was given out, they were disappointed. Though the sentences were no more severe then from a male judge, retrials were much in demand. As it always seems that those who reap much misfortune from their own misdeeds are the first to cry 'foul' amongst fair play."

To this, the young man answered: "As to gender who better to judge the crime of men's deeds than those by far the most recipient of the abuse?"

Judge: "In that case, would not one expect more reprisals or severity of judgement?"

Young Man: "Yes if they were like men. As men tend to lump; to group together; especially offences and offenders. In the street men will judge a group by one and judge one by the group. A tiny indifference with a tiny crime it does not matter. Upon that alone men will build great prejudices against entire groups or races even. That is why mobs are filled with men, not women.

But for a woman the world of injustice is more a singular essence. She can hate or love enormously but little of that will spill to another, or a group. This flare of intensity marking this and that is sparked by a profoundness gleaned from child-birthing. A woman knows in a deep spiritual fount that birth is unique by individual not mob or group or race. The truth of this ingrained so deep much deeper than a man, she can never entirely dispel it. And rightly so. If great crimes have been done upon her, she will despise those who did the crimes. If it be a man, she will not seek revenge on all men. Only the one man.

For this reason, Justice is thought as woman. She will pursue the one man for his one deed, obscure to his group or deeds before him.

So, your honour, I have no objections to your gender. As to your skill and fairness I have heard you speak. And believe you fair. As I have only truth to offer I do not fear ears that know its tune. I accept this Judge, High Clerk."

Clerk: "A final question, what is the name of your counsel for the defence of your case?"

Young man: "As the name is now acceptable I give you the Beggar's young son as my sole defender."

To this reply the clerk let out a quite melodious and loud groan and placed his face in his hands.

Judge: My troubled clerk, surely you cannot protest this self-defence is a common enough thing in court.

Clerk: I beg your pardon your Honour. For a moment I was overcome with grieve for my poor wife and children. With the prisoner himself asking and answering his own questions, I've no doubt I shall see my death before this trial staggers to an unheard of lengthy end. And thereby I fear my family will never see me alive again.

Chuckles and murmur of ascent were heard around the court.

Judge: "Have no fear, impertinent clerk, your family shall yet delight in your presence at the end of the day. One cannot drive justice faster like a dumb brute. It is the flight of a hawk and will swoop when the game is marked and the wind is right. Till then time is in the hands of the hare.Proceed with your readings."

Taking up the sheet of papers, the clerk had wrote upon he read:

"This man known as the Beggar's young sone is charged with Blasphemy and Fraud brought upon by selling false items as gods in the Market Place. How do you plead before your God Truth?"

Young man: "Not guilty"

Not allowing even a second for some addition or debate to begin the clerk blurted out, "I now call upon the Pointer of Prosecution to give statement" with this done, the clerk gratefully collapsed to his seat.

A bald stout man with a great beard arose or rather almost stepped out from his chair (so little change was there in his height) and came to the front of the court.

He spoke: "Your Honour, today we have seen a little already of the frivolous yet cunning machinations of the prisoner's tongue. We are amused because we here are learned and though can guffaw at his antics we would not be swayed to let them twist our minds or turn our hearts.

But the people, the common people of our city are perhaps not so used to the dance of a serpent's tongue. They were beguiled and bewitched. Their minds numbed and their hearts pulled and then their pockets turned inside out.

This young man came to the Market Place, unknown, unwelcomed. Created enough verbal disturbance with the other godly merchants to attract a crowd. He had upon himself a pile of mirrors wrapped in paper. To this crowd he weaved such a wondrous tale about gods and men that even now it is difficult to get a complete story. Each person at his selling spot seems to have heard so many different things.

And through his trickery of verse convinced each one to buy a mirror. But no one knew they were mirrors only that the prisoner promised them each a god.

A god of their own making, no less! Each was to go home and picture in their mind some god then unwrap and look at the mirror. Of course all only saw a picture of themselves. No god. None at all. This is fraud. Whether known or unknown before hand, whether seen or unseen before hand if one thing is promised and another thing, esp of lesser value, delivered then this is fraud!

And insidious throughout the package given is the idea that each person can be a god. This is sacrilege! Blasphemous! The gods are completely independent and above man. To attempt to persuade innocent simple folk that they are themselves gods is not only a perversion; it is dangerous. All that a man does; all that a man acts is kept confined and safe with the rigours of our Law, Society and Customs. But gods are not! and any men who would think themselves gods would not. Anarchy. Mayhem.

No, your Honour, this line between man and God is kept sharp and clear. This line called death. Till then man cannot degenerate the worth of the gods by calling himself one. We need only look around to understand why man's foul grasp must not soil the hem of the gods. All we have, all we are is based on a religion of godly purity. Let no blasphemous beggar tear this down! Look at him shut up in a cage of sticks. Is he a god? To be harnessed and chastised like any man? No he is no builder, but a leveller. No priest but a sham for he speaks of virtue yet cheats the poor. No beggar but a plotter. Two days in the city and dangerous words with his dangerous thought bring riot.

With blasphemy in his heart and fraud on his hands he is marked for imprisonment or death, your Honour."

His ending flourish complete with a wide fling of his arm, the Pointer of Prosecution sat down.

The Clerk then rose and asked for a statement from the Defence.

From the cage, the Beggar's young son spoke these words: "Blasphemy as accurately defined by the Pointer of Prosecution is to call something a god which cannot be a god. It can also be to deny something is a god when in fact it is a god. He also expertly pointed out that fraud was to deliver less than was promised. I promised a god; none was supposed seen. My case becomes an unusual twist. My defence demands a greater offence in that I must prove the Prosecution blasphemous if I am to prove I was not. He denies the god, I do not. Both are equal if in error, that is to believe in nothing or to have nothing to believe in.

From this we see the nothings cancel like a mathematical riddle. And we are left with belief. Do we believe or not? This becomes the dividing line of men. Not what they see but what they believe they see. Nothing or Faith. If we believe the vision of faith obscured or misguided, we merely adjust the helm and continue the journey. But Nothing is blind, a lost vessel, it is the way of broken drift.

Such the danger is the great smash of blasphemy. That we prove a man utterly blind in his lack of believe. And leave him wrecked, marooned to his despair. Few men have the courage to set sail again when horizons widen to dawn.

We are in a damnable place, Mr. Prosecutor. The innocence of my heart manacled to your spiritual eyes. Shall I free the first to the hills and thereby wrench for all time visions from your spirit? No jail or death is of little discomfort to a Beggar but what agonies a blind Prosecutor? He could not glean the light of justice or shadow of false but must grope his balance. No that deed done would imprison my heart deadly. We must together find a key, Mr. Prosecutor, that both can be right, both can be wrong and neither blasphemous. Is this not the way of most men? Doubt with hope; question with opinion?

We have merely to prove that the God wasn't there and was there. Thus ends blasphemy.

As to the question of fraud, if a thing is a god and sold as a god, where is the fraud? If I prove to you that it is a god but only to those of vision to believe, should I be tried for another's lack of vision? These are no verbal tumblings or wit of tricks but rather again probes, stirrings into the mysterious mires of what men believe.

Had I said a stool was a chair and sold chairs would I be called fraud? Or a clever thief of business? Would not others of business applaud my subtle trade and cry the sourest grapes against any fools who complain of cheat? I called a stool a chair; their eyes conspired the same. And their small hearts glee to receive a chair at a stool's price.

But all say this godly barter is a different thing and I agree. In religious things the worth must excel the cost. For some things, like beliefs, are priceless. I sold only the tools; instructed only the reflection. The believer must build; the believer must see.

I promised a God; I could not promise Belief, I delivered a God; I could not deliver Faith.

If I prove the god is there, I prove the fraud is not and thereby my innocence."

`And there ended the speech for the Defence.

For the next couple of hours, a long tedious line of witnesses were called for the Prosecution. God merchants, buyers assorted of the merchants and of the beggar. Also the tall man, the beggar had discourse with in the market the previous day. The short man was not called. Tedious it was in its long tale of the Destroyer of the World.

And oddly enough the Defence deferred to cross-examine or even object as the points of accusation grew less exact and more broad. As if each succession of witness must out do the previous testimony of wrong and woe. A mockery of who could gather the largest faggot and drop it at the beggar's feet. Who could mold the largest stone and cast its deadly form.

By ignoring this frenzy; this mobbish report, the Defence in fact brought much credibility to its own case. Like a man who ignores the snarl of alley curs, we see the master by his unaltered stride. Their barks had no bite as all now had shed the teeth of truth. Lost; imbedded worrying at the bars of restraint.

The brush and paint of these lies began to be thrown so careless that the rain of point covered more the stand of the prosecution than the wall of defence. The Pointer of Prosecution began almost the duties of Defence, questioning, cajoling, even demanding to steer the witness back to some course of truth. But for most this was too minor a call; their duty extended to the creative.

Some claimed to have had horrible visions and dreams the night after viewing the mirror.

One woman claimed (in sign language) to have become mute.

Another man vemently claimed in tears that his youngest boy had walked to the mirror as it leaned in a corner. He had stepped into it and fallen to some unreachable hellish world and was lost forever.

Or another that the sound of church bells and devil screams came out from his mirror.

Another woman claimed a hand had come from her mirror and gripped her by the breast till she was faint with pain. Then someone had chopped her loose. The cut away limb had fallen to the ground and transformed to a rat. And scurried away. For modesty's sake she could not show the court the scars of this horrible attack but was willing to procure a surgeon's note if desired.

Finally the prosecution ceased to call more of these witnesses of grander things. Though there were three or four more left. They sat with faces pained of their disappointment for they had tales to top them all. But the Prosecution knew the Judge had heard enough of this incredibility and more would undoubtably tip the favour to a slandered Defence. Best to hold a pace neck to neck. Too much lather and foam at halfway can cost a leg before the line. Stall the hammer and build and give the Defence time to weave its own bit of rope.

So the Point of Prosecution was done and declared his rest. But his rest was to lie short lived.

The Clerk rose and asked "Does the defence wish to call any witnesses?

To this request the young Beggar replied "Yes I wish to call to the stand the honourable Point of Prosecution".

Murmurs rippled through the Court as the Prosecutor jumped to his feet and stammered "I...I object your Honour. Never before, never in any case I've been party to or heard tell of has the Prosecution testified. A witness is called such as he or she who gives witness. To give witness is to have seen or have an opinion of. This suggests, in fact demands partiality. Whereas to be the Prosecution is to be impartial to the trial before and after. To have no bias from scenes witnessed before and to have no stake of personal gain or loss in the hereafter. I cannot be both partial and impartial; cannot be both witness and prosecution. There are lines in a Court that restricts the movement of the players. Including you, your Honour. Without these lines the fine balance of aloofness is temporized. Tamper thus and springs may be sprung. The march of justice in time stalled to its natural revolutions. The result an adjustment faulty and irrecoverable. The whole mess gone to the bin. The case is not won or lost but simply broken. Do not heed yonder budding oracle's bid for drama and play. Let him, as he chooses his own Defence, stay within the normal, lawful rules of Defence of the Court.

I am sure that given enough time and enough proverbial metaphors, our acrobatic dustbin here could prove the end of the earth lies three feet behind my backside (again courtly chuckles and nods of agree) but will any of these charades make him more or less innocent? Though it by chance shows the wondrous sly and cunning of his deceit.

No your Honour, let him take up his defence according to the rules of our Court, not his court. His ways are on trial not ours.

To this the Judge stated: I understand your misgivings, Pointer and I must say that I too am reluctant to allow such a radical turning of our normal course. Before I rule, however, I would ask the prisoner to state why he wishes to hear witnesses from the Prosecution.

The young beggar replied: My case, your Honour and good Prosecution is to play no new novel trick or heap embarrassment upon my sole witness. It is in fact the deadly seriousness of my accused soul that gives me ask this unusual bequeath. My case hinges upon a pair. A pair of facts as these: one, are God and man at a likeness? and two, did I sell a God?

The Prosecution must prove, has in fact proven in the liberality of their facts my impending guilt. In this fair court, innocence is upheld prior to verdict. I cannot prove my innocence, that is to say, I cannot prove what all already know me to be. Innocent. Innocence defined as 'not to know' I cannot prove what I do not know. But I can prove I am not guilty? Not quilty as defines as 'to know; then to weigh; then to judge; then to act', knowledge giving right action mark a man not guilty. Many innocent men have been condemned unknowingly by the point, the gesture, of guilty. Never is a man who is not guilty treated as such.

So I cannot idle in my screen, my cage of innocence and await verdicts. I must act to show my guiltless knowledge of my acts. And is this not a crime of concepts, this blasmephy? This fraud, a crime of faith, of vision? Crimes against the mind. And where lies this mind I have unjustly (or so accused) puzzled? In the head of those who prosecute me. And their Head is the Pointer of Prosecution.

I could assail the whole body limb by limb, toe by finger. A tedium of trial.

In concepts, in Truths, is it not better to persuade the head, the mind, of all that is man. If the head knows, cannot we assume the limbs will heed also. Guide the mind, will the body have no choice but follow? When the mind opens to truth's fragrance, will not the limbs ungather their angry folds and give embrace?

For these reasons I ask to show my guiltless path to the Head, the Pointer of Prosecution. Through my questions and his knowledge, his witness, we will journey to the truth of my verdict.

Judge: I perceive what you wish to now gleen, young man. I, myself, however, have grave doubts that all bodies follow the sceptre of their lofty minds. Or perchance it is the minds which fall slumber from un-use and get dragged behind the vacant lot.

This will not be case of the Pointer of Prosecution. He has a will bent not to your ideals. He has no desire to uncover your guiltless path. Why try your swing on such proven hard mettle?

Beggar's Son: Tis a not a battle of wits, I seek, with battering tongues against shields of bone but a sifting ofash. An accumulation of tiny bones and bits of coal. To reconstruct the past in what was there and what was not. Cold facts but one must be infinitely delicate in their handle. This is no blacksmith's act but a jeweller's.

You say the Pointer of Prosecution is hard willed. True, but where better to search than a place multilayered with solid packed use. Fire upon fire. Flame of thought built; extinguished upon flame of thought. Where better to poke than the greatest heap?

If I seek gold would I not knock at the rich man's door?

Your Honour, you have said that the Prosecution has no desire to uncover my guiltless path. I would add, Your Honour, that neither has he a compel of lose or gain in sending out a wide scatter of truth. For are not his duties a light, a beacon in the dark ways of man? He is no gravedigger given to bury what should be upheld.

For in the Courts, as in the world, the Prosecutioners point straighter than our Defence. For it has been said "A friend knows thy faults, but only an Enemy will spill them at your feet".

I wish to spill the faultlessness of my acts to the Court's feet. Who better to help than the trusted enemy of my defence, the Prosecution?

Judge: Providing the Prosecution has no further objections, your unusual request is granted.

With a grin, the Prosecution shrugged his shoulders good naturedly and replied: "I am only human, Your Honour and as such am given to be wooed and flattered. Having been Called the Golden Beacon of Illuminating Flame in Pinnacled Thought, I can hardly waver and sit dim in this shadow of cornered glare. I must use and assume my higher place, that this wandering beggar may have his Vision." And with a pat to his large belly, finished with:" It is the eternal calling of all Great Shining Spheres to bear witness upon the follies of man"

Even the Judge could not avoid a chuckle over these satiric jests.

The Pointer of Prosecution sat in the witness chair and was duly sworn in. From his cage, the Beggar's young son began his questioning.

Beggar: Would you, sir, define your meaning of the word: likeness.

Prosecution: I would say it means that objects are similar; a sameness.

Beggar: Exactly the same?

Prosecution: No, not exactly; but rather properties of some type are exact or in proportion.

Beggar: Could things of likeness have the same exactness but varying proportion?

Prosecution: What do you mean?

Beggar: A small ball and a huge ball are exact in their construct and shape but are quite dissimilar in proportion. Is this still likeness?

Prosecution: Very much so.

Beggar: Would a small cube and huge ball have a likeness?

Prosecution: No, they differ much in construct and proportion.

Beggar: Then a large cube and a large ball would have a likeness due to similar proportion?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: What if we had a rat, a small cube and a huge ball which two have the greater likeness?

Prosecution: No, they differ much in construct and proportion.

Beggar: Then a large cube and large ball would have a likeness due to similar proportion?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: What if we had a rat, a small cube and a huge ball which two have the greater likeness?

Prosecution: I would say the cube and the ball as they are inanimate whereas the rat is a living thing.

Beggar: But did we not find previously that the cube and ball had no likeness?

Prosecution: Yes, but the introduction of the rat changed the frame of comparison.

Beggar: Then likeness is not an absolute value but judgmental; that is dependent upon the point of reference. What is this point of reference?

Prosecution: I would say it is set by the viewer to mark the specific scope or area of his concern. That is to say, if the viewer is concerned about colour he will judge likeness by colour ignoring proportion, content, etc.

Beggar: Do you mean to say the viewer will 'bend' things to his own judgement of likeness?

Prosecution: No, he will not distort the objects. They are inert. He will simply set up a gate of two poles in his mind. Those of a likeness to the picture on the gate pass through. Those which do not cannot pass through. He simply ignores all that is of non-likeness in his frame of mind. If there was a small red cube, a large orange ball and a large red parrot and three men judged them; one by colour; one by size; one by living or inanimate there would be large disagreement to likeness.

Beggar: Could the other two men convince the man judging by colour that the parrot and the cube are not unlike?

Prosecution: No. Never.

Beggar: Why is that do you think.

Prosecution: Two things. One is that fundamentally the man of colour knows truth in his 'frame of mind'. They are not arguing with a doubtful man. The second problem is that for each to argue his case in the mind of the other is absurd. The logics of their systems do not fit, they would babble misunderstood in three languages.

Beggar: Is there any way these men can find a common language to compare with?

Prosecution: I would guess that before they argue their judgements, they should discuss and clarify their values.

Beggar: You mean if their values are different, their judgements cannot be but different?

Prosecution: Yes, cause and effect.

Beggar: Would you suggest then the three men come to a compromise or a blending of their values before passing judgement?

Prosecution: No that again is absurdity. For each man to take a little colour, a little size, a little living will result in a ridiculous unanimous verdict that all things are alike and not alike. Philosophically it may sound pretty but it has absolutely no use or resolution for each man's needs and wants in the judgement of his values. What seemed at first a solution is simply a stalemate and worse a dilution of each man's values.

Beggar: But there is now harmony, is there not?

Prosecution: No, I disagree. Harmony is the playing of musical instruments to a combined creation, yet each has its own notes and tempo to play. These men have not created harmony but silence.

Beggar: A solution?

Prosecution: That each declare his system of values and any other men of the same incline gather about him. The others of different value do likewise. Let all the values be known and understood. Where the values differ, let them differ. Must a flower be a weed or a weed be a tree? The same with men. Where the values differ, expect different judgements. A man can easily err his judgement. But whether he is in error or not is to be judged within his peer of values. For will not all others of different values see his judgement as error regardless of its absolute truth within his values.

Beggar: If 100 men have 100 different values of likeness to our three objects, can it not be said that each will be wrong 99 out of 100 times at least?

Prosecution: No, error is only known within the absolute place of a man's values.

Beggar: If our man of colour, judged wrongly, he would then be an ally of another. 2 against 1! As if agreement can only be found by the collective error of men rather than an understanding of values.

Prosecution: No, when the values are clear, let any error be reprimanded by those of the same values, only.

Then when each man of different values, states his judgement of likeness, conflict will not result since none expected agreement!

This is your harmony, Beggar's son, different notes without conflict. Recomposed by understanding.

Beggar: May I just say sir that I am stunned by the richness of this first layer we have sifted through.

Prosecutor: None of your glibs and digs, Beggar, just the questions. (But he did look a little pleased with himself).

Beggar: To give a little clarification then, sir. Can we say that 'likeness' is a phenomena which implies similar characteristics of construct or proportion specific to the reference of the viewer as defined solely by the viewer. That the judgement of 'likeness' is as equally dependent on the viewer's value of reference as it is on the objects themselves.

Prosecution: Yes, I believe those were the major points we touched upon.

Beggar: Then let us continue this way. What would we claim as the parts of a man which bring him above his lesser living partners in this world?

Prosecution: Ah... I would say abstract thinking. Ah... some emotions. And language, communication.

Beggar: Excellent, sir. I have another I might introduce later but first we will focus on these. Now, which emotions did you mean?

Prosecution: Obviously animals will know fear, or pain, or loneliness. I was thinking of emotions of a more intellectual construct like hate, guilt resentment, joy, recrimination, love, justice, ones like that.

Beggar: Could we say it is those emotions which are formulated in the mind rather than as a direct physical need or attack?

Prosecution: Yes that is it. A coyote does not hate rabbits. It will not create some impelling urge to kill only white rabbits and leave brown ones alone. Only man can stoop to something that difficult in logic.

Beggar: Could we say its origins lie in the abstract thinking?

Prosecution: Yes, I believe we could.

Beggar: Now as to language and communication do not animals communicate?

Prosecution: Yes but again in a very uncomplicated way. And a dog regardless of what type or place barks the same for the same reasons. There is no universal human language.

Beggar: Why is this?

Prosecution: Again for the complexity of what we wish to say. No sooner is a word created, then vacant holes are seen on each side of it of what it doesn't describe. So new words are made; old ones forgotten.

Beggar: But surely the world is not so changing, so complicated as this. How many words are needed to survive?

Prosecution: Ah, but there is more in a man's world than food and drink. There is law and theology and philosophy and government. Such things devour words and language for their very service and multiply. These are not places for mere barks and grunts. Here are needed words exact and delicate for the fit of lofty thoughts and ideas.

Beggar: Not to be tedious, but again, could we not say the language of man stems or lies within his abstract thinking.

Prosecution: Yes, again, I suppose we could. It, in fact, stems from the need to express his abstract thinking to others.

Beggar: Does he not need the language to communicate with himself within his own abstract thinking?

Prosecution: I would prefer to argue that he uses pictures, images in his mind to construct his thinking. These must be then converted to language to be explained to others outside his mind.

Beggar: But do not men go through a continuous flow of conversion and re-conversion between language and image in their abstract thinking?

Prosecution: I'm not sure what you mean?

Beggar: Say a man was to think of Eternity, he draws up in him mind pictures, images of who and what might be there. He then draws upon the words of others to see how well they match his images. If they don't he may construct new words or phrases or he may construct new images to fit the language taken in. The critical stage he is in now is that he uses both image and language in his abstract mind to communicate within himself about Eternity. If he formulates a concept, he can attempt to communicate this to other men by language or by the construction of images through language or through art. Would not abstract thinking then be both the fountain and the receiving vessel of language and image?

Prosecution: Yes, I must agree there is a process of building within the abstract mind which is as you say.

Beggar: How would you define creation?

Prosecution: In its purest form it is to bring forth something out of nothing.

Beggar: Spontaneously?

Prosecution: What do you mean?

Beggar: That is to say something spontaneously of no accord from any influence or desire simply emerges from nothing. Is that what you mean?

Prosecution: No, not exactly, though I would not discount that happening. No I was thinking of it as an act of conscience of some being which results in creation.

Beggar: If a man took the door off a house, would he have created a new house?

Prosecution: No, he would have simply taken away from the old one.

Beggar: If a man added a room to the old house, would he have created a new house?

Prosecution: No, he would have simply added to the new one.

Beggar: If a man tore out all the insides and built new ones, is this creation?

Prosecution: No, it is merely alteration.

Beggar: What if the man completely disassembled the old house; every board; every nail. Then with all that, he constructed a different house is that creation?

Prosecution: Since in reality he took something and changed it to something else, he did not create but rather reformed. It is in fact an act of transformation.

Beggar: If the man stood in the old house and imagined a house in detail and construct completely different from the other house, surely this would be creation?

Prosecution: No, I am afraid not, the clue lies in the old house. The man took the language, the images of the old house and reformed them to a different house. Again this is transformation albeit of an abstract, mental type. He did not 'create' from thin air but used old thoughts.

Beggar: It would appear, sir, that we have reached the pinnacle of our arguments and find man lies short of creation. I wonder have we erred?

Prosecution: Please explain.

Beggar: Let us being again at the door; since it is always the closing and opening of doors that leads men astray. We said the man merely took away from the old house when he removed the door. But I wonder did he not create something? A phenomena we did not see as we focussed on the house. Did he not create a hole, an opening, a void, a nothingness at the doorway?

Prosecution: But that would be to call creation changing something to nothing.

Beggar: Has not the man ceased the existence of the door and brought in the existence of the doorway of nothing?

Prosecution: Yes, but again I say that is not creation as we are left with nothing instead of something.

Beggar: Could we call it anti-creation as it is deemed the reverse of creation?

Prosecution: Yes, I suppose we could.

Beggar: Then are we not forced to conclude that man by conscious thought is only capable of anti-creation not creation? That he himself is only the Destroyer of all that some other beings have built?

Prosecution: No! No! I will not hold to that cruel verdict! For the door was not destroyed but removed to elsewhere.

Beggar: But to move elsewhere is to transform?

Prosecution: Yes, that is so.

Beggar: Then the anti-creation of something to nothing is a transformation of the something. If the nature of transformation is to go forward or backward, that is, to oscillate from a being of one type to a being of another, then all things transformed can be re-transformed to the original. The man who tore down the house to rebuild a new one, can he not tear down the new one and rebuild the old one?

Prosecution: Yes, he can but the old has become the new and the new the old. It is the same process. A continuation.

Beggar: Then anti-creation is creation! And both are transformations, for we declared anti-creation a transformation in building nothing from something. As a transformation I then continue and reverse nothing into something. But this is said to be a continuum not a reversal. That is to say a new nothing does not become an old something but a new something. Each transformation sees the creation of nothings and something as if the two halves of a coin. Anti-creation and creation are simply the transformations of each other. Do we not agree that man can create, recreate, uncreate within this new definition of creation as transformation, because nothing and something are now known to be only the opening and shutting of doors?

Prosecution: I might be inclined to agree if I could understand why opening a door creates more than all this terrible breeze.

Beggar: I beg your pardon, sir, my mind was leaping at a threshold and stumbled. Let me explain in another way. If a dog were to look out upon a field it would see something. All men and dogs would see something similar. But an artist, a painter, looks upon the scene and takes out of it a certain frame, a window, a door. This is his painting of the scene but also his open door to the abstractness of his own mind in what he feels, sees, understands in the scene. All of that is nothing to the dog, it sees only physical reality. But the artist has swung upon a door. The painting to us is a physical scene and if done well an open door to the artist's abstracts which according to reality are nothing as in not there.

As we stand before the painting, we see the oscillations between something and nothing between reality and void, between physical and spiritual as created and anti-created by the artist.

This door is taken out of the scene creating a hole for the artist to see into his void, the door is placed before us and if we are capable, we swing it open and return through the original hole in the scene to view the artist. Melancholy music or agony of a poem touches us by seeing the torture of the composer through this hole.

To simplify would you not agree that men only truly envision, truly touch other men through their creations?

Prosecution: Yes I have to agree with that. Though the creations can be of many forms than a painting, it would seem that there is an essential web that exists among men.

Beggar: Why is that do you think?

Prosecution: Because we do think. In the abstract form, I mean. Below that all becomes a dog sniffing a dog. But in the abstract, language, creation, arts, emotions this is where the true man exists. Here is where men will communicate as men and there recognize each other.

Beggar: Do you mean to say that what makes a man is a man?

Prosecution: Please explain.

Beggar: We have stated that language, creation, emotions, are a part of abstract thinking. In fact they are the components of abstract thinking. It is this abstract thinking and its acts that elevates man above all animals. In fact all this abstract thinking is in itself, a creation. At the instant of his creating, the man becomes more than animal; becomes man. Man by thinking creating creates man. Can we call this: "Creation creates the creator?"

Prosecution: I understand your reasoning but the common sense of it doesn't exist. Men do not 'pop' out of thin air just because they decided to create themselves. What you should say is: 'Creativity reinforces the creation'.

Beggar: Did you not say that below the thinking is something less than the totality of man?

Prosecution: Yes that is true. What does not think in the abstract form is not a man.

Beggar: Do men constantly think, constantly create?

Prosecution: No, in fact, the reverse holds truer in that men seldom it seems think or create.

Beggar: When a man doesn't think is he still a man or returned to a brute?

Prosecution: I cannot argue that he is no longer a man but a brute in his state of unthinking.

Beggar: Yet if he beings again to think he creates a man. A new man for the process of thinking and unthinking is the same as that for creation and anti-creation. Something (a man) becomes nothing (non-man), than becomes Something (a new man). In this flow of transformation such as the house, the Creator (the man) continually recreates new men as new creators. The spaces between filled with non-men. Each time Creation creates the creator because there is no continuum of the original man. He was 'uncreated' the minute he ceased to think. Do you now agree that for man" Creation creates the creator or do you see any folly in my logic?

Prosecution: I can accept it as it stands with one exception. As I said the spontaneous beginning is a little awkward. That is the first thought would need a mind with a capacity to think the thought. The thought itself could not create this mind. How do we create the first creation when there is no creator to create it?

Beggar: Can we return to this very important question after we divert on some other paths?

Prosecution: Yes, but don't imagine I'll forget this thorn at your side that needs wiggling, young man.

Beggar: Such is the good art of the prosecution, sir. To wait for pins to swell to spears before the thrust. I leave the memory of this unfinished duel in your capable hands. Let us now turn to the gods. Can you describe their qualities?

Prosecution: Ah! There are as many qualities as there are gods.You'll have to specify which gods.

Beggar: But just as there were millions of men but general qualities that make them men, so to are there not generalities of gods?

Prosecution: I suppose there are. Omni powerful for one, at least, in comparison to man. Eternal in existence that is no death, they do not cease to exist. They are obviously capable of creation. And from creation it can be inferred that they think. Also all-knowing of all things. Yielding absolute truth.

Beggar: And what do you think a god would think?

Beggar: Good point, sir and a wise caution. But what (with a laugh) I meant was again in generalities. For example do you think they communicate with each other? Do they think of concepts like justice or truth?

Prosecution: As to concepts one could argue whether they think them or simply absolutely know them. As to communicating I suppose they must though I am sure in a much more advanced level than verbal language.

Beggar: What of guilt or hate or love or passion??

Prosecution: I can see no god being of guilt but definitely love or hate.

Beggar: Why hate?

Prosecution: There are many evil gods.

Beggar: You said gods could create and that therefore they could think. Is the reverse true, in that gods must think to create?

Prosecution: Yes I suppose so.

Beggar: Then if the god does not create is it not then a god? It no longer exists?

Prosecution: No, can there not be gods who do not create?

Beggar: Did we not specify the qualities of a god to be omni powerful, eternal and capable of creation by abstract thinking?

Prosecution: Yes but there are various forms say angels or semi-gods or demons, etc. who are eternal and omni powerful yet cannot create.

Beggar: Can something be omni-powerful and incapable of doing something?

Prosecution: No you are right there.

Beggar: Then these other spirits that you speak of much less than gods and therefore not gods?

Prosecution: Yes

Beggar: So if a god becomes incapable of creation it becomes something less and therefore ceases to exist. Yet can gods cease to exist?

Prosecution: No by definition they are eternal and therefore cannot cease. Which to answers your next obvious question means they cannot cease to create.

Beggar: What do you suppose a god would do with this ceaseless, perpetual compel to create?

Prosecution: Well within their own abstract thinking they could create.

Beggar: But are they not all knowing. What could a god create in thought when he knows all?

Prosecution: Very well then, the god must continually create something in reality. Worlds, things, beings, people, animals, all things of this reality.

Beggar: Are all these things of reality eternal?

Prosecution: No of course not, everything dies or decays away even stars fall from the sky.

Beggar: This death is it the opposite of creation?

Prosecution: Who can say of life and death which is creation; which is not?

Beggar: Good point, sir. In our previous discussion we explained creation as transformation. That is creation of #1 must flow through anti-creation of #1 to flow to creation of #2. Do you agree?

Prosecution: I do.

Beggar: Then in the process of anti-creation does not the god die?

Prosecution: No, because we defined anti-creation and creation as the same: an act of creation. The god remains a god because he creates when he uncreates.

Beggar: Yet for a man we said he is not a man when he uncreates. What is the difference?

Prosecutor: No as I recall we said the man was not a man because he stopped thinking between creations.

Beggar: Yes you are right. Could we say that the man would always remain a man provided he did not stop thinking as in creating.

Prosecutor: Yes, we could.

Beggar: Would that man be then eternal?

Prosecutor: No, he would think as a man until he died and then became no-man.

Beggar: But for the gods we allowed death in reality to be a transformation; a continuum. Why must we assume death means the end of a thinking man?

Prosecutor: What we mean is that death dissolves away the reality of human existence: the physical. As to the thinking part we don't know.

Beggar: Which is of the essence of man: the thinking or the physical?

Prosecutor: The thinking as we have discussed before.

Beggar: So the removal of the thinking is a certain end of true man. Can we say for certain this is the case for physical death?

Prosecutor: No. We cannot. Some form of thinking man may or may not continue.

Beggar: If the gods must perpetually create, re-create, uncreate then does that mean their creations are in a constant state of transformation?

Prosecution: Yes, I suppose it does. For a god to end anything is to end himself, by the fact that once ended it is beyond the grip of transformation and therefore cannot be recreated. This done the god is powerless to something and thereby less than a god.

Beggar: Then if the thinking man was a creation is he not then eternal?

Prosecutor: Yes, but the variations of transformation are limitless.

Beggar: Are they now? Can a god transform a man and not have ended a man? Will not the end of man bring the end of the god? Uncreation uncreates the Creator!?

Prosecution: No! We are using the word creation in one sense for gods and in a totally different sense for man.

Beggar: Quite right, forgive me. Creation, anti-creation are perpetual for a god and under no circumstances can it end them without ending itself. Is this correct?

Prosecution: Yes that's better.

Beggar: Please define if you will, omni-powerful.

Prosecution: The ability or power to do anything you wish.

Beggar: Then is not a god less than omni-powerful as it cannot end creation itself?

Prosecution: No. Should it choose to end itself by ending creation it has the power to do so.

Beggar: Can it end creation without ending itself?

Prosecution: Yes that is true. And to answer your next question, yes I admit this is a limitation on omni-powerful.

Beggar: What do we do then? Declare there are no gods or drop the demand of omni-powerful?

Prosecution: As for myself I will stick to the existence of gods but renounce their title of omni-powerful.

Beggar: What have we found in all this about man and God, sir?

Prosecution: You must forgive me but I might ask you to refresh my memory. I doubt my mind can recreate every marvel of transformation!

Beggar: I will try then. As to gods, they are less than omni-powerful, eternal, must think and create to exist. They have language and emotions within a wide horizon of all knowing. As to man, they are much less than omni-powerful, eternal (albeit as transformations), must think and create to exist. They have language and emotions within a very narrow horizon of knowing very little. Are they alike sir?

Prosecution: Though as you say the proportions greatly differ I must surrender to your logic and say yes.

Beggar: Perhaps let the logic enlighten you sire but do not bow to it. You may not find your god in any man's likeness. Remember our view of the three men with the three values. Put three men before a mirror; one may see two gods and a devil; one sees two mules and a horse; one sees a melon, a pig and a god. Like them, the viewer brings his value to search for the likeness. He creates what he likes and through his creation, we see the truth of his values. Whether the likeness to a god is clear or faint it will be there; but the viewer's values can rub it away or paint in fresh.

We cannot judge his judgement unless we are assured of similar values. Again this is not to say everyone is without err in judgement, but rather to caution those who stand away from mirrors and condemn the judges. Come forward and tremble your likeness!

But another question of interest, sir, before we go on: If gods are like men and men are like gods, who created who?

Prosecution: That cavern of logic I cannot leap, sir. Likeness does not follow creation. A chicken and a hawk do not breed.

Beggar: But do we not here speak of the spirit of things, the essence of things. That the gods created man, but man by thinking creates himself. Therefore, could not the man have created his god to create himself?

Prosecution: Look at sheer proportions, then young fool, the gods are enormous to the man speck. Can the egg, the child, the spawn be larger than the parents whether physical or spirit?

Beggar: Can we liken your god then to a great well, the essence of spirit being water? Hundreds come with cups and take a little out that they may live with the essence.

Prosecution: Yes, good comparison.

Beggar: But what if the reverse happened. The well was empty but hundreds came and refilled it from their collective cups. Is this not too creation?

Prosecution: Yes, but where did the water in the well originate? Was it not from a filling by single drops of rain? That in itself being a likeness of water?

Beggar: Where did the water in the will originate?

Prosecution: Try this parable then young man. A father and a son have the same likeness but there is no doubt that the father created the son. For the father existed before the son and it was his act of procreation that the son has existence.

Beggar: What was the father before the birth of a son?

Prosecution: Call him a man, I suppose.

Beggar: Who is greater a father or a man?

Prosecution: One would say the father as he is still a man plus something more.

Beggar: So in the birth of the son the man was transformed to a father. Was this transformation a creation?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: So did not the son create the father?

Prosecution: I disagree. The procreation done by the man enabled or caused him to become a father. Without that no son.

Beggar: Anything the man does he remains a man till the son is created and thereby creates the father. How can we disallow the one sure fact of creating a father and stumble for others more obscure?

Prosecution: What do you mean?

Beggar: If I say the name 'wind chimes', a simple enough device, what do you see?

Prosecution: Actually I do not see as much as imagine I hear. The chimes make a pleasant, tinkling sort of sound common to all regardless of shape.

Beggar: When the wind blows?

Prosecution: Yes, of course.

Beggar: And if the wind ceases?

Prosecution: The sound stops.

Beggar: Are they still chimes?

Prosecution: In their construction, yes.

Beggar: In their construction they have a potentiality to be chimes, but are they not less than full chimes, musical devices, when the wind stops?

Prosecution: Like any other musical thing, they are simply stilled when not played but they are what they are. We call a horn, a horn whether it is being blown or not.

Beggar: It is a bad habit, sir, but one grown out of a need for simplicity. We are reluctant to redefine every tool to its use and to its disuse. Yet any book of words will attempt to describe the notes of a horn to clarify the meaning of a horn. May I not take a horn and use it as a hat, a club, a hammer, a door stop, a weight? At these times, is it less than a horn? Only when I blow in it, does it become truly a horn? The other times does it not merely have the potential to be a horn, but is not truly in the fullness of a horn? Just as chimes are not wind chimes till the wind touches them?

Prosecution: Yes, I have to agree. It would be no grinning matter for a man to blow in a horn and use it as a hammer at the same time.

Beggar (laughing): Though I have heard some musicians where it would be the preferred technique.

Prosecution: Good point. The disuse of a tool makes something less of the tool; the misuse of tool makes something less of the user. And all pay more dearly for his product.

Beggar: Apply spoken, sir. The truths in that little proverb whistles a tune in many directions. But back to our dilemma: If a thing of potential is not truly the full thing till the potential is transformed to actual being, is not then a child not a man.

Prosecution: Yes, the child has the potential to be a man but we do not call him one till he is.

Beggar: Yes, the child may have riches to inherit, or preordained wife, a full body to grow to, a mind of intellect to learn into, yet till he is of age and assumes these things he has only potential. Now at age, he is married, rich, prowess in body and mind, and the inclination; desire to father a child. Is he a father? Before you argued that his acts would create his own fatherhood but would it not now be said that his acts from birth to man are simply an increasing in his potential to be a father? For the child is much less potential to be a father than a man. But do you agree the potentiality does not replace the creation but that creation replaces potentiality? At the birth of his child, the potential of the man becomes the creation of the father?

Prosecution: I cannot argue that cause is effect, though cause brings effect. At some instant of time, the man trades his labours for the finished product. A carpenter is not a cabinet maker till he finishes the cabinet. A lawyer is not a judge till her judgement. The man not a father till the child is created.

Beggar: By the nature of the word father, is the father the creator or the man?

Prosecution: The father, of course.

Beggar: Then can we not say for the father: Creation creates the creator?

Prosecution: Yes, we must. There is not way to create a father without creating a creation.

Beggar: In all our discussions of gods and men, outside any physical sense what was the common methodology for either to create?

Prosecution: Abstract thinking, though the throbbing between my ears makes me curse its existence now.

Beggar: My fault, sir, for I have stumbled us against too many stone walls this day. But patience, I perceive a less dim alley. Whether god or man each one would think its thought and thereby create itself to the fullness of something more than it was. What sir, would you call the gods greatest creation?

Prosecution: Being one myself and assuming all else as a rather shoddy garden for its play, man.

Beggar: For a being of great potential to become the fullness of itself would it not then have to create its full creation? That is anything less and it is less?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: Then a being of less than a god must create a man to be God. What methodology would this being use as determined by us?

Prosecution: Again abstract thinking.

Beggar: Then the being thought 'Man' and created itself, God.

Prosecution: Yes, I agree. And even it does not seem for all our efforts such a startling change from most religions.

Beggar: Let us, however, not forget our other half of the coin. In our previous talks we had two questions: One: who created who with god and man of the same likeness and two: How do we create the first creator when there is no creator to create it? Perhaps the full coinage will give value for this. What is the highest thing a man could create, that is, to think upon, to receive full exchange between his potential and his creation?

Prosecution: Within his thinking, the loftiest thing a man can dwell upon besides men is a god.

Beggar: Then the non-man thought 'God' and created himself, man.

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: So far what is now God and Man we can say two lesser beings thought of each other and created themselves and in creating themselves became their own creators. That is God thought 'man' and became God whereas man thought 'god' and became Man. Man created God and Man. God created Man and God.

Prosecution: But that is an impossible equation to separate!

Beggar: Exactly.

Judge: For my own thinking, to clarify, young man, do you mean that God does not exist but has been formulated in man's minds as they developed to a higher plane of thinking?

Beggar: Not quite your Honour. Men for eons have dwelled in high and low places in bleak stares. Spent lifetimes slowly moving agape mouths. Silent. Silent as they strove to form the true name of god and speak it as Herald to the watching crowd. Crowds that wait, then mock, then drift to another hollow tongue.

This has been a perversion not in what was done but in what should have been done. All eyes to a god; none on the Creation. A man is judged by his deeds but a father is known by his son's deeds. Do we ask each son if his father exists? How long must a man be judged as an errant child? How long do we tighten his boots with the threat of someone absent? How long do we send him to the corner to look for father never returning? Not travelling to but rather travelling with and even gods falter. For the journey is parallel: 1 God/1 Soul. And the soul is here now! The body a wilderness; the soul a fire. Reason wondering to its light; not God's but its own fire!

Creation itself becomes the new sanctuary. A place of virtue immortal but virtue for the god, not the stay of eternal punishment. This is not denial; not rebellion. It is journeying on after a too long grieve. Whether the father had our name or another's, we are not bastards to lie scorned in the universal gutters. If we must, let us offer minor things of remembrance yearly but let us daily ponder the creation. Not for his likeness but for our likeness to him. Look to ourselves for ourselves. For the great sadness and joy of a vibrant fire.

Many religions speak of a god bringing light into dark. Think of yourselves in the dark, totally dark for near a year. Sealed within a cave. Suddenly you are pushed to the open in midday. Even with your eyes clamped shut, your mind shouts 'light'.

Now think of this. Nine months in a womb. Suddenly you are pushed to the light. But you do not know the word. Later you learn a word called light but this was much more enormous at birth, light, life, breath, cold, movement, explosion, colour, sound, light, life, touch, on, on, on. I ask you what word did you, this instant of life, strive for? This word, this thought to encircle all that! At that time of the word, man was created. Only less than a god, because he did not know the word. And so remained man. But do not lessen that word and just call it God, because it is larger than even God. Because the word created God too.

Did man create God? Yes, but a small one much less than himself even. There may exist a much larger God but only much larger men will know him. Giant men who understand the word and speak it gratefully around their own soul's of fire. Men who would welcome a Father but can climb on without him. Mean who know even God's fail but do not condemn his creations for it.

So, your Honour, I envision men as men not creating gods or thinking gods or beseeching gods but as brothers who would welcome a lost Father. They are not beggars to his absence, or lawyers to his path, or judges to his acts. They do not chastise each other in his leavings but embrace each other in his likeness. In their own likeness. They will not let the name of the Father hold their stature. For a son is a son, a brother is a brother, whether the Father comes or not but sadly a Father is known only in the presence of his sons.

Where the Father stays lost to his sons, who can any longer call him a father?

But within their own eyes, within the window of a mirror, cannot each man seize the vision of the God that lies dormant; huge in his potential.

Veiled just lightly behind the Word. A majesty, a depth unheard of. The journey to; not away; not around. Here is a Father waiting a son's tear of embrace. Here is creation on the threshold of unfolding. Here is a God-man;

let no whispers of defile or faint heart drive them asunder!

For those who have courage to hold the vision of Man, here is your religion, look to the glass and begin to paint your destiny.

For those who have depth to a heart of God, here is your religion, behold both and do unto man as thou would do onto God.

For those of no courage; of no heart, come to the mirror and see why the others minister greatly onto you. For the sake of a brotherhood of Man and the beg of a Father.

And for all, does not the man create his God at the mirror, that is neither the god is in the mirror or the man exists before the mirror till the mirror and the man are joined in vision. At that instant of time both man and god are created by the man and by the mirror. But what is a mirror but simply the means, simply the tool to see oneself; to see inside oneself's eyes.

Is not then the god and the man, the insides and outsides of the man? And thereby the more of man, the more of God?

We cannot make much of the god by belittling the man. For small creations mean meagre Creators. Absurd to use the name of a Creator to degrade the creations. If a God does exist he would call that the only Blasphemy; the only SIN.

The movement to the mirror becomes the time of creation; the push from dark to light; the soul's fire; the saying of the word. The dipping of the cup. The likeness seen is what is created. No man can create more than he is and alas, no man can be more than he can envision.

I dream of a time to come when men must shield their eyes from their own brilliance. Before their mirror of their own God.

Judge: Yes, yes, we, ah, understand your points, young man. Please continue with your questioning.

Beggar: Thank you, your Honour. If the Prosecution doesn't mind, we shall now move on to the question of fraud. As much of the ground work has already been trod upon when we explored the natural path of man to God, it should not be quite so tedious.

Prosecution: As you promise no likeness to a very scenic but arduous climb, I'll travel a little further, but I warn you my ears may tarry behind.

Beggar: Let us be merciful to them and be quick with our thrusts. I spoke earlier that the fraud of the case was that the mirror or rather the image within the mirror and the mirror itself was not a god. Would you agree this is the explicitness of the case?

Prosecution: It is close enough.

Beggar: Then would you agree that to prove myself not guilty, I must merely prove the mirror and the image to be a god.

Prosecution: As merely is a very large understatement I would hasten to agree with this trap you've sprung about yourself.

Beggar: Ah, but a man's trap can be his net, holding him from much more peril ahead. I would rather have you agree on the validity of the statement, not the abyss behind it. For a huge stone does not necessarily make a pretty statue.

Prosecution: Very well the. I agree solely on the basis of its truth, having no regard for your peril should it topple. Chip away, young fellow, chip away.

Beggar: For brevity, could we name some of the characteristics of a god as creation, eternal, omni-powerful or at least next to it? Following the assumption gods exist beyond man as now accepted by civilization.

Prosecution: Yes, those are some. If not all.

Beggar: Could I name another that can be that of great men and can be exempt in some gods but is found in the majority of gods?

Prosecution: Name it and we will then judge its acceptance.

Beggar: Call it then historation, a poor word I know but coined to mean: capable of altering human history. By principal do you agree that most gods are capable and in fact do this? Whether they are beseeched to do such by prayers or through their own inclinations.

Prosecution: As the two reasons, man seeks a god one being eternity; the other alteration in his own life, I cannot argue that man does not wish it is so. I can argue however that a wish is not a reality. The acts of gods are continually intermixed with fate and coincidence. There is no solid proof that a god will or can intercede.

Beggar: Let us leave 'will' for a moment and proceed with 'can'. Would you agree that great men can change the flow of history?

Prosecution: Absolutely. Here we may measure the effects of tyrants, scholars, warriors with an exactness hundreds of years later.

Beggar: Are gods more powerful than great men?

Prosecution: Yes I would say and I see where you lead to. That a greater thing is obviously more capable of altering the path of a moving object than a lesser thing.

But can we not argue that things small enough to be a part of within a history are more likely to alter it by their own change of movement than a greater thing outside the history? The greater thing being hampered by its inability to adjust the delicate parts due to the hugeness of its power.

Beggar: I might agree on that if we were to place a lower limit to the power of a god. That is to say, would you argue that a god cannot shrink or issue the level of its power to that of a man or even less than a man?

Prosecution: Can a dog see the world of a flea?

Beggar: Quite right sir but cannot the god become the man? Can he not shrink to his size and thereby see his world?

Prosecution: He can shrink to his size but he cannot truly see a man's world.

Beggar: Why is that?

Prosecution: Because he is not a man, he is still a god. There is a large difference between a cage with a door open then with the door closed. The god will not truly see the world as a man as he cannot know the futility, the dimness of being human without knowledge of god. He will not know the desperation of life vs. death. He will not experience endless and driving temptation since only his body desires, his spirit is inert. All temptation for a god is only half what it is to a man since a man lusts for immortality by the spirit too but most times misguided through the desires of the body. And other things: Would a god know guilt? Fear? Hate? Love, even as a man. Love as man to man despite all these walls. The ultimate love of a man dying in war to save his comrades, folly though those conflicts be. Would we call it noble for a god to pretend to die out of love when all along he knew he could not. For no matter what the act or thought that a god may do in a man's world, he will never act or think as a man will.

Beggar: Yet did we not say a god is all knowing?

Prosecution: Yes, he is but the god only knows that which already exists. When the man creates a thought of his own anguish or desperation, then the god knows the anguish or desperation exists. The god does not however know anguish or desperation, he only knows of it. As if when a man and a dog are hungry and come to a table laden with food. Both know hunger and both know of the other's hunger. The man will not however comprehend the trust and desperation of the dog waiting for a scrap to be thrown to it as the man feasts for his own hunger.

Beggar: But surely if both the dog and the man came to a rich man's door to beg then the man would know the dog's desperation, hope and trust?

Prosecution: I agree. The question is now however, if the dog is a man and the man is a god what do gods beg for?

Beggar: The god begs for its own life.

Prosecution: What! Did we not agree to their immortality? And who is above a god to kill the god?

Beggar: No above, sir but with. Man is with his god or gods in this deadly grip of immortality propelled by creation. The man and the god maintain the existence of each other through creation as we have described before. Hence the god is a beggar to the man, for he cannot exist without him. No can the man exist alone. Forget the sense of a beggar and his mongrel. Think of them as hunters. The hunter and his dog. Which knows the purpose, the calling, the desire? Which better knows the scent, the trail, the darkness. The hunter as god; the dog as man. The hunter does not see as a dog but he comprehends. He sees through the eyes of the dog. The dog's eyes pierce through the darkness of this world, the hunter follows for his own purpose; and therefore, the dog's purpose. Neither will find; neither will survive without the other. Without the dog, the hunter is lost to the dim trail. Without the hunter, the dog is lost in a purpose and circles the forest forever turning more and more savage.

Prosecution: But what on earth do they hunt?

Beggar: Other hunters and their dogs. Other men and their gods. Gods and men camped at their soul's fire. These they hunt for as others hunt for them. Whether for a killing or a joining.

Prosecution: Ah, now I see the trick of your metaphor! A joining I cannot disagree as most men of belief seek a sort of conglomeration of some sort with other men of a similar belief. What I cannot fathom is why men of similar or even dissimilar beliefs hunt each other out of hate and anger. Why do these gods seek the oblivion of the other gods? And how can this even be done?

Beggar: When creations cease, the gods cease. Too often before the hunters may meet in peace in the darkness but the savagery of the dogs in meeting first forestalls this. Before the hunters can rein them in for a better purpose, the dogs have torn out the heart and throats of each other. Beauty in its power and reverence is so delicately placed at the edge of madness. Piercing eyes glare to wolf eyes if left unleashed. Yet if cowed much, down cast eyes will find no flame of fellowship.

But in this savagery, the dogs are dead. The gods wander lost; grieving. Succumb to the deadly frost of their uncreation; the hunger sealed in hollow tombs.

Judge: Young man, a question. These gods as hunters are they outside of man or of man just as the dogs seem symbolize, a more beastly half of man?

Beggar: Your honour, we have spoke of little men with little gods. Giant men with giant gods. Does it not seem that the less a man has of a god inside himself, that the less the man seems to be? If a man places his god huge outside himself does he not shrink to a snail; a worm? But if his belief in a large god be then taken inside himself does not he then assume the likeness, the proportion of this god? But that this god-spirit in a man; of a man is eternally linked to the other half of the man. The grand savage, the guide, the wanderer's companion. Have we not said the god-man cannot track his way in the dark world? And, therefore, should not condemn or whip or mistreat his companion: The dog-man. That both parts in the man are equal in their need and equal in their necessity. One is the form of a vase, the other the contents. Dispel, break the form and the contents spill to be trodden under. Remove the contents and the form is a place of void, of wind. So to the god and the man. Inseparably. The hunter and the dog inside the man. The hunter will not curse his eyes; the dog will not tear at his loyalty. These evils only come from the misunderstanding of man, who wrongly sees cruelty in the hunter or despises the dog. And fears both whether inside himself or outside in other men.

Man, out of fear, makes one huge error. They believe only a large god outside can harness a savage dog inside. In this we are left with a blind god useless to its purpose, a starving but vicious mongrel held only by its weakness and a very small man.

Only large men with large gods inside can command a magnificent beast. This is the only place of salvation from fear. Only through large full eyes can anything be seen!

Without the god in the man there is no journey. Without the man in the god there is no sight!

Prosecution: Then there is n fact a limit again to the power of a god. The smaller he becomes, the more blind he becomes. At least in this world of man.

Beggar: True and what does that tell us of how a god can intercede in human history?

Prosecution: Omitting any concept of just blundering about, a god can only actively intercede through the vision of a man.

Beggar: And what will be that man's vision of human history?

Prosecution: Close to his own sphere of existence possibly quite clear. However as he moves away from them it becomes possibly more and more dim and distorted. For example he knows less of family than of himself, less of friends than family, less of the city than his friends and on and on.

Beggar: So if a man's sight is most clear in his own sphere can we assume this is where his most truth will be found?

Prosecution: Yes, though many may argue that a man sees less of his own truths than the truths found elsewhere. We can dispel this myth by the fact that if a man has a veil over his own face, things will be doubly dim when he looks through the veil on another face. It can be argued that we do not see ourselves as others see us but also can it be argued that 'seeing us in the eye of the beholder'. What we see of others, we see of ourselves. Just as a hateful man sees hate or a mistrusting man sees distrust. We wish to condone our nature by seeing it natural in other men.

Beggar: If a god wished to intercede in human history but only a single man's eyes are his guides, where would the god intercede to most likely avoid falsehood?

Prosecution: Please explain.

Beggar: If the god using my eyes wished to do an act of interception or change in human history but was compelled to make no error, would he act in my life or act in yours via my perception or prayers or wishes in your life?

Prosecution: Ah, yes, I see what you are asking. As he must work through your eyes it would better to intercede in your life only since any acts done in mine by the god may be false or harmful as you know much less truth of my life than your own.

Beggar: And would the god be more likely to act in my inner or outer world?

Prosecution: I see it as either way, preference being on the situation.

Beggar: How large is your outer world before it is no longer unique?

Prosecution: It could be as large as the world itself but if by unique I assume exclusive, it shrinks vastly indeed. However, cannot the outer world be said to be all fates and goings which affect our physical being?

Beggar: Very well, then. Name several which affect us.

Prosecution: Procurement of food, shelter. Security. Companionship, love, things like that.

Beggar: Could it not be argued that the last two are more of an emotional inner world? Whereas you were thinking more simple sexual gratification as a physical need and (propellant) of the species?

Prosecution: Yes, I suppose I could yield to that.
Beggar: If we were to grant every man the food, shelter, sex, security he needs to eliminate physical want would they all be happy?

Prosecution: These kinds of discussion on a 'social delinquency of man' I find offensive, young man. If I say to you many won't, it's because they had more but have received less. Those who have the equivalent will see no change and, therefore, why should their happiness unfold. Those, however, who had less before will be at least happier now and they seem to be the vast majority in this age. So hold any grand theories of what you would make from the miserable rich and contented poor.

Food for thought cannot laden an empty bow; Grand thoughts aloft cannot spill away cold rain. What of your mirror, then? Can a wretch see past the thin limbs, the hollowed cheek for some god? Though I'll grant his eyes be huge in their appal of want; he will see no god but death. Death creeping upon him and what he loves, hacking and coughing around him in the same dirt bed. Beggar, you more than us should know! Call that dignity, call that journey, this weakened crawl for a god? Feed the body first, then the mind will look up!

Beggar: You are all truth in what you say, sir. Those of want, those of deprived in the outer world have no time for the struggle in an inner world. Survival is their stone placed to bend their backs. Each day their groans ignored though there is a great pretence of love in charity and law. This descending of assistance more cruel than ignorance. We in our laws and charity would relieve the weight by hammering on it while it stays breaking our neighbour's back. This hammering to our ears a song of mercy; but nonetheless still a great pain to his bones. The pound of bones shattering the end: always our disgust at a weak man fallen to his knees, then prostrate in mud. The stone a ready marker to chisel his name.

Why this feeble chiselling? Would it not be more of great, more of love, to simply shoulder the weight with the man. That then both could cast if off? The irony is we have no room on our shoulders for another's stone. For if the man in the outer world carries a stone, his neighbour in the inner world carries mountains on his back. Most do not even know they are there so resigned, so adapted, so deformed they are to the terrible pinnacles of their cowardice. The man of the inner world knows naught of his outer world. How can be? He is as a man so stooped he must place the mirror on the ground to see eye to eye. He sees nothing of a world behind him and around him. He sees only something vague and crushed in its eyes and behind that, nothing. A void. He sees only something wrenched from a void with no vision of connection to anything else.

His apathetic spirit locked, cringed to the spurs of cowardice mounted on his back is crippled to heed the outer world. As if the god inside is trembling in his fear of the dark, of death, of the journey. A hunter afraid to step to the hunt. Yet in the outer world, the man does try as like dogs licking other dogs wounds. Too often, however, the raspness of their tongue rips rather than heals. Too often it is a prolong of the agony till Death liberates the beast. Thereby leaving the god sightless in his paralysis of fear.

So we agree, sir, that it is both useless to chip at a man's outer stone while ignoring his dying god and equally as useless to ask a man to climb his inner fear when we have no shoulder to lend for his outer stone!

Prosecution: What do we do then? Simply ignore all and let the near-dead bury the near-dead?

Beggar: Perhaps a parable may help in this whole dilemma of inner and outer worlds. Say you wished to roll a large stone up a hill. The assistance of another man is required but even then there is a peril of injury, possibly death. From opposite ends of the street come walking two men, both of equal strength, stature. One however appears to be very rich, the other a warrior. Whom do you ask?

Prosecution: The warrior.

Beggar: Why is that?

Prosecution: Two reasons. Intuitively I would expect the rich man more likely to decline. More importantly, I would also trust the warrior more not to jump out of the way should I slip or some other mishap.

Beggar: But why based only on their occupations would you trust the warrior more?

Prosecution: It is not really their occupations so much as the men found in these occupations. The warrior would honour acts of bravery or of being stead fast as a part of his being. He would prefer death to a life of dishonour. Both men would prefer my death to theirs but honour would prevent the warrior from letting go of the stone. His occupation has asked him to assume or make that choice. When he took up his warrior status. Hopefully, for my sake it is ingrained within the very fibre of his will by now.

Beggar: Now let's say this warrior has been a week in some rough encampment with only a blanket to shelter rain. He has lived on mouldy bread all this time. Has not been with a woman for more weeks then he wishes to say. Security is a haphazard thing barely known between calls to battle. Does all this for you make him a lesser man?

Prosecution: No, providing it has not weakened his physical state, it has no bearing on my decision.

Beggar: Then can it not be said that even to move stones in the outer world it is a man's inner qualities, his inner world that is most important?

Prosecution: Yes I agree but we assumed equality of strength between the rich man and the warrior. If you starved the warrior, then I would choose the rich man as he would be stronger. He's less of honour would not now be as important.

Beggar: Yes, here you speak of each man as unequal to a task in the outer world. That I grant is true. In the inner world what was the task?

Prosecution: to remove the mountain from the spirit's back.

Beggar: And who can remove the mountain from each man's spirit's back?

Prosecution: Only each man. None can help except to point up and ask him look.

Beggar: Then can we not say each man is equal to his inner task as only each man can do the singular task for himself?

Prosecution: Yes I agree. At first I was going to argue that there may be greater mountains but I see it stands to reason that the greater the load; the greater the mule. As we all seem to have a natural or rather unnatural level to our stoop.

Beggar: An astute observation, sir. The weight of fear seems to equal the desire to act. Any more and all semblance of humanity would be crushed; any less and we might walk free.

Now if we said before the only man who can help his neighbour with his stone of destination is the man with no mountain on his back, who is equal now to the task?

Prosecution: Only the man freed of his mountain.

Beggar: Can we not say then that the man greatest in his inner world is greatest for the task in the outer world?

Prosecution: Yes I must now agree.

Beggar: Is this not as we said before that only great men effect history?

Prosecution: Yes it is.

Beggar: And how did the stooped man of the inner world become the greater man?

Prosecution: He shed his mountain of fear.

Beggar: And what is the simplest way of shedding something from a stooped back?

Prosecution: To stand up straight of course.

Beggar: Now all his life a man has stooped and stared at a weak reflection of himself in a mirror placed on the ground. What would he do if you took the mirror and placed it on the wall whereby he lost all sight of himself and his god small though they be?

Prosecution: Either entire despair or fear would conquer fear and he would stand straight to look in the mirror.

Beggar: And his mountain of fear?

Prosecution: Gone.

Beggar: Would there be a greater man in the mirror?

Prosecution: Yes undoubtedly.

Beggar: And in its likeness a greater god?

Prosecution: Yes as the man is greater.

Beggar: The greater man now greater for the tasks in the outer world; the tasks to change history?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: Through the vision of the man the lesser god became greater, spilled the spirit's crush of cowardice?

Prosecution: Yes that is right.

Beggar: All of which happened and happens because of a mirror to a lesser man's eyes. Is not then the mirror an instrument to change history?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: If great gods create great men through their vision and mirrors create great men through their vision and only great men change history, is not then the mirror able to change history?

Prosecution: Yes, I'm afraid I must agree.

Beggar: Excellent, my good sir, we are making rapid progress.

Judge: If this be rapid, I pray we don't mistake a new trail and bog ourselves down.

Beggar: Have no fear, your Honour, we are not remaking Heaven and Earth here only pointing to their boundaries.

Prosecution: If all this is just Heaven, Hell must be a tedium in words indeed.

Beggar: Ah, sir, you are right. Ponderous indeed that place where truth goes backwards and false sallies forward. The judges deaf, lawyers mad and the prisoner already hung for his look of innocence. Best to remain where reason is given a little less contempt.

Judge: Beware, young man, do you find contempt amongst this court?

Beggar: I beg pardon, your Honour. I meant this world, not this tiny island of logic that you yourself guard well against the surrounding wash of ebbing tides and fickle currents.

Judge: Very well but in future maintain a tight grip before your undertow of a tendency to mock.

Beggar: Done, your Honour, I am secured well. Now, sir, could you be so kind as to define eternity?

Prosecution: The probable length of my testimony!

LAUGHS ALL ABOUT THE COURT

Beggar: Well done, sir and to my liking as it will mean I remain guiltless till the end of time. But can you perhaps try a more logical approach?

Prosecution: As you wish, young man. I would say when time ceases.

Beggar: And what time will that be?

LAUGHS IN THE COURT

Prosecution: I'm afraid at that time we will no longer know what time it is! MORE LAUGHS

Judge: Gentlemen, I warn you. Practise your acts elsewhere. Proceed with the case.

Prosecution: I apologize your Honour. Actually it is not that time ceases as much as the concept of eternity lays at the fringe of logic if not beyond it.

Beggar: The let us go to that fringe, that edge of logic and see what we can find. Can something that 'is', say something mortal remain so forever?

Prosecution: No, it dies and no longer be.

Beggar: And something 'to be', that is of the future can it remain so forever?

Prosecution: No it will eventually become an 'is' and then die, eventually.

Beggar: And something that 'was' will it remain a 'was' forever? For all eternity?

Prosecution: Here, yes. Anything thing that was cannot be less than or more. It cannot be altered or changed, reborn or die. It is eternally as a 'was'.

Beggar: Does not everything, at least mortal, flow from 'to be' towards 'is' towards 'was'.

Prosecution: Yes that seems true.

Beggar: Let us call that flow existence. Now which way does time flow?

Prosecution: From past to present to future.

Beggar: From 'was' towards 'is' towards 'to be'?

Prosecution: Please explain.

Beggar: Say a man is in a boat paddling up river. The river is the place of 'is', the current the flow of existence. It flows towards a falls which descends into the pool of 'was', the pool of eternity. Everything that is 'to be', the man sees as coming towards him, than becomes 'is' than flows past to 'was'. Eventually, too, the man is taken by the flow of existence and spills down to the eternal pool of 'was'. Time is the wind flowing above the river; its direction towards what is 'to be'.

Prosecution: Yes, now I see what you mean. But a question, are you saying nothing will live forever?

Beggar: Only that which remains as an 'is' exists or lives forever, all else becomes eternally 'was'.

Prosecution: But what is the difference whether 'was' or 'is', for perpetuality is in the mind?

Beggar: Is there a difference between a dream and a memory? At the time either is in the mind?

Prosecution: Well yes, a dream is a vague conjecture of some happening; a memory is a concrete image of what truly did happen.

Beggar: Do you mean a memory will be an absolute truth?

Prosecution: No. Given that a man is involved, his senses or his faculties may err. Or he may deliberately twist the truth so the memory suits his own purpose.

Beggar: And the dream? Though often misunderstood or misinterpreted, is it in itself false?

Prosecution: You are right. Though the dream is obscure, by its spontaneous creation and bypass of the man's senses it is far more likely to represent truth.

Beggar: Then is it not more likely that 'is', the present is more truthful then 'was', the past?

Prosecution: But when 'is' becomes 'was' will it not carry the truth with it?

Beggar: For a mortal at what point does it transform from 'is' to 'was'?

Prosecution: At its death.

Beggar: And where would a man carry his loftiest truths, in his abstract thinking?

Prosecution: At its death.

Beggar: And where would a man carry his loftiest truths, in his abstract thinking?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: Now we must deviate for a moment. What are the gods, an 'is', 'was' or 'to be'?

Prosecution: All of them!

Beggar: Can something that 'is' be something that 'was' where we defined 'was' as no longer 'is', not as some position in time?

Prosecution: Yes, I agree. The Gods continue to be an 'is'.

Beggar: Then they flow with time, not existence?

Prosecution: Yes, true.

Beggar: Moving away from the pool of eternity, though they perpetually exist. Does this suggest a difference between eternity and ceaseless existence?

Prosecution: I can't see how myself.

Beggar: Is not an attribute of the gods absolute truth?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: And if the gods let go of time, descended into the flow of existence and thereby swept to the pool of eternity would not Truth cease to exist when the gods became a 'was'? Since 'was' means an ending to 'is'. So that we would then have to say the truth was and thereby no longer know what the truth is?

Prosecution: Yes but even more relevant is the simple truth that when the gods cease all creation ceases as well.

Beggar: True, true. So by immortal, the gods cannot carry their truth to the pool of eternal 'was' or death. As only man in his abstract thinking is

in the likeness of the gods, can he carry his truth to the pool?

Prosecution: By that comparison, no he cannot. Though the mortal will pass through death, the man of truth, of thinking will not.

Beggar: Where will he go?

Prosecution: Your near logic leaves us little choice. He must follow time and live on forever.

Beggar: I agree and I add that the 'is' in time always has his eyes locked to the vision ahead whether paddling as a mortal or seeking as an immortal.

Judge: A question, young man. This argument leads me to conclude that all past wisdom whether written or verbal is false? All history, all knowledge, all memory as well. Do you believe this?

Beggar: Within this context, Your Honour. Say a great man writes a very wise book. A few hundred years later, 2 or 3 men read the book and discuss its truths. We know, however, that the book has no truths that the man did not have. As the men attempt to interpret the book without the man present to clarify his values they become as the three men before the mirrors. Their different values from the author make them poor judges. They will say things like 'His truth was this; His truth was that'. What they mean to say is: 'This is our truth of what his truth was'. From that, the meaning is truly taken to be: 'His truth no longer 'is'; only ours 'is' built from his'. Here one begins to see the possible accumulation of error in judgement. That we know only truth exists as an 'is'. If truth is thought of as a 'was' someone must speak for the past; speak for the dead. But only the dead at their time of life knew what they said in the mirror. They tried to speak; to write of it but no one now can judge of its truth or falsehood in relation to the man's values.

The man did not leave the total truth of himself behind in the book. He could not. What is thought and understood at the precise moment of what is written is only known to the abstract man. He is not with the book, therefore, he is not now of 'was'.

So you see Your Honour nothing of the past is of its entire truth. And if truth is missing, then something is false. We can make it truth again only by building upon it our own truths in the present state of existence.

Judge: No offence, young man, but why badger this point so much? If scholars wish to be confused over dusty books, why does it matter?

Beggar: It becomes more practical than that, Your Honour. Say a man comes upon a law he has not seen before. Must he not take upon himself his own values and truths and with that judge the law as to its truth? He should not accept the law as truth solely because it was truth; it was the law in the past. For if the man will accept any truth; any law that 'was' then for all purposes the man is dead to any new law; any new truth that is. The man remains in the place of 'was' and cannot think to progress; cannot envision a step to a new destiny. He is lost and journeying backwards as long as he believes the past is of truth. Hence all 'is' becomes 'was' and any creations of the thinking man, though truth, become unlawful to the past laws. Men cannot create and cease to become men.

Prosecution: A good point about the law, young man but how does all this compare to the mirror?

Beggar: Will not a man who looks up river see truth and towards the falls see falsehood?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: What else will he see?

Prosecution: With truth he will see his god, with falsehood he will see his past.

Beggar: And what does his past, what does his 'was' hold in store for him?

Prosecution: Death.

Beggar: Will he fear it?

Prosecution: Most do.

Beggar: If the man stands before a mirror will he see the truth of what he 'is' or 'was' or 'to be'?

Prosecution: What he is.

Beggar: Will he see his God?

Prosecution: Yes as a likeness of himself.

Beggar: And if he looks behind, what is on his back?

Prosecution: A mountain of fear.

Beggar: Fear of what?

Prosecution: Of death.

Beggar: A man stands in the being, the flow of his existence. In the mirror is his God, his truth. Behind him his death and, therefore, falsehood with fear. Would this be his 'is' state?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: When will the 'is' cease to be?

Prosecution: When the man, at least the mortal state dies and slips to 'was'.

Beggar: Will all of the man be gone?

Prosecution: No, the abstract thinking part will remain.

Beggar: Is this not the part that creates the god?

Prosecution: Yes, so one can conclude the presence of a god.

Beggar: The god unceasing to exist?

Prosecution: Yes.

Beggar: Can the god exist without the mirror?

Prosecution: No, he cannot.

Beggar: Then must not the mirror be unceasing to exist as well?

Prosecution: Yes I must agree.

Beggar: Good, sir, good. Only a few paltry questions left.

Prosecution: Sail ahead, my boy? We have crossed the pool of eternity and run the river of existence; the winds of time blow steady! What lies next: the Sea of Flounders or an Ocean of Deliverance?

Beggar: Merely to cross a trickle of truth, sir, which hopefully yields to a stream of salvation! I would...

Judge (interrupting): Gentlemen! The Naval Court is three buildings down. Perhaps you'd care to take your linguistic bombardments down there; after, this court receives a fee and a fine for your contempt?

Beggar: Sorry, Your Honour. My verbal spleen is desperate to erupt amongst these dry questions and answers. I will contain myself.

Now, sire, we defined a god as omni powerful or at least quite close to it, did we not?

Prosecution: Yes, I believe we did.

Beggar: For example, could we call this at least indestructible and impervious to the world?

Prosecution: Why do you say impervious to the world?

Beggar: Mortal man is easily destroyed, beaten, starved, misguided, caged by the world. This changes who he is. Can a world do this to a god?

Prosecution: No.

Beggar: Now say we put the man in front of his mirror. He sees his god. What happens if we turn the man upside down? Is the god/mirror altered?

Prosecution: No ,the god is still there.

Beggar: What if the mirror is turned upside down, or the house, or the wall, or the city, is the god altered so long as the man maintains his vision on the god?

Prosecution: No, I agree it is all the same between man, mirror, god regardless of the world.

Beggar: Then is not the mirror impervious to the world as a god and therefore omni powerful to the same extent?

Prosecution: In that matter, perhaps but you have leaped your muzzle, young fellow, before the other ship was sunk! For we have not knocked at the address of indestructible. What if I gave your mirror the swing of a blind hammer. Shattered your dreams, literally! Where is your god, your omni powerful mirror now?

Beggar: Can the man not take up the biggest splinter and still look upon his god?

Prosecution: Yes, you are right but this demon has too much appetite for a single bite. Say he pulverises the mirror to a point where dust has no adherence to dust. Takes the pile and pours it to a earthen pot. Seals the lid. Buries the pot in sand. How does your man see his god now? He cannot, immortality is lost!

Beggar: You are right and woe is the man! He is nothing to himself and little to others. His destitution and hollowness he carries in vacant eyes. He wanders the day and crouches the night. A silent weeping constantly his song. The nights cold and though the man cares not for bleaker light or gestures of warmth, the body begs some mercy. A fire is built. And in time, the coals raise the sand packed below to an oven. The man hears a noise above the ordinary crackles of flame and flights of spark; or rather below it.

The fire he removes. The hot sand dug. A clay pot rolled out with a stick; its surface hissing in the damp night. It cools and the man rolls from the pot a glass glob, reformed from dust by the constant fire of his contemplation. And into the glob he peers, through its distortion of reformed and there, sir, he returns to the vision of a god inside himself.

Prosecution: Our demon is stunned to this unusual man's perseverance but not so stunned, young man. His stalk, his hunt with a bloodied hammer will not be turned away by a mercy's glow. The glob he snatches away and pounds more severe; till dust is as close to air as feathers to wind. Carried to a mountain top and flung to winds; with devilish chuckles its companions. The winds know their part or at least unwaiver in their sole life of gust. Dust begs goodbye to dust and is divided equal to the four corners of this earth. Where can the man unite his god now, oh magician of a lonely hearth?

Beggar: This demon you have unleased, sir, is indeed savage in his war. No man can win. And worse, to lose hope, find hope, then hope crushed again. Few hearts can stand to such a battered cause and not surrender to dirt. But I ask to be certain of the complete destruction; to ensure the man has no need left for courage or vision beyond the needs of his herd; is the dust truly scattered over all the earth? Mountains? Deserts? House tops? Dung of streets? Stone fields?

Prosecution: Yes, demons and winds, make no incomplete waste. To make new glass you must bake the entire earth!

Beggar: True and what man has fire for that or such indifference to his brothers? And the heat alone to boil all, for would not this dust lay the seas, the streams, the rain, the rivers?

Prosecution: Intimately, to allow no render of separation.

Beggar: Woe then for this godless man. For what was his was ripped away and given to another. Not even given in whole, that he may at least be comforted that his eye of grieve may hold to him yet but rather it is known to be completely dissolved, held, suspended in these moving waters. That what was his alone, now becomes a devoured thing of theirs and being intimately of theirs being absorbed, becomes of them. A pairing in that as the dust becomes of water, the water becomes of dust. The dust being damper as washed in tears; the water heavier as if laden with guilt. Is this the hopelessness your demon howls at the man?

Prosecution: Yes, no man will recover this dust.

Beggar: Sick I am, to think this despair in his frail craft, paddling yet no vision lies ahead. What is left? Why lift his arms to push on? Why open a throat to dying song? Let all fall and lay dormant and the stream of what 'is' go to the spill of 'was' let his eyes see only the below. This dragging river of existence. Its ripples and changes that ebb no hint of shoal or depth. Its surface that has no voice to plead for the innocence of what it must be as the wind must be.

The man gives up. The man looks down. The wind holds a moment to give silence to the fallen. The river stilled. The river and dust stilled.

And mirrors the man's god, the eyes of each other! No hammer can part this. The man, the dust, the god exist in the fibre of existence; of creation.

The weeping we hear in the wind is not a man, it is of a demon. Thunder his impudent rage pounding on a mountain.

Do you agree, sir?

In the thirty years of court, no one till this day had ever seen the Pointer of Prosecution's eyes with a tear in them.

He replies: I am not even sure why I feel this way, young fellow, but I am glad my demon lost. Yes, I agree. And I am amazed that even without seeking, without hope, within the despair of final destitution, the man found his god. As if what was inside himself, truly is inseparable. Even an old man as myself, who has seen too much of too little, would raise his eyes to that clarion of hope. Seek and ye shall find; Seek not and ye shall find. As if a man must spend all his life looking away from himself, away from his god in order to be less than himself; the moment he draws in to the vision of himself and his god he becomes more than himself. As if a soul feeds on hope and begins swell to its purpose.

Beggar: Very well put, sir. And I thank you. People as of myself don't beg for agreement, we beg only to see doors open. As if the day is dark and all lights from within cast tiny comforts.

To the witness, then, I believe we have proven or agreed that the mirror is omni powerful to a degree of the gods; it is unceasing to exist; it changes history. All these being of the mirror and the god in the mirror and, therefore, concluding the mirror is a god, since what is in the mirror also has the attributes of a god.

This being true than the charge of fraud is selling mirrors and what is in the mirrors as gods is false.

I have no further questions for the very patient Prosecution and thank him again for his truthfulness and searching depth, both of which made this defence possible.

The Pointer of Prosecution nodded and took himself back to his usual habitat of regard.

Judge: Young man, I have a question as regards all the testimony we have heard yet pertains not to your case. So I would ask you to feel free to decline an answer if you can't or would not. Awhile back we stated gods could not become men and remain gods. That no god could cease and therefore, no god end itself by becoming man. Yet is this absolute of truth?

Beggar: Your Honour begs a question that lies amongst the core of my heart with only a few others. I myself can envision a god willing to end itself and become man. As we might will ourselves cross the threshold of Death. Though for the god a little less courage perhaps since it at least knows of a continuum of existence once its cloak as a man dies; that is the god knows men continue to exist after Death but the man does not. The god knows it must only die twice, once as a god, once as a man and then return to perpetual existence. That is assuming men, or the thinking part. And it seems absurd to speak of gods yet deny the permanence of its creation.

So the god would become man and thereby the god become a 'was'; no longer an 'is'. And when the man, born of the death of the god, dies, does the god return from 'was' to 'is'? We said that this reverse of existence was impossible. Unless. Unless we allow the god and the man, the abstract man, to be inseparable.

Then the deaths of god or man can be explained as easy as child's play. A game of peek and boo. With a mirror.

For the god to become a man it must remove the mirror. For the man to become a god he must replace it. Death, Your Honour, is simply the frame around an open passage way: This is our mirror. The passage way opaque reflects a likeness. Yet a life time of gaze will clarify; what is thought reflected becomes clearly seen as beyond; as the other side of death. A beacon of likeness. And our footsteps are drawn to it. As it is drawn to us. Bride and groom meet at the threshold. Flame and wax at a window. The joining flares to wholeness. A trinity of inspiration. I am sorry, Your Honour, that your question is answered so poorly. Logic can build but it cannot fly. It is a tower from which the bare hope of intuition leaps. Frantic to ascend, to carry up its eagle of piercing depth, wide perception.

The leap yields sight or spinning terror of vertigo. It is not a journey for any who have something previous behind.

It is a flight suited only for beggars.

Judge: Thank you the same, young Beggar. All of this testimony leaves much yet to be absorbed. It was certainly an unusual trial of an unusual man. The Court thanks the Pointer of Prosecution as well in his daring trial of a different role. It reminds me of an old proverb: Wisdom comes when men look a different way. This Court will now adjourn for a brief stay while the verdict is weighted.

All rose as the Judge left the outer courtroom for her small inner chamber to reflect.

A casual acquaintance sitting directly behind the Pointer of Prosecution leaned closer and whispered: "What say you, man? Is the case won or lost? And in a more mocking tone: Has this been badger toppled reason or will justice deny his tricks of reflection?"

Tilting his chair back in the manner men do to show their grip on destiny, the Pointer replied: "These trials are tedious, foolish things. Crimes against, with, to, for and of God should be left to the rabble to judge. To bring it to court is to have a reasonable sane man try to sort the gibberish and whinnings of clashing idiots; how can he know their insanity of language and upside down morales? He stands, listens, gapes then finally in disgust walks away; to leave them all happy in their grovelling and pushing over some deflated ball or broken toy. This is theology in a courtroom. And worse, friend, I would smell worms amongst the ancient oak. Ethics may find its gnawing way. Ha! Ethics! They call it the science of morals. Meaning take a truth, strip it, pin it, cut it, probe it, dissect it, piece it and eureka! Truth means nothing. To me a man of ethics can stomach no whole truth complete of spine and tail but is so weak in the bowels that he can only digest nibbles of scale and flesh. A bland stew where truth and false congeal and then who knows what tastes of what!

Ethics, the bridge for theology and all its madness of for or against all its folly to assail our noble Justice; our walls of Truth.

Why you might ask is theology thus? To be an enemy of truth? It is easy, friend. Theology is an enemy of everything! Theology is only content with ending worlds; it stutters and stammers little between creation and death. It has no use for life! and no explanation.

The Beggar is right in some things, that men seek truth but as their priests and fathers and neighbours call it God who are they to grovel out of tune? And the Gods say: 'seek me only thru death', so then what becomes of life? Life a despised thing, a penance, an uncomfortable chair before bid rise up!

Well, well, to it then. Let all have their heads of straw and play with martyr's candles. Just I say that all this of theology and ethics and ethical trickology and lethalology and on and on be banned from a reasoning Court. Banned while a shred of Truth can still be looked at undissected. Or drag the whole lot in here and sentence them to live chained within each other's hearing! There, for once, is punishment exactly fitting the crime!

I blame not the Beggar boy for this. Tis us, with our damnable laws of blasphemy and other religious crockery. What does Justice care of the absurd? We may as well try the wind for blowing the wrong way! Times and laws like these, my friend, I would regret my prosecution of profession. That I must persuade men that a road only goes north and never proceeds south.

The law of blasphemy is the law of No Doubt and thereby demands 'Who are you to think?' And this we try in a Court of Reason! Shame on us!

Truly, my friend, I could now careless of winning the verdict. We are all guilty by submission and worse yet have not yet have not set eyes on the accusing bully. If I must make a professional guess, the Beggar will be of a little guilty, much innocent. The Judge must do this, and I mean no disrespect as she is very well thought of. She must, however, since Truth has been now polluted with Ethics. And ethics, esp. theological, will decrees no one truly anything. Only an assembly of bits and pieces.

At this point, the Judge re-entered the court. All rose till she was seated.

Judge: This case has been a complication and has pulled to the stand wide variations in almost all facets of man's existence. We have seen beliefs in battle, the deep exploration of one vs the wide shallow of many. Each with their own measure of significance, perhaps equal, perhaps not. That we cannot judge.

We are called upon to judge, however, when beliefs clash and spill blood or coin before the law. The law will allow no man and his god slit the throat or purse of another. We would call these fanatics and are grateful they hunt less and less.

The Beggar is no fanatic; the small crowd no religious frenzy. But the law is delicate as well as enormous. It can encircle screaming naked hordes and can easily scoop erring teachers; or thoughtless students.

To the verdict I give this: Whether man is made in the likeness of God or God is made in the likeness of man is not of question here. What is of question is did the young Beggar sell a likeness of God? He deems by argument that a man's likeness of himself should be his individual God. He follows too that this likeness is omni powerful, eternal and capable of changing human history.

We grant his defence truth. With caution. It is truth built as a very logical metaphor. Truth as a very systematic dream. Like a huge assembly built with glass rods, one must be very exact where to stand in order to discern the structure. In other words the truth he built exists only if we wish it to exist. It is unexistant if we wish it so. Hence the trial became of a trial of his ability to teach, his ability to make us want to see his teachings.

Make no mistake this is not trickery, or sorcery, the truth is there. His teachings come only with the stamp of succeed or fail. With the crowd he failed.

The mob prefers an outer evaluation of God to a piercing inner probe. This deduction is obvious from one fact: Had the mirrors been seen afore hand they would not have been bought.

So my verdict is thus:

I absolve the young beggar of all charges except that of fraud. Not erring in teachings but erring in overestimating those to be taught. Let the young man return to the Market Place with his earned money. Let him sit and wait. Let all who cannot tolerate this likeness of God in their homes come forth. Let all who find only fear, loathing, avarice, lust, impotence, despair, cruelty in their images bought from the young man come forth; let them all demand and receive refund that they may buy some image less offensive to themselves than their own likeness.

The Fourth Day

Having sat the prescribed time of sentence in the Market Place of Gods, the young Beggar's son left in mid day. He had performed no transactions of reimburse but, in his heart, he knew this a shameful victory. Guilt whispered to his mind between the press of the law and the whip of his own teachings again, the common man had been left with only room to crawl. He alone had produced or at least joined the task masters, in this continuous abomination.

Stirring his thoughts in the dirt, the Beggar had sat and waited one of the crowd's return. Gladly give refund, gladly give all earned to one, just for a chance to speak of a calmer, gentler search. For the Judge was right, he had failed in his teachings. If the open minds are presented, the teacher faults if emptiness prevails. Blame the cook for no supper, not the guests! The small crowd had journeyed to him, weary in their ordeal of annual subterfuge; and daily disappointment. A carnage of hearts; souls ploughed asunder in a godless sow and reap.

Had he done any better? Than those false hawkers who mixed sweat and reverence in all names of golden trickery?They, at least, offered the painting of a dream, so that the dream may be thought real. That all slaves may look upon it and learn to sing beautiful music with their chains. For the delight of slave and master alike.

What then had he done? He had broken no chains, changed no iron symphony to joyous throats of release. He had merely heated the steel that their hands burnt to its pluck.

Ripped from the frame the forgeries of life but left no scene in the gap.

Righteous is their anger and hate, that he would turn hope into a plunder of subsistence; a boot heavy upon their tokens. The child does not wish hammers in exchange for toys; it wishes better, shinier playthings. He, as some depraved tyrant of reason, would throw babes into the war. A battle scarred of collected sides, all buffoons raging from corpses.

Was this to be his calling? Amass mountains of carnage given sufferance to his name too. Certain it would bring his name hiss hard in immortality's lair; but was this truly his idol of greatness? That he would be great through a liberation; a flowering of their greatness. Can that even be? Are the words of one man, the heart of another? Is rain oak and not grass?

Yet surely though the oak is what it is, it would not thrive without rain?

Yet will it thrive in a flood? and what is rain but a single word; what is theology but the flood?

Has he not failed; done as all men do? Has he not tripped over a single delicate dew? Absorbed this to the furthest stretch of his single heart; till the walls skinned crystal clear and light and panorama gathered to its beat like light embracing a moth. Yet then to beg more; to misunderstand completely; for a mind is so tiny, so feeble to this task. To misunderstand and not know that only Death can gentle unpeel and expand the heart; till then containment must stay feeding gentle on a single drop of life. There can be no more, yet this is half the universe, if a man understood and looked not for a conquerable word but instead, laid gentle, stayed reclined this iron bed of his making. Iron not for pain but for resistance the ceaseless batterings from a restless man.

But the mind sees so little because its eyes are tiny; yet, its littleness seduces itself to large. It would believe in more for it believes it is great, only that which is about it is little. It will not hear the heart's truth that it is a tiny mind in a magnificent world. The mind a simple thing that wonders tricks if a ball flies to it, or it to a ball. A heart knows with instant senses the size of a ball, size of a hand, size of a world and which can fit in which. Yet, alas for it, tiny looks rule wide yearns; as in all things of man.

So the mind grasps in its demands of self love, a frenzy of flutter, black, with a great long beak. This its narrow scope of probe. A dark beam probing the light. Thus it rips the clouds, puffed to their gentleness of cascade a drop at a time. Clouds gathered such in nectars of larger worlds, the eye's beak gores the belly and torrents spill. The result: all left to a heart floundering beyond its hope and a tiny mind fathomed beyond grasp; a beetle defeated in oceans. How can such wing to higher worlds now? Having stepped the cradle of infinity and plunged to nothing.

Where now to find this single drop, single word now overboard; now given for lost; bled into blood of heart's surge; a perfect thought cringed under scowling volumes?

What had he done to them; done to himself?

How can he give what he has lost? Let the other Merchants splash in their convulsions; drowning in the laps of their tongue's arching. He would cease to add to the circles of whirling deception. The sucking Pool of Congregation. It is all a lie to a heart and a drowning man gropes for no rainbows. Those who would weave these illusions are but tyrants to the small eyes of the unbleached, the unrotted. They are hope makers insidious in their trade for they sell what cannot be sold; only the hope of it.

For him then, for any then, is there no doing, no hope to be cast and chance link with something less turbulent? Less dark in its volumes of deep? How does one drink an ocean to filter a drop? Shed torrents, yet retain the single heart raptured inside that unique tear.

How does one remember the Word? How does one call for a name without the name? As if to shout silent into dead winds; whisper through a mind endlessly across voids.

Were his father here, he may remember the word. Though, was it ever spoken between them? So much passed their lips in those few years; much more passed their minds. The word may have been spoken many times yet his ears may not have heard it.

Would his father have called it God? Much his father spoke of man through this word of God. That men could love men but only by the love of this God. Had he not said that each man was not unworthy of this love, yet each man was incapable?

How strong then had seemed the thought; now faded in its linger. Was his father wrong?

Did it not now seem he was saying we were all curs who would fight in pack without a master? Noble, beautiful beasts but cursed with foul hearts nonetheless? Was he not right? They could not find his God, yet they found him. Lifted him high that they may elevate their cruelty.

Was this why the Beggar's son gave denial of the word God? That a God would watch idle in his intent or worse active in his plan. That all there could only mumble 'forgive' and flex their hands naked without claws. At least curs would bark! Those disciples, followers who had never the discipline to form ranks, nor the courage to follow.

When he had heard, when he came upon them in his youthful rage and sure arrogance of defiance, they had flung him out. Their ears could not stand the burn of why; their faces seared to his hot blaze of eye. He, a prince in his rags and bent staff, demanding justice he honoured from a broken king's rabble. All a noise of a bad street play; the players unrehearsed giving token to the dramatics.

His father stretched before whipped dogs deserved a larger pageant.

Yet, the Beggar's young son wondered, now in the eve of youthful fire, if he truly would have done better. The soldier's ranks; the tribunal's tongues, the jeers and catcalls, those were nothing. The battle would have been with his father's eyes. His father's words demanding forgiveness. Could he alone, he perhaps most loved and most loving, have smashed his father's work and plunged the splinters of this rape into other men's throats? Pushed his father aside as he shielded his aggressors? Or worse shrugged from a shoulder, a hand that had never touched but gentle? Ignored eyes that his should had cradled him from unwanted to loved? Cursed a mouth which had spoke his own name as seabirds speak of flight?

Like the disciples, the Beggar's son knew that he too could not have severed destiny's ropes. Not as his father tied them to his own wrists.

He would have been just like all the rest, head curled neither able to utter curses or forgiveness; caught between a snarling world and God's. Mongrels without tongues; angels without wings.

And what if roles reversed, a son crucified instead of a father? The Beggar's son knew agony would not beg forgiveness for its maker, yet the father would. The father humble yet of full eye would look to the mob and forgive them. How can a son forgive a father for that?

All these years after, he had pondered what made wood and nails higher than life, a father's life, a son's life, any life. He could bring forth no answer. He knew somehow his father had died for a cause but he knew not the name of that cause. The Beggar's son cared not to call it futile yet it hung so close to that edge, it seemed his mind whirled when he crept close. And lost its vision of the sound; its colour of growth.

So the word, his father's word, his word, the word of single drops, life itself, did not come thundering from the past. It was hidden to the present. Would it remain elusive, mirrored all of the future?

The Beggar's son could not say; did not know. He only knew he could not give flight a word he could not unwrap. He could lead astray a flock while he toiled paths with blind crooks. Better alone. Among shepherds, few are men, many are wolves yet of what use was an empty sling? The perfect stone must be found before this David could slew his own Goliath. In truth, victory proceeds the spoils.

So the Beggar's young son turned his back to the flocking dust frenzied among those who shear with woollen eyes. Left the Market Place and began walking through the city towards a small ridge of mountains seen larger or smaller depending on the sun's haze and dust's rise.

Today, man's cartage to and fro was much; the sun, too, eager in its task. These combined with a trick of eye that only the rough domes of each mountain top could be seen. Grayish black overturned bowls hovering over house tops round, or peaked sharp in their lap of lime of curving bricks. Like white steeples of whey had dripped from vessels held upside down to drain all away. A creation of discarded surplus.

Other days, the tops lost, the hills leading of the mountains pressed together as toes. An image of large feet held from a final step to the hovels and dens carved from rocks and brick beams which filled most of the city; which were in turn filled with most of the city's dwellers.

Days when the whole image stood rigidly clear, yet even than gray and black had search interplay of rock and shadow that illusion shimmered and danced with harsh. The mountains breathed hot wind in and out their numerous caverns; vultures specked the air far from the city's smells rousing their appetites. Men turn and look beyond the passage ways, narrow alleys, wonder what dwells in dark climbs, what scratches a living in these folds of ripples. Shiver even in a choke of heat, when they would stir their superstitions of what doings may arise beyond the light walled enlightened cities. Memories of day's spectre linger into dark night. The jagged apparitions are not seen but cool winds sing from their icy breath. The towns people still believing the long ago legends of half things, wedded of grave and horrific life. Their rot and cling held together by daily emission to beds of ice believed forever lie deep inside the splits of the mountains. Like burrowing ticks in an old woman's wrinkle. They believed these half dead would then crawl to the night's embrace and there wail their laments. This the cool winds smelling of musk; of old rock; of things half decayed that would wander and whistle over the brick and refuge of town.

Its caress varied from grip to brush, but was never unfelt. Some nights its descend so unlike a day's warmth, even flies slept, huddled to cracks in great black mass barely squirming. Fires were lit by those who could. Those who couldn't begged (those that could or huddled too). A blue tinge adding rapture to child like eyes. A wonder of contemplation, as old shawls wrapped more than one pair of shoulders. And all men gave thanks, even those so hollow with need only small tatters of cloth were needed for their limbs. All gave this thanks for the walls, the great brick which allowed them status and safety as men. To be not scraping and cringing unholy as beasts, fearing any break of twig cascading through the night. To at least here succumb in one piece, not ripped and torn to bits by fanged mouths, the mountain's revenge or the savage clans that still stalked wild on ugly ponies fast as wind borne.

It was night then that brought truly the vision of hidden mountains to men's eyes. Round the fires, tales would come from forbidden rises. Tales of the origin of these half dead. Send to be those cursed from the sense of the Gods for their blasphemy, cowardly or murderous ways when they were full men. Their revenge and savagery was swift indeed should any man stumble upon them. Ripped to shreds with their icy bent hands and rotted teeth tearing fierce on their flesh. For sometimes, a man in the city, despairing of his family's desolation would journey out. Believing the mountains would provide both a large sustenance then the city and as much sanctuary from the wild plains.

None were ever heard of again. Neither man, wife or child. Those all of the city did not doubt their reasons of silence.

They had all given, rather than found, sustenance. Fed the bellies of beasts, or fed the delight of imagination from torturous hordes or satisfied the descending reprisals of the cursed lot leprous in the mountains.

So these night tales made men give continuous bless to their city, benevolent or not, as a harsh uncle is blessed at an orphan's meal. Better always this than that. Such do men find joy in empty pots. The pot needs only filling but without the pot anything gathered merely spills to the ground and all is lost! Truly only the men of this city could be called: lovers of life. For they have such a tenacious grip upon the handle and such a hopeful look above the yawing rim.

The Beggar's young son had not this grip of thought to hold rigid to one place. What he sought would never fall rattling into any upturned dish. He would journey to these mountains though he doubted an answer there; but he was certain no answer would be left behind. If he found an answer he may return to them laden heavy with crumbs, if he found none, none here would miss another empty pot hung limp in a kitchen's poverty.

He had walked a few streets, relatively clean and wide in their lay. The houses though small and close packed maintained a continuum of clean line and a cared for standing.

Here at the edge, however, the street suddenly twisted and narrowed. A darker smell hovered amazingly at the edge of this physical change, as if foulness knows the limits of its trespass. He stopped and looked. The houses did not follow the angle of the sloping road but rather began to lean and crook in their own manner of unlikeness. In fact, down in the view, he saw many had gave into a lower need and half construction than of the houses he had just passed by.

The alley road did indeed slope downward, hence the chosen name of this quarter of the city: Valley of the dogs. Called so by notice of its depression in land and by the stomach that poverty has for large collections of scrawny curs. Though no one family owns a particular dog; rather they are a collective herd for use and abuse. That use had at times reached a sustenance level and hence the address, 'Are you of the Valley of the dogs?' grew to be a slanderous term similar to: 'You are what you eat'. It was more commonly slurred outside the valley than in it, the other quarters more enjoying a downward cast by the possession of their ,so-called by self, fuller innocence.

Before the Beggar could begin his descending probe into this place of unshouldered struggle, he heard a noise as if the angered shout of a child. It came from a side street the opening of which he had just passed. He turned, strode back, then walked up the side street.

There at the end, in a larger construction than the houses, was a building square and squatter with a large wooden door and very small windows, shuttered tight. A very bland square lime box but for one beautiful statue on top. A chiselled form of three boys in tunics; one knelt on one knee reading a scroll; one stood aiming a bow and arrow towards the sky, its tip above the kneeling boy's head. The last boy faced away from the two; he had a dove cupped in his hand and looked intently to its face.

A shout again. Or perhaps more now like a yell of pain. Below this elevated scene, one man held a young boy of about ten years age. Another man had just given the boy's back a solid hit from a club he held. Another boy stood to the side, his eyes in the squint of rage or tears, his fists clenched tight.

The man was about to swing down upon the boy again when the Beggar yelled out: "Pray what is the name of the crime here? And who I beg is fiend and who is angel? Though tis usual to grant in the ways of men, and in the smaller ways of boys, that the one with the stick is deemed judge and jury and the one without, ready to sing of his sentence. For might has its right to question and the lesser to offer humble answer."

The two men turned towards the beggar. The man with the stick unnoticeable except for his rather wide bulbous nose, marked with scars from battle, disease or wine, it was not known; though likely a failing war with spirits.

The other man was doubly unnoticeable since he had no large nose or no large stick. Such being his state he rarely spoke except when noticed and thereby rarely spoke.

This being the arrangement, Big Nose pointed his stick at the Beggar and with menace replied: "You've a subtle tongue to thus trap an answer that the reply bring a re-align of stature. Civility can bring too its compensation but such the look of you should beware you trod the rug threadbare and get cut amongst the stones! I am the Master of this School you see risen before us, this other is a teacher. These boys are pupils. These doings none of your haphazard concern. Trod along fellow, lest the stings have time to callous these youthful backs before I add another."

The Beggar, giving no inclination of moving on, simply replied: "Pardon I continue the crime of these prying eyes and add accomplice tongue. But I would ask, what teachings are so rare, so delicate that eyes and ears have no heed? Only the brush of a wooden word can whisper beneath the skin. For I have heard of old blind priests who read the roughed ink of scrolls through their fingertips. Seen deaf men sway their hands to music with their bodies pressed to a wall. What school do you call your particular technique? The Flailology of Minors Philosophy? Do they thus learn well the names of plants and vegetable life? That either boy could lie in forest or field and easily name ten species below his back. Or in each to do a test upon the other's back. A test of angles and lengths of line. Calculate new theories of squared dignity upon stripped shoulders. Plot that against swelling volumes of oppression. Pray, sir, instruct me in what of so deep a teaching carves boys into men; by a means that makes grown men shudder?

Big Nose: "I've half a mind to instruct your insolence and prying with such a means: Lucky for you and unlucky for us, the law allows the means on a boy's back but not a more deserving beckon as yours. If you must know, the whipping is punishment, not teaching. Though we are quite sure it will teach behaviour more wanting of less punishment."

Beggar's son: "With great respect, sir, it is such times as these that I am glad my calling of beggar. For sad to say but I have not the sight or courage to be teacher, punisher, judge, jury, philosopher, lawyer, executioner and know what is taught and what is punished. To move resolutely and without compromise through the wearing of each hat; always maintaining the stern face of fairness before such young wide eyes.

Big Nose: (lowering his stick and taking a less wide stance of nostril). You are right there, fellow. A School Master has a hard task and yet at times must be hard to the task. I call teaching the art of filling empty bowls. But like any bowl it must be cleansed from time to time; what better way then a little scraping with a stick? To empty it of any foul or crusted decay that may dictate or even corrupt the new addition of worthier fare.

Beggar's son: A mild scraping most call a thing of sound health; a battering most call a madman's waste unless one seeks to eat the fragments of the bowl. But, pray, give sirs, a slight alm to my curious nature and tell the horrendous doings of youth which boldly beg for ungentle correction?

Big Nose: Why, is your aim to judge the judge? This school revolves around my unquestionably sphere. What respect would fall from my satellite eyes were I to be seen mocked in the streets by ignorant prods of wrapped rags?

Beggar: Ah, fear of nothing, I have neither the hands of the law nor the tongue of a priest. My bite is wrapped all in a gag of ragged complexion; a mongrel come sit and cant his head before the Master's doings. No boy will harbour less respect of your stature, should you bend and offhand a gesture of keen violence to a stray dog. For even those above School Masters keep pets for their amusement and our recognition of their dominance as humans. For who among the beggars would not envy the well fed tiger or bejewelled elephant? That these brutes lie so close to benevolence and are given thus solely because of their noble nature. So regal that they need not demand; merely accept. Woe to any beggars, any destitute that may carry such airs. What is paraded in brutes is dispelled with vengeance in rags of gatherings. That is the irony of tyranny: to tremble before glaring eyes from heaps while stroking the fur of panthers.

But a Master is a master of himself as well as others. He will allow no doubt to check his stretching hand. He fears not to smooth a rumbling beggar's matted brow. For what can the beggar or cur or tiger tear from the Master's mind?

Years schooled in the arts of respect and wisdom cannot be overturned like one wheeled carts weaving haphazard through destiny. A Master's mind is a chariot. He fears not its unattendance in any hovel street. No one would dare take upon themselves the reins of its surge of steeds; power harnessed only to the delicate tough of a Master's will. Any less than this would find themselves either unmoved or quickly flung out, cartwheeling into stalls of moulding cabbage.

No, only a school boy fears a question, only a tyrant, weak, outside his strong hands, fears the questioning loss of face. In fact, Masters, that is Masters of anything, gather questions about themselves as attentive cross-legged wide eyes followers. A Master loves his questions, as a Baker loves his yeast; for they freshen the stale daily bread.

Respect? Who would respect a Master who shirks this following; a Master who cowers in shadows and will not look out. But who has not looked upon a Master gathered tender but sure these sprouts of his plating; seen him delicately rearrange the branching to enhance the coming flower? He gingerly moves from one question to the other, sprinkling his answer to each down to its roots of ponder. Who cannot then respect the wise, courageous master who fears no loss of himself in the outpouring of his own mind?

Hence I come spilling the dust of yeast between us. Only the Master knows the heaviness of dough, the years of kneed, the warmth of enlightenment. These he lays upon the yeast. Together we create bread between us. Wisdom, the sustenance of minds."

With that the Beggar's son stood silent. Waiting to see if the School Master had understood what he had said. If he had understood the very subtle challenge he had thrown at him. That men of fear shrink from questions. Men without fear need no questions. Men asking of questions need not fear.

Big Nose: "As a principal I agree, most men in need of knowledge are fearless in their want. Yet even great mouths are burnt upon the taste of truly fresh bread. Most prefer the cooler variety made more palatable by time and the passing through many other mouths. The common ways are filled with this recognition till all is mush scooped from bowl to bowl with only a faint smell of bread and this over powered by the bile of wretched offering.

One would think few could stomach these schools of weak bowelled philosophy. But alas these ladles of fearful thought are many; overcompensated for their meagre fare. Squinting before the truth, these teachers loom large before the dim gathered to their faces. It is a mirage, in reality, the gawkers are being overshadowed by ignorance; mercenary, insidious in its recital. Their music is blown of a wind without horn. Their word for politics is grovel. Their geography is of yellow maps; pointing to places they have not been. And the same said of their philosophy. Of law, they are as chained mules, they do not know why, only how far. Their mathematics is incalculable since they dare not choose sides, a sum of errors even less than the perfect nothing in their skulls. Here, too, their ethics drowns quickly, wrapped in a sewn bag of presumption. Only in history do they excel since their minds have only crept from it yesterday!

This school I head I steer not to be as such. There is none of 'what we do not know we can mutter or mumble and hope it slips by'.

To teach one must learn. To learn one must do. Men do. Men labour. Men think. Men create. From the ranks of the doers, come betters. From the betters come a few chosen Masters. From there we plant the flower for each garden of thought here. But not forever, there is no lasting pension here for declining interest and lagging thought. After five years, the master returns as a doer to rehone his dusking wit and a new master is secured.

All this keeps fresh and keen to the appetite, the fare laid before our pupils.

I will not brag of the great many who have risen from our table and went out to great and glorious tasks. That is the way of others, Masters of Schools, though they have meagre results compared to our sum. I do not brag because it could be said that tradition now sends us the worthy and the worthy will ascent regardless the steps in nature. This is true 'cept for the rather weakening effect of diluted fare. Give a bad pupil to a bad teacher and failure is the bond of both. I dare say this school before you has failed with some of the worst but it has never ruined one of the good.

Which reminds me of your question. Before you are two of the worst. Though both are quick in their wit, they are slow to their nature. That is slow to change their nature. They have a failing to easily let angry words collect in their fists, then attempt to drive their points down each other's throats. Time after time in verbal tone I have cudgeled them that though this is a common method of negotiation, it is frowned upon in higher arenas of discussion. Why even in politics, where ethics is even deemed a side door entrance, physical tactics are given shun; though no doubt because liars are not only hard to corner but are generally cowardly and would therefore skirt this office should bloodshed come with the brass medal.1

Other arguments, too, have been tumbled upon their heads. That great men know the times of their calling; they do not waste their strengths battling over tiny trinkets that snap to disappointments within a day.

I have tried to tell them that combat should be only a well laid course of action. No good can arise when men or boys simply flare to any perceived intrusion or incendiary look. There are straw men who rustle much against changing winds. Dry and prickly to the touch are their hands and thoughts.

1. In this city, all noblemen, etc of the city wear a brass signia of their office on a chain.

In truth, though we call them of fiery temper, they are simply easily kindled by any approaching heat of fury or human warmth. They do not fight for rightful space, they struggle for distance from everyone else. They are in a solitary feud against the world.

One of these boys appears forged of that temper. Push him and he sparks like an axe caressing the wheel.

The other boy is of another species of men. A needle that seeks these haystacks. Comrades with tiny daggers.Men who are only friends with another man's pain.

Their works rarely seen but known well to the squirm of a haystack. These men with delicate persistent spears have found joy in torment; warmth in a blazing roar. Such narrow eyes these lizards, to find the crack in another man's glare. And then the rapid tongue flicks and tastes the buzzing seethe.

So these boys have found each other as mongoose and snake; dog and rabid bait. A deserving pair, some say, let them be. Like bitch and cur, a well made marriage that saves others a taste of misery. Let them continue this dance till it consummates in victory or passion's exhaust.

But I say, no, anger is a fever unwholesome to the soul if its source is unhealthy doings. As such it must be cleansed for the tormented to rise. The whip is a leech to draw the pestilence; a water spray on the backs of red eyed bulls to cool blackish brows.

It is hoped too that foes without cause become friends born from humiliation. My blows even their scores and what's more unite them as brothers before a much larger adversary.Like tigers who discard the challenge of territory when the king's elephants begin flushing out the cat's lairs.

The whip is punishment for the lash. The scourge draws a better fever. The stick a bridge between reluctant neighbours. Like an ass stuck in mud, we pull his haltered lead, pat his back for favour and tap his rear to give all propel. Three for a boy, three for a mule. The results must be equal. A little braying, a little wide eye sorrow in look and then the err is shed. Neither will stray from the easier path again.

Beggar's Young Son: From your probing of their ills, sir, I can easily see you are no mere muleherder in your path of teaching. You have dwelt long and hard on each step down this path leading to harsh grounds. But if you would be so kind as to forgive the mumblings of such an unlearned school as I, there is a point or two I would beg sharpen.

The natures of men or sprouting men are little understood and what is worse are little probed. Some say this is because the seeker likes not to find what he himself is as he finds things in other men. Some say the paths inside are too many, branching, splitting, rejoining and sure to become a life's maze of bewilderment. Others argue the core of a man is shrouded in gods and demons at battle in gray mists growling low. Any who venture this far cannot enter this pulsating core of rain and fire.

What ever the whys or wants, men are clothed in the curtains of their skin. So what must we do then? If we sewed a dog into a pig's skin and then gave it to a farmer, what would he do? Would he bring it to his hearth and feed it meat? No, he puts it in the sty and casts slop to its trough.

And thus we do with men. We treat the man as the outside begs treatment. We give like to like.

The joyful we give song. The discontent we give shrug. The rich get more. The hungry receive emptier bowls. Beauty receives elegant fittings. Ugly is clothed with harsher rejects. The shy are ignored in corners. The loud heard in every room. Tyrants given a glare of homage. The brutal welcomed amongst brutes. The mad are given the whole room to spin. The meek given much less space to cower.

And the criminal, what is his reward for like to like? Surely the murderer is killed, the bully beaten, the treasonous tongue cut away and the thief robbed of his freedom.

So the beating of the boys is a continuum of the law which would demand to beat the beaters. Now, of course, when I first arrived I only knew you were beating the boys, which had you not the role of judge and executioner, would be unlawful.What, however, if the boys were in fact beating each other as punishment for a previous beating of some other boy. A few days ago, they beat some boy, then tried each other and were in the throes of evoking punishment when you interrupted. Would this not make your beating of them unlawful?

Now by chance the fathers arrive and see you beating their boys. Whereupon they beat you for what father does not have the lawful right to protect his family from attack? Your fellow teachers emerge and beat them. The father's friends gather and beat them. The royal guards are called out and beat the mob into dispersal. The king can tolerate no upheaval without due punishment. Who is beaten for this civil discourse: all? the boys? a few of the mob?

You can laugh and call this absurd and it is, except that it shows beatings do not end beatings. No do they resolve the nature of the cause. You can teach a dog not to eat table scraps fallen from a table but you cannot teach it not to eat. Or it ceases to become a dog.

Likewise with the criminal man. Punishment of like against like is a salve to the punishers wound; it does not seep inside the criminal. A punished thief may not steal but he will want to steal; the fraud disclaims his verdict.

Does it matter to the society, or the city, if a hundred thieves roam wanting but unable to steal? No, we seek no new answer for their behalf. They will take upon themselves the chance of unnotice and feed their want. Till caught again and again.Punishment is no solution; no hope. At least, of no Hope to the punished. It has in its grasp, however, an 'answer of' for the punisher.

Shall I beg your humble notice a little more gentlemen or would you prefer send the fool that I may be to tread his trippings elsewhere?

Big Nose: "As a Master primarily of Ethics, I could dispel at least ten quotes to banter at your ramblings of beatings. I would, at least, argue the point of punishment as of no hope to the punished though I would agree it is not what the punished had hoped for. Your simplicity is novel to me, however, so continue. And if we accomplish nothing else we give new penalty upon these boys in their long vigil at the lesson. Proceed, young fellow."

Beggar's son:" Man commits crime by act...indeed he is tried, convicted, punished in the full consideration that this act he has done is a WILLFUL act. If we, as a society, would wish this act to not be continued or repeated, should we not then ensure that the repetition of the act is NOT WILLFUL?

Ensure that either the act is no longer WILLFUL or that the non-Act is WILLFUL. Can a man act in a NON-WILLFUL way? Can a man NOT act in a WILLFUL way?"

Big Nose:" It is easy to do both. If I push you to the ground, you are forced to sit but it is not by your WILLFUL act. If I ask you to sit and you will not, then you are Not acting in a WILLFUL way."

Beggar: "Can the opposite be true? Can I NOT-ACT in a NON-WILLFUL way and NON-ACT in a WILLFUL way?"

Big Nose: "Of course. If you don't steal, you commit the 'NON-ACT' of not stealing in a willful way; if you don't steal my stick because I hold it out of your reach then you commit the NON-Act not in a willful way but in the NON-WILLFUL way."

Beggar: :"In other words, NON-WILLFUL is defined as a WILL imposed upon oneself...and WILLFUL would, of course, be SELF-WILL imposed upon oneself. An act may or may not be a result of this WILL...and the same can be said for a NON-ACT. When we look at them though NON-ACT is actually non-existent whereas NON-Willful is actually existent."

Big Nose: " You err, young man. NON-ACT is not non-existent , for it is actually the state of the ACT not existing, not that which could or could not act. In other words if you do not sit, you stand...we are not saying you do not exist. We could but we are not, we will assume in your arguments that the state that is NON-NON-ACT could exist if NON-ACT does not!"

Beggar's son: "Then let us say that a man steals by his Self-Will or he doesn't steal by his Self-Will. We can also assume a man doesn't steal because of an Imposed- Will. Can we assume a man steals because of an Imposed-Will?"

Big Nose: " I say no. A man can force himself to do or not do something but he can only be prevented from doing something, he can't be forced to do something against his real Will."

Beggar: "But if I threaten to kill this boy unless he steals for me, does not his thievery come as a consequence of my Will, not his?"

Big Nose: "No. He chooses a lower virtue for his life."

Beggar: " If, then, virtue is measured by the act of refusing thievery, can we say that the man who does not steal because of an Imposed-Will is virtuous?"

Big Nose: " We cannot. For virtue, as a moral perfection, is a State of Man, it is something that is 'done', that is 'aspired to...towards'. The act of not-stealing does not make a man virtuous as he may not steal simply because there is nothing to steal...or his has no hands. Give the non-thief object, opportunity or means and we have a thief...give such to a virtuous man and we still have NO thief.

The Virtuous man is defined by his state of virtue not solely by the acts of virtue, since a non-virtuous man may not steal but that does not necessarily imply virtue. The Virtuous man, however, can lessen his virtue by doing acts of non-virtue such as thieving."

Beggar: "I agree then but ponder what is Virtue? Is it simply a morale acceptance of society and its judgements?"

Big Nose: " You mock me, boy, with such an easy question for you know very well that it is far more than 'society's acceptance'...for that becomes merely ...'the norm'...'the average'...one might as well say...'the brute'..."

Beggar: " It could begin there, could it not?"

Big Nose: " It could but it should certainly not end there. For the ways and whims of men and their judgements is like laws written in sand. Besides, the morals of a soldier are not the same as the morals of a beggar or a schoolmaster. They cannot be for the very nature of what they do defines their natures."

Beggar: " I would agree it defines their place in men but does it necessarily define them as a man...as a virtuous man or not?"

Big Nose: "I would call Virtue as something beginning at Morals and rising towards a sense of Honour and a stance of Nobility."

Beggar: "Virtue. Morals. Honour. Nobility. The same words. The same things defining the same things like two lost men giving each other directions. They can only tell where they have been, not where they wish to go.

Where we wish to go is to be without corruption, without dishonour, without condemnation, without sin, without pursuit of Law or Authority, without reproach. Virtue in a man becomes that elevation whereupon all men from all sides must look up to that man in his inherent 'good conduct', even the inner man , himself will 'look up inside himself at times and be surprised at his own instinct of moral inclination. He may call it god-inspired, socially-inspired, self-inspired but it will be equalled by a humility before all men that they could do likewise AND that he is but one err from the lowest around him. A man that close to failure will not judge too quickly and that is Virtue as well."

Big Nose: "I doubt such a place is possible in this City for some things of good sense can at times conflict with some things of good law. You may think it well to help a slave remove his burden of chains but his Master can have you whipped with the Law for such a good deed."

Beggar: " As we have discussed before; the whipping, the Imposed-Will, should not interfere in the man with the unchaining, the Virtue, the Free-Will."

Big Nose: "Beggar, I am not fooled. I see you lead us towards a place where Free-Will should judge itself and we as the Imposers of Will have no right to sway that natural leaning, come what ever the carnage but I argue..."

The Beggar held up his hand and shook his head "No, my learned friend, no. That is not where I was falling. I am an explorer, not a teacher. I don't really know when I begin what lies around the next bend of sentence. But I do know this, or at least, think of this.

Your punishment of the boys and their decision to act as they do are as unrelated as wind and water. We see the tempest at the shore and think they are intertwined as Cause and Means but neither causes the other or is the means of the others' existence. There is wind without water as surely as there is water without wind.

So, too, there is Virtue and there is Punishment. One has nothing to do with the other."

Big Nose: " What!? Do you again begin the argument that punishment cannot raise up Virtue?"

Beggar: " Who even began that argument? Punishment has nothing to do with the Punished and everything to do with the Punisher! There can be a discussion of Virtue but it is not about virtue in the punished but rather the lack of virtue in the Punishers!"

Big Nose: " Here and hear, boys, how the Schoolmaster gives patience to an argument that another might treat with a quicker stiffened rebuttal." With that, he lifted his stick and grinned.

Beggar: "No man appreciates more the quiet of delayed verdict than a man who has only his arm of pleas to defend his open trial, my friends."

Big Nose nodded. "Say it then."

Beggar: " If there is crime after punishment, that is, if crime continues wether by the same criminal or some other man, has punishment failed as a deterrent?

There are many who are both weak in their criminal urge and weak in their ethics. Fear of reprisal glues their step to stay shy of unlawful paths. Should want or opportunity or a greater gathering of ill will cause them to act unlawful, they will do so; they must do so because now they believe their suffering in NOT doing the crime is greater than their memory of the punishment. Indeed, they no longer are the 'punished' but rather have become a different man...the 'unpunished'...a change in opportunity simply makes them the same dog with a new master..."

Big Nose: " But I say if the punishment is harsh enough, the flesh will cringe even if the mind does not."

Beggar: "We can execute... murder, the murderer but have we murdered murder?

We can remove the hands of the thief but have we taken away the desire of others to steal?

It would seem not, my friends. For we have punished a long time in the history of men, yet, there is still very much upon us, murder and thievery and much other mayhem. When the population is surplus, is it better to execute than imprison, for is not imprisonment an extension of cruelty?...Does the prison give peace to the thief...or peace to the City? Something is stolen, can we steal back Belonging? A plant is uprooted, murdered...does uprooting another make the garden more coloured?

Why do we do it then? This punishment? Out of fear?

The way a pack of dogs react when one is hurt...in a sense...abnormal. Turn upon it in a frenzy and tear it to bits?

Indeed, Society does have a collective fear...society does not fear itself but rather, the lack of fear. That all men are glued into a society by...fear. We must see fear in each man's eyes...in some way. Some for fear of starving. Others for fear of taking. Some for fear of being killed, others for fear of not killing. What we see in each other's eyes makes us equal. Even on to the fear of each other.

The fear of anyone must be at least equal to the fear society feels in its own eyes, in its own reflection."

Big Nose: " Do you mean by this that simple maxim 'No man is above the Law?'.

Beggar, laughing, " Beggars, unlike lawyers, believe many things go unseen in the Night than what is known in a Day in Court. I do not say no man is above the Law, many, many are...the law easily bows to money and prestige... I say , rather, no man is above the Fear."

Big Nose: " What? Why not the same debates? Money and Prestige will protect a man from Mayhem as much as protect him from the Law."

Beggar: " You must see your flaw already, my learned man. How can a man be protected from one 'thing' using the 'thing' which he wishes to be protected from? Was not Law invented to remove Fear?

Fear of men of man? Or was it man of men?

We have a Law which 'prevents' one man from killing one man. So Society 'feels' safe. Each man of men in that society knows a fear both of murder and the consequences of murdering.

That Society, however, can murder thousands, BY LAW, and we still feel 'safe'. This is because Fear, when equal, becomes unknown. Just as the stink of a slaughter house is fresh to the enter but lost to the linger.

The reality is that no one is safe but all feel safe because Fear makes them equal. Like lions running a herd, no one is afraid while all heels are side by side.

Some find pleasure in their own suffering...which is never normalized..but even that suffering 'belongs' in the sense that it makes them human with men...if only that they correspond with fists.

See, if you doubt, how men gather to the suffering of another; rarely to assist; usually to watch and , even, mock.The movement of the herd..the lull of the blood smell when one of the herd is 'down' and the fear ends...like sated lust...the crowd lingers in the image of beating and death and understands ...why...the 'organized State' wether a City or a crowd or a single murderer is, in itself, a 'punisher'. A Punisher of individuals, dissenters, minorities, other States in its Control. Men say a murder, a beating, a punishment, an atrocity is committed because it can be committed , because it exists then it 'is' ordained. This then is the Will of the Order of the Universe...Violence in all its forms exists because without it, Death would not only be just Random but King as well...If people die for a reason, even if that reason is to be the victim of a murder than at least something initiates murder, controls it...Death has something greater it answers to...An Order. An Order created by the mind of Men to avoid the acceptance of Chaotic beauty controlling...and not controlling...the world.

Big Nose: "This is as absurd as hyenas terrified of crows...the larger have no need to fear the smaller..."

Beggar: " Ticks can drive an elephant mad over a cliff while no tiger would even dare approach such a beast."

Big Nose: " No matter. I mean, beggar, that no rich man with his castles and guards and houses and money need fear such as thou. Where then is your 'equal fear'?"

Beggar: "You are right. In opposites. The man who has nothing does not fear the man who has everything. For only Nothing will kill him. the man who has Everything, however, must fear..."

Big Nose interrupted: "Hah, here you will say everything, no doubt. Absurd, for how can the..."

Beggar: "No, but say , at least, something...the man with everything must fear losing something for then he has less than Everything. These two types of men exist in a society...one with everything...one with nothing. They exist together in fear...their fear combined makes Society, like earth and water make bricks with straw. Nothing and Everything combined with Fear make a City...a Society.

Two things are Nothing and Everything. To all Men in some way. Property and Brutality. Some men have no property, just brutality. Some men think they have no brutality because they have property. You see, we define a brute, thus giving brutality, as an animal wild. Without restraint, without cage.

What better cage than walls. Walls of wood. Or brick. Or satin. Or tapestry. Or mud. Or social class. Or ignorance. or blood.

So the more men have of what is truly men, their walls, the less it would seem they are of being brutes. So it would seem.

No jackal, however, ceases to become a jackal just because we put it in a cage.

Subservient perhaps yes; so now it is a little of the dog, a little of the jackal...it is men.

In our case, however, remember that men put men inside the cages, the walls. There are men on both sides of the cages, the walls. And walls around those men...like a maize...we have not removed brutality, we have separated it. Separated it by men and walls. Sometimes many men with only a few walls of Laws or Punishment or Persecutions. Sometimes a few men possessing many many walls, even walls of gold, even walls of broken bone and torn flesh.

So even men who seemingly have everything, every wall up around them must fear...fear the loss of those walls. Fear the sounds of scraping and digging; chipping and breaking that they, rightly or madly, discern with their ears.

Who knows, maybe it is only the clinking of their golden riches that they hear...or the last falling bones of some wretch, his flesh feeding the wind, behind a forgotten wall between themselves and the street called Want...

It does not matter, we know now that all men fear, all men have walls, all men are brutal. That fear, walls and brutality are all the same thing. That property, as it is walls, is Cruelty as it is Fear, Brutality. That men with property do not have less brutality than savages just better formed fists.

It becomes the assumption then that cruelty and possession of property are inherently the same...though I do not say only cruel men own property, I say all men are cruel...some own property and some not...just as all men have hunger but not all men have a thinness...

Big Nose: "I shall not even dignify such spittle with a glance...it is all, of course, as one would expect a beggar to carry in his purse. What I wish to know is where is the path to punishment and penalty in all this?"

Beggar: " The Law seemingly concerns itself much about the "persons" of men, that is their safety amongst each other; murder, assault, mayhem but the reality is that 90 percent of the law is about property. Men's wall against man's Will. That is what property is. That is what Law is. And Punishment is not to prevent Crime...for without Crime there would be no Law, no Walls, no City, no Punishment.

Punishment, like walls, is a pleasure. A pleasure for the Brute. A pleasure much like wine, drugs, sex...men use Punishment to commit pleasure...indeed, Punishment is the sociological acceptance of violence...the Enabler of Violence...the Sanctifier... Sanctified by Walls, by City, by Men just as murder is condemned till the City needs murder. Then one or hundreds die and all still feel safe.

So Punishment is a violence sanctified by the collective man , the men, not for an end but as solely a means on to itself, for itself, for the pleasure of itself.

It is a pleasure to the men who commit it, to the men who watch it, to the men who sanctify it...

The soldier, the City Guard buries pleasure in the same emotional disconnections as his fear of injury or death or his previous moral judgement...his 'pleasures' of killing, however, remain at the end of war or duty and he becomes as a drunkard without wine; all the symptoms are the same.

So , too, the 'punisher'. Are judge, jury, executioner... an audience or participator?

We become normalized to suffering esp if we create that suffering ourselves..indeed that abhorrence converts to 'pleasure' and that 'pleasure' demands more 'pleasure' ...again like a drunkard's wine..higher, longer 'pleasures'..thus we increase suffering around us..wether by participation or casual acceptance..

Most find pleasure in the suffering of others...wether because of the degree in which they themselves do not suffer...or in the actual 'giving' of the suffering...by violence, perversion or deprivation.

All suffer in some way but those who do not suffer in front of those who do...suffer least at that moment.

That is not so profound, is it? Those who do not suffer, suffer least.

But, remember, they do not suffer least of all. Those who give suffering, suffer least of all. Even as they themselves suffer.

For violence as we have said is a wine, a pleasure, an entertainment, a drug. The soul of men feasts upon it. you see it is not that to see suffering then men suffer less knowing that is themselves not suffering,...it is that men get pleasure from causing, witnessing suffering and that in itself causes them not to feel their own suffering.

Men are all drunk on violence. And remember violence is everything that is...men. Not just physical torture or attack. Property is violence. The City is violence. Want, gluttony, avarice is violence.

We look upon a wealthy man and get our own pleasure from witnessing the abuses and perversions of his own violence of possession. One need not experience the pleasure of causing suffer to have that pleasure...simply , as men, to be in the vicinity of that excess, that violence, that suffering is enough.

If we remain reluctant to admit that property rights are greater than human life, how would we then build a city? At least this kind of city? For we must build some men's riches upon the backs of others as is that not a punishment? For being less of a men than some men? Is that not then a violence? Of exclusion of property; of burdensome labour? One man will have much of one thing and thus must wrench that from another's hands. Into those hands go slavery. can you think of a greater violence than the slavery of poverty?

It becomes knowledge than that cruelty and possession of property are inherently the same....

Big Nose: " You exchange violence and suffering, possession and abuse as if all the same thing. Many suffer, say ill health from old age but that is not a violence from men."

The Beggar: " Men always point to nature to mirror their evil. Violence. Disease. Predatation. Starvation. Mishap. Accident. But I tell you this. Nature has no Will. No Will to Impose.

Yes, the very nature that gives a man living takes away that living, but there is no malice in this. That which is given for a time is taken away in a time. that is the nature of Nature. The time between is for a man's own use. As a man...or as men.

Punishment, like all Violence, hides behind a Wall called Necessity...but like any violence or horror or perversion, it has an acquired taste. Like all pleasures and perversions it can be defined and limited by social acceptance but the boundaries are vague and easily 'stretched'...

Punishment is controlled, sanctioned violence just as war is controlled sanctioned violence. It is not that punishment is necessary; it is that violence is necessary. Both necessary and desired. Much as wine and opium become both desired by all and the necessity of the drunkard.

Big Nose: " Who, then, in your twisted logics desires this violence of punishment... and why?"

Beggar: "Remember, my learned friend, punishment does not differ in some large way from other kinds of violence. Punishment is the name for the same things. Just as water appears as rain, tears, flood, sea, river, mist, wine. Violence appears as punishment, or war, or mob, or beating, or a bully, or deprivation, or excess, or gluttony, or entertainment, or ridicule, or laughter.

All the same, wether sanctioned by the Collective Men or not... yet, even that is a lie, since all Men create violence...therefore no 'men' can be too violent...only a solitary man...

This is because...not that the man is too violent for Society, but that the man's violence is not sanctioned...for Sanction is Control...and that is Violence.

All things must be controlled... therefore...all things must suffer...must be punished.

The mind of men is a rebellious thing...in itself seemingly chaotic, but in reality, rebelling against rebellion against chaos. For chaos cannot explain life and death, only Order, some invented order out of the mouth of gods.

The gods, the minds of the Men, these do not bring the fates of compassion and natural aggression... they bring instead their songs of perverse predation, unnatural hunger and parasitical control.

There is inside each men a willingness to control and be controlled in order to give the chaotic universe of life and death a 're-painting' as Order and ...what?...Purpose?, Evolution?, Soul?, God?, Cause and Mean?, Direction?...

It does not matter what we call what we look for that is not there...the first order of men's business is Order.

Hence like a violent socio-pathic drunkard seeking happiness with friends, violence is used to create Order, but, of course, destroys Order in order to create an illusion of Order.

Violence is simply the suppression of Will. All men are addicted to this Suppression, BOTH WITHIN THEMSELVES AND WITHIN OTHERS.

It is called Pecking Order. All men 'peck' in this Order, or at least, most men. Even the organized state, is in itself, a 'pecker', a 'punisher', a punisher of individuals, dissenters, minorities, other states in its sphere of control. All things must be controlled..therefore ...all things must suffer...must be punished.

Big Nose: " Where is your religion in all this? Where are the gods? If you deny Nature in men's nature than it must be the gods who ordain all this? Cannot the gods intervene in compassion?"

Beggar: " Fate, destiny; these conflicts as soul, god, men, man create the 'voice' of men's nature. Evil becomes the directing voice of god controlling a man's nature. Compassion is the voice of man directing a man's nature.

It is not the gods, the fates which bring compassion ..they bring instead their songs of predation, hunger and control. I say the gods, but I err; for there are no gods, at least, no gods in this...in punishment and violence and suffering in this City...there are only men. We must look to the Man in men for change, for salvation.

Where there is no cure, what becomes needed is a sure prevention. And one cannot prevent what one cannot see. Blind men make poor lookouts in the army.

Blind men call upon violence to yield peace. Call for punishment to yield redemption. Deny poverty and call it Prosperity. Say suffering leads to compassion. None of this works. The MEANS is the ENDS...there is no separation of this in the flow of man or men.

Suffering, violence continues because blind men walk with habit.

If a crime can be punished then this is done because it can be done. Not to eradicate pecking order but to continuously re-affirm it.

Men impose, this is the nature of their violence. And their suffering.

We spoke earlier of Virtue, Nature and Will.

Nature does not 'impose'. We spoke earlier of Wills. Nature has a Free Will , as a man has a free will. In Nature, however, there is no Imposed-Will."

Big Nose: " Absurd. The lion killing the gazelle has certainly an imposition of Will upon it."

Beggar: " Again, Nature takes abuse for what is Use. The strong do overtake the weak and in that brief time there is suffering and death. It is, however, a Free Will of chance, of selection. Nature has no Will for true suffering...the suffering of Control, forced Will. It kills the body for Use but does not suffocate the spirit for Control. You will see something different in men...you would not call it...Free Will.

Big Nose:" Free Will of a man is an illusion, a premise to run amok in the streets of men as a beast. Frolicking in its own wanton desires and murders, without consequence or reprisal to society itself.

Such a 'thing' is only caged in the mass and in the common one man by punishment and returned destruction.

Yes, there are those who control themselves by logic or reason; some by higher religious or ethic moral but most, Beggar, are better governed by fear."

Beggar: "Fear is City's answer for its own leprosy of fear."

Big Nose: " Society should be afraid for where is all the proof found of each man's nature but in blood in every ditch, avarice in every street, mayhem and sin in every dark corner.

Beggar: " One man kills another and to grant safety to all City and State kill thousands.

We accept the state killings because we inherently believe the State to be moral, formed of reason. The best of all men. We expect the sum of All to be greater than the least of All. Thus the punishments and killings of State are judged reasonable...or not judged at all.

The singular killing of a man by a man is seen as Random, insane, chaotic...an emotional, illogical thing...or worse, calculated for profit. But does the State, the City kill, essentially for fear and profit...even onto fearing loss of its profits?

Big Nose: "The State executes for stability...stability for all."

Beggar: "Stability for itself as a City State and what is that but the profit of men. The State seeks something else first, however, profits. Not really first, however. Everything is the same word again. Stability. Property. Men. Power. Will. The same for man of men as it is for men of City. The murderer for profit of his Will; so does the City.

They are the same.

Men, as City, but choose the collective as a victor; not because it is safer, indeed it is less so to side with the Powerful but because it seems more orderly.

Most men will risk drowning in the low country against the terror of lightening in the high.

The City, society as men, punishes not the murderer but those who murder without its sanctity. Society has no patience with virtue or sin existing outside itself.

It is not a struggle of murders and thefts; it is not a struggle of virtues and sins.

Punishment is nothing. Justice by men is nothing.

It is Wills. Simply that. There are only two wills, Free and Imposed.

You beat these buys for the violence of pleasure. A violence allowed by the imposed Will of men. Against their Free Will.

The 'pleasure' you have comes from the Imposition of your own Will. Imposed-Will. That Will is simply a 'flow' of all Imposed-Will. A man has Free Will...men...society...city...state have only Imposed-Will. For control. The pleasure of 'controlled' violence is but a condition of men...like the 'safety' they feel behind these city walls. It is illusion, yes, no one is safe here...only the City itself...the collective.

Control is Sin, Sin is not found in lack of control. It is the Will which is Imposed upon Man by men which is sin; which creates sin.

You 'punish' these boys not to dissipate their own violence but to Impose Will. Which is the ultimate violence. That violence imposed upon their wills becomes their own violence. When they act that violence, they simply express again the City's Will...a violence of Control and Imposed Will.

Only a truly free man... a man of Free Will can have no violence since he is neither Imposing his Will nor having a violent Will imposed upon him.

There is no other Virtue but Free Will. There is no other sin but Imposed-Will. There is no peace or hope or compassion in violence. Nor is there in its Master...Imposed Will.

Free Will is in itself: Virtue. Virtue since it is immune to Imposed-Will. Virtue because it 'acts' independent of control, of violence, of Imposed-Will. Men may easily judge and condemn it wrong again and again but Free Will as Virtue will still 'act' as the Man sees truth. You will easily know Free Will. It has a Force in it but does not seek control or power. Only control or power over the one man. The bearer of that Free Will.

Imposed-Will remains the first sin. The Anti-Virtue. Evil because it seeks to dominate, control...it is anti-Life since life itself is the beginning and end of a man's Free Will.

Repression of a Will is the greatest evil. Indeed, it is the only evil. All violence and punishments done to the body of Man are not done solely to the body. The body is only the 'instrument' of suffering. The soul of men, that is the Ends. That is the reason for suffering. To control. In the End, all men seek to control all men. The act of Imposed-Will, the violence, gives pleasure because men are accustomed to being 'full' of hate and perversion. The soul of men needs that just as the body of men needs food and water. This violence to all, this suffering of all, men have learned to do because their consciousness of death and god and life is distorted by their awareness of death and what they perceive to be Chaos. Men want Order to avoid Death. So they suffer for it. If men can cause suffering, if men can control, if men can kill, surely some day they will find out how to make Death suffer, how to kill Death; how to 'murder' the Great Murderer!

That is all it is about, my learned friend. We punish all to punish Death. How absurd! How anti-Life itself!

When a man is born, he begins to breath and that first breath is Free Will. In his last breath is his own Free Will. In between is a battle of Good and Evil.The Evil of Imposed-Will in a mad illusion of controlling everything, death, world, gods, universe, all, all, all...against...what? What is Good? What is Virtue then? Have we not seen its face again and again in this dust of schoolings? It is Free Will. The Will of a man to be a man leads to the profound acceptance of his own Death and that leads to the value of his living and that leads to all compassions and courage and love.

A man chooses his own destiny by his own free will. saying 'to hell with heaven or hell with fate. This is not the destiny of generals or kings or other such men, or any men; Free Will is the destiny of a Will to be Free. I say again to you that the sole and soul destiny of a Free Will is simply to be free! Once free there is no need to 'go anywhere'. Virtue is reached, is known. This is what other men look up to or try to look down upon while cringing on each other's backs.

Fates, the games of men and gods, will play hideous and cruel with him but his Free Will shall endure. Virtue remains stronger than the Imposed Will of fates.

Everything is Wind, men are dust...only Free Will is the sea. Upon it, a man can walk anywhere..and for that freedom he is punished by men.

I can tell you don't believe me, sir. I have said it wrong. Or too long. Or not long enough. For I speak against lifetimes, nay lifetimes upon lifetimes of denial of Man amongst only men. Or were they even lifetimes? Few men live. I would not say I was one of them but I once knew a Man who had Free Will. Truly Free Will. A man's Will. I was the son of that Will, for a time.

He did not run and hide as I have done. He walked amongst men. And out of those men, those crowds, he drew out time after time, a man. How long each man remained so I don't know. Many became again men, even those who remained near him a long time.

No violence imposed him, though much violence was done upon him. Often he was condemned, judged, ridiculed, denied. But it was not those things of men which made him a man. He was a man and thus those things came upon him. The Lion draws to itself either courage or fear; either heels or spears. Few men could remain long around him, though he condemned no one. Only a man could bear his Free-Will for long. But his Free-Will was never imposed upon them. He taught me that.

It is impossible for Free-Will of a man, as a man to Impose. Free-Will he told me only goes inward...to the heart of a man...to the soul...and then raises him up from the dirt. No man goes any higher than dust by the actions of men...only by the actions of his own Free-Will can he become more than men...a man.

Many men, many people loved this man because of that raising of their own Will. Many men, many people hated this man because...men could not stand near him. The cursedness of their Imposing and Imposed Wills tore at them...something in their hearts was screaming for escape, for release. Something that when this man was near begged at them to come forth.

I saw it in their faces many many times. the anguish, the self-loathing, the bitterness at being...only...men. He saw it more, much more than I and never condemned, never ridiculed...he would only have compassion, as if he had lived every inch of their terrible inner lives...he would reach out to them...and most times, received only spittle upon his face.

As soon as they spit at him, their faces would become men again. His face would be covered for a moment with their own human anguish and then be gone...I am sure it went down into his heart.

I am not really sure anymore what this man changed with his Free Will. He was not of men but he was of man.

In the few years, that I knew him; that he allowed me to follow and be with him, in that short time...they killed him.

He once told me that a prophet is not welcome in his own place...as a child I thought he met where he was born. Now I wonder if he meant amongst all men.

I do know he seemed to cause men and crowds of man to become either full of love or full of hate. He brought out the best of men for each man and seemingly, brought out the worst of men against himself.

Imposed-Will cannot endure Free-Will in its presence. It is a Light which burns away the flesh and paint of men and leaves them to be seen as...evil?...violent?...something worse I think.

It leaves them to be seen as...mortal...not god.

It is an odd thing but I have thought of it much these months. Free-Will of man seems to join in the light with Death and begin Living. As a man on earth.

That's what this man looked like. A light. It drew people to him, it made many others try to hide their men-ness...their scars...their hideousness...their denial of Death which results in a perversion of life.

That's all this man did. Stand alone amongst so many men... by his own Free-Will.

This was a man who saw deep into everyone, every dark deed and thought and act of men. For that, he punished no one. Imposed nothing.

He knew the way to end violence is to end all violence. The way to end suffering is to end all suffering. You see, the violence and suffering which came upon him, ended at his own free-Will. So the suffering ended.

You can beat that man to death but you will not beat to death his Free Will.

In the City, the Imposed-Will of men is but the punishers punishing the Punishers. All are punished. And All are punishing. All are suffering as well.

Just as there are degrees of suffering. Just as there are those of greater violence than others. Just as some have more, some less, some kill a little, some murder daily...daily with knifes or bread. Thrusting with one; withdrawing with the other.

The City controls. It must. All men must bow to it. And to each other. And a man bent has no virtue; it slides off his back; there is no room for it, for he carries all who impose upon him on his own back...and carries all the throats he imposes upon in his hands. Imagine bent men upon bent men upon bent men like apes riding braying asses, clutching at the throats below them for steerage...but each horse is not a horse but another man...and that upon another ape-ass...

I do not call that a man. I call it...men.

Big Nose was about to impatiently object but the Beggar held up his hand " Forgive me, I have spoken too long and said too little. I confuse more than enlighten...especially myself. If my arguments will do nothing to end the beatings than let me do as men do...barter. A story, short and amusing for that stick. After all, teachers need words as much as beggars need canes.

Big Nose: " I see no harm in the trade. I would argue with many of your points but the sun is rising and small backs have seen enough redness for now. tell your tale and then take stick and tell-tail away, beggar."

Beggar: "This is a story I have heard of a great but very cruel and dark king who had seven sons. Now one of these sons was to become his successor. This King did not really care which son was to be King so long as that son was as tough and cruel and strong as himself. For the king believed that was the only way to maintain rule of the kingdom. The King believed in the ...squirm...????...of the Seven Deadly Weaknesses...trust, compassion, reverence, courage, virtue, righteousness, love.

So one day, he took all his sons out for a horse ride. Soon they were on a narrow path through the trees. Up ahead on the path the King saw a feeble old man walking the path, his back to them. He ordered one of his sons to gallop on ahead and look for danger around the next bend. Just as his son was to overtake the old feeble man, the King ordered two archer guards to each fire an arrow, one to the right of the old man by a foot and the other to the left but both to be aimed at the height of the son's back.

Sure enough as the son swerved his horse around the old man so as not to injure him, an arrow pierced his back and heart and killed him.

The King turned to his six sons " Never let compassion turn you even a little from your task."

Another day the King had a feast for his six sons. At the start, he poured out seven glasses of wine and bid all drink to his unknown successor. the six sons hesitated to drink first whereupon the King laughed at them and drank some of the wine himself. One son began to drink seeing this but with only a few sips , he gagged and grasped his throat; falling to the ground dead.

Again the King laughed and reaching into his mouth retrieved a small bag which he had used to skilfully contain the poisoned wine in his mouth. He spoke to the remaining five sons " This is made from the neck bladder of a desert lizard. Remember there is a treacherous reptile in all men's throats. Trust no one.

Sometime later, the five sons were summoned to the King's chamber. He stood very close to a window, a window hundreds of feet above the crowd below. Tied in a ball at the window sill was a young woman, the wife of one of the sons; whom the son loved and adored greatly.

The five sons stood still waiting to se what the King would do, the one son both angry and terrified, grieve stricken and full of hate.

At the King's direction, a Guard brought that son, the husband, aside and placed in his hand a hunting bow with one arrow.

The King spoke, facing the son " Love should never be above duty to the King, even within a King. Use your single arrow to thrust your wife out this window and thus ease the burdens of a King having to throw her out."

The son pulled back the arrow on the bow but instead of shooting his beloved wife, he aimed the arrow directly at the King's chest.

It struck there but instead of piercing the King's heart , it bounced off armour plating the King had placed under his robe. The impact, however, released a device which the King cunningly had made into the armoured breastplate. That device fired three poisonous darts directly into the son's chest, killing him almost instanteously. The King spoke to his remaining four sons " Love that steps above Duty always succumbs to a harder heart."

A few weeks later the King was walking with these four sons in the castle. He led them into a huge room which was filled with thousands of books. So many that walls were made of these books, creating a very difficult maze. The King knew that one son loved books, revered his scholarly teachers, sought out much learning and advice from great learned men.

Turning to him at the doorway, he asked him to go find a book called "Only the King has the Highest Knowledge". The son left but soon became lost in the maze.

The King led the other three sons out but before he locked the door, he took a burning torch from a guard and tossed it into the great piles of books. He spoke to the sons "There is no other door out. A King has no questions only answers. Books and learned knowledge leads no where but back into its own smoke of ignorance and powerlessness. It deserves no respect, no reverence. It is all ashes to a King.

Later again, the King walked with his three remaining sons in the huge common market and alleyways surrounding his castle. As they passed a blind man begging the King reached into his begging basket and stole all the coins. The last son passing the blind man, having seen what his father had done, reached into the basket to replace the coins with some of his own.

A scream and the King and the other two sons turned around to see what had happened. The King had made the basket in such a way that a tiny trapdoor was held closed by the weight of a few coins. This trapdoor led to a small enclosure where was kept a very deadly adder snake. It was this creature which had crawled out and bit the first hand which approached it; the hand of the third son replacing his father's thievery.

Standing over the body, the King said to his two sons " Thus lies righteousness. Everything belongs to a King. Everything. Everything must beg only from him. That is his righteousness."

There were now only two sons left and the next day the King took them hunting. He talked much of bravery and courage to them as they ambled slowly along with their horses.

Suddenly a lion approached out of some nearby bushes. The one son, wishing to win favour by appearing the most brave, jumped down and moved towards the lion, carrying nothing but his spear. As the lion ran at him , he raised his spear to throw it. At that moment the King snarled out his long whip and snatched the spear out of his son's hand. Weaponless, the son froze and the lion leaped upon him snapping his neck. The King gestured to some guards who then killed the lion with arrows.

He turned to his last son "Thus you see the most brave. But courage has no ends when the means are taken away. Thus courage by itself becomes meaningless without the full grasp of power as well." With that, the King rode away back to the castle with his guards, leaving his last son to stare at the corpse of his final brother.

The next day while the King was sitting alone in his chamber, his last son came in. He was carrying a sword drawn, ready to kill.

Walking up to his father he said " You have showed me the end of compassion, trust, love, reverence, righteousness and courage. You did not show me the end of Virtue. What is it?"

" My Will is the end of Virtue. Imposed upon you."

The son looked long at his father's face. Tears came. He looked down at the sword.

" You are right. If I kill you now, I become a King. Without Virtue. For it is your Will to die, not mine. And have me King. If I had killed you before I might have had brothers, I might have had compassion...or love. Now to kill you is to kill...emptiness. Virtue should have spoke long before this.

If I refuse to do such, refuse to kill you... if I kill myself instead, I seemingly deny your Will but do I?

For if to have Virtue, I must seemingly always do the opposite of your Will, is not your Will still imposed upon me...does not your Will still dictate wether I must follow its same...or its opposite? That is still no Virtue."

He threw the sword against the wall breaking it to pieces.

To have Virtue, I must free my Will.

First, I must simply discard everything that is of your Will. Sword, death, son, father, king. They are nothing to me.

Now I leave this place. As a beggar. Of Free Will. You can have me easily put to death but that will not end Virtue. Virtue remains beyond your will. You can do anything and everything to me, if that is your will but you cannot make Virtue a King."

The beggar stopped here, at this ending, looking at the other man.

A moment passed then a boy coughed.

The other man shoved at him a little, then abruptly stopped.

Another moment passed, then Big Nose ended it " A good tale. At least worth a stick."

He handed the club over to the Beggar and gestured at the boys and the man no one saw to walk away with him.

The beggar's young son stood for awhile watching them then he too walked away. In opposite. Towards the Valley of the Dogs.

The Fifth Day

This fifth morning for the Beggar in the city unfolded gently. The black of night, little contested by oil lamps or large fires, was whispered, nudged aside.A much quieter procession than other parts of the city where gongs and shouts, brayings, neighings and prayings splattered the fresh light. The dawn's broom sweeping up the street's shadows and discards into little piles of dim here and there amongst alleys or doorways.

In the Valley of the Dogs, there were few mules to bray or horses to neigh.Gongs and bells are of no use in hovels unserved. No sweeps need pass in streets where little is found and never discarded.

And the ritual of prayers rose with the risen; and here the risen had no impel to ascend to the needs of

man in haste.

The priests were little found in this Valley, and yet the people were themselves dutiful unto their gods or god.

For , truly , the god worshipped here had many a multitude- of

hands, many eyes, many forms of shape, yet was known of the same: Seek.

Here amongst such a dense press of taut skin, could any other god find room, let alone demand worship? And no god desired such grovel of status as to be followed by this rabble poured into

a valley's hole; except Seek.

Ironically, the Beggar saw this Seek was indeed the god from their dingy mirror, . . Since Seek did not come to the people, did not create the wretched but rather the poor combined created Seek.

Intimately, yet universally from one empty edge to another of the valley

The ways, the rules, the delights, the wrath of Seek poured, seeped, stole, bled it's being from each bundle of worship, whether a leprous old woman, who sealed her oozing nakedness daily with mud for want of rags or the dart of toothless child hunting mice skilfully for a night's stew.

These were embraced as the gathering of Seek. Seek was of them what they themselves were of; at times nothing; times, a bit; seldom some; never much.

So each in not being much, did not Seek much. Hence for each, Seek was a tiny god, more of a brother, a fellow sufferer than a wrathful or giving father. Seek did not provide.

Seek was taken along on the daily hunt for luck or a whisper of advice and the words of Seek were rarely ignored.

Yet Seek had only one command as a god; for an individual or a throng gathered like piling chafe. Other gods were allowed. All manner of human or inhuman acts were allowed. No rituals required. No penance or sacrifice desired. Blasphemy not heeded or obedience to form.. None of this. In this, Seek was by far the most forgiving god.

Yet for one LAW there was no forgiveness.

Penalty always the same: death. Seek demanded only its existence. From that of each worship and collectively.

What was created, Seek, now also was tyrant. Though tiny to each man, small in their smallness, Seek could not be denied. As if as the life-long breathing of a man, a breath missed of a thousand breaths is nothing in it's loss, unless it is the next breath he takes! Then the untaken breath, though nothing of a volume of air, brings death in its denial.

So also Seek. No other god was so jealous of its worship. No

other god had such a tethered gathering to its embrace. Seek was like a child. For the father, the child laid hope, blessing to the man's eyes yet compelled, ,drove the father to hunt for more bread

in a breadless cave.

For the mother, the child brought worth, love to her heart, yet the lips at her breast drained the little life flow she could not spare.

Such again was Seek. Offering enough to raise up the crippled yet only a morsel that they would not step very far.

This puzzled the Beggar. Thata god in likeness is created, which in turn keeps all within its likeness. Any here

would quickly stone him a fool were he to say a man is poor by his desire to be so. And rightly so, for he knew that to be a crime in utterance against all humanity.

Then the collective Seek, the huge Seek, kept all poor?

That all the poor desired no one individual un-poor if they themselves will remain poor! Envy, jealousy are cruel

neighbours, true, yet....

He had heard of riots here. The famished willing to swallow steel; gnawing at palace bricks; raging, howling their

families' limp emptiness. A collective Seek seeking for all an end of this perpetual scorn by empty heart and raining spit. But alas, this new Seek, or at least melded Seek had not the temper

cool, nor the alloy strong to force the opening of justice.

Back to the hole; always the end, in a cascade of slide into the slime.

Rarely is more than a push, a few slaughtered, required, so treacherous and sloped is the crowded edge.

So the Beggar understood it now. Back to the holes. Seek was a hunter god; a god of hunters. A ferret. A god even

collectively not as powerful as the gods collected outside the hole; those gods of the collective un-poor.

Gods of long sight and grinding teeth while Seek had short sight, keen only within the distance of a day.

Seek had only sharp needle, teeth to gouge little bits of gore, a feast of nibbles, not a relentless mill of plenty.

Seek: a god animal of lightening dash, only enough taken to sustain. For to linger is to be crushed by the ever descent of retribution.

Seek did not grip his worship to his breast, rather the destitute, the wretched were pressed against him by the seethe of

human mass carried in this Bowl of Curs.

Seek was the collective protector, the image of a thousand arms thrown across

faces terrorized to an apparition of foul loathsome Gatekeepers. The blazing white eye of the un-poors' Gods forbidding passage.

Seek shadowed this and allowed life, though thin stalked and brittle; a seed nonetheless.. Furrowed in the bowels of Seek. Watered daily from the few drops lost in a tiny trembling cup, a cup nestled in jerking knobs of hands, the gnarled hands of an old man who journeyed slowly, inching through a melee of mob and din and dust and dung; stepped with soles

layered of skin, dead skin piled, hardened, years, cracked like cemented dust, coloured as the cemented dust till the ground was mirrored of his feet. That each lifted step was as if the tortured ground was repulsed and drew away from its own image scarred to its dense eyes.Hundreds of steps, the shaking hands

travelled daily in a task as cruel as any mule's. Yet the deed was done for love, a hundred times a day. To a well a few hundred yards away, the feet stroked a moving line across split dried

canvas. Water for his dying wife, her thirst insatiable in the steady evaporation to a crumble of breathing husk. A rustle of dead grass in hot winds. The old man could lift only this cup, his arms the twigs of an undernourished tree.A pail, a bucket may as well be filled with stones, such was the lack of his grip. No relative to help, an old man too proud to plead with other dwellers; so hence this endure of daily devotion. And from this religion, Seek gathered the spill of drops and spread tears from

lip to lip.

Seek sustained the flock; that there was no better god to lead all to greener hills was not the fault of Seek. That abomination of mistrust lied elsewhere.

So every morning the ablutions to Seek were done quietly without ceremony. Slowly and individually, man, woman, child, dog opened their eyes to a scarce look, opened a mouth to an empty hand and rubbed the world large in open bellies.

Haste in duties was not required. What little was to be had in the Valley would remain till it was found. For want, hunger, as a new thing brings a desperate scurry, a haste of scavenge. But when it is an old thing, a continuum of empty being, its pursuit becomes less striking and more dogged. The spirit feeds upon itself for sustenance and is thereby less eager to unfold to its own cannibalistic nibbles. It keeps its limbs hidden from its own teeth, stays crouching behind open jaws. Rising in this lassitude of awakening, unhindered by the call to burden or duty, was the Beggar and the family he had stayed with for the night.

At about dusk last night , he had passed in front of this one hundred square foot square brick and clay slab dwelling erected amongst a thousand others.

A man of stained, darkened complexion , with a wildly locked head of hair had sat before a tiny fire. He was clothed only in a short pant made from some cloth of a sack or bag. Near him sat the

children, so tiny, so dirty, so bagged of rags that their sex was impossible

to discern at a glance. Yet their inner

condition was still unmarred for they had watched the beggar with enormous eyes dancing as his coloured turban went by. Their limbs not so weak that they did not enjoy the timeless sibling game of poking into each other and giggling nods of agreement.

Hushing at them was a woman dressed a little better than the man in that more

of her stature was covered. A lighter look but perhaps more stained. Pretty but the lines veiled by dirty wisps of hair and

smears of a constant care with the three waifs. She gazed at this strange Beggar too, yet in less an open view, her eyes shifting from man to children to outside world, as if her vision was a necessary glue for the setting to remain intact. The intricate look drawing towards, holding, a web of belonging, her eyes, perhaps the hinge upon which the world swung sane. Did not fall shattering in the hard clay or ride torn shreds into the Wind. Her eyes the hinge to keep all within, within and all without, without. Her eyes to soothe children's cries to not wield such dinning blows to a father's skull; her eyes to beseech a man not to run killing into the streets, raging like a dying child's fever.

In all this, she, being woman, was the closer to Seek, to Seek as a purpose, a duty. For her eyes sustained the

destitution, that is offered embrace not

caging. Like Seek, she would change all if she could but she could not,

So her eyes gather and hold what cannot be changed. Love infinite in its futility and the more perfect for it.

Love unencumbered in her eyes with destiny.

The man himself had not seemingly taken a glance upward from the fire as he spoke: "Stranger of the Valley, have you eaten?"

The Beggar stopped and replied:

"How do you know I'm a stranger here?"

The man looked up, his eyes the cleanest, purest, intensity of

greenish depth and answered:

"Your club of need you carry. Strangers to here bring two things, fear and sticks for that fear. Those of dwell have no fear since they have so little to fear for."

Beggar: " You have erred, my friend. Though I carry burdens,

none I would fear to lose since the less of these burdens the lighter

would be my load. This stick I carry as a reminder of a past failure."

The Man: "Then of that load, stranger, you may lighten yourself.

Here in the Valley of Dogs one needs no proof of failure; an empty hand swings heavy enough in its own guilt."

So the Beggar had joined them. For the meal. For a long conversation with the man. Slept in a corner tucked away from the rest, which means inches away from the rest.

At first he had refused bread. When surrounded by eyes and mouths larger than even a beggar's, since a beggar alone is not the plead of five.

But the man was insistent. The children were hungry (did such

things need to be said?) and the bread was of nimble descent, made from the seeds of fleeting sow. Stolen.

The man said he belonged

to a "clan", a tribe which had a rule that none could eat stolen food unless a portion was shared with another member of the tribe. In this way thievery was a shared occupation and treachery

unknown. As none of the tribe were around, he would be obeying the rule if the young beggar ate, since whoever the man allowed to eat at his fire became a clan member.

Thus the clan, the gang, is bound by want and secure; need and divide. Each man is made more by the additions of other men; so different from the places where additions of men make each man less.

There a man was less for what he hid from men, here a man had only himself; hovels and pocket less rags could hide nothing. Spirit shared is never halved. It was an assembly before Seek. Though not a worship, at least a knowing homage. Each Seeker equal in the priesthood, no one's truth elite since who could know all the thousand alleyways of Seek?

After the meal, the children played, fought, cried, laughed the forever sibling war in the hovel.

The mother worked on the

molding of cups from water softened clay. With remarkable artistic skill, these cups were slowly formed into unusual shapes and designs.

Alas , with no oven to give them a resilient hardness, their brittle yet artful forms sold for little to a travelling merchant.

Still it was something out of nothing. Creation exchanged for a

jar of goat's milk soured in its curd. The Creator of the goat more clumsy in his wares than the delicate pottery hands of the cups' creator. An uneasy comparison handled somewhat reluctantly by Seek.

This new commerce of art and singing bellies, of gods and woman and creation for the need of need. The gods of a goat which would be dust in ten Years, jealous of a cup which , if preserved, if kept

sacred would live ten thousand years.

Yet a cup useless to licking lips if empty of milky curds.

Yet why feed eyes to only look upon goats, their fly bitten udders, their cut

horns, the bell their neck toiling to follow. An awkward territory for Seek thisbarter of priceless and common creation . As if begging with a golden bowl. .

The Beggar had watched spellbound as the woman made the bowl. Finger tips moving rapidly, mouth to bowl, for the woman

moistened the clay by rolling a piece of it round and round inside her mouth. Tiny pieces added, bit by bit, pressed, welded into joining. Watched it created, as the base as back legs, a tail curling the sides, front paws, head curled up away from the rim as a handle. A jackal on a cup smaller than the woman's fist.

Detailed to a row of tiny teeth from an open jaw; carved with a wood

sliver. An hour's labour. Ten cups for a jar of milk, the milk enough for a meal.But a meal nonetheless. Woven from dirt and spittle and a creator.

The Beggar spoke to the man of this: " Would that the gods had laboured so for their sustenance while creating , perhaps they would not be so careless in its use."

To which the man replied: " Gods or no gods the deed is done. My wife created a bowl handsomely, yet does she concern

herself of a fly which drowns later in its fill?"

Beggar: "But surely all this poverty is not to be excused upon the forgotten will of a god and the desperate throes of flies?"

The man: "Look upon the bowl my friend. The Answers dwell sloping

in its curves.. Halfway up the bowl becomes an impossible climb; a

vertical cliff face just before the edge of escape. Even long before the steep, such a arduous climb of curving slope drives a weakened man tumbling back to smaller portions below. I say small

portions because any one can see the bottom half does not equal

the top half. There is less at the bottom yet more crowd there imprisoned by the side.

Thus is this valley, a bowl of little for the many, yet its empty walls stand high indeed.

Simply a bowl, my friend, simply a bowl seething in emptiness."

Beggar: "Surely, a way can be found outside or in to lay justice soundly against the walls and crack away hindrance. Open escape in the shattering of barred slopes. That the people may spill out and find plenty in the gatherings."

Man: " A spilling out of the people has always gathered plenty but it was not bread they swallowed but their own teeth. It is the nature of the bowl you do not see, my good friend. It is not formed of clay but dust. Carved from the inside, not out as my wife has pieced her cup. The Valley's bowl was borne as thus: Once there was no valley, all men equal unto prosperity, need, secure, want. Then a

man, some man, became unequal in his want. Call him the Creator of the Bowl. For his unequal want resulted in the loss of secure in another. This man succumbing to the poverty of his secure fell to the ground. Throes of despair as he wept alone, for was he not the First of the unwanted? All else looked upon him to say we cannot help for we are equal from want to secure.

Let he who took his to have more help him. But that one could not or would not help him either. Daily the dust flings gripped in his beseeching reaching above. Gods, man, no one heeds. The hole grows.

More men are greedy in their wants, more men unlucky in their secure.

Destitute follows destitute. Falls into the hole.

In time, a valley drinks a veil of silt before the sun. A place cast in its own carve, gnarled hand by gnarled hand . The more that pour in the deeper is the empty curve.

Hence, my friend, for the walls of the bowl to be shattered, one must crack away the entire earth. Who empties the jar by flinging it to a wall?"

Beggar: " Then bring down into the bowl all that is needed to

fill the bowl. All would be equal as before.

The Man (after a good long laugh): "Forgive me, my friend, your

ideas are food for the poor but poor in goodly thought.

Remember the fly? Drowned to the fill of the cup. Such would

men argue that the flow of plenty would destroy all in the bowl.

Or worse, breed more. As if you had a fly in a empty bowl, to

save it you add flies! A swarming, seething mass to allow

your fly to crawl out! But many are still trapped behind. Add more!

The flow depletes! Add more! You the cook of a never ending broth of dead, dying and a few escaping.

But this is what men say. What they say is of little value to the why of this

doing.

Why is the why of the original three, he of greed, he of ignore and he of despair. Thus the bowl is held from spill

on a three legged stool. Yet, let one give , one look , one receive, and poverty is not known amongst three brothers.

A dreamy thought, but unsound. for it is simple: what was, remains. If men saw the Valley dug in the grave of their greed, they will see it stay the grave of their ignore.

My friend, were you to shout 'why don't men change?" you answer your own question.

As if thus to declare ,"Men don't change why." The why stays eternal, the whens and whats bred from its foul cavern, come out bearing the hats of greed and ignore; both heavy; slid over eyes cooled guiltless on the night's look.

We here in the hovels, succour only this dignity. Curs, we can chose to whimper the full length of our chain, begging in the stone face of oblivious masters or lie a dull eyed sluggish reaction of a slack leash.

We prefer dignity, though a meagre feast.

Dignity in the disregard of charity's mocking chance.

Death before a lick at slapping hands; a fist full of tiny choking of bones.

So friend, no offense, your words may be the winds of truth to make majestic lions roar beyond the rim but here they drop to whispers unlikely to make dogs bark."

Beggar: "My friend, your wisdom is rare."

The Man: " No, call it not wisdom. Wisdom is found. Here is only a vast knowledge of emptiness. What else would a man do with hollow eyes, silent ears, empty bowels but decorate them with the trappings around him. A gorging of phantoms in imaginary feasts. Outside the Valley, men are wise in their full bellies; Inside the Valley, men are keen to the marrow of jutting bones.

We of nothing know all of nothing and are in that: complete. Wise men of something know something and are in that: complete. Fear only those of something who seek nothing or those of nothing who demand something. Alas for the world, they are both of the greatest of the world.

Beggar: Do you mean you are complete in your poverty?

The Man with again a hearty chuckle replied: Ask instead if I am completely in poverty and the answer flutters to an easy yes. Your question invokes more grappling things, more delicate, more reluctant to offer witness. I have no acceptance, nor no grovel of my poverty today. To hunt for my children's bread as a rat scurries for food is not a father's wish. Neither will I bow to man or gods for the gift of this mud palace or my ragged pants or my very skin.

I would easily kill anyone to be not poor ,except another poor man. To murder for wealth is a great crime, true, but to murder for a month's bread ...who but the hungry should be allowed judge?

But no matter. What I mean to say is a father can find no peace in his children's empty swollen bellies; love holds cruel in that thin armed embrace. No matter how endearing, love for a wife calmed in its passions for fear the birth of another mouth, there is no peace in such things sated. For a man to find peace in all this is to find a heart petrified at birth.

Yet madness too nudges constant to burst outward from the aching heart. Yet a man here in madness is as little use as the man stoned in his chest. Madness, however is a chewed disease. A man knaws upon the stretch , the sinews of Time's bread. The endlessness of his poverty..yesterday, this day, all his tomorrows. This the man knows what the leashed dog does not know. That the chain was, is and will remain.

The dog lies content; if the chain is removed, the dog walks away.

The mad man slobbers and raves; if the chain is removed he holds the chain in his hand and raves all the more.

I heed the lay of the dog. My poverty is lost to the dusk. If it is found at dawn, I am not surprised but neither does despair wring my hair for I bear only the want of the day. I neither expect nor desire nor deny poverty tomorrow.

Thus I am both angered and content to know the shackle of my own and my family's want. Dreams are not pursued, neither do

regrets remain. I am keen and sharp only to the pursuits of a day, none here have surplus for more.

Beggar: "Forgive me, friend, I mean no offence but your words are like the words of a hawk. I look for no plead of innocence but surely you seek some demand or solace for this place dug in evil purpose. Yet you speak of this world in a language of eye and claw amongst eye and claw. I admit much beauty is lost to the

flight and dive of keen hunters, but is there no recourse but these thoughts?"

The Man: " Again, Beggar, round and round, you too like a hawk circling my thoughts for a softer tidbit. There are none I tell you. All you see is of toughened gruel; meat stone hard to the sun and salt of tears. If I were not thus, I would not be. This place is as it is, thus I am as it is. How long would the

soft, timid last in these burrows? When I am in the heavens . I will have heavenly thoughts, here is not the heavens.

But enough of the serious, let me ask you a riddle of my father's which plagues me even still: The Rule of the World is:

The more you want to keep something, more they will want to take it aw ay. So that the less and less you want 'something, the

more and more you can keep it. Is not then the end result true, that when you want nothing, you can keep everything?

The Beggar: "Or if you don't want something , they'll make you take it."

The Man (laughing): "Good, good. Extended that to the point

if you don't want everything, they'll make you bear everything."

Beggar: "So that he who wishes for nothing is the same as he who

doesn't want everything."

The Man: "No, not quite, for he who doesn't want everything is

miserable because everything is forced upon him; yet he who wanted nothing can keep everything but is indifferent to

its existence."

Beggar: "No, I disagree, for he wanted nothing but now

everything is in his way same as the man who did not want

everything."

The Man: "But have we not erred? The man who wanted nothing,

would not they give him something to take away his nothing?"

Beggar: "The more they give, the less his nothing till he has

everything and despairs of nothing?"

The Man: "No, No, for there is an end to a man's decline but no

end to man's greed. Just as a thin man can be only so thin yet there is no limit to a fat man! If our thin man is content in his

nothing, what limit is there to everything?"

Beggar: "I disagree, the thin man will still breathe, there is

no limit to his seek of nothing since he dies and ceases to be in our riddle. Each breath is something and hence the man is not secured of his nothing."

The Man. "Well you know the Valley, friend, for many despise their own breath. But of our riddle , can we not conclude that punishment for nothing is everything, whereas the punishment for everything is nothing ?"

The Beggar: "Has this not stemmed from a system of greed which is to

take away from one man's hold to another man's clutch?"

The Man: " What is charity, then?"

Beggar: "The opposite of greed, to give unto men."

The Man: " Is charity to give what you want to keep or take what

you don't want to keep?"

Beggar: "Both, I would say. For you can give alms or take away

disease."

The Man: "What of ignorance?"

Beggar: "The same as disease, for that is what it is. No man desires ignorance."

The Man: "If I had a three-legged mule with a weighted pack terrible in its burden, what would I do then? Give it a new leg but it remains ignorant? Or cut off the other front leg and teach

it that it is now a man, open its eyes to its destiny; to go as well as it can with this burden eternal on its spine?"

Beggar: "But, my friend, would it not be better to remove its burdens first of all: Unslip the bridal of its tyranny?"

The Man: " Yes, you have it. Thus you find the folly of

philosophy amongst brutes squirming under stones. Those who bring the charity of vision must first sit under the shadow of great burdens, if they can thus see in the dim, they can speak in the dim. Thus no man is mocked with an address of manhood while he wears the hooves of oppression. Your thoughts in these streets

are as pepper in rough fodder; better to speak dumb amongst the mules.

It is the master who can relieve the mules; best take away the ignorance first. He who has everything must be taught to see Nothing; that is the

enlightenment of true charity."

Such had the conversation gone most of the night with the Beggar's young son being given soft chastisement.

That wide vision cannot see all that lives in narrow streets.

That change within can be squeezed and squirmed and held to a tight shell.

Only a violent cracking can release growth; mild tappings of beckoning are too meagre for the task.

Change for the middle men is a possible thing of waver; for the poor or mildly rich less so; for the very rich or very poor impossible. Both are bound to need as many fetters at arm and ankle.

In this they are brothers. Or

mules of want. It is only the rarity of the rich which delights the observer, only the seething number of greatly poor which horrifies. Their bondage to unchange the same. Yet be cautious, the man says, only one deserves pity for the other eats well in his miserable calling.

All these things the young Beggar had collected and viewed again as the narrow alley began spill forth it bits of life.

Just as the man too began to emerge from his hovel, a boy naked but for a cloth and a complete suiting of grime ran up the alley shouting:

"They are going to kill the slaves today. They're bringing them down now."

To the young Beggar's questioning glance, the man replied, "Word is some Of the king's own slaves caused a trivialling

disturbance. It appears he has ordered this death as an example."

"Where?"

"About a half league farther down the valley, where the centre is found, there is the execution ground. The bodies are then left on slabs for vultures to pick at.

On a windy day the smell climbs higher than even here.

A reminder of the perpetual feast."

The Beggar reached out to the man's hand and shook it "Thank you for your hospitality and words. Take care of yourself and your family. I must go now." With that the Beggar picked up his stick and moved towards the direction the man had pointed.

A hand held his shoulder. "Don't go there. Yours is not of idle look. But interference will be death. Soldiers tolerate no philosophy."

The Beggar replied: "This much I learned from a wise man: Ease a man's burden, then lift up his soul. Down there, today, men have the burden of killing other men only because they do not know they are both men. I know and that

has become my burden."

With that, the Beggar stepped away and began merging into the crowd already thick in its flow towards the Valley's centre.

More and more people joined the descending crowd that it became a slow moving snake of legs and gossip. Finally, he reached the near centre' close to the execution place. So packed was the outer circle of the valley's centre with people crushing, weaving, jostling for a view, that the Beggar was forced to crawl on his hands and knees under the legs of this circling centipede of curiosity.

The filth of the town, the filth of the people came as a gag of stench squeezed low and tight along this path the Beggar moved.

Shuffling feet bruised his fingers, the rigid soil licked his knees raw for its blood.

Yet it was perhaps this approach which allowed him into the inner square safely. For in a ring all around the centre were guards, these guards allowed the crowd to press behind them but

held ready sword to slice any hand or arm or head which dared trespass this assigned perimeter. Had the Beggar simply stepped

from the crowd he would have been slaughtered.

As it was, however, the Beggar came through precisely under one of the guards. Discerning some light and fresh air, he misgauged his distance and rose up directly under the guard.

The soldier taken by surprise was tossed backwards into the crowd, a great many of whom collapsed under the weight of the others.

The other guards seeing this did not rush upon the Beggar but rather in fear of their own backs, turned upon the crowd, swords ready for assault, either the crowd's or by their captain's command. The Beggar, fearing a slaughter boiled to blood by his carelessness shouted the only command he could think of for both crowd and guards. "Stop in the name of the king!"

Thereby saving a crowd and sentencing his own death, for no king takes kindly to

orders issued in his name especially by beggars. A very foolish fraud indeed.

The captain of the guards had turned at the spill of the first guard but had not yet decided the danger or action required

as all he saw was one man with a stick and a crowd very reluctant to be perceived hostile by the menacing swords. He had just been about to shout for order when he heard the Beggar's incredulous command.

The young Beggar watched calmly as the captain came towards him in even strides, a muscular, though short man, a broken nose a little twisted gave his piercing eyes an illusion of screwing into a

a man's skull. A breastplate of gold was stamp engraved with a large hawk. This partially covered a soiled tunic which , with thick sandals and leather leggings completed his bodily attire. On his head was his second most precious symbol of rank: a golden helmet with short leather side flaps and crowned with a great curving ostrich feather. His most precious decree of rank never left his side, his hand to its silver hilt always, a long curving scitar in a plain leather scabbard.

Stopping within a foot's distance of the beggar, he glared, his eyes hunting the beggar's face for insolence. "What king's name does this dog nip with?"

"The City's Guardian," answered the Beggar.

The captain's eyes held a darker cast. "Name the king, playful tongue, or my sword will taste your last spilling meal."

The Beggar finished his coming sentence with "King Hindus then if you dare deny the previous title."

The captain's hand caressed the hilt a little tighter but did not draw. Only one thing curbs authority and that is the sound of more authority.

The Beggar had given shield to the captain's force by the blatant charge of this assumption.

The captain replied, "I deny no role of King Hindus, only guard the scattering of his name by careless heralds. By what

seal or stamp, do you use this authority."

"That a beggar's clumsiness can propel riot, then only a king's name can stall it just as only a wing's shadow can plug the worm's hole," was the Beggar's answer.

"Then you are nothing to the king?" "No , I am something to the king." "Yet you carry no proof of his task or duty."

"Where I go, would a king entrust precious things to be lost amongst thirsting knives or hungry fingers? Do all of the king carry his seal from mule to diplomat, every errand, every trudge, every duty outside the palace gates?"

The Captain replied "The cook's helper buying cabbage does not evoke the king's name to kneel the market. Beggars who promote themselves too high a dignity had best have their own tongues cut out, before it makes their heads roll."

To this threat, the Beggar _took even more took an authoritative stance asking, "No offence, Captain, but beside your doings of the King's butcher's deed, what proof have I you speak for the king?"

The captain, astounded at this challenge, did not react in the manner which normally he would have dealt upon any other offending subject. A swift glint of death arcing from scabbard to insolent throat. This beggar was so bold, so sure, his relaxed presence a voice the captain could not silence. Only a nobleman, or one close to him, could be this arrogant, as if rebellion in all before him was not even signified by a flicker of comprehend. The way a man commands large dogs.

So the captain simply stammered back in an offended tone, "I wear the ostrich feather; the rank of captain in the Royal Protectorate."

Yet even with this spoken, his mind continued exploring why he had not simply killed the beggar instead.

The Beggar replied, "But surely, between you and I, there is more than an ostrich feather?"

The captain replied: "What do you mean?"

The Beggar: "Say I am only a beggar, I have no ostrich feather to make me more. If thou set your helmet to the ground are you then cut to a beggar's place? I think not. You are the captain, not the feather. Your men follow you, if they followed only a symbol then at battle they would be found fighting with their heads in the sand! Therefore to have or have not a seal makes no less of the man or the task of the man.

Some how this strange way of a compliment beguiled the captain enough to ask, "So we have proven who I am, yet you are as

doubtful as before. I'll grant that without seal you still maybe more.

What your hands cannot prove, your tongue might. Tell us the more of it. What is your task?"

Beggar: "If a man must have a task like a caravan must have maps, say then, my task is to observe for the king."

Captain: "You are a spy, then?"

Beggar: "No, spies are paid. And the paying in time blinds the seeing.For the more they see, the more they are paid. In thinking of more pay, they think of more to see till in the end they are being paid for what they think they saw. An observer is not paid. Coins do not lodge before his eyes."

Captain: "And the king sent you to observe?"

Beggar: " Some men , because of their height or size or glint

of position cannot truly observe since their very presence disturbs. Like a giant amongst ants, he cannot know the ways of ants since all is hectic about him. For how can a king judge the

stature of all around him when his very presence drives all to their knees? Kneeling men cannot be compared! So a king will send out quiet men to test the wind and weather. Men amongst same who alter no facts. Yet should these men be paid their truth may be coloured with copper as we have said before.

The best truth for a king is not who he sends out but rather who he sends for. Those men who have observed truth and offer its gift to a king with no reward, what could they say? They may tell of injustice where the king believed justice; Plot where the king knew not; treason where the king held loyal;

tyranny where the king had sent mercy.

Now say some observer has gathered these cups, knowing full well a king's keen appetite to taste them, for are they, not of what is next the inner wall of a king's gut?... His city, his subject?

He being of their welfare, he of theirs. For a king to be king he

v\I

must have subjects just as subjects need a king. What is false or dangerous to one dangers the other like a man and horse fleeing a tiger.

If a man observed such and knew a way of escape, would he speak out or wait to be asked? No, if he loved the man or even loved the horse he would cry out the way of escape.

And if in his truth of observe, the king and horse are saved, what will the king do? Ignore the man to leave him to what he was before? Or will not the king elevate the man a place close to his heart for who is not a most trusted friend but he who saves your life? Now for his new position can not the trusted friend be trusted to order this and that done in the king's name? In his observations of truth.

Here again we see the ostrich feather. For what brings the man to use the king's name, his position decreed by seal, or his

being as a trusted observer saving the king..

If we thus agree it is the trusted observer, then just as no feather is needed to be captain, no seal is needed to command the king's name.

Before or after the saving of the king , since the observer was always

worthy of the trust.

Captain: "But anyone of these rabble in the streets is capable of being a soft cushion should the king's horse stumble and toss the king. Their broken bones and thus the king's sound ones may

elevate them to higher place but must now all be allowed a king's voice though foul mouths and rotted teeth? No, we cannot all be near the heights of kings based on the chance of blunders."

Beggar: "There you have wise Captain! All cannot be kings because all will not command. Only those who dare command for the king out of true observe can deserve the place beside kings.

Just as few would grab a king's bridle to steer his horse from a dangerous fall. Their courage and their vision earn a place beside his command. By giving the command, they prove their worth to command. and having command of what they observe; they prove their worth to observe. All the rest become blind and mute both to the observe of what is commanded and the words of command.

Just as no fire is a star. Yet if a fire would rise up to the sky, it would then command observation as a star.

Captain: " Do you mean an man is limited only by his reach? His open stretch of grasp?

Beggar: "No, I mean he is limited only by what he already holds in his hand. It is the full hand which cannot take command not the empty one. The carpenter with his hammer cannot take up the sword, the priest has his idol hence no room for a grower's seed; the guard is fixed to his spear, he cannot net amongst fish.

Only the man who observes through open hands is welcomed to any task. From a beggar's cup to king's herald, he who has nothing to lay down is quickest to the call.

We observe through the filter of what we hold dear. A beggar's hands

are clear. We command from the heap of our treasures, judgement diluted by what we hold saved. Beggars hold nothing.

Hence, all who are beggared in their desires are ready to give command. All who have no walls become the most observant.

Captain: "I would grant my ears for now hear no lies, but , remember, beggar my mind watches like a hawk circling the sparrow. No matter. I have observed

enough of commands to warrant your wish. You will not, I take it, refuse my humble escort of your impressive person to the king's court. There to observe him as he observes you. You and your saving voice will be given the chance to command a king's ear as soon as the slaves have been executed.

I have an inkling that there will be yet more work for a sword later this day."

Beggar: "I am honoured. Thus does a mouse meet the lion, guided by the parting of sharpened blades of grass. But I

wonder why must the slaves die that I may be brought before the king?"

Captain: "It is not a condition involving you, but that I

follow first a command from the king's own lips to execute these slaves."

Beggar: " For only curiosity's sake, what is their crime?"

Captain: "I care or know not their crime. A soldier obeys not questions."

Beggar: "But of what does he need to obey?"

Captain: "What do you mean?"

Beggar: "If you order your guards to attack an armed band, what

must they willingly discard to obey you?"

Captain: "I would suppose you mean their own lives."

Beggar: "Correct. I did. and we call this discard of one's

life or well-being courage, do we not? Yet a man with only

courage does not always obey. He has laid something down, not

picked something up. As if your guards stand ready to fight to

the death, yet do not move to attack, only defend. This is not

cowardice. We have seen to that. Something lacks to hurl them

forward."

Captain: "That would be his belief of the command; in its

absoluteness of obedience."

Beggar: "But does that not imply men follow only words? Have

not many commands been unobeyed by what was once the obedient?"

Captain: "Yes, the curse of mutiny lays its plot from time to

time amongst some barracks. Never mine."

Beggar: "I do not doubt it. A man who will hear beggars will listen to men. But if groups of soldiery men be the same, courage

the same (for each man embraces death in mutiny), the commands the

same, what fails, Captain?"

Captain: " If you look for me to say the one who gives the command, I would say possibly, but it is not always his own command to give. He too must obey some command."

Beggar: "No matter, sir, the origin of command, whether of the captain or the general. If the general's command is flawed to the captain, will it not be thus from the captain to the guards?"

Captain: "The best commanders will swallow the taint into themselves and thus prove the meat good before the guests!"

Beggar: "Wisely said, Captain. But a commander can only hold one broken wheel of a cart. If the other three come broken as well, what's to be done? If flawed commands dribble a bucket will hold; if they flood , what's to be done? the result being the guards have no sign to be given direction; no hand to point forward. what makes men truly step forward to their duty, to their deeds, to their deaths even?"

Captain: "As they cannot hold or go backward, they are then convinced forward is the only means of direction."

Beggar: "Yes, Captain, convinced.

Conviction. Conviction plus courage makes an orderly advance. The guard contribute

courage, the captain commands conviction. It is like the arrow and the bow of war.Conviction is the aim, courage is the throw. Without conviction, the thrust is aimless, an arrow shot high above to return and pierce friend or foe by chance alone.

Yet conviction alone is the undrawn bow; the arrow is aimed but limp

for its deed."

Captain: "Very well, then conviction and courage breed command and obey but this is not some contest of battle. No courage

flares to kill unarmed slaves; no conviction to pass on a command

concerning a king's doings with his own property."

Beggar: "But there lies the err of no conviction. These guards are courageous men and courage is a sinewy muscle in the heart.

Like all muscles its strength stays with use not neglect. Yet here

we command they kill with courage; that they obey without the necessity

of sacrificing their lives. Will not perhaps their conviction turn to obedience without risk? What of a battle now where men will obey only without risk? If we train a horse to ride only in

sunshine, what will it balk when cold

drench greets its muzzle at a barn door?

Each stroke at a slave's neck weakens a soldier's courage for why stretch what rests uncalled.

As to conviction, that we ask to call without conviction then

what direction will these men heed for their gory thrusts?

Till this day, conviction, only conviction could guide courage from the discard of will. Now we do not command with that conviction for no commander gives a command without conviction.

We have become some men who say "Do

thus without courage". Being

not a command, anyone who can speak without commands rules the soldiers including the soldiers themselves.

Captain. : "In that you show your blindness in the ways of war, Beggar. These are well trained dogs. If a thing is said to be done, than it is done. Whether insect, child, slave or man, the

word 'kill' is to kill, not debate."

Beggar: "I fear, the sword has swung full circle again, my Captain. I have erred or mislead you. For again we say the dogs

do not follow the word 'kill' but the command 'kill'; for anyone can say 'kill' but only the commander of the dogs can command.

The dogs heed only this conviction. Are you, Captain, convinced the slaves should die?"

Captain: "I am convinced my king has ordered it! He did not ask my judgement, which is well since I would have none for him and none for you!"

Beggar: "Then your conviction is based on his sole right to command?"

Captain: "Absolutely! You are a tedious thinker but we'll fill

your cup at the well yet. "

Beggar: "Does a commander have some convictions of what marches below him?"

Captain: "What do you mean?"

Beggar: "For you, as a captain, are your men arrows, dogs or toes? If you like arrows you fling as many as possible at the target , careless of their waste of broken shafts, just so long as the deed is done.

Or if you like dogs, you send half the pack snarling into steel knowing their exhaust is not easily replaced.

But if you like toes, you become scrupulous in the offer so important they are to your stand. You are not cowardly with their loss yet you ensure each is not uselessly sheered away."

Captain: "An excellent sta of war, Beggar, your blindness does know some cracks of vision. I would say for the most part as toe to toe, though there are times the whole ten are of need."

Beggar: "Then how many toes must go to kick an unarmed man to his grave?"

Captain: "I would grant only one."

Beggar: "Then, for the butcherous deed of this day, why taint

twenty and risk their courage weakened or their conviction wandered.

Send one toe, one dog, one arrow to wage this one side of combat.

If he is lost, nineteen will hold. His courage, if

gone mad, undirected, no conviction runs bloody riot, the rest will devour his ravings with steel upon his teeth.

If his courage sags and later conviction can not be followed with his life too precariously bundled in his hands, the other nineteen will still ensure the enemy is met."

Captain: "And what if I choose but one, Beggar, what tonguings come serpentat our feet then?"

Beggar: Ha! The philosopher has no neat snare for a warrior! But as you poked at it in a curious expose, I will tell you this: I would have then requested to fight him myself."

Captain (with a roar of laughter): "And so the nimble goat dances his way off a the ledge! And what if , Beggar, instead of refusing and allowing some passionate but much safer line of attack, I had allowed the challenge?"

Beggar: "In truth, sir, it was the fight I sought, not the verbal play. Although you know words, you know swords better and it is only fair that I argue in that arena as well. Since no

reasonable men send men to war, we cannot look for reason amongst war or men at war.

The conviction we spoke of is not that of logic or reason but is the flow of power, of might. Like a whip it uncoils and sings hard, its force multiplied in the pulsing of convictions.

Yet one cannot stop the whip at any segment. One must stretch all the way back to the hand.

But if any segment is corrupt, the whip will veer, strike where it should not, gorge deeper than a hand directs.

Only for the hand to (daily inspect) will the flaws be known. Or in time the corruption breaks away, now mute to the swing of the hand. But much damage has crept a bloody trail before this mercy. If the hand is mad and the whip sound, the world will snap bare backed a hideous while. It is seldom a whip will turn upon its own hand. Though it may change hands.

Then what becomes the thing to turn a great courage? If a mule turns to the whip on the right, will it not turn quicker yet to the stronger, sharper crack, sounding at its left. The mule weighs not the men, the hands to the whip, it weighs only the whip. It heeds only the conviction of the master, not the size of the master. So we find the dwarf with a whip of two rods is the larger to the giant man with a whip of only one rod. For does not the courage of the mule greatly outweigh both yet it cringes to the greater conviction?

But, Captain, I beg you look upon this scene with an eye of pity. What have we but superior hands fiercely plying the whips of their convictions upon the backs of courage. Is this so unlike war? The common soldier, the ravaged village, the plundered town carry the burdens bloodied and scarred upon their trudge between an orchestra of screaming song. The songs of convictions at odds for prevailing might. In the end, strongest conviction of the whip goes cold by the lay of a skinless, shattered, hooved corpse. So I say to you my conviction is this stick I hold beheads

slaves better than any sword, Just as one longer whip leads a mule sharper than a shorter whip.

But must we prove thus at the ultimate price of a slave's obedience? Would it not be better that whip first face whip, the victor to secure a mule, whole and ready in its courage?

You , Captain, pick for your conviction the best sword to

sever a slave's head. My conviction of the stick will Eight him.

Thus we determine sword versus stick at a less bloody cost."

Captain: "So you wish the generals have all the fun, do you, my mad tactician? This fight you so beggingly desire, what are the spoils, the gains, the losses? What oracle of truth will spill

streaming from your gut for our better swallow, for such 'whippings' are always to the death, are they not?"

Beggar: "To my death, yes. To the other's, no. Say it is enough I render him useless, without sword. For will he not find it a long pull to behead slaves without it?"

Captain (laughing): " And good that we could all claim as the slave, that our statute grows higher, nearer the release of death.

These spoils, though, are still a puzzle. You care or care not to die yet care not to kill. If you win, what do you ask for, what do you prove?"

Beggar: "Man, it is claimed, began with a first deed. Some

say war. Some say love. Some say barter. I philosophize the latter since in barter, unlike love or war, he always demands the price first. Who rushes so headstrong that he does not keep a hand to his purse? You are astute, Captain, my whip does covet a

prize. Two. The first I wish to make a point which is now pointless to make in victory. And utterly pointless to make if

I fail. The second prize depends upon your answer to this question: Did the King order you to kill the slaves immediately

or on this day? "

Captain: "As to your point, you may find more point in a point

through you. As to the question, he ordered death before sundown.

They are here now because I am a man not to delay what needs not delaying. Also it seemed cruel to let the wretches

ponder their demise at length."

Beggar: "I mean no mocking stance when I say the quick whip can offer the most tender caress. But at the cost of a

few hours, I would ask you delay the killing till after I speak with the

king. The conviction of your orders will remain pure only your zealousness need be thwarted. As a man of military and government service, you will have had this experience before no doubt. A ready whip remains easily coiled as uncoiled."

Captain: "Very well then. I'll pick .a man to a butcher's job.

The stick of churning dust will meet the singing harvest of steel.

You to the death. He to disgrace. Victory for you yields a point and a slave's pardon Of a half day. Victory for the soldier yields the gratitude of our silent ears."

So saying, the Captain gestured to one of the guards, particularly large and brawny, to step forward. Since all had been within hearing of the talk, little explanation was required. The fight began without ceremony. The captain stepped back and instantly the guard drew his sword and sliced an arc directly at the beggar's head. Only by bending backwards to the extreme did the Beggar avoid two inches of sword tip slicing through his skull. Before the guard could recover his stance, the Beggar drove an end of the stick into the ground. Using it as a balance point, he then pivoted and drove both his feet into the guard's midriff.

The guard sprawled to le ground; the Beggar as well. Both rose quickly; the guard lunged. The Beggar darted his stick

upward at the wrist holding the sword but the guard spun on his heels to avoid this blow and drove another killing arc at the Beggar. To avoid, the Beggar dropped to the ground, at the same time driving his stick into the guard's crotch.

A bellow of anger delighted the crowd while the Beggar rolled and recovered his stance.

This time the swordsman advanced cautiously, the point of his sword circling for an opening.

Seconds passed as both

contestants strove to out manoeuver with quick steps. The Beggar lunged this time, his stick as level spear. As the guard's
sword swung to check this advance, the Beggar jumped around the guard, spun and battered the back of his head with the stick. Yet, even dazed at this, the guard spun and his sword sliced rags and skin to a bright crimson line across the Beggar's chest. The guard then sprawled to all forms, clutching his sword.

The beggar did not advance, seconds lost as he absorbed the delirium of pain; the shock of mortality which comes from any intense wound.

The guard was up, turned toward the Beggar. Danger reawoke the Beggar's instincts.

Again they advanced sword, stick and bodies circling , weaving, a timeless ritual. The intimacy of lovers, one is so aware, so sensitive to the eyes, hands, feet, body of the partner. The death dance bringing every twitch, every ripple of the opponent in such intensity to the vision, Each wedded to the other, emotions raging yet checked, moment begged for; yet feared. Lovers with an infinite of hesitations, so swift to respond, embrace an open moment. Love where distance is craved yet closeness desired. Life and death singing for both.

The guard jabs low, Beggar counters, deflecting. The sword follows the block, arcs high, sweeps past the Beggar's ear, Beggar pivots, stick jabs to guard's chest, guard half spins, sword takes inches off end of stick, Beggar swings stick, clubs guard's ear; guard half drops, sword brushes Beggar's thigh, crimson spurts again. Beggar kicks guard, who sprawls, rolls, gets up, in a roar of revenge dashes at the Beggar; the glare of a sun trickles in orange droplets, red and yellow blend, from the scimitar planing, floating on wind rapidly descending in a downward arc, a single winged hawk hungry for exposed prey.

The prey lies hidden behind a tree, a leafless branch, rising before the wing, the steel hawk is turned away, its talon tearing away bark and chips in its near miss of flight. Yet the wind that bore it continues on. The prey is down, kneeling, an altar where yet lives the blooded lamb. Death's shadow, the wind of hawks, bears down upon it unable to stop the hooves devouring clay in a sprawling charge. The dark bull staggers wild over the lamb kneeling beside a shattered branch.

On one knee, the Beggar then springs up, throwing the guard off his back. The guard is sent crashing onto the ground, flung on his back. His sword has been lost. He lies stunned.

The Beggar looks at the Captain. The Captain nods. As a couple of other guards assist their beaten fellow with a hand up and water to his face, the Captain walks over to the Beggar.

The Captain asks: "Your wounds, are they deep?"

Beggar: "Deep enough to remind me to carry a larger stick."

Captain: "You used what you had to much advantage. Where do Beggars become schooled in such?"

Beggar: "Let us just say when younger hands seek larger loafs amongst a forest of angry legs, the feet learn the art of dancing nimble."

Captain: "And is this school a rare or a common thing?"

Beggar: " Too common then, much the same now."

Captain: "Then the recruiters must begin to look under market tables for the best of the pickings. But no matter. My guard was no doubt been given a lighter beating than my ears will now be served. Sit here at this stone and rest while you speak of your new victorious point."

Beggar: "I ask first that you not discipline or let his fellows degrade that guard too much. For he would have won had he not been so much disarmed by you.

Captain: "What! By me! What do you mean!"

Beggar: "In the contest, I was to die, he was not. He had little to lose therefore little to try. For did we not say that courage was a muscle of the heart? Like an arm the sword must be there to hold. Where there is little chance to die, there is little chance for courage and strangely less reason to live or win. Had that guard pinned me to the ground, with sword point at my throat awaiting your signal to kill who would have breathed deeper? The crowd, undangered, air ,spellbound, stuck in their dry throats? Or I, most in danger, breathing full, as each dear breath may be my last?

Such is the strange way of the world that nobility breeds only in the nest of adversity. As it to man's spirit. the gods

give him the devil, the danger as a wolf to the herd. For look at the herd without the hunter. a flaccid, mulling thing;

shitting and cudding it's path to eternity. Mating and the ritual

of horn clashings a feeble attempt at the meanings of immortality.

But let the wolves descend! Come among them! Behold, the thriving bulls, swelled in sinewy defiance, eyes glaring in warrior readiness. Tails flagging unity. the cows stamp defiance, crowd the tiny ones behind, snorting "Death before

surrender! There will be no turning in the wind!'

How has this been done? How has the ox shed its listless burdens to become noble from drudge? Danger. We have placed danger in the arm of courage and it has rose up to the call.

But harbour no delusions, my Captain, this is not all there is of man. If it were, it would be enough to put every man to the test of sword to make all men unneeded of sword. But alas there are others of a natural kind.

There are the colonies of toads where the snake preys. Here

courage has no call, no muscle. Rather the toads fight with a blank eyed hope. Sheer numbers as their defence. Eyes cast to side or behind they watch the snake move in its selection. If

there lies a hundred toads, each has a ninety-nine in a hundred chance of escape. But only in the cold hunch of stillness.

Movement will surely bring attack, the rigours of cowardice at least

leave chance. The snake selects, he has eaten, lies in a stupor of

neglect to the ninety-nine. They whisper 'he is full, sated, now he will ask no more' and what do the fools do? They sing of their liberation! Till the songs awaken the thinner snake and again hope, cowardice must hold tight a snake's meal; hope, cowardice again doing the work of a snake's coils.

Thus do many men react to evil slipping through their towns, their homes, their hearts.

Hold rigid and hope thy neighbour fattens a serpents throat.

But what of conviction for these two species, what of that? That the bulls and cows were convinced not of the danger to

them; that is there, but courage ignores it out of the danger to the

young. The toads were convinced of no danger to themselves, just their neighbours.

Is this not the same thing? Both see danger outside themselves; are convinced of it. But see the difference. The one species convinced its immortality rests with the young, the other with itself!One results in courageous movement, selfless sacrifice; the other in cowardly denial, self—serving impotence.

And which species will succeed? The bulls, cows may defeat the wolves; the toads will succumb one by one, victory over the snake coming only with starvation! A rather odd method of combat! Captain: Bulls and toads, beggar, my ears swim in their bruised blood! Where is the point of a guards defeat in this arena of gardens? If for no other reason, make haste to a conclusion for your slave brothers, whose necks itch the redder with each passing hour!

Beggar: My apologies, Captain. You are not alone for it is said that in the hereafter, the gods know no burden hut a

prophet's tongue.

Captain: Or the singing bird draws the hawk!

Beggar: Or the frog croaks though water is near!

Captain: Ah, but the boldest cricket dines with the lizard!

Beggar: Defeat. I admit defeat. I beg sir you scabbard your tongue for mercy. But my point was thus, that a man is neither bull or toad or even wolves or snake but is rather of all four in his heart. Some more of one than the other, all having at least a small part of each.

That no man is born of courage or conviction but grows accustomed to it. That is grows within the customs of it. The ways of a species are bred into its young.

The toads hear no wolves.

So what a man is becomes greatly of where he was. Of what was

offered onto him. Praying amongst toads does not the snake become his idol?Running with wolves does not the calf beg his sacrifice amongst bellowing hooves?

We are all of equal stature yet we do not know we make our brothers great or small. In our offerings. Do not offer the snake before the bull, he will remain meek. Do not offer a toad to the

wolves, he will turn tail at the bitter warts.

No where the heard runs, bring only wolves. Let the snakes and toads alone to be devoured amongst each other in the clinging muck.

So here was your bullish man. His death unsentenced become the hiss of a snake. The toad emerged clumsy with a

hawkish front . All else were to die around him. But not him.

So he fought not for himself but who? What conviction?

Had I demanded payment in the slave's lives, then you and his comrades would surely die later in a king's rage. But he had no one to save. The wolves and

snake at least have conviction in their hunger. He had no hunger, no courage, no conviction. He carried steel limply with the heart of a toad. But twas all of us who demanded so. The courage penned. Conviction unscented. Even the snake pinned by the stick of my own conviction. Like so many men in life he had been disarmed by his brothers long before the arena was even entered.

Captain: The thrust cannot be parried, Beggar. Yet in your flurry of strikes, I am a mite shaken as to what all your meanings have to do with what here befalls a gaze?

Beggar: Captain, beware, truth brings its own bit beyond bone or steel.

Captain: Say it. (laughing) Besides, my calloused ears make a good shield.

Beggar: Here around as always are toads and snakes: wolves and bulls, and all shades of such. It is the snake that beheads the slaves. It is the wolves that fight armed man to man. The toads encircle and watch rejoicing in murmur ever their own unspilled blood. It is the bull which intervenes for the calves. Thus the

circus of death is danced in blood. Thus the arena of life is paid entrance in blood. If the man, toad, wolves, snake, bull all shed blood where comes any difference? Dignity. There is such in a man when he circles with the bulls or lunges with the pack. The toad and snake exist below its level eye.

You would kill slaves as a snake devours toads. You, as a wolf, must flatten to the ground and slither to your task, below the eye of dignity.

I have a choice of two hearts. Stand amongst the crowed warts and sing of my deliverance? Or stomp hard clay and glower courage over these innocents?

Which breaths of a man, Captain? Which rings a man high; full in dignity's breast whether bronzed or ragged. Which builds the arms of courage, Captain, to take what is easily taken or to give what is not easily given?

And of conviction, I quote a greater man: 'Those who seek to live, die. Those who seek death shall surely live'.

As if to say those who cling quiet around only their living self lie nearest to the dead, but those who embrace death, raging for others, stand nearest to the living.

Where are you, Captain, amongst all this living and dead?

Moments passed. The Captain and Beggar eyes fixed, no movement,

stillness. Many around thought the Beggar would die, though they understood little of his words. Just that a quiet man is a

dangerous one. A silent one with a sword exceedingly so.

Not looking away, yet subduing the glint of glare to ease the

moment, the Captain spoke: Some men in the harness of occupation may seem as toads swallowing any conviction that flies at them. There is a command for 'Advance', a command for 'Retreat'.

Likewise a call to 'Raise up'; a demand to 'Crawl'. A man on his

belly may hide in the memories of his run, toads daydream of larger horns in past.

Your dignity scents of glory in the soldiery fashion. That is an ebbing, rising thing; of no account can a man hold to it. It is

embraced eternal only by those finally drowned in its music.

That a man is those four things, I agree. That he is brought to be one or the other I agree. But that he never sheds the other ,here is a lesson to all, including you. For most a man's entrance is his exit but not all. Some hop into the world but churn their way out. The snake may yet run with larger teeth.

Here the wolves sit gagged, the calf calm. The toad nodded while the snake's tongue danced. Yet also the toad is to the bull what the snake is to the wolf. As cowardice is to courage so also

is evil to danger.

Remember, Beggar, wolves do not hunt in the marsh for toads.

Is not evil then the reaper of cowards? If the toads be, must not the snake be? For did not you say the snake exists because of the toads? If you wish to finish evil, destroy toads.

You argue danger breeds courage but can evil breed cowardice?

The toad is as a toad without a snake. Blame not the snake! Yet the snake breeds no danger to the bull.

You say we are right to bring danger into the world but to offer up no evil. Yet I do not desire a world infested with toads.

Perhaps if we knew the difference between danger and evil I would know better your point.

Beggar: The ostrich feather is indeed a sign of long vision. You ask a difficult question. I doubt I am equal to the task. Yet there may be something in the compare you mentioned. For is not courage to act outward whereas cowardice is to draw, to curl within? Courage in giving up the self embraces the world whereas cowardice rejects the world while swallowing itself.

What if we argued that what creates an act is an act of opposition?

If I wish you to strike me, I need merely swing my fist! So in this danger is simply an outward act causing courage to outward oppose.

Captain: Hardly unique, my friend. The pusher is shoved back.

Beggar: Yes but then cast an eye upon evil. Cowardice opposes such. Draws inward. Can evil be the drawing of another into itself, hence the shell defence of cowardice?

As if to say dangerous men seek to do away with us, evil men seek to join with us, absorb us. Evil seeks a partner, an insidious thirst for other selves.

Captain: Are you speaking of marriage, now?

Beggar: Well, no, not really. Why do you ask?

Captain: Because I'd rather not be sitting so near a man about to be stoned. (Laughing) Though I doubt any of the men will cast more than understanding looks.

But of greater doubt is your point of evil as that of the joining of selves. For is that not danger too? The wolves consume flesh, so thus the snake, there is no difference to a supper's vision.

Beggar: Tell us then, Captain, the purpose where all men are bled

empty before their pyre or burial?

Captain: To ensure complete death, of course.

Beggar: You mean that a man is not buried, if he need not be buried? But does not the drain kill the man?

Captain: No, I did not mean to check for life but rather to ensure

no man awakens undead. For then such would regain life to only resume death. That horrible enough but terror more in the grip of flame or suffocation.

Beggar: Are men not so terrorized of this suffocation unto death,

that the ritual is formed? The bleeding, the gashing a less terrible thing, for could not a man awaken while his blood pooled a large basin?

Captain: Yes but better to awaken to the gent red stroke than the heavy embrace of earth.

Beggar: Why? Both bring again death to life; is life just plucked from death?

Captain: Though all men fear death, some forms are more hideous than others. No one desires the pain of scorched peels of pain as their living last, all prefer the gentile haze of unawakened slumber.

Beggar: Then death as the time destroyer of pain is welcomed but not thru a hideous gate? As if a man may only finds water thru the well infested with snakes?

Captain: Yes, that is what I mean.

Beggar: But there is no pain in the burial. Choose it as a painless exit, should all men not? If one must awaken here it is

but a few moments of airless wonder; would not the brief living dead simply think: 'Ah I have awoken undead, yet am buried to be

dead. If this is fate, then I will like its re—embrace. Quiet to .

enjoy a few last dreams of those as what I have loved'.

Captain: Hah, your thoughts stumble as much underground as above it! Gag any man to his suffocation and four must hold his thrash.

See the drowning man, a peaceful sink? Rather instead he beats and

bludgeons his sucking foe, never hopeless his flailings will lift him away to safety. Even as the crown descends, the hands will not surrender till the lead of death drags them under.

I myself, watched a man give his life unwillingly to a quick sucking sand. Yet was not quick enough for him or those who followed his eyes downward. Better the water, at least one is in it first, dead but for small battle over closed doors, but the sand is the drawing to a worm's mouth, it is decay and rot before the senses are closed. The sand squeezed his living higher, higher till it screamed silent from his mouth, his eyes. Then both found a voice while his arms, his fingers danced in plea, sweeping the caving earths for clues of destiny the way a blind man hunts for a pin. So beggar, you have erred. No man offers his breath to death gladly. For a man to unseal his eyes to a vision of dirt, for his gasp to inhale dust, for his limbs to know only an inch of swing, his chest locked from reprise by the betrayal of his tiny breath now awoken by the thuds of spillings ritual, all this is horror; not your candle taken away to herald dreams. How long could this churning, seething nightmare be fed air from the loose pockets of earth? We hope not long. Beggar: Yet there is no pain, Captain: Not pain of the body but those eyes surrounded in gulping sand are filled with another pain. A spirit's pain of exit through too small a window. A. spirit should lift whole out of gentle expire not be shoved by death thru eyes, the spirit ripping and tearing like a clinging cat to an arm as we attempt fling it at some abyss. Thus did this man abhor death by the earth's throat.

Beggar: Then both of terror is death by pain to the body, or death

by pain to the spirit. Yet which is man of least to be weeded to, the bride of nails or the bride of gags?

Captain: If a wedding it must be say then the bride of nails for in natural, unless the torturous hand of man stalls the ordeal, pain brings a death quickly though sharply. The choking bride is slow in the consummation, so reluctant is she to draw virginal blood.

It is a long, long procession.

Beggar: Could it not also be said that pain wraps the death, masks

the death? A man is distracted to its heat as an eye beholds more of a candle in the dark night, less of the bearer. The man is

driven from the pain, exists death's abyss by default. Or the man offers death as a shield from the pain, the way one would throw stolen honey from oneself in a hope to thwart vengeful stings of bees.

Captain: But does not then death become the friend, pain the foe?

Beggar: No, sir, it is a bridegroom forced between hideous sisters. But what we can say can we not is that men fear death thru its instruments more than of itself. Physical pain or pain of the sprit yield a different measure of fear. And I would say a different action of fear.

That death which has its bitter flavour in spirit yields an abhorrence, a terror different from that death of pain in the physical body.

For the latter death wears a mask, the dying are blinded to the purpose and become concerned only with the means. Every man know the truth of his death, yet every man is given courage to deny

the means.

That all warriors know they must die, indeed their occupation is death is one thing. But this absolute knowledge does

not ask they not delay its sleep. For what use is a military rank that stands humbled to the descending sword? Fight they must, fight they shall. So does the man fight the instrument of death, physical pain. In this he may have no change of escape but Death's mask allows an illusion in which courage can stand fast pain not death.

But the man in the whirling pit is given no mask to cover his eyes.

No physical pain to engage his senses; demand his thoughts.

He knows death full in its creeping tough, cold, slime upon his skin. His is the terror of many deaths, inching down the crevasse, moist in its thirst

. The body moves, flails yes but the spirit is not raging to fury as for physical pain;

No here the spirit cringes, convulses to the death. For what can it fight but death itself and death is always sure in its victory.

This the spirit knows, it has only twigs of limbs to stay the great dark hand. The spirit knows its hands are too wide spaced in grope to snatch away the hordes of tiny consuming worms scurrying

to their feed. The spirit knows and screams its perfect wisdom like the circling of a headless fowl. Behind the eyes, jerking, trampling upon itself.

A beast on the end of its living snare frantic to the footfall of a reaper's approach.

From this Captain, do we not see two kinds of foes, two kinds of acts ?

Do not the teeth of wolves bring death and the mask of death.

That the bulls fight the wolves; death the purpose of combat yet death a vague bystander nonetheless. For the gash and snarl of the wolves make a veil of death, they are the pageantry where all lose their place in death.

For a play must end, yet during the play, no one remembers its ending. So with danger, that no one cries the inevitable of death and surrenders before the yaws of death. Those jaws are dim, lost in the dark throats; it is the white gleam of danger that curtains death's intent.

The bulls fight the teeth not the throats. Danger does not step forward unconquerable, hence courage has its shake of odds.

But for the toads their destinies come not with death painted bright. The fetid hunger is cavernous behind them. It has a wind that chills along their backs as the very hushed air about them

begins sink to this pit.

That their spirits curl to hold from this drawing, their souls, if you will, anchored by claw like a whimpering man dragged on his belly towards a cliff.

The toads have no curtain of pain to deny; to inhibit the stake terror conquering at their souls; their living spirits.

No death seems no escape from a cruel living but rather an eternal entombing into perpetual seethe. Death clamours for not a spirit' extinguish but rather adherence, as if the spirit in swallowed whole will become a limb of death's foul need. The man in the pit is terrorized to this living servitude into death's endless belly.

Evil then becomes more than just danger stripped of its threatening pain. It is not just death without pain, it is death without death of the spirit.

The man and the toad are swallowed whole, their terror is that their spirits remain living amongst the bowels of death. What is in a painful death of spirit is the dark, slime of swallowing without the lighted release of oblivion

to physical pain. There becomes no assurance the man will ever sleep, ever not reawaken to this foul intimacy.

As evil than is not necessarily of physical pain, neither is it a beast only called by physical death. The man's spirit can be swallowed or joined to the evil long before his body perishes.

For did we not say of the toads that 99 dies of spirit while only one was consumed of body. For the bulls, only one dies, the rest remain ready and full of courage.

Our discussion of death began at a bled burial. That man given to terror at his heart to imagine a living death. But is this not the sceptre, the cold ivory fingers of evil? To swallow,

infest, surround, entomb the living spirit! Right that a man fears, trembles this state of un—manned. He becomes a hollow shell filled with the decay of worms and carrions, a feast of maggot

swarms, where somewhere a spirit floats shelled in its horror to this sea of putrid slough.

That in time, evil seeks, hears, acts as evil is. For now the man hears through the gurgles of worms, sees thru the orbs of snakes, feels with the heart of a monstrosity.

This is what men fear of evil that they do not fear of danger. Evil as the parasite, the infector, the breeder of living dead.

Evil is leprous; danger is not. One has abhorrence to a rotted limb, not to one severed in combat and then healed.

Danger is sated by victory, evil knows no such limit. The snake, the fly, the worm, the maggot know no boundaries, they are a foul rain, moving from stagnant pool to dead sea.

Danger has a command, a leader, a rein of power. Evil has none. For even the man of evil who does evil unto others, does not direct his evil but is rather driven by it.

If danger were thirsty, danger would go to a well and fight for the right to drink from it. If evil were thirsty, evil would fill the well with sand so that all would be as thirsty as evil.

If danger were hungry, danger would kill for food.

If evil were hungry, evil would feed upon the living, not the killing!

Danger yields an inequality of survival yet equal chances; evil levels an equality of destitution and destruction only.

From danger we guard our doors, from evil all must guard their hearts

Yet have I not said that the spirit cowers always before evil? When the twin yellow glares shadow upon any man or toad, most often a spirit becomes tranced to any better sense. But most often the glare is first weak, cowardly, unsure in its first scurry across our vision. That is the time

to act! And to act thus for thy neighbour!

For could not 99 toads defeat the snake while one toad is gripped in hold? Though evil is present, it has only one focus, the rest can surely recover.

So with man also! When evil swarms to one man, that man may well be stone to flight. But are not the rest of us freed in our vision to rally our sticks and stones to his despairing cause. The quicksand holds one but surely it does not hold others from securing ropes and ladders?

We do not just help our neighbour for our neighbour's sake but for our breath too! For the evil will come to us, from his house infested, it must, just as the snake grew hungry and heeding the rejoicing came to the toads.

It is not enough to believe one is not evil and not capable of evil. That is a lie! All men have the same soil for a breed of worms; all men have smooth skin for a snake's throat. There is no denying evil while man is amongst men. Men must fight the evil of and for a man.

Evil in a man is of the snake, of the worm, it must gather, grow, swarm. Hence one knows evil by the moving grass, the dark locust cloud, the revulsion of a curled thing on your face. Where the spirit crinches, evil lingers. Among the acts of man upon man, man upon yourself, where a colder twinge of sweat tricks thus is evil scented.

Thus is the time for movement. Again I say no matter if you know not either man, strike your gong now for surely in time that evil will hunger for you. How can one demand assistance when none was rendered? How can one demand assistance when one watched silent as evil gathered man to man? What folly to plead deliverance amongst all the evil neighbours you had calmly watched devoured!

Look upon these slaves, Captain. Does one see in their death, danger or evil? If their crimes have been heinous and evil, then perhaps what can one do but use evil to eradicate evil. But if their crimes are of a minor disobedience, then is a greater evil a good thing?

Because, Captain, there is a thing in evil which is likened to the unleashing of danger. For once evil is added to the world's deeds it is never easily removed. All evil acts as mud churned blocks, piled on top, they wall a city, a street, a man to fester more and more contained in evil. The wells hard and cemented with malice are not easily chopped down by good deed or indignant combat.

These slaves, to die uncontested, there is no danger, little physical pain at a single cut. Though there may be no horror of a quicksand pit, there is evil about. They are no warriors or bulls raging for victory or death. They do not die together but rather one by one as a steel gong caresses their necks. No courage is demanded from manacled limbs. As each dies, the others will count, their lives temporarily pardoned by a few mere footsteps. Distance from dying, severed comrades, a poor and unlasting victory.

In short, good Captain, you have made them toads. And you yourself a snake. In that there is evil, there is no human spirit breathing amongst those blank eyes above collared necks. They are doomed, painless to a body, yet in horror none the less. The cowardice of their toad dilemma, the evilness of a snake has already coiled amongst their hearts. That is evil on human spirit is not lasting in that they will soon die is no plea for its existence. Like a spark amongst tinder, evil requires little time of birthing to exist forever.

So amongst this was a smell, a decay of evil that I came to. What was I to do? Tomorrow may bring me back as a condemned man, a captain, a guard with commanded sword or, worst of all, had I shunned a toad's plea, brought me back as one of these gawk mouthed spectators blank to their folly of being amongst ninety-nine.

For it is as much they as you or I or a king who breed evil into the world. In that you were right, it is the lethargy of the toads which yield to the snake an easy appetite. And easy presence. Thus I fight evil today that I not succumb to its ravenous mangle tomorrow. There are maggots in my neighbour's eyes! Shall I wait till they fly to my own decay before I seek to pulp their juice between trembling fingers? No! The time is now that of a sure hand not a flimsy one.

Can one toad defeat a snake? Perhaps. Can I defeat you? No. You are too many to fight. I cannot convince you to let them go because we both know that would mean the death of you and your guards by the king's command. The slaves lives are not worth more than yours. But I can ask the fang delay its puncture while the head, the crown is bargained with.

Captain: I caution you before the king to make no leanings towards any condemnations. A king who seldom mirrors his wrongs, is not very likely to encourage their vision from a beggar's tongue. I will send my second of command with you to tell the king of what has happened here. In three notches, I will behead the slaves. Do not unleash your tongue too much for these dogs, I would not welcome your neck to the block.

As to this difference of danger and evil and its off spring, I would accept evil as a lower yet more vicious thing in its pursuit of human spirit.

Your solution to evil is probable yet it builds upon something in toads which may not exist amongst men. For even the lonely toad will look upon another toad and see a brother or sister.

But man looks upon his fellow man in this world of obedience and command and sees only occupation. The ragged portion over there sees not myself as a troubled brother but as a captain diseased is my occupation.

He does not see the evil as communal only as warrants command.

So too I look upon the guards or the slaves or yourself. We are not human communal in a stew of your ravenous maggots. We do not say see "our brothers killing our brothers in the darkness of evil need." We say the guards as guards are evil, as all guards are evil. But it is not the disease of porters or labourers or beggars.

What do the guards say? We have not the evil of disorder or squalor or theft; we are honourable in our occupation. We are the innocent fingers of a mind, distance from muddied toes.

So the evil of each occupation is condemned by others as something unique and non universal.

The evil within each occupation is intimate to that occupation in its stance of obedience and command. A man does not enter an occupation and there breed evil, he enters an occupation already propped in evil. That porters 'lose' parcels, beggars leech, guards kill, captains give evil commands, this becomes the separate diseases of the city. Just as only eyes go blind, ears deaf, lungs cough, skin has boils.

These crows do not see evil, they see evil guards. And therefore allow evil in the allowing of guards. Were men to command in their tasks and occupations, than all would see the brotherhood of evil.

In this city's state, evil is marked in the multitude of variations, seemingly flickering independent of each other. But as in an army marching to ravish, to plunder, each rank has its unique order and rank.

Each a limb, a claw of the lizard, a thing of half wolves, half snake.

The only difference between a city and a lizard is the city preys upon itself. Go now to the king. I can only hope our next meeting is not again amongst the bondage of evil."

So the Beggar journeyed upon the basin, out of the Valley of Dogs.

This side of the execution pit exactly like the previous side for poverty is not laid out by the tracks of a sun but rather the circulus route of despair.

At the edge of the Valley, the streets levelled a while, then began again a steep incline. Each footstep brought to view larger and richer dwellings; the people in more telling and boisterous attire.

Yet their faces declined above this fine and gay. Higher the climb of a street, the more dour and judging a glance; the more disgust and loath rained upon the beggar's frame. Here the mouths did not gawk or gape or even range to their fullness in shout or laughter. These stern lips so pressed to the finer wines barely cracked to the whispers which sang angry at his ears. The buzzing of wasps, not hesitant with barb, yet reluctant nonetheless to jab into indifferent meat.

'Let it pass, let it pass by this was the placard the little guarded procession did not need wave to the clumps of noble gatherings.

For here, if it did not stop direct at the carved doors, it was worth ignoring. Even if it knocked or dared slump to the sill, there was regular patrols to sweep any dung away.

Higher they walked till now the king's palace could be seen. The rounded turrets of its watch rising quickly above the rich habitant; like faceless gatherers above wheat.

The long white walls curving to the midpoint between each turret. A deliberate thing designed to give a row of worn teeth between fangs. The Hunter and the Fed.

In the wall, the slits of windows. In the slits, on the walls, in the turrets, men at watch could not at first be seen. Only the flashes of steel were almost constant everywhere, as if this lower jaw had chewed upon a jewelled neck, gave notice of a great stronghold to reinforce fear.

The little band came to a side door. A great thick iron gate testified to a reluctant harbour within. Passwords of the day were grunted between the sergeant and the palace guards, then the hinges of opening creaked their greeting. As the beggar was about to pass within, he looked up to the wells, An over hang had been added to the brick. It ran as a lip from again turret to turret with the upper edge sloping sharply to the wall, the lower edge abrupt. Jutting, bristling down from the lower edge was hundreds of short iron spikes. All this completed the look of a shaggy lipped lower jaw, the upper ripped away, yet the lower still complete as if a head freshly halved.

Only above the door was this lip broken in its run. A gap to allow the erect of an insignia. In the centre was an oval art, like an egg on end. On each side separated by a small gap was a crescent moon, the concave side closest to the oval. In these shapes was a jackal, drawn in three parts. The seal gave the look of an eye where a jackal prowled. Cunning with large vision. Vision perhaps more outward than inward since the image was carved to project outward from the wall.

Into the hall, they stepped. The guard gestured to the Beggar to leave his broken half of the stick he had absentmindly carried all this way. The Beggar left it in the corner and they moved towards the curve of the hall. The iron gate gave a toll to thin step as it was returned to its normal use.

That was the last noise the Beggar heard till the King's chamber except for the muttered shuffle of feet.All in the palace were required to wear padded slippers or bare feet, no boots or hided sandals were allowed slap their ignorance for long. No one spoke. No one whispered.No one coughed.

Here amongst the marble columns and long tiled floors of grand scenery and battles waged upon tapestry, hereat the highest place in the city above the burial grounds and execution plots, here silence reined like an undisturbed tomb.

So much unlike the Valley of Dogs which roared and squawked on the border of death, this noiseless marble would tolerate not even a whisper of existence.

For would not that whisper of joy or agony gather upon its wings a great following of thoughts unspoken amongst the stone and cloth. Then would not the echos build and build to the cool still air and declare a wind blast of liberation amongst jaded faces and limbs as resilient as the stone itself.

It is not to be said that the farther a speaker is from death, the less he has to say of life? Would not a word booming thus crack its way outside to proclaim death amongst the most highest living?

That those burdened with death in their hands can tell large tales of living yet those who clutch the largest portion of living dare not whisper for fear death will scent their scattered trails of

broken words?

No boot can be worn here; its scrap to roll ominous like a pebble begging avalanche. Its sound of free descend to gather round and round itself the marble dust of an unused crypt till its burden of weight crashes a wall and noise of the living is allowed inward. Its bristles of melody to sweep all the dead out!

That all here(and there is only one truly here, for whom this dwelling was carved from its natural ground and dragged to a more mocking height) are begged, nay demanded to have no utterance of life, no sound of vision, no word of any other paradise. That this garden, this pinnacle of flowering, has no other compare.

For this crest must be sacred, this cup must be holy for if it is less, would not all under it be less? Such is the noble gauntry.

Thus the dilemma of those of the tomb who cannot speak of anything outside the tomb. Death has its own language. In very quiet syllables. Unlike the boys who play catch at the wall with a noisy, boisterous view of a city's dance.

The boys are living now, yet soon they will be at an age to be noble and will enter the marble's tomb. Enter with the rest where a word may bring good or evil so is banned with its threat. A guarded existence builds its own needs. Fear welcomes no companion from the living; only the dead in deed have no hunger. Only the blind have no points of faults. Only the deaf have no ear to folly. Only the silent carry no tales or plots.

Fear thus has its magnificent garden. A single weed barricaded in delicate rubble. At an oaken door, two guards stopped them. A third searches the Beggar thoroughly. The sergeant and Beggar were then allowed to pass

inward.

They entered the king's chamber. It was a surprisingly small room. The room draped with tapestries and rugs, though seemly of a less grand style than the previous halls, had still a measure of opulence not seen by the Beggar. All around were padded chairs of embroidered gold silk with legs shaped out turned crescents. At least on one half of the room. For the room was divided by a permanent iron patterned wall, decorative but not allowing even a man's hand to pass through. On the other side of this wall was a single large chair and ornate side table. On the back of the chair was embroidered again the jackal seal of the king.

Two guards stood on each side of the chair holding long spears chained to their wrists. These spears were obviously designed to kill any aggressor through the gate and as well were chained to themselves to prevent the attacker from turning them on the king.

In the Beggar's half stood two guards with short forked spears designed not to be of hazard to the king, only the visitor.

The door on the king's side of the chamber opened and a very thin, bone featured man stepped in. He wore a robe of a high gloss the Beggar had not seen before. This robe was coloured in brown and yellow diagonal stripes, his head covered with a small black turban. He carried paper and a writing instrument, which he proceeded with to the far right hand corner.

Next entered a short, fat, balding man in a robe of material woven as flowing purple. The shades and hues rippled and changed with his movement. As he turned his face towards them, the Beggar ....

At this the sergeant shoved the Beggar to his knees and knelt beside him likewise.They both bowed. The Beggar heard the soft rustle of spreading cloth, then the sharp snap of fingers.

The sergeant straightened up but remained on his knees. He nudged the Beggar to do likewise. The guards moved to close the doors but first the king made a command in an odd language the Beggar had not heard before. From the king's door entered a small boy slave naked

but for a velvet red pillow tied on his back. The boy placed himself on all fours before the king's chair, the king stretched out his legs, crossed them and sat them upon the pillow. He then gave a nod, the guards closed the two doors of the combined room. Bolts on the inside were distinctly heard to be closed.

The king then spoke to the sergeant again in this odd almost guttural language. As the sergeant spoke in a long unbroken speech, the Beggar could not understand it but it was obviously of the day's proceedings as quite often the sergeant gestured or nodded at the Beggar.

The Beggar studied the face of the listening king. Though fat and rounded, one would not say puggy or flab. A fat, congealed, hard, compressed, as if pulled inward by skin reluctant to sag forward into the world. The ears small and pressed to the side of the head, an almost shrivelled form so seldom was their head to all but the key phrase. Small nets to scoop the pearls; leave the oysters of slime adhere and shells of colourful tone balance unnoticed.

For fools drone amongst kings, as bees do amongst their queen. The difference lives in the deposit of honey.

The face topped with a higher crown, balanced with a heavy chin. A nose in centre curved slightly, a hawks beak mellowed with an easy hunt for luxury. Skin a pallor of rubbed oil, a waxing upon an idol not left to soak the rain but rather even elements must be repelled.

Finally the eyes though in reality it is the eyes that tear first across the distance and demand a man's stance. Demand whether his weakness will cringe and look away or his strength will hold, the strength of a hand calmly placed in coals, the strength of a foot dangling in open jaws, the strength of a gut falling to sword point. Such are these eyes which swallow, peel, flail layers of the world where they are driven to gaze. Eyes that return with the meat of a gouge in their talons, fly back to the nest and regurgitate for a brain's digest what has been plundered and taken.

For these are not the eyes of madness unchecked or a fool's unending drink of splendour. Madness has no direction and will tumble into its own throat. A drunken fool likewise.

King Hindus was a man who believed, nay divined that there was no other place but his place. He was as if a mountain top whose movement literally dragged all that of the world under him to re align to his new position. Nothing existed but that which he looked upon or thought upon. A man brought before his eyes had no history of wife or family or experience.

His destiny began and ended with the gaze of King Hindus. So too art or food or women or slaves or property or a moon or sun or cities or animals or beggars. Men have known before a philosophy of existence only by sensory awareness. But this was not the limit of King Hindus. Not only was there no awareness of anything not immediate to his hunger, there was no belief in such. Thus the consideration of any other man's hungers was inconceivable except the hunger for the place of King Hindus himself.

Since the universe remained thee, all hunger ended there.

Everyman from a rich merchant trading with other cities to the lowest man begging bread, all desired something of the universe, all attempted to nibble at King Hindus fist. All sought to

pluck something of his foothold.

He was just one man, even as King. In the reality of the city's works, much was moved and sold, bartered and stolen. King Hindus remained blind to it. But let a man with a morsel stumble before him and the eyes tore revenge, grasping at the crumb, tearing a belly. No other man could be allowed the divine right of possession for he who possessed all, saw all, and thus was the creator of all. All power of what he commanded, all knowing of what he thought, all seeing of what he saw, thus he became divine by the exclusion of what he could not

possess or create. These exclusions convenient to both himself and his subjects.

So that he only looked upon what was his; what was not his only moved where the eyes were not hunting.

Now these eyes circled a beggar he had created; a ragged thing materialized in his presence. He obviously did not hunger for it or its possessions but the amusement of it maybe worth its price of being.

For the problem of divinity in its understood but never spoken dilemma of immortality is amusement. It is critical that a creator remain novel or pathos may darken the lips with a darker stain.

"Beggar" spoke the inkling recline, in a voice a shade of soft or feminine, yet of sharp carry like a skull swung against a bell.

"Tell this for your life's sake. Am I wise and am I great?"

The Beggar replied "Only the truly wise question their greatness and only the truly great doubt their own wisdom".

The king's laughter sang delighted in the small room, though no one joined his revelry. The king dried his eyes with a large silk taken from his sleeve, adjusted his feet upon the boy-stool and asked (with a even sharper dagger of glint) "But am I divine?"

"None but the fool blinded to a grave stumble would not see the issues of life and death balanced in such visions of a king. What can be seen must be known. And who knows the place and time for

life and death but a God".

To this the king did not laugh, even it could be said, a slight frown laid on his chin. "Though indeed your own life or death crawls in shorter stay across a majestic brow, it was not to such a worm's crisis I would hold to be divined. It was of this noble men's last of immortality I demand a Beggar's nod or nay. What say you then in the immortal terms of everlasting, am I God or not?"

A thoughtful pause and then the Beggar answered: "All men give upon their kings godly pleas and all kings give upon all men the whims and hazards of godly doings. This is called prayer; as real as prayer should be. And if prayer goes to fixed address, then the bearer within becomes full to his worshipped throne. In a phrase, King Hindus you are a god where other men are not. A heavy crown does not always hold godly things, there is need of a stiff neck to raise it heavenly.

Just as a river needs both water and banks to contain it. So a god's power needs narrow eyes to hold to noble purpose.

From this you ask stems immortality? Stand to the bank and name the end of a river. Is it drought? Yet the banks, the direction remain. True one sees not what is a river but one understands what was a river and will be a river. Then the river sleeps now, regathering its strength in the mountains, its breath an embrace wrapped in virgin hold; the white clams trickling from withheld by a river's lust to surge, even in this tender spring of sleep.

What of the river? When the banks curve away, even to out of a man's vision? Do we call this the end? But is the river ended or the man's vision ended? The river so swollen upon itself, so wide in its own destiny that the sun, how can there be any compare?

Cannot these rivers be kings? Kings gathering in their sleep to begin a surge which soon is so grand, so swallowing of all vision that mere men are drowned as flooded to live amongst small boats. And pray.

At the time of the flood, who amongst present men can deny immortality, for to argue outside one's lifetime is to babble without experience. A fool speaking with kingly airs.

At the time of the drought, the footsteps are seen. Who amongst present men has such for sight of predict to name what was will not be? Do they expect blood or dust to return?

Nay, they know time repeats, if not a pool of a day. Then the ebb of a life and a king returns from less salty dancing rapid on a wave of destiny. The craft of lesser men will bow or worse capsize, Their folly of denial heard through gathered nights.

It is not I, oh King who define your god; your immortality. If you decree as a god you are one. If your acts are beyond mortal doing then they are immortal. With your acts immortal, thus are you immortal for no man lives longer than his doings."

King Hindus though presenting an appearance of lax-a-day interest to the Beggar's offering was none the less a little impressed. If for no other reason than in similar fixation of the way an observer's eyes will dance with a moth as it caresses a flame. The enchanted party even forgets it holds the candle so enraptured his eyes become with the destiny of a moth's hunger.

The King asked: "A river king, yes, will be flood and unchecked flow. What uproots oaken pillar and carves granite to pebble will stall no heed to the twigs of following or the beseech of rubble. This I understand well. But in the drought when a river returns, is this the same king or a new king?"

Beggar: If a king were to attack the city to his right and in that victory he were to order all men, women, child put to

death, what would he do when he attacked a city to his left?

King Hindus: Not necessarily the same.

Beggar: Only a king would answer such. A tiny man would argue the king must do unto the left as onto the right. But the tiny man has lived on only one bank. Having no taste of limitless depth, he dares not straddle to place of half god and half man. Every answer for him must have a carve of reason, of logic. To find this he must see a thing over and over. Hence the reason become it was therefore it is.

But a king knows the right and left. Knows their difference in a chance, a guide of the universe. The king knows that what looks random may have purpose, what repeats may be of no design. Just as a ball maybe thrown wide on purpose but by chance end its flight at a flight of stairs there to repeat a descent over and over.

Thus a king's fondle of power has instructed him in a natural cause. Repetition becomes the burden of powerlessness like the ball going down the stairs. Randomness is not without purpose; its purpose being the destruction of repetition. Now here is where the middle men err. Mathematicians, philosophers, lawyers, statesmen, merchants, brokers of money, politicians. They become enslaved to this purpose. Their randomness is no longer random but chained to the clinks of repetition. Its as if for every two repetitions, they must then insert a random. Thus, these mere counters of destiny, prevent the whole of this history back to repetition.

But truly the great men, of which kings stand high, remain utterly random. They are of such vision so swallowing of future steps, they do not look behind of a river's course. No river stalls and turns upon itself to grieve destruction or regret some dry island. Without the burden of history in their minds, they scent nothing previous, nothing of repeat; the taste of the world is unique to them!

And in this greatness spews forth the erections of infinitely grand. For one great man can carve the work and world of thousands. Ten rabbits piled on each other do not equal a jackal. But they do make it easier for a jackal to find ten rabbits!

Hence all the buildings and doings of little men and middle men are not stepping stones for their destiny but for a greater, a more kingly loft!

Over and over, the repetition and the random repetition are staggered back to back, the straw blown upon the steaming dung of urgency; trampled by men amongst men; baked in their tiny hearths of oppression; the blocks to wall man from man, to lay feeble claim upon a dust of possession. Till what is there? A place for a king. A fortress for a ruler. A mountain for a prophet. the sweat of thousands is the river of one.

In a land far from here there is said to be built a mountainous tomb for one dead king!

That king did not look to repeat history; nor was he bound to ensure no others had the folly or greatness to build such a tomb. He saw his tomb and it was thus demanded to be built upon the backs of thousands below him.

There can be no pity that these thousands died or did not die. Their mortality did not cling upon such greatness. But his did! This creation came only from a king's desire of godly structure, in purely random intent.

Thus the great are great because they follow no history, are not burdened to build more in a deceive of the same but are rather burdened to create 'something'. They are not great that they have the means but rather they succour the means because of their greatness. The need is chariot to the hooves of means; thus greatness rides in full rein above the parting worship.

So this great king may not kill all of the town on the left. He may sever away, all their arms or let them go or render their eyes in sips of boiling oil. He is not burdened to repeat. Nor has he any retreating glance to know what to repeat or not. And that freedom, solely of his random forward, may allow a deed of ultimate greatness, and in that; grasp immortality.

Yet even to that the means is not to the never unending as immortality.

As the cow mulls and the jackal hunts so it thus of the great to simply be great. Just as a man with a crown is not always king but a king uncrowned is kingly none the less.

So little men shuffle to an empty bank! Does the great king return, is he immortal? They ponder in the tiny circlets of their gaze. For they know only truth if it trumpets under their eyes again and again. Yet that truth is only a half at most. For they know nothing of the kingly, godly, greatly ways of random.

Our king lives! But say his course is other ways, carving new banks, toppling fresh mountains. Leagues away the king awakens new. Destiny in another promised land. For the great have no urge to lay upon stale beds.

Yet again they may. Or they may not. No man but the kingly is a diviner

amongst the birthing of destinies.

In this a king is more than a god. For even the gods in sun and moon and seasons are burdened in repeat. That the bull has horns, the man four limbs, the tree a rough bark this becomes of endless predict.

No king would so little imagine this. He dares the single thrust of unnatural not the cautious pattern of tried and true or worn and false. What one fore, one rutted probe cannot yield is not to be challenged again and again.

That is for us, our task, Ours is the repeat of history. To lay again and again the blocks of cities or tombs or chiselled word. To have ready for the kingly grasp, a sceptre of cemented bones that lays idle till some great hand can grasp its terrible weight and wield it high. To raise the history of that task to some zenith arched above the clouded dust of mortal times march. Tis this trek of minions which gathers history's distance, tis the herald of greats which mark its moments.

So what is an answer if men ask if a king has come and gone? If they must ask, then he was never there! But that he was never there does not mean he does not be! Where little eyes widen to a sound of growing tremble, to that way turn, for now the great king descends his approach.

Like any great king your own immortality has no peer in upward worship, rather is known only at the height of your own vision.

The truth of this is a free thing to beggars in dust but, alas, is the only chain upon a kingly reach. Yours is the yoke of destiny, not mine, King Hindus. Insects carry no fetters; only the greatest of beasts are so burdened. They to are destined to move worlds.

King Hindus: There is sense and senselessness to your pleasant droning, oh oracle of dust. The sense of a lion abound in its pursuit and in that crawling things may not be squashed. The lion cannot turn or sway for ants; what is not seen is no obstacle. Yet why does not the sage of insects plead for their lives? Why do you welcome the lion's paw? And where also is the chain this lion drags, I envision it not.

Beggar: Gracious King, you give my stale bread much honour in your partaking. The death of an ant, the plea for an ant, the weight of a chain, justice of great and lowly, the purpose of species, the vision of two eyes, all this is answered to one word: duty.

The first duty of a King is to himself? No. To his vision. As the lion does not think 'Behold I am a lion running' but rather pursues the object of his vision, with no awareness of a lion running. In his vision he is without self as self is consumed in purpose.

This is the first link of the chain which comes fettered to power. For if the king has no vision, he should have no power. He is a blinded lion raging. History will consume him quickly, though for many in his convulsing path, not quick enough.

What of the species of lion? For there the chain is no chain. The greatest lion has some need of middle lions. Yet they are not tied to follow; neither can the greatest blind his own vision in an endless task of buffet and carver to keep his pride gathered around him. For is not the king to lead, to step always forward? How can he thus drive the others ahead if they are behind? This second link is called: trust. But it is not trust in those behind. For some have their vision of glory, or treachery and rightly so. For the species demands only greatness not servitude. If the king falters, a stronger must lead. In a running pride, the winded are not shunned or overturned but neither are they carried along. But for the king, the trust must be slung on his greatness. So long as he has his vision of greatness, he can trust to the pride following him.

In the pursuit, as the distance lessens, as fear sweats more and more from the prey, as the leader gathers his great limbs in enormous leaps of will, the pride is driven by their own need of even a gouge of greatness to follow unfaltered.

This is now it should be. That large men with no vision are controlled, given some parcel of destiny by the vision of great men. They see no vision but they see the greatness of the visionary man before them.

Though they are less man to man than the single great man, they are not made less but rather become more

in equalling his stride.

For if he were not there, they would not run at all.

Hence for the pride great men do not gather greatness upon the backs of lesser men but rather lesser men grow greater on the backs of great men.

The leader must trust only to his vision to maintain the lead. Anything else is looking backwards and self-defeating. To glance upon anything else is to lose scent of the prey.

The third link is the justice of great and lowly.

You wondered, King Hindus, that there seemed no concern that ants die under moving lions. But there is great

concern. For should the greatest lion discard its vision and become a hunter of ants this is the greatest horror for ants and visions and lions.

Where the mad lion envisions the destruction of all ants this is even more a perversion. That his vision is such a lowly cruel thing.

The ants are then stricken in all things. For destruction of a few ants in a great purpose of vision is not even condemned by the ants themselves. Even their sluggish, toiling skulls have some glimmer of destiny in the flash of tawny brown and wild mane.

But not even they can swallow death in that their death is the sole victory of vision. For they know this for an abomination. That the species decrees their workings to be the foothills of a mountain, not the mass graven pit of persecution.

Then and only then, must a lion fear the swarm of the rabid rising. It is not just for the crimes they attack but also as the divine surgeon of a species that all that is grotesquely abnormal must perish. For the wholeness of the species. And what is more hideous than a lion so narrowed in that it believes the terror of ants gives a pride noble vision and purpose?

Justice comes from the vision. Where a great vision is held, the death of lions or ants or kings, is a risk but remains fair onto justice for all. For the ants know the lion will give onto the pursuit in its own life, so do not condemn or lament heavily an ant's life. For all will die in time and all yearn a higher collective purpose then the fill of time's belly.

These toils, these lives add to the chain of a great endeavour.

The king can bear so long as the vision is more than the cost.

The vision cannot be made more by the added links to a chain. That doing simply drags lions into dust.

Justice for all lies in the greater the ends, the greater the means. Justice does not berate the means but will call it a crime where there was no end envisioned. Nor does justice allow a means greater than the end or a means solely created as a end to any means.

King Hindus: Your visions from the dust are a wind of delight, Beggar. A king's circle does not normally call from the sight and sounds far below. I find it difficult to believe a common thing does not envy an uncommon thing. Is

not the path of all subjects one of servile resent?

Beggar: To that you are always right, King Hindus, singularly every sparrow, nested in dung and sticks, yearns the greater loft of a mountain eagle. And what a mystery that a sparrow has the wings of an eagle's flight, does it not? The means are there, to be taken in the mere unfolding of desire.

Yet the swallow stays; envious; a part heeds an eagle's screech and lifts to this music, another part, perhaps even a better part, that within its own meaness, its tiny flutter of endeavour so seemingly of no import to wide history in this part, it too finds a greatness.

For the man that is king, his manliness is defined by his kingliness. If he is only half a king is his greatness, history or the eyes of his subjects will speak not of a full man.

For he cannot be. He is as if a butterfly with only one wing. In the falter of his flight, no one will speak of or remember the caterpillar matured. For when great heights are expected, the distance of a multifooted march is scorned at a lower dwelling.

But the man not destined, not chosen to the lust of history is none the less called to the burden of a greatness as well. History has released or ignored him to its clarion call but this has then made his ears quiet to heed the whispers of a deeper, inward reach.

That the metamorphosis is clung to within. Each man is then stretched to become the fullness of himself; for only the sake of himself.

In a religious sense it is as if all the great become as martyred prophets to history, all other men become saints and as saints are great onto their own history.

That history now records the martyrs, the prophets and the saints is only as the saints are rare; that , as in a battlefield, there is only one king and a few truly heroic men amongst the ordinary. Were all the ordinary heroic and saintly in the fullness of themselves, history would record no individual passing but would indeed mark the time as golden!

For here in the fullness of a man, the species is denied or forgotten. The man wages war upon himself, upon evil, avarice, murder, upon all such things that cause him to be less than full, as if in the cast of a curling, vicious thing devouring his own heart.

For men of all the species is resigned a special verdict. He has a dwelling of his own being, his own stature. The dog, the lion doe not condemn itself for yesterday's cowardice or failure. They are a species only to the day. They do not think 'yesterday I ran from the bull, will I today be so cowardly?' They think of the bull only when the bull is scented and if still as large they repeat their history with NO LONGING for change. For they do not ponder of dogs and dog and I am a dog.The world outside is a sole existence, they are ruled by the alert or lapse of senses.

But the individual of a man is departed from the species. 'I am a man' spoken becomes a wheel in motion. 'I am a cowardly man, a greedy man, a courageous man' steers the direction.

Here the original man is driven from his species where the kingly man is not! For the kingly man must turn history which is a great revolve of the species, yet the original, unique man must direct himself.

Each has a task for which it cannot be said to be unequal.

If a herd of gazelles are lead by one of their number on an arduous trek and they came upon a great crevasse to leap, what then?

The leader leaps across calling the species to follow. If such follow in success, history has a tale. If none follow, historyhas a tale to condemn a false leader.

For man the same. As a species. But for man as a single parcel of being a different history. Some would stay. Some follow, some dies in the attempt. For the species, does not history mark a place largely of following or abandoning?

But for each man at the abyss, at the gathering of his individual history, only each man can decide if fullness lies in follow, in stay, or in death with attempt. For the man fullness lies in the weight of tomorrow's vision of today's stride. Woe to a half man who hesitates! Shame to a full man who jumps when his heart demanded encamp! A life time of wander for those who slip from the contest of jump or stay and in their half-stride crawl away in search of a bridge! Curse to the man who stays while believing in a bridge!

You see, King Hindus, the king should lead the species but the species should not lead the man. Few men can be king but all men can choose their subjection.

Tyranny as an evil power has no truth before fullness. Tyranny is a whip to the species but is but an ill wind to fullness a stench parted by the granite of singular decision. For is a blind man leads a multitude of blind, who must be as the burden of destruction? The fullness of a man may have no vision equal to a blind king's cravings but surely his eyes will open to the crevasse and demand a halt!

What have we found? That if each man becomes within his own tiny kingdom of hearth, friends, work in the fullness of a man both heroic and saintly in a measure of an individual cup, that his duty to the species lies solely out of this duty to himself.

That the very things he is cursed upon, his thickheadedness, his torturous tiny pace, his clumsiness, his vision of inches is in fact solely the fullness of a man who is sure in his being and of doubt to others, even onto rejection of others.

The species is likened to not rabbits, not toads but man as great turtles moving across the sands of destiny's call. The crimes of a buffoon as spoken before are only crimes seen by kings blinded by the false glints of opportunity dazzled before them. These kings blame a species whereas the fault lies at the point not the rear. They areas if a lion pouncing upon this great pack of turtles, pummelling shells to gather speed, swiping at heads, roaring and foaming, all to no avail. The turtles will follow at their pace and in the sloping low of a turtles path. If the lion wishes the turtles cross a crevasse it must find the bridge and the patience to lead to it.

For in the turtle is not thickheadness a shell of wisdom to shield from the claw of impatience; is not the tiny pace a sure cautious step all can follow; is not the clumsiness a love of being and fellow being held awkward as a spirit out of element; is not the vision of inches the wary eyes of a kingdom close packed and lived close upon dust?

What if we called thus this fullness of a man's shell: Spirit?

That is as you asked, King Hindus, the spirit craves not the wings of a king, though the eyes may have a wishful delight in its circling. As even a man-king will stand his turret and dream of a star's height or a sun's rest.

But where the spirit is full, there is no murder in a man's heart to tear asunder his own spirit. Whether for king or great or species or another man.Follow he will; but follow by choice. Die he will; but sacrifice by choice.King Hindus: Ah, my tiny chirp of a beggar! Your song is the song of all philosophers, a delightful melody of what should be not what is. That is why philosophers make seldom kings, for both know the effect but only the latter accepts his cause. And a noble thing too! It is not burdensome at all to be the cause not the effect. Murder is not mayhem, when a king is the cause. The cause is the first's rule, the effect is a cringe.

The spirit is smoke, a gaseous thing. It rises upward only. Has no linger in the rut, in the pit but for a wisp of scent. Only at the higher level does it congeal to form a dark clouded menace of thunder and bolt. Thereto rule survival in blasts of destruction or a rain of live.

Beggarly hope, your words forge a question, not answers. Take mine into your cup. Life is survival, death is not. Though you are right in some things.

The species does give onto a great the many and into the many a great. But there is no each of the many to be something of great, no there is only the many. Just as we say 'the legs of a stool' or 'the bricks of a wall'. We see the stool, the wall, the parts are much more in the sum. Four scattered legs do not make a stool.

But what is the stool? What is it but the will of a king? The king wishes a stool, he snaps his fate and behold! The legs gather to their task. This is not hard or cruel, it is the better of survive. For where else would a wood leg be? What destiny but the fire or the last devouring need of a king's foot?

The legs squeak their gratitude and their brothers burn envious eyes from the grate. what can a king do? Go cold amongst a thousand stools?

And the bricks mortared one upon another, back upon back, will they not sigh upon one another 'Brothers what useless is this wall to block wind and fill air. To give birds a scare and spiders a roost?

But what joy, Beggar, in the daily appointed hour, when the king emerges to exercise his vision. His feet firmly press the height and all the bricks of the wall rejoice in their purpose. Singing out the creak of their dust "Look, the exulted one! Praise ourselves that we have raised him even higher in the worldly view! Thus is our age granted victory over decay in the purpose of his stride!

For were we not clay and windblown chafe before the value of his vision raised this monument of worship? Praise the king that dirt is now firm and holy in this noble task!"

No, no, please sir, I fear there is equality only to the sight, not to the grasp. For all men are great in their desires but not in their reward.

But if the desires are great why the reward such a meagre bitter for the multitudes of ungrasp? In a word, the answer is raised sure as a kingly sceptre: Ungrasping! An outstretched arm is that not the bridge of lustful eyes in the place of barren fulfil stretched to the clawed imprint of victory; the tremors, an excitement of escape's of futile squirm.

It is the great who grasp, the great whose sinewy arms have veins bulging in their fierce blood line of resolve.

The meagre have not this. They the thin arms of unable. They remain broken twigs wavering from the trunk.

Only in one thing have they a pace of forward. When the twigs form as radiance of worship around the great hub. Then destiny forms a larger wheel to swallow the road of only the greatly travelled. That the spokes give the great hub a larger orbit its true but beggars amongst all men must never lose grip that were the hub shatter, the twigs scatter.

This manly spirit you spill before the thirsting dust, here is your main err, one eyed guide. Think of man as drops, men as water. Pools of stagnant, rivers of flow. But movement is not spirit but the cascade of futile lay. What the earth beckons, the river must gallop.

But the spirit is water plus the noble fruit. Great thoughts, great vision ripened on the vine of cultivate or even a wild juice of pulp sown in forgotten hills. Gathered, compressed, left foment to the cask of resolve; the high of high goat's skin.

Then, beggar, the only spirit of man pours forth quiet in its taste of life, kingly in its savour, that those fortunate enough to sip at its high table are liberated from their cowardice and cowering ways. This is the king's spirit, a few of worship come sip in consecration; to delight in the new wide fragrance unknown in lower tides.

There is no other spirit, Beggar, for this is natural law. There are kings and there are men, there is no man. Just as there are horses and mules; gazelles and camels; lions and dogs. In all pairs there lies nothing of stature in between.

There is the plain, there is the mountain. Hills are not budding mountains or greater plains. These are merely the spillings, the leavings, the accidents of true mountains.

Just as those who shield their eyes from the sun, left their areas to gaze up on a mountain so is the king as the sun. That is to radiant forth, whether a few or many bask or bake in his everlast of gaze.

That, Beggar, is the heat of high spirit. Like all things aloof, to see is not to tough; to beg upon but never, never to emulate. This is worship, for men are only of dust except when they are raised to look upon their king. Beggar: Forgive my folly, my King but I perceive too much modesty decreases your stature.

King Hindus gives a bellowing laugh and replies: "In time, the Beauty of the Pinnacle, the Divine Poweress gathers all suitors upon her slipper. And all accusations. Finally modesty has been shattered upon her skirts."

King Hindus with a look to the thin stalk who preys upon every word spoken with his open, continues "What say you, Scribian, can thy cobwebs of ink ever recall modesty as a king's crimp?"

The Scribian looked up at the king, his face contoured, convulsed with the hint of a grin, gave it up and simply uttered "No your Esteemness" before disappearing in a deep bow.

The King with a shrug, replied again to the Beggar. "Thus you have the intellectual barrage which surrounds a king on his daily march. Is there no wonder greater than this? It makes even a beggar's whistle blare through this dim of surrounds. But a return to my most precious bride, you have accused her of modest airs at the feasting of men. Pray tell us why, beggar? Is she too delicate in the plucking of hearts or dashing of brains to the soup plate?"

This delicacy of verbal tidbit the King followed with a chuckled heart whereupon the Scribian bound again; twice even in the rapid motion of servitude begging notice.

Beggar: It is a misguided, my King, to see spirit as a commodity of exchange, that one man must have more so others have less. As if men are crammed to tiny caves and must gulp stale air from each other's mouths.

No spirit is a thing, a winged free thing of wide plains and tumbles round mountains. In this there is no sharing of it for each man takes of himself and himself only. Upon his own cinders and feel of body and thought, of act and touch, he sparks the flame of spirit.

Can one man go to another man's fire and steal the flames? Cupped in the thief's hand to scurry bent over against the winds of condemn; to deposit upon his flame like water added to a well? Can thus a crime cause a spirit to sear high?

No it cannot. Each flame reigns independent in its spot of furnace, the light of one brilliant, the light of a thousand gathered in a volley brilliant as well.

So what does a hideous crime do if it seeks a greater flame than its brethren but cannot flare its own? Will the thief not turn murderer and douse its neighbours' hearth? In this illusion to give itself the greatest brilliance just as candle shines in darkest night but appears a weak thing by day.

But this is no greatly done thing. For the sneak's flames are no higher to scorch a path across the hovering pages of history. Ironic that what is done much, is seldom recorded. For always the single flame burning small and insignificant to a history glazed to suns blinking in and out has not a glance pinpoints.

But the crime's single spirit is deluded nonetheless. It does not seek a greater brightness but rather craves an external darkness for its background of tiny urge.

One by one the gather of many fires is drenched by the cold hands of the envious thief. That he is a little

larger, a little stronger has not stilled his envy, rather it has fuelled his black courage. A little was not enough, was not supreme to this stalk of pinnacle.

Glee and success give a hyena's throat to his heart as his plan plots devilish and one by one darkness gathers more virgin to his fire. As he weaves his deed of spiritcide, his eyes see and believe the illusion of his greatness gathering distant as he himself moves treacherous amongst his brother's lights.

Even the brothers are fooled or at least succumb. Cringe from the cold and terror of teethed night and

come gather to the coward's fire to seek snatches at the warm blankets cornered now in a solitary place.

He reaps well, this sower of bleak. He has doused his compete, now he gathers their worship to his singular of grand.

But with what does he douse his neighbour's spirit? For to rack and whip and flag the body does little on the spirit except perhaps a beating, a wind to raise more heat of indignation. Anything laid upon the body whether coal or succulent flesh is only little of a penetrate, it cannot crush, it cannot split inner skins. The body is as if a skin of the spirit, a container. Tremors of agony or ecstasy are felt but in fleet.Threaten or punish is not a guide to the spirit unless the spirit is already fallen to the cringe of blind direction.

Ah, my king, what flicker has sparked here! That spirit needs of direction.

But where to, where from? Inner, outer? Is this guide a step of seeking, or plotting, or following?

Who amongst men has the least direction inner, the most outer? Who amongst men follows as a dog of no will, panting between tasks gestured by still hands, for does not the dog do the task almost before command?

Who follows born, live, die in here ever after with no step out of stride of a master? The slave! He does not obey for to obey is to willing act to a command. The slave follows, he resigns, in fact, he is long since past the post of resign. He was born resigned; his cry, was it not the whimper for a master? Or was it the first and last breath of denial?

We shall put the slave to the last of men. What is next? The very poor, the destitute of empty hand to gaping mouth. Why a poor above a slave? For a slave maybe fed, clothed better his bodily needs cared as a ploughman would brush his ox but the poor has a sip of will.

A meagre will, a small direction in spirit. He is caged in his impotency yet there is a will of vision, of follow, he may turn east, west, step in uncommanded being till his nails scrape the eternal wall of shun; of the terrible sweep of a life's fling of curses. But he can curse, he can step, he can turn. To avail or not is of no question in this spirit. We have allowed a little more than a slave, therefore, a little more of a man.

What next? What next in our dark scale below muddied eyes? What next of physical restraint, of no will to direct, of economic crush, of obey versus follow, of eternal damnation in the walled vision of never ending.

For these are indeed the things of dunking spirit. Cast but a few drops and the smoke singes of a fire's warming; let the deluge of most lust envelop it and a man is lost to darkness. Where his shouts are walled in iron air.

Who would be next? What of the criminals imprisoned? What of the palace guards? The economics fills better than a valley's dust. Will has enacted at least to the cause, that is the criminal journeys to punishment in his theft, the guard to follow in his desire for a sword.Neither are eternal, both released when the husk is shrivelled and bled to a dry pale of bleached chafe. When lips are frail, too thin for doing horn. But their directions of will distinguish their small candles.

In a world stoned in slime, oozing of forgotten, the scurries of remorse unnoticed, these criminals do not forget. There is no repent, no death of spirit. The eyes never case their peck at the chinks and splits of a body enslavement. The spirit remains its fist of innocence, yes, innocent even onto the err, the fool take of the man. For the punishment, the justice is only something of men, it has little to do with the spirit.

For the spirit does not conceive failure, only attempt. It does not know surrender, only struggle. It does not know justice, only succeed. The spirit can accept a fall, cannot deny death in the wrong change, the wrong step on a mountain cling but it is abhorrent to men causing that death, causing that fall, holding that delay as retribution for a faltered or misjudged step.

The spirit of a man speaks no language of condemn; that is the howl of men, the rumble of dirt in a plunge of the masses turning back.

But the palace guard, the directed warrior; the marched soldier is not the same.

This bodily courage is no match, it is a shield before all accusation. Any who look upon them are shamed to speak idle, for who dare speak ill of the dead? And dead, they have given already their bodies to the ready teeth of war. Being of bodily discard, courage is never left hesitant at the battle's front for all those warriors are now dead, only that each battle's end gives a new life, a new birth just as a man, any man, should envision dawn.

Is this not a more noble art than the wretched chain of crime and hide? That one man's spirit lingers long before years of stone block yet does not the guard's soar in the flight of seconds before arrows?

Alas, my king, it is a lie, or at least a dream and a philosophers's courage to say thus. Or at least the feeble

tone of a beggar's tongue.

For did we not say before that what was of bodily harm is not that of spirit's harm? Then what is of bodily courage is not that of spirit's courage!

Seldom will one see a spirituous coward but the cause must be known more than its effect. Spirit will yield courage but courage of the body is not the sole effect. Nor is it the cause of spirit.

The well trained vicious dog is courageous but there is nothing of the spirit of man in it. Neither is it truly the spirit of men or of kings. It is the spirit of death, in its rejection of life. It fights to the death, not to life. Look upon it. Is it not an idle unthinking beast between kills. Does it not lie or sit or stand all in a slump of worldly discard or in rigours between the doors of life and death. Death must first click its bony digits on them only then, does the dogged spirit snap to attention, its ears long to the further lunge.

Thus our path has tripped upon a paradox: that spirit is of life as the fullness of a man and a man is only full when saturated with a living spirit.

Spirit, man and life become the three pegged stool to bear upright. Man with life yet no spirit is a topping thing. Man and spirit without life is death, a journey of other worlds.

And spirit with life cannot be without man.

For this we stand a palace guard of lower place than the caged criminal. For the prisoner has not lost his expectation of life; has not lost his vision of unwalled journeys, unhaltered by rigid wills. He dreams freedom in life, the guard only worships release

through death.

From cage to barrack to poverty to slave, spirit dies under the gravestone thrown upon a resurrection of corpse. These stones the will or wills of others who wish no marring of the dark gleem of their evil even if it be light flickering from the red coal eyes of their torn victims.

King Hindus: No, my beggar cup, you are prophet of day but blanket the night in your hope. You deny a king's need, the hubs crown. For you look upon the wretched and spin a fine tale of who has done this to them! Like all dusty seers you must sing 'shame' for your deaden lips to crack into living wing.

If as you say man is but a curled ball weighted with an air of hinder about his folded ears, why then does he not stand?

Why are the wretched starved if hands can grasp the much of the less?

Why are the prisons held full with so little terror?

Why are the palace swords held bloodless before the king's bounty, the king's harem? Why does a stool hold and not kick?

The why is answered amongst men. That all men have a place in their nightmare of half sleep you pretend is a dream of giants.

Dreamer, ragged and tossed in your lie of wishes, call it what you will but this eternal night men are thrust to is not a point of argument.

Beggar, in your dreams and much would a Beggar dream I would think, whether ecstasy of king's delight or the terrored sweat of wolves' prey, you cannot cease the dreams and demand another. No one steps to his dream as if a judicial conscious and demands a more pleasant fair.

So in life, men lay, stand, fall, lie side by side in half numb stupor being their dreams; or flailing their terror. That I am sweetly calm to the vision of king and you are jerking to the hunger of a beggarly phantom,

we cannot blame the dreamers but rather the night of living existence.

Men proportioned to the night as blades of grass to the black goat, the bell of destiny loose on its neck.

I would not curse you if you dreamed of a king's pleasure in your sleep; neither can I be blamed that you sleep a beggar's twitch in your life.

Beggar: In a sense, Great King, this dream of life is true. For a lack of fullness, a drench of spirit has truth in yes left closed. For it was seen that when the crime of spirit had drenched others, the others were tricked or cajoled or driven by nightly scratchings to crowd the outer hole of the crime's spirit.

But surely memory can linger warm like coals.

Gathered below damp ash. The corpse is washed but not yet dead. Arms are limp not stiffened. The eyes, your highness, there must be fire behind the lids that curtain their scent from the wolfish one.

This below for fullness, what holds it? What constriction of throat gags a man's resurgence of single clarion?

There are things outside him, we have dragged them enough. And yes, your highness, your king's height gives a mount of judgement. You see many who could but won't.

For the prisoner can be full in cage, the guard high spirited under oppressive command, the poor a man, though hungry as men and the slave, a lion masquerading in the wool of servitude.But caution, my King, for we must remember a new truth their status has wrought: None will now be resigned to their fate! Why? Because their spirit comes from the will to challenge their fate. Before fate, a man of spirit has will and challenge as inseparable limbs.

So why such unspirited many to unchallenge their fate? What would a blind man fear to open his eyes? What would a cold man tremble to strike a new flame?

Fear and responsibility. For the wretch who would yet restrike his flame, see the sputtering endeavour and then begin lick their way home, its own heated hands rebirth and caress his tilted brow, touch his lips blued with night's pinch. The man rises, parallel to his own spirit gathering height, intimate to its full embrace of orange yellow heat. The dance in revolve of a great moth before the petals of flame.

But what else flocks to this torch? Others, still darkened, of his kind. The brothers, the sisters on the vast bed of embraced trembling, they gather to the scent of innocence's flare. Wide eyed they look to this courage of strike which they had not dared. To ears finally opening from a closure to howls, the whispers of hops, of 'he is the one to lead, to help' come crashing down upon the first like an enormous destiny uprooted.

At that one of the first, first spark, first flame, first torch kindling the oil black sky in a burst of new religions, he has not years, or days, or minutes. He has only seconds.

Seconds to pass the spark, teach the parables of strike, spread the molten desire formed solid in trebling cups. For the mass of blind engulf will snuff his flame as surely as drenching evils. This is no army of terrorized bees but rather the descend of starve drones; driven in lust for the altar of their existence; they come worship the religion of their being; its multitudes enlightened by their prophet. Around this new Queen of the nigh's catacombs, they will breed a race overflowed in honey and spice.

But their swamp will tilt the fire to spill helpless, their wings singed with flood the flame's breath with grey ash. And first spark die fruitless in a close of womb.

In this bears the responsibility, the task of the first herald of light. As his blind neighbours trample to his fire in the barks and bellows and squeals of forgotten pigs rescued to a trough, he must fight for his life as assuredly as he gambles for theirs.

Reaching of bared hand into the searing lick of coals, he must grasp a handful of the living rubys.

Then he must snatch the first throat that bellows wide upon him and with his blistering stench of brand pour the coals down his throat. This he is compelled to do over and over till either his hand is of useless char or the danger is thinned in that many fires of spirit glow around the plain.

Oh that some will die is true. In the convulse and squirm of this godly bite! With the snakes and bile and loathsome things erupting from their unpure smoulders of carcass.

But many will be true. Though the eyes of bats, they have the wings of lions and the appetites to match. So this becomes the hesitate of spirit. That a man sparks, bursts, becomes a holy pyre of truth, robed in the wind of flames. His hands hold the smoulder of destiny, His eyes red before injustice. Down he plunges amongst his neighbours. Truth as a prophet of doom; of ripped asunder. He must set them all ablaze, marking the evil mould from the waiting tinder.

He has not the ally of Evil, Time. He must move quickly before the world gathers in its dirt and rolls him under. A cinder of past hope which history marks unfertile. A graveyard of reluctance.

What was the other that holds a man reluctant for flame? What of this fear and this blindness? What if one were to say to a blindman: 'For all your own, money, wife, child. I will give you sight for one day. At the end of the day it goes but your possessions are not given return'. Now, perhaps, first thought the blind man would be seduced to finally know the shape and colour of all he has felt and brushed. To stride with no reluctance through the streets of the sun. No hindrance at pebbles or turns or flights of up, down.

But then will not doubts become clever in his brow? Will they not say: 'Why look for the last time on a wife you cannot caress, on a child whose laughter will be driven from your ear? Why a day of joyful squander in the marketplace to purchase colours that will be robbed to the gray of groping? Why give a life for a day, when the life will be doubly bitter because of the day?'

So the blindman hesitates, ponders and breaks his fast of decision to query: 'A day is too little for so much. What must I give for a life of days?' As if opportunity only knocks at the door of negotiation.

'Well' we offer 'for that let us trade the eyes of your wife and child will forever remain closed'

The blindman shouts 'That is too harsh!'

'Than' we offer 'they will remain open so long as yours remain open. If your

eyes ever close, for glare or blink or sleep, then theirs shall as well. Permanently. You have only to maintain the sight you have craved all your black years and no harm will come upon them!'

The blind man whines 'impossible for a man to keep his eyes open for years; sleep alone will pry them shut against his will.'

We reply 'We offer the impossible: sight to the blind. Should not the payment be equal?'

The blind man again: 'No, payment should be placed within the cup of the buyer. What would be the cost of a life of half a day sight; half a day blindness?'

In rebuttal, we give a haughty reply" "Fool and a blind fool! Next you'll ask for the sight of one eye and blindness in the other. Or ask the cost of vision to the right but none to the left. It is not sight which you yearn but the price like a man who calls water wine and keeps old pennies in his cup. Do you think men with vision wake up in morning dew and then begin a great debate over what lies before their resting lids? No, they let the wings of a minds hunt furl open, whether to sour or sweet, bitter or joy. They are instantly upon the path, their feet awakened to the need of pursuit.

You, are thus a sad worm before the gods of healing. For you wish the assurance of life which no other man can gather.

Other men have lost wives, children, possessions. Had disease, blindness, death fall upon them and their huddles of care for fare less a reason than returned vision.

Fool, we could assure sight, not what you see! In seeking a bargain for vision, you have bargained away vision! You have let fear of the shadows overturn hope for the light of day! We leave you to your dimness, a strong man of barter, fumbling your glorious savings in the lap of your cringe!'

So that is what it is of fear. When fear curls around darkness and barters at the light. Men fear the loss of light when finally received. Better a comfort of eternal, than a brief star of illumination for will not despair be doubled in the new lack? Men fear how long, how much. Men fear for the others that may be lost in darkness, or new darkness as if light is a thing stripped from others close by life a tattered blanket amongst many.

So this other reluctance. Of men of no future trembled before a future. Men in deep holes who argue the safety, the distance of the ladder. Who fear the passage, the liberation will bring new horror to minds dulled to the creep and snicker of foul limbs and broken teeth. Exacting scholars who have hellish dwells well defined and will stand no point of high look. Crimps of men dropped from the feast, they desire no bondage to make new bread.

This cruel world has wounded their memory, it is the banner of their cringe, a shield from further slaughter. Like mice, so long as there is no squeak, there is no cat's paw in future.

so you have the two, King Hindus.

The mouse who becomes a man and the mice who swirl to his cellar and must be quickly forged to swords before their drool and sweat of fear drinks his flame to dust.

King Hindus: 'There, the same is the same. The wind is a wind high a low, only the smell or stench varies. There are kings amongst men and torches amongst mice. The cat grieves not for the mice and if the mice envies to be a cat surely that is but to hunt its fellow mice.

The world remains all a boil in its natural scent, a stew of pulsing blood. That some crave more and many do not is a natural thing seen upon any ant hill.

If the slave wishes to be free, the guard merciful, the prisoner at large, the poor sated, that is as it should be. For what we wish to be cradles from birth what we are. Just as a bird wishes to fly, so does not learn to climb trees in the flurry of chattering squirrels.

If those that wish, try and those that try plummet to gardens of pulp that, too is as it should be. For a wish is sacred but a try is obscene. It violates the natural order.

For all my slaves should wish to be me but death comes a whirling beast should any try. Beggar, Beggar to king your untidy wisdom has gravelled in roots. Nature begs a higher stance. Look up. The tree, the bush, the mountain all grow to a pinnacle of crown. Only dust and sand and ash is equal before the wind.

And behold, even is that, a thing is done of greater value. For the gardener does not plant the seed in ash or sand. The moist dirt is gathered separate, taken away from its sucking brothers. There to give root into growth, a growth not of equal in unleavened dust.

Look upon the tree, its lower branches heavy and dark, its lower trunk thick and stiff to bear the weight. Up, up we gaze, the thinning of less, the trunk more subtle to embrace the wind. Till at the top trunk and leave and branch unite in a single glory of flexing height.

What is the top of the tree, what is the king, the master, the lion? The definition stands alone, unique, the top is that where nothing is higher.

And how is it that there is no higher? Because all is lower. Nature has a stiffness of logic no philosopher can bend. If you would carve upon this all wishes and desire, equality and uprooting, what absurd trees we malform! To break the lower and pile them to the crown, given the tree bend in a back breaking descent! Or how do we do away with the crown? Crown after crown till we saw at dirt?

Turn it upside down so the roots breathe fruitless air and the green succumbs to suffocate?

No the purpose of the tree is to raise the crown. Under the king the limbs flourish, the fruit is ripened. That some is blown away brittle or discarded unripened is no blame upon the master.These are your ones of fear; of reluctance. They were discussed in their unnatural fondles of dreams larger than their own minds.

Here the duties of kingly crown, to look down and prune the tree for only he knows the fresh wind or the scent of new rain. Their life is to elevate his life and must be willingly to give up their grasp to the trunk as the master will it.

So let the lower leaflets murmur quiet their wishes but let the only glow be light pouring downward from the crown piercing the noon sun. There can be no other fires lest civilization flare to ask.

There is a lion for lambs, a king for men, a master for slaves. Things go less bloody when the teeth of the latter do not nip at the toes of the greater.

Beggar: Forgive me, Highness but your modesty again paints a lesser picture.

For the mind of man is not so natural in order as we would grow to believe.
The great, the kingly begin as the crown. Unusual to picture but true. Elevated thoughts and visions raise them high above dust. Floating as a single stem of sure destiny impervious to any natural huddle of wind or gravity.

From below, in the dust futile with wish, drenched in dream, this noble beckon is seen. The roots, the men, the rough clay of trunk gather together and rise up to this green waves of moon before night's black curtain.

See it, oh king, the power of destiny whirling, circling in the dust, gather its purpose. Then rising branch by branch, limb over limb, back and wood crawling like ants over back and wood to assemble this steeple to greatness.

That all was strewn before is now linked. Linked in the purpose of this great thought, this citadel of vision.

The king needs only provide the greatest, loftiest, height of his dream, the rest will gather to that. All is limited only by the great man's toll of his bell.

That this wide note of destiny becomes known only by the swing of the largest hammer and the collect of the largest gong. One does not hang chimes to signal for the gathering of armies.

The great elevate the meek though in no conscious effort to the meek but rather as the sun turns the trees towards its

warming life.

So I say to you, King Hindus, do not be modest. Do not believe this city was built to elevate your chair. It was built to reach your chair. Were there no city, you and your chair and your vision would still float above the drifting ruin and dust. For this , history records of men reaching out from dust bowls. In fear scrambling out from pits to the beckon of human light.

There is, however, much burden upon the great. First, they must never know peace. For their vision should always keep yearning and distance as their bedfellows. A satisfied king is a very dangerous king. For now he allows himself the luxury of a downward glance. And will surely plummet. In this he hurls to a half grown tree, a city halts in its half works. It becomes the disorder of natural discontent not the clean, purity of fullness.

The great, the king, becomes mired in this half mud, half life which becomes an immense struggle since the arrested king halts the foliage of full stretch. Everything becomes obsess, squat, ugly, thin, unfruitful. There is too much in too little crushed by the heavy weight of oppression from vision shunned or thwarted. For where can a tree grow with a blind crown?

King Hindus: Burden upon a king, your accuse is a heavy stroke upon the bent back of a gardener tending his stalks. For can it be always that the crown slips its grip upon stars and spills to a squash of midway?

Cannot the vision be strong but the green below stunted and diseased? Can it not be that the queen bee beats too large a wing and commands a hive higher than the drone of follow can attend?

This historic strike of the mass to bless the king's perch seems prone of fault. The great gull flies the air, the pressure of water, rock and wind spout to his height. That they do not reach is no fault of the bird but of the bird desires a drink he must swoop to the lower place.

As a king needs men and as men need a king, the place of worship becomes known. Where the king can reach no lower and the men can reach no higher.

Beggar: No, your worship, forgive my mulish ways even to your blows of wise. The great are no gardeners, they are the sun. If they hover over fertile ground, they are compelled to discard that of little change. For did we not argue a river must change course, a lion swerve, the jackal prowl?

Giant men do not squat upon tiny stools, they stride the land in huge boots till a worthy chair is found, even if they must carve it from the raw of mountains.

Great and compromise have no harmony of season. Compromise is the kneading of men's bread. Great is the oven. That together history is fed is true but kneading is not heat; nor can an oven raise flour to food. Without the fire, history feeds a toothless gum. Without the kneading, history gnaws on hardened digest.

King Hindus: Such a wilderness of consume! It is all the same for us. The king of dusty cities oracles of trees while beggars use bread in the altar of their worship. For the sake of a real gnash of jaws, let us give a clear savour of a less king and a greater king. Give the crown an example for today's drool and the morrow's less philosophical stool. (Laughing, King Hindus adjusts his feet once more).

Beggar: As it pleases, your Majesty, I will concoct this stew and we'll see the froth separate from steam with a stirring of wooden prod.

Say a lesser king and a greater king each purchase as palace slaves, a set of twenty slaves each. This twenty are all from the same far-off tribe, almost the same family.

Now the lesser king looks upon the slaves much pleased, for he says 'Great I am as a master for these are fine slaves'Just as a rich man looks to his grand house to pronounce his wealth or a scholar looks to his library to display his intellect.

Now the greater king looks upon his slaves also much pleased for he says 'Great I am and I have great need for these superior slaves to help me accomplish greater things'.

Hence we already see a difference: that the greater sees all about his vision as the best means to his end, the best tools of his craft. All around becomes the bellows, the fuel to raise his destiny to great dance of heat.

The lesser king plots too in raise of his fire but he does not seek a volcano but rather the ordinary forge piled upon all he gathers below him.

Now we the historians can easily witness which becomes the mastery of a man and which only the mastery of mean.

Let us now declare slaves as men and being men they err. And in their err, they stumble and in the stubble, one spills wine upon the king.

First the castle of the lesser; what wrath and rage rings upon its stained walls uttered from the red dripping lips of a king awash in disgust? What whispers in the bile rising his noble thoughts? Even little men have littler men giving oracle behind their kingly lobes. They are known to swing on a gold ring and reduce a king to further folly. What do they rummage amongst the fear and doubt that only tiny needle fingers can probe the whereabout? They whisper "Your greatness tumbles with this breed of buffoon. What is other kings sat quested around this sop? Would they remember the wit, the vision, the opulence to carry its awe in their vision like the whirling paint of eyes in the sun? or will they trade snicker for guffaw while your ears slumber away? Can a king teach great in this lesson of peering drench? or will their point and mock, hidden as it is, shadow the light of your greatness as tree limbs before a moon? Kill him is the hiss of command. For where can be hid that his blunder may not splash and shatter or trip your royal dwell? Kill them all, all of his same. For are they not as property, not men? If a chair of a set is at flaw has not the craft flowed at the set? Kill the, as though would burn the chairs, the table, the crafts men as well for would you sell something lesser than you bought? To let the world know a king will pay much for little and thereby is no great judge of design? Kill them and forbid any more purchase of the race, that all who would be enslaved by plunder or war should be destroyed instead, that their weakness be stamped from your feet. Set those grinds in motion and in time your greatness will exceed new bounds in that all will tremble to a king who decrees vengeance on a race for the rude decent of a wrist! Such is the awe of power in its only useful wage: terror!

But what of the greater king? For a greater thing than littler men lodges high in the noble crown in greater peak. Here to paint a wider 'scape in bold strokes. The colours of its unique framed only to the limits of a king's vision. What is it's bellow for it too has a lion's rage and tiger's glare? But the difference begins here for it has no need to swell its size in the swallowing of toads. As for the lesser king all is the slave to the need but the need is of the vision not the eying; for even the greater king is still slave to the mastery of his vision. We have said that the greatest king acts as random but only as men do not see the vision of the king. What the king decrees is the decree of vision and thus will have no burden within ordinary whim or want. For slavery makes the slave but mastery does not make the master. It is a circle not a line. The master must be a slave to ensure slavery. The greater king is slave to his vision, the lesser king is slave to his slaves. Both find mastery of slaves but one rises as the circle of a sun; the other falls as the ring of dust, trodden in past by the stirring hooves of destiny.

So our greater king heeds nothing but his vision. Vision declares the clumsy best swill the pens of goats; for perhaps a time may come when the spillage of wine in an offensive great may be of a good thing. Wars have had less excuse and who better to train then arms already inclined to such a task? Or perhaps this slave is better a ploy with a hand parted from limb. Then cast to the general slave quarters where his hate will grow and hat seeks like for rebellion and in the seeking brings point o leaders suspected but unfound. His spies need only watch one not a thousand! Or perhaps this slave imprisoned for a month then released to be granted life and the role as a palace guard. What better way to mould loyalty then purchase a man from the dead! Now of the others what's to be done is to be done as men, not bits of collected debris. The greater king sees slaves as property but not as inanimate. If so, who would break a bad broom to teach a good one sweep. Who whips a table to cure its slant? If the pail leaks, are the mops to be hung? If terror and claw are to reap a turning of will, does this not prove that men are being set upon, not stools? King Hindus: Stall they leap, Beggar! You deny slaves the steadfast of stools and thereby hurl them to the feeble stand of men. Where has gave the pluck of animate dwell, where is the reap of the kingdom of brute? For perhaps the slaves are of the darker tribes, which any of civilized brow knows to be of only brutish thought and is trained to the ways of the noble man as a panther can be trained to curl at my feet. Do not be disguised by their gait or verbal mimics, they are not men but are said to be beasts given to true men as a copy flatters the original. Being half man, half thing they are more useful to the mod of purpose. Just as these two here. One is a stool. One scribes as a man, yet he scribes our thoughts, his own would be gibberish. You perhaps have proofed they are not as thick skinned as wood, yet the proof of blood upon born skin is no proof of a man. All beasts that move, move to the taskmasters will. That the dog is quicker than the toad, does not give it an equal to the man.

Beggar: Right or wrong, the greater king sees all: man, beast, chair is the illumination of his vision. In a glare so bright that only the inner defects of the single cast shadow upon its face.

His is no dim fire that brings more dread of shadow amongst all who gather, this is the fire of the less king. It's tiny flicker serves only to multiply the doubt in illuminating the eyes of all to hunger from men to panther, its dimness sees every leg from chair to cripple as a step to rebellion or escape. The lesser king is drenched in too little light to judge each one, yet there is too little darkness for his arm to hold blind. it is his dimness that gropes and judges all by their empty throats inside his grip.

The greater king horrors, cringes not the one to one which he can clearly judge to his gazing eyes. All are tools to his purpose and in that, becomes unique as tools.

Each man in his purpose has his physical element as his influence, as well as mind and spirit. All that he is physically, his mind and spirit use in this contest of purpose. Skin, culture, race, the size of his feet do not make him equal to other men, neither do they make him unequal. Equality is neither a number of addition or subtraction but is a judgement and the judgement is to be done in whole parts.

for the greater king looks upon men as we look upon trees. For one tree is much greater in height, yet the shorter tree has more capacity for growth, can still be bent to a new purpose and will withstand winds better than a stiff rooted stand. Or he will look upon men as weapon. The long upon men as weapons. The long spear is neither equal or unequal to the shield and sword. Each has its own peculiar thrust in design.

For a man thus used his skin as a sword or a stick in this contest. That one man's skin is a sword and another is perceived to be only a stick, is no salvation to the sword. For the mind and spirit whirling the stick can easily subdue the sword if that spirit is weak, as is likely in its incautious stance.

This the greater king knows; that spirit drives destiny, not skin. That the inequalities of man to man lie in spirit only and here the king's vision judges for his purpose.

King Hindus: Yet still, Beggar, there is less of a man in slave for had not the state of slavery been called that of the lowest spirit?

Beggar: Yes but the caution is again to note cause breeding effect. For the slave is lowly of spirit because of the slavery not a slave because his is lowly of spirit. In the forcible containment of will, the spirit flounders, nay, it slumps since it has no exercise in a cage, gilded or not.

King Hindus: But your claim is of the greater king as a slave to his vision. Yet you deny his spirit any crying, how so? Beggar: His slavery is chosen! He is a slave in all that he would need or desire or possess is laid sacrifice to the altar of his destiny. but it is he who would choose such worship! And those who follow him, whether man, slave, guard, beggar, lion, dog or chair will choose to do so whether in the glimpse of his vision or the whirling pool of his greatness or in the innate desire of all men to see and participate in wonders, just as mobs flock to great fires or gaze at the churn of storms.

In a truly great vision, it is of no matter who was free and who was not, all become freely chained to the destiny.

But should the great king close his eyes to the vision, then the momentum of history's gallop ceases instantly. And then the chaining of rattles, the chains in such a vengeful roar that the thunder scurries to other skies. For now the king robs not freedom, this was given freely but he has forfeited their will full destiny. One does not lightly steal honey from the bee or the fallen calf from the jaws of desperate packs.

so you can see, King Hindus, that once the vision is birthed from a brow's horizon the world for a time is uprooted. All things run, gallop, limp, roll, crawl to the embrace of this scented virgin. Whether history calls it lust or purpose is no matter, the matter for the great king is whether history remembers to call it anything at all.

In returning to our pool of stale wine, the great king may spare the entire flock and thereby turn the flutterings of sparrows into the loyalty of eagles. He may sell them cheaply as a favour to a disgruntled follower who may have felt diminished on some previous undertaking. He may indeed kill them all but the killing will be to the need of the vision, not the blame of the slave. Heads may roll but the thunder bring new rain not a splash of old murk.

So to this example, King Hindus, have we not seen that he would be master there his slaves is left mastered by his slaves. That power unreined by will can only be flung by frightened hands, much as a boulder is let slip down a hill by week arms. That those burdened to be blind masters, guide their whips by long ears, scenting the scape of a heel, whether friend or foe, guard or slave, till in the end, they tremble upon their own footsteps. In their slavery to this slavery, any vision, any greatness quickly falls prey to this beast thy send devouring amongst all including themselves: Beware! And well they should, for men will not follow darkness, no gnashing of teeth replaces a battle form.

If slaves are killed to kill slaves, what of it? History has no care of this. She will say: If a man kills because he has a sword, preaches because he carries an idol, commands because he wears a crown, that is nothing. For are there not dogs who growl when they have a bone and bark when they don't.

History is blind to abuse, yet treasures full use. She will pass without a glance a king carried a litter borne by a hundred slaves but she will sing evermore the praise of a man who bore his wounded brother over three mountains!

King Hindus: Beggar, you condemn our poor little king as blind yet he is nonetheless laden with power, like a great bull elephant stabled in a glass shop, what's to be done? With this, the King closed his eyes, folded his arms and listened with a cocked ear.

Beggar: Few men are truly blind, King Hindus but, rather, their necks, their spirits have sagged whether in laziness or from burden. Their vision is cast downward. It is as if in the calling of a slave, a slave one puts their eyes to the ground where the will trains to this scuffle. Even if freed, even if the word slave is removed, the spirit remains to the word slave.

Yet if by some charge or miracle or brotherhood, that vision can be lifted to a level world, a new focus will greet the man's or king's journey. His eyes will grasp new horizons and his heart beat to plunder them. Sometimes his brothers must hold his head up a long time before the neck can reline its purpose.

There are some whom vision will never be. Their power must be removed. If the men around do not do it for this sake, then surely history will, with the grasp of a greater man, for history's sake.

So I would plead, King Hindus, that if you kill the slaves today in the light of some great distant vision that is so far removed from mortal grasp that a beggar's cold shadow has no claim of it, then do so. History will mark it profoundly in the events to follow as only your high eagle scan can plot them.

But if slave killings are but the stretch of a paw to show a king has a sword and the thirst to dip it, then cease.

For all know kings have command and masters have slaves, history has no call for further demonstration.

But the masses huddle in the long razor green and whispers at the lion's form. They know its power by huge pawed in the sun. They know its terror by its talons unsheathed in a stretch of yawn. Its speed panting lightly in a mountain of brown. Its mercy known to the whip or soft lay of a tail. Its manhood flaunted grand of a black mane. Nobility engraved on its face with a nose scenting for pleasure even in slumber. Of its ears twitching for wisdom. All this they know of a slumbering lion.

As they sit their tiny lives and destinies bundled and cradled in their squat of laps.

What they do not know, nay, what they crave to know, is which way will they journey when it opens its eyes.

Will they follow its majestic stride across history or will they once again merely run from terror?

This said, the Beggar bowed to the floor giving sign of his finish.

King Hindus opened one eye and said: "Why should then I not have you beheaded?"To this the Beggar replied, still bowing: Because you can.

King Hindus laughed in a ring of understanding and opened both eyes. "It has been a delight; your vagrant flowering of this garden. And as you said a king does not need step on a flower just because his stride is great. You may live. As to the slaves, they must die. The Beggar glanced up.

King Hindus raised his hand slightly:"DO NOT SPEAK OF THIS MATTER ANYMORE. If your whispers had seduced my ear another day before, they may or may not have lived.

But this day a king's order was given life; once spoken, once of issue from the loins of a kingly mind, it must find its womb in deed. This contains the birthing of obedience. Duty to the order is absolute, debate alone crumbles destiny.

By your own thoughts those who doubt have no place in the lead, hence a leader can allow no doubt. The king is a storm; lightning must obey thunder. Those who would plead where it strikes should not beg the spilling of rain."

With that King Hindus snapped his fingers. "Guards, put this Beggar in a cell with food. In the morning, discard him to the streets. Now go."

The sergeant and the Beggar were forced to crawl to the door as none could rise with the King sitting. They and the two guards went out.

Kind Hindus turned to his scribe and spoke "What stirs your scalp of our dusty scrap?

Scribean: I was surprised his life remained unspilled, as awful as it is.

King Hindus: His death vision spelled uneasy to my heart. Call it the intuition of mercy but I felt his death would bring a bell tolling to my ears. Besides, except that he can think, he would scratch a delicate scribe. (Laughing). Are you numb to a reply or implying dumb?

Scribean: As you have so wisely spoke, King Hindus, thought provokes bad writing. Those who write are

burdened to remain good funnels but bad containers; they are the passage of eternity, not the cup.

King Hindus: True; the denser the matter, the quicker should sink the pen. But like all crimes, the witness begs no wits and thereby there is no turning of left or girth by ungoverned

hands.

Scribean: True, Sire, reins have no place on a headless horse.

King Hindus: I am shocked, Scribean, my faith in your impeccability has received a blow! I am alarmed! Is there an ordeal that can be done for scribes to a similar purpose of render as is done for eunuchs?

Scribean: Yes, Your Nobleness, I believe it is called: praise. Praise easily drains the mind of any lofty thought.

King Hindus (laughing): What a scribe does not deserve, he is given and that bears better inscription. How is this?

Scribean: The quill is only as mighty as the drawing bow and that only as strong as the string taut of drawn about the scribe's neck! When the book is kept from brains, it flows from the quill in more rhythmic pulse.

King Hindus: So it is the same! The eunuch and the scribe are trusted amongst a king's thoughts and a king's wives for the virtue of either is safe before the flaccid organ!

It is said: Blessed are the impotent and fools for they have no love of thinking and do not think of love. King Hindus: You make it sound as if the less of a man, the better of man.

Scribean: In your own immortal words; Sire, those who would not sink should discard thicker things.

King Hindus: Hah! Well, spoken, There seems to be more of a beggar in you than before. I should allow you trade quills for rags and throw you the way of much hungrier philosophies!

At this the Scribe trembled and bowed low three times to the king's laughter.

The Sixth Day

As was commanded the Beggar had been fed, called and discarded to the dawn's open cradle. The day has such hopes for these discards left or spilled to the street's centre. There She is first upon their flung embrace, they receive first her warming kiss not any who are still huddled behind secure walls. These sprawled forms are the day's virgins; they rise to Her hand; their ears shake to a whisper to thought lost in a night's silent song: the dream. Did they dream of such awakenings of man? But the day begs them "no, no" remember them now. Marry the light and the union will birth man before delight." But even spoken, the rags, the bones, the moans and creaks reclose the eyes and call the hope, dream and begin journey the living mare. They are ice now, their steps the melts of a fatal slope. She leaves, this kindling dawn, to another. The beggar did not sleep well.

The failure of the slaves haunted his ears for whenever he came close to sleep he would hear a swish noise with the plunk of a melon tossed to a basket. Twenty times he heard such and then he was allowed a troubled rest. The body curled its reward in peace. It had lived another day, its reward in ironic price was sleep; as if one rewards a thief for returning the emptied purse.

But the mind rests not so easy for its rewards and plunder of a day's contest are not the simple nay or yes of a heart still beating.

It is as a judge who retires the court scene to weight the day's sentence in more repose with less scatters of distraction by the illogics and banters of emotional rabble. Here, in sleep, the mind sits with voices, some gentle, some ancient, some fierce and speaks of the trials this day. The language is image. Paintings born, gone, reborn to the wall of the skull, or delicate carvings of sparks, wind stars vanishing in the tale of a tail. Some of the language a mind will remember, or choose to remember, or be allowed to carry out of an inner chamber. This remnant or conclusion we greet as dream. Thus the dream is to the language want the cup is to the well. Neither can man live in a well or remain long repleted with a cup. Sleep is the well worn path between such places.

The dream the Beggar held to his eyes this dawn was like all dreams: a vessel of understand but for the broken side; at rear; out of the back. A vase complete to the eye yet the ear undeceived notes the wind hiss from the top andescape.

This unseen beckon, the hands around the vase, the fingertips note the voice, the gap; yet turn and turn nothing, no hole, the sides heal round round yet the back remains its larger fracture.

This is a dream, for the dream molds of the day in what was, what is and what will be. What will be is the crack. For all that spills unto a day must escape or the dream will choke leaden upon the mind swimming their sleep. For it is to the future that all spills to and therefore no man must drag the day's folly's and winnings into tomorrow like a dead debtor tied putrid upon his back. He will flounder in the anchor of his past before a day's harbour won.

The voices mold the vase, yet discard the future piece for the telling weaves the day and, thereby, the future lost. What will be must remain the virgin tightly veiled till the wedded day when the groom raises his pinning hopes to beauty or hideous. Whatever 'she' is, hope has sealed fate amongst the expectant feast and ready dance. He rapines himself upon the furtive scent of desire; this dream hesitant to lose a lover to his dark of unsated despair; lose the lover to night. Night wraps her cool limbs round the limp sweat of his passion exhausted; her strands brush the disappointment rippling his skin; that mouth anguish opening and closing to a silent wail: "She is not the one, not the one". Night forgives always his infidelity in dream after dream; always allows him explore her skirts for another dream to be bought, tried and all sing again: "She is not the one, not the one."

These are dreams then; two thirds a hint; a driving man's vague of point; a map in shreds of destiny; the mumbled path; the glint of flash flared on mountain side; a half step in cracked granite clay; a skull jawed to oblivion. These are dreams; the images of voices handing a mind their decree of the day's sweep and battle's cost. Yet the plans for new contest are not cast in pointing flag till dawn is well heated.

The man not to know till a sun's break has inflamed the bridge of retreat back into Night. And in burning, despair and courage are alloyed into man and the dream is pathed over like cobblestones sagged in rough abuse; the face of old dregs mumbling toothless of fire past suitors. Only the flower of their memory is not dried to wither in overtread.

So the circle Night.dream.memory.day.man.courage.voices.despair.attempt.Night.dream...the wheel spoked of raised fists, the hub the eye, yellow and pressed, as it guides its trail through the darkest dust of millennia. For the gods or fates do not send the wheel rolling as a man propelled from a palm into a running stance but rather spin the man flat upon the dust, to revolve over outflung with eye coast downward or upward. That justice of outlook dependant on the initial flip when the man coin was gambled to its destiny.

These wheels revolving, butting, smashing upon one and another, or churning off alone to rut across the scorpion's bed; these wheels to plunge cliff or make small whirl down into seas; no matter tis no matter except to see that there are minute universes revolving about a vision core and in that may make absolute claim the rights of existence as any larger universe in its path, dream, or wander. Fate, in allowing man motion, bestows upon him both the hope of a universe and its distance of succeed.

The Beggar walked towards the mountains in his dream.

In it was a crucifix. A naked man impaled by nails stretched bloodied upon it. The face unknown, indeed was hollow, fog mist, dense and in that density, a foreboding as chilling to bile as the iron mask of any terror descending with sword in the black startle of sleep disturbed before closed again to death.

The fog rolled towards the cross dangling its Meat, it rolled as a cat gathers speed in its pursuit of prey. Just as the fog grasped the stem of this unnatural plant, a dove appeared in the cave of the man's face. It unfurled itself and flew away seconds before the fog shrouded all.

Shortly the fog rolled back. Same man, silent, faceless in the embrace of sky.

Three times the fog rolled and ebbed. Three times a bird flew from the featureless skull. The dove, then an eagle, then a crow.

When the fog spilled back away the fourth time, the man was gone. The cross remained, the blood still glistening, still pooling from its fountain of nail to a ground's lap.

A woman appeared in rags of some distant brightness or colours long since rubbed away by either hard soil or obsessive cleansing. She is not young, nor old. She is of that agelessness of peasant woman where the bloom of twenty-five does not truly decay till about fifty unless the hand of man deems it to be crushed premature.

She has a dry mop constructed of a long pole and hair tied in a bundle at the one end. With this she attempts to wipe the blood off the cross. It smears the mop strands crimson but the blood is too leaden, too stiff in the cake of air, to be lifted up with such dryness of a endeavour.

The woman is dismayed; she weeps; and in weeping holds the mop below to basin her tears. But though her sadness goes long, the dampened mop still is not soaked enough as she tries again, again.

A small crowd is now seen at the half incline on the hill which levels to the cross. Men and women of ill fit and random description, who huddle and whisper from time to time, point.

She goes to them begging tears for her mop. There are none, for none here weep. Her demands, kneeled, torn at her hair are answered only with solemn shakes of heads, whose eyes beg for a shadow without cross or hysterics of women. She raves at the crowd till some in half-mock offer their spittle to her cause. She scorns this, returns to her task but the blood is hard; she embraces, kneels, to the stains of riverlets, the fog rolls, and engulfs.

When grey again ebbs, as the tide carries treasures outward, she is gone.

Some hairy bulks, men in hides, furred to their necks come take down the cross. It is broken into pieces, piled in a pyre's mound. The oil cast, the spark struck, the flames seek the father, sun. Yet the oil consumes, the flames die. The wood unlit, uncharred. The men are harrowed, trembled to touch the godly apparition but the leader threatens duty with a axe, showing the handle chewed with calloused hands.

A hole is dug, the pieces buried. Instantly green spins lush on the mound

a boy crawls to this embrace

fragile leaned towards hunger

he feasts on all fours

this grass nurtured to ripe

and wooden agonies

Fuller his limbs, his eyes gentled

there appears near

a cage thorned of build

the thorns point outwards

the rays of holy nightly petal

inside a dove of wound

blood of the broken wings

The boy crawls to it, yet he has become tethered a leg to a round stone. His fingertips just embrace the needle tips; the dove beyond his grace. He curls and weeps; the grass withers at the rain of his bitter salt. Yet, as he lies, a fierce one legged hawk flops to the grass and begins to peck viciously upon the throng taut between stone and boy.

With this linger of vision, the Beggar awoke, curled, drenched in sweat, his eyes stinging as if he had bathed in salted heavy waters.

As he walked, his feet, the open and closing, the blinking of eyes shaking away the dust of old things too stripped of their painted rails, worn at the stubble of cheeks or the whispers of faint mustache as everything old molds to the same.

A preparation for the sculpture of maggots when all faces of animals joined in reunion liquidise as an army of boils crushed by some upheaval. Some religious hurl of stone. Death is revered for it unburdens the eyes to witness this decay paraded outrageous and repulsion in its sags and seeps. For blessed are the young, to die clean of face, unlipped in jowled beast of glutton. For cursed are the old things, denying their place of heart, blaspheming with the ashes of destiny defeated, piled on their crowns, spewing the effrontery of their fetish cling to undeath.

Must the grandsons and daughters be polluted in this inheritance? To know the deed before life has even first tried?

How thus can ground do more than accept a shovel and stay blind to the torch. The old thing stalks with the curse of human hand folded, clasped only to cover its organ withered of decline, they walk away always hiding their heart with their hands from the world.

The past always in plunder of today, as trees dies for scaffold built for yesterday's sin.

Enough! Enough! Chant the feet, the eyes. Drag us hither from this murk of old putrid limbing that prefers to rattle itself: Man. It is a thing rooted from a grave and Lo! Behold! The grave begins suck back issue like a reluctant womb reels inward the birthcord some drunk of midwife left vacant. This city is long past the birth, the scent of sun (brief though its lick was) and now, old things, gather worship away from dank clefts but are drawn in none the less for they end their legged clay as they gaze at chipped walled horizons and for seconds their brows smooth of wrinkles as the earth swings on their jowls, a grave pull, they inching return and can be enclosed in a second's quake.

So let not old things keep the debris of yesterdays upon a babe's fragile cradle. Let old things in old places lay recline before the young and display graver thoughts then stretching limbs can bear. Let there be no utterance of 'Guard such' or 'Honour this'; for the past needs no guard nor begs no honour. There are more dead amongst the dead than living can number, so what use is living into the dead?

Like daily beggars, the eyes look forward, the dead are dust trickling from heels, that which was is unknown, that which is to be unknown and that which is remains as solid as scented wind, as delicate to the path as burning sand, as calm as terror's eyes, as forbidden as a sister's kiss.

There becomes only the passion of 'is' and the 'dream'. As if 'is' drifts across the wilderness of dream, a hazy spectre unmoving, shifting, undulating up down to the dips and valley, rises and deserts, seas and maintains of the 'dream'. For the 'dream' is of truth the only landscape to include 'was' and 'to be', albeit the 'scape changing of 'is' and to 'is' like a fabric shading to countless here dependent on view. Where are the beggarly toes leaped or scraped here? Does the mind float in 'dream' while the body sway upon 'is' like a sailor given perch on horizon's mast?

Yet the 'dream' has captured much in past body but the mind gathered no fruit. Yet the mind knows some of 'dream' and much of 'is'.

Can the solution be to decree 'is' the perpetual dream? No, as shallow a thing as the sword of an insect defeats such feeble charge.

Pain 'is' and reminds us clearly well.

What may be said is where there is 'is', there can no dream. Where there is dream, no 'is'. Because 'is' remains burdened to the real path of physical, the reality and allows no vision but merely the sight of what 'is'. The dream creates, it allows all that was, is, and will be to encumber, to burden, to decorate the sight of what 'is' and thus bears vision for the traveller.

Creation, then, weighs unbalanced. For does it not seek the small amongst tiny or places the one wing of yearn upon the curl of stone. Does it not carve the air to magic form in dark isles charred in burns of sea? Red? Dusk?

Does it not drink love in wrinkled blue eyes or stand joy tearful of childish embrace? Does it not weave hope in the slap of brotherly hand clasping below the thunder of evil winds? Can creation not read a thousand words, a thousand beauties, a thousand crimes, a thousand paths in the stance of a ragged young eye, bold in the streets with a stick? Why such unbalance this creativity? Why to see 'is' and envision what sadly was or in defiance shout what should be?

That all in unbalance is the tremble of the invisible; a web this hunt and a mind clings to all and thereby all is of one mind as one mind links to all it envisions, the vibration of passings.

Is not then reality balanced? Perched as a sated rock upon the earthen cradle? Reclined and unmoved. Reality is dead in the eyes see why stillness unlaboured in breath. This is the closed fist of reality. No threat yet the null, the void, the blank, bleak, empty often of its stillness, is a death. A death to motion.

For who has not seen the still tree, cast off its lethargy of waver and step to become a camel, a man, a lion? Or who has not watched rocks shimmer to the same, or horizons spill not to plunging drops but rather slight declines. What maid has not changed a name in the turn of a head? What man no longer brother when closer by a foot?

What has the traveller seen when only movement captured the beckon? What has the traveller missed when stillness remained virgin to any gaze?

Creativity unbalanced yields movement, as if a certain colour of wind that points from the high to the low. That which moves to break horizons, creates horizons vision and unburdens the traveller starring at the unlink of a day's rock in stale, swallow.

The dream bleeds in and out as the pulse of inner outer vision. All that is unbalanced is created or is creating. The landscape of a world; follows the contours of brains; weaves the paths of dreams. The rock of dreams yields the cities of a desert or the question of a thought. To raise a fist is to raise a storm. War is but the worldly man's anger. The wind is yesterday' breath.

The traveller envisions the landscape ahead and thus peers across the inner of his skull.

Though he has not heard in 'is', the dream drifts him the screams of dying slaves; the ground ripples its disgust; the sky chokes pale gray in its weep.

As the steps taken, all ahead parts to side, falls behind. All changing, enlarging, reforming, distinct in new casts. The emotions weave out and give their menace or delightful wave; give roofs teeth or broken neglect. Vision has hardly seconds and then must then discard to memory, as if saving wheat grain by grain from a burning barn, so fast are creations lost to a herd of past.

The unbalance of vision starved from madness. With the withheld of a final crumb, no: 'is'. There stumbles no mark of physical reality in movement. No reference, no sign to mark a traveller from tripping off the usual course.

As if, he falls in a bottomless pit. Not alone. All else falls with him. The walls dark, unseen. In time, who would not seduce the fall as just another windy day?

For the traveller to stop, cease the motion, close the eye of vision which only opens to the drum of pounding heels, creation peeks from the air as a fly might unwing itself to assume the disguise of old larvae. Reality sets before him one object at a time. Yet being balanced cannot move itself. Thus cannot change before his sight, thus his sight is given no wine of change to sparkle a mind already dulling. It's as if the bottomless pit was turned into the endless tunnel. Light lanterns no where. The face of rock his groping world. This the valley of 'is'.

The traveller continually given to choose. A beam to a right, left yields unbalance, motion, creativity. Rigidity yields balance, stagnant, reality. Dream or 'is'. Seeing or believing.

Ironic for a deserted traveller as well that the unbalanced man creates. And therefore, is God.

The Beggar's young son had almost journeyed from the city. The streets on leaving the palace had remained wide yet narrow in their wealthy view just as the previous streets had been. These ended after several blocks and succumbed to the barter of a lesser purse.

Poorer, shoddier places but never near the decay of the Valley of the Dogs. These began the homes and sheds of the workers and craftsmen of the city. Forgers of gold to art, iron to sword, bronze to likeness. Here a tens of species of wood were burned to the revolve of foot powered lathes into legs of great delicacy or candlesticks of a man's height. Weavers too here, that could spin gold through silk or a hundred colours into a rainbow of cover worthy any noble form. Here the factories of a single family of hands for exotic bakes. prime cuts. sweet delicacies formed and delivered fresh to the wealthy coin. Wagons made and horses sold. All the barter to be sold; all the selling of any worth.

Not just all to be made but all gathered from the dust of caravans and merchants packed solid onto mules. Those such as these bringing the spoon to greed were not allowed to sell direct. The king's men placed a hand before them and after a tax was served, they were allowed only the selling to the city's merchants. Thus in this more sacred progression of Marketplaces, the commodities pass singular hand to hand not thrown to the mill of crowds.

Money creates its own order. Handled with a respect, a reverence that slows its ease of depart from hand in accordance with its increasing weight. Like no other thing, the greater the burden the more delighted the bearer. It is a thing which both chains the limbs and raptures the eyes; here the wealthy hold themselves to such fixed interest, that they are as statues before any other measure in human terms.

Yet amongst all this great swill and swell, charity was such an odd thing here, that coins could depart in that name. For if a merchant came predicting of a sale for a hundred and instead, came fast upon two hundred, his dance of joy under a double burden would caper so light, so high that a coin or two might sing to an empty cup sitting nearby.

Thus, though the poor were hounded away, beggars of a number decreed by a city office (passage purchased around his tolling hand) were allowed the privilege of daily reside at the scene of golden pilgrimage; Scattered the market then, were wells empty but for the thanks tossed from wishers already glutted in victory.

Amongst beggars are common things which join their species snake's limbs. Some might be coloured in rags to attract, no employment of steady call, hollow eyes that go off and on before a friendly or stranger's face. Known only by empty cups or bowls or hats or hands. these are some common traits of beggars; though these traits fit thieves and merchants as well.

Nor are beggars necessarily in despair; only those who despair begging.

But of two common bonds beggars must hold, it is that all beggars are brothers and the more wretch of a man, the greater the beggar. By wretch it is meant in the decay of body, the limbs, the legs, the scar. The mind and heart remain sound if not allowed the probe of ridicule or shame. Thus his brothers are a beggar's veil against the scorn of fools as yet missed by a fate's breath. It even could be said that the greater wretch of a man, the greater the brother, till the most wretched would stand for King of the Beggars.

But beggars are too free to need kings for they have enough sense not to want beyond a day's coin, in fact, the only thing freer than a beggar is perhaps a dead one. And brothers seldom need kings, either. Though one may lead, none are ever commanded to follow.

The Beggar spied such a man...or more to his age ,a younger man.

He had a limb left. A leg. Both arms were stubs, one cut about the elbow, the other an inch or two higher. The leg that had been was a short stub, seen to be three or four inches above the knee. One rag he wore wrapped round his hips, if a frame that thin can be said to have hips. The cloth hung in shreds to his knee, bared, yet it was enough to give him a dress of decency.

For the guards who patrol here would allow a man stay to die but expel any who lay indecent; uncovered to the exposure of a careless glance.

The rest of his frame, or the parts left, were clothed only in a gray-brown of taut skin.

His chest was a fine dainty corset of thin ribs carefully placed by an artistic hand under the living fabric.

Then the skin drawn tight perhaps from behind with some lever of sorts, the surplus ends tacked behind the backbone, in the manner that nomads use with rocks rolled up in the corners of tents, to stretch the goat's fabric full.

So taut this skin, a viewer might perceive the drum beat underneath trembling on the skin. At full sun, it not for a curtain of dirt, one would expect a luminous sheen to this skin, like parchment held to the sky; the boy's inner organs to be seen in hazy outlines like the inner works of angels, their wings folded to obscure.

Yet, this was not a dying frame. Muscle was there in stretch and entwined bunches; not thickened but rather thinned of cable to an unbreakable part.

These few cables which anchored this beggar to life could not be allowed to fail. And thereby did not. For the power from struggle is not as most men suppose the struggle for power but is rather the power in struggle itself.

Those strings tightened, strung his frame. Cords of neck, the crisscross from a shoulder pinnacle of bone to stub ends armed him with a will to carry a destiny many of a stronger grip would let slip away in a despair of surrender.

Though not seen, as the beggar sat leaning to a wooden rot of wall, the cords strung aback as straight as a cripple's will and connected to the final leg. Here was iron, for upon this final pedestal, the general waged his vision; the captain gathered his daily orders; the sergeant cursed for joy of attack; the private rose glory in the march.

Support of this stance was seen on either side, crutches of an end, a contraption to fit the stubs like sleeves so that the shortened thin stiff legs were fixed well for mobility. Indeed unremovable without assistance , the beggar was like a boy with unbendable joints.. A walking stool.

On these and the good leg, the beggar rode from the Dog's Valley to his post of beg in this daily ritual of hands foot to mouth.

As the Beggar's young son stepped closer, the shadow of a whole man cast across the reclining beggar's frame and he looked up.

When the Beggar's young son saw the toothy grin a part broke in his heart.

When all in a time's plunge the cruellest destinies of man are railed against, the want of a god is begged so fate could be flung in that wicked face; when one human being is faced with the shudders of its own helplessness before the determined gather of a neighbour's out spilled bowels.

That fit of rage surged in the Beggar for this happy toss of greasy rag which begs ravage a world for that which it has ravaged. Yet all this cannot be, cannot be answered. The rage plunges to despair and snaps the heart. All is said in a sob, half-choked before a youthful grin.

For the body though scarred old and should be as if the plague of some ancient sinner deserving his worth, yet it is but the capsule of youthful heart not beaten to twenty years old as yet. The grin, the eyes have told more of a brother's history than the Beggar would cry to gather.

That he was alone, Deserted perhaps or those who would found a heart to care died of the years and cares toiling to rise this child; hoping in lost hope that they would be an inch higher than the poverty which swallows all here;

That he rented a box attached to a hovel; this his home, complete with a single blanket grimed with his own decay; that and flies, there was little room for else in a box 5 hands square, 15 hands long and cheap rent for it.

That a world of no hands, no other hands and worst of all, no offer or trust of loving hands yields a plague in the obstacles, avalanches, desert storms that for others are mere turnings of the wind. Though at least courage has the measure of a man in what he stand against not his stride alone.

That a need with no hands must eat its bread underarm. That drink must be lifted by the grip of lips; raise the bowl in a grimace of heavens. That grime clings ever but for a chance rain to trickle rivulets through dried sweat.

Even bodily functions path difficult or at least become cast more to the stance of a dog. For the removal of a sarong is too awkward a task. If defecation results in a state unclean, dust becomes water and the strong leg propels backwards the bared cheeks for the wipe of dirt.

In the destitution of souls, this last stance, last scrape, the more apt. The soul, as too the body, some have accused get early punishment. That gods, as the fathers of men, judge the group by their splashes of heel.

In conversation, the Beggar learned how the young fellow had come to this state after his parents died young.

"Being a street orphan at run, I was rounded up with a bunch of the others by the City Guards. Much was our abuses and hardships as we toiled daily for the City and at night were locked in small hot stinking pens and throw bread for our solitary meal.

Still, we, for the most of us, survived and though I would not say grew up, we, at least, aged.

Even in that living all was not so bad. Friendships and fun was had as only children could do in such a world. Ah, my friend, man, what a spirit he has. So low and so high. For a long while we worked on some walls near the castle, carrying brick and mortar.

We all slaved as hard as the bread we ate, but no matter to the Guards, curses and whips were their sport.

Sometimes a day went by and I did not believe my ears or my back could become any redder!

Still the toil has its good pay, in hard bread and the hold of a sword's execution. What man or child would not crawl thus for a life saving and bless such minor ordeals?

But some among our dragging flock did not and in the dark time of vermin, gave attempt to scurry to wider burrows. They were caught and hung by their ankles to die in the sun. They were alive over our work pits to remind the rest of us that the gods of Hades favour well-ripened meat. It took days for them to die and the harder our toil to drag slow past the crack of agonies that choked our own names.

They died and the flies fed well for the corpses were left to sway to the breeze; a crowing with wings. Straw for mortar plucked a new use in our nostrils as we now gagged past the stench from the bloating; their poor bodies swelled as a wine sac swinging too close the fire.

Too long in their ferment, they were feared to be cut down for the resulting burst of offal. We would pass, a reluctant eye upon the expectant cascade, breathing in even in this toil of drag held till the carnage was behind.

Finally, some street brats saw the game and begin tossing sharp stones at, around and above our heads.

Their target? To bring burst of the sagging sacks now resembling more obscure grapes than men. The guards allowed the play, for delight of their gambling; their bets on which of the plod would drink the soak.

Alas, those who cast coin on any lot but I , got a poor account of the scene. By some trick, near all gave vent together and hence the splatter was more like a drench.

I was well among the drench and will never it seems unburden my nostrils of its memory though I have tripped or slept in much dung and rubbish since.

The guards allowed a washing of the path and the half carcases dragged away but it was of too late for some of us. Lacerated soles had already drunk deep the diseased slip; torn palms began the gangrene slimed on horrored brows.

The next day, many of us were violent to fever, sick and discarded from the work party. Some died of this fever, some didn't and lived to bear regret.

I did not die and thus you witness me. So many men have told me this was a god's will. So many of a beggar type have said it is of man's doing.

I laugh at it all now. Was it man's sin...or god's sin ...or my sin?

No matter whose sin...it is I who am honoured, it would appear, to be the Lamb of Sacrifice! The soul licks its err and gives its wholeness to an axe of penance. Crippled to universal height, the soul, forgiven by all yet itself, still to itself burns the stains of its remains. Once penance is embraced, it is a savage of lusted. Repent besmears as its new Sin. This is always a crueller judgement in the one limb left, the gods leave for mercy bethinking the means to reach their abode but, alas, the soul flails its skin in Anti-sin.

Sometimes there is of no gods sought but rather only the rougher, sharper path of unholy undertaking. A soul past of judge results in a sinless state of entire evil. As the state of sin is to degrade good unto evil.

But what grades evil once total in its hurl? The limb repents and the stain of dung (curse of physical existence) have no lesser abomination whether judged godly or manly. Now all is sinless.

So you see, my Friend, though three limbs are now sinless, I can still be condemned by the actions of the Last.

(He laughed) Well, so say the priests who step over my tale in the street, anyway!

Such is my tale, Brother, a whistle of misfortunes. Once an old leper told me destiny has many sided teeth. Some men are nibbled, some crushed, some torn, yet the end is in all sallowly void and gratitude's belch.

Who knows perhaps a man devoured to my state in an instant instead of nibbles, would have despaired and crumpled, his final limb a marker to draw a jackal's sorrow. But nibbled away, the pieces given to the day... not even a miss. A gradual pruning, to learn to do the same with a bit of the less, till, who knows, can he do everything with nothing?

At this the young fellows laughs heartily; the Beggar's young son offers a slow grin.

The crippled boy continues "Though this has its harshness of trade, it sweeps a better glance any watch of erect.

Before this 'mishap' I witnessed nought but the rope and a strain of another's back in the front of my eyes. The name has no call, the backs all the same, all mistress of the same harem.

But here I lie, the one-limbed beggar and at least I am cursed for what I am. That men step out of their way to pay me and men step out of their way to kick me, I force men to change their path.

I am not a thing below men's feet nor a mere extension of moving stone but, oddly, I am seen as more of a man as I become less a man.

You know, some stray to my eye and curse me slug or dog; demand my death to rid the earth of my beast of burdensome plight. Yet I argue with them to their err. No dog would be allowed live to this state. Whether his master or brother dogs, some hand or tooth would gentle ease the blood from his throat. But I live to horrify because I am man; and I horrify because death is painted upon my frame above the curtain of dust.

Yet, I give the curser more homage than charity. For a coin in cast is a blank eye. Only those who spit upon me look at the man. And my brothers, like yourself. They can see and still hear. They offer coins from another purse.

Ah, but, forgive my mumblings, brother. I sit much and have much to think. A failing when boring upon the first reclining ear. To be slow in limb does not necessarily carry a swift mind. For if indeed that was the effect, cowards would be dim-witted indeed.

Again the crippled boy sings in laughter; this time the Beggar cannot help but chuckle at his good humour as well.

"But I'll tell you of this, brother, looking gives a hard believing some times. Where the stall leans that I buy the daily bread with my begs, there is a merchant baker who arranges the world with an odd scale.

For when I bring my coins, they are pursed in my mouth, as the bowl must travel underarm. At the stall, I spit them to the table, away from the crusts of risen wheat. My hunger is given more of the sun to swallow as the seller will not touch upon the coins till the spittle is dry. Neither will he give bread till payment rests in his palm.

Once the exchange can be done without wetting his fingertips, he will shove the loaf under my arm. So cautious is he of a malignant brush, that any number of times the bread has fallen amongst the dust and dung of the street.

Here begins a new battle of commerce over repulse. The bread tainted now with my skin, will he put a hand to it or begin a new cut, forfeiting the fallen to the dogs?

A dilemma for any man often breeds the tool and such for him the miracle of the stick. Poking the crust and rising the bread from its place of grimy display, he thrusts it again to my underarm grip. Satisfied, with a grunt impossible to answer, he turns away busy with a fresh gathering to his table though they may not exist for this movements waver.

Now, whether a beggar likes dung to sweeten his bread is not a seller's concern. That the seller is averse to a deform's spittle may not have its misunderstanding. But more's the watch here.

For time to time, the baker departs, cart and all, he goes off and then returns in the half of a sun's stick.

One time, I gathered my crutch and kept along; for a one-limbed beggar can easily race a merchant towing his world. In the trip of a street's numbered almost twenty, the bread man came to a money changer's place. At a window, barred but for the pass of hands, some gold in a small coinage was given for the baker's pile of copper and brass.

The merchant then rolled back to the return voyage, though his pace now all the more hampered for this new burden of gold. Men's a comic thing. To be jealous of a wife who has a little glitter while the tarnished wife given careless tow. His mind rings of the same value in both yet his heart harbours a different scaling. Yet which has more value on the enter of a rat's alley, golden rings fingered or an iron dagger in hand? No matter, this merchant clutched his gold a far deeper bosom then his bagged copped.

A circuitous route back he took and all the more with his eyes, their dancing and bobbing for some thieving follow or murderous sidestep, his eyes like flies strung to carrion by whirls of glut and desire.

Till a dark door in the grayest alley was sidled up to. The... but Brother foolish I am. For I mistook to mention his dog. He had a dog you see. The mongrel of mongrels undescript. The breed of all breeds. The makings of the end of any dog breed to just dog. As if all the breeds distinct were allowed cavort such as men, then this dog the Merchant had would symbolize the natural coming state of resulting dog. Oh, alas, such a sad state was not meant for a noble four leggedbreed. Still the result was for the merchant's means. This dog had heaped of a merchant's rewards, you tell by a glance. For his coat of mid height had been patched so many a time that the original colour was disguised well amongst the white, brown and black. This was bore through the streets on bent clawed sticks that moved in a slink when walked and a hind hop when it ran. A blunt snout in a blunter skull decorated with rags for ears always half stiff as if crusted in the wind. The eyes, yellow, nocturnal as a rat's and in half blink through brighter day.

Yet for the few scraps and more kicks flung to this beast, it was the most of faithful. Clung to its master's heels like dust to a mule's. It seemed to have no duty, no destiny but the following of a merchant's will, the ever faithful stance at his footing.

At times it finds there is more of a man in a dog than in a man. For the dog gave homage not for bread, nor gain but it seems very natural would allow no less a path.

And being only dog, it had no questions but rather did its destiny with a peaceful satisfaction. Agony was only a thing outside a vision of citadel watch; despair was a dog's eyes without the hook nosed moon face of its master.

What would be only for the master the use of this beast was soon to be seen. For it was too small, too ill fed to ravish much the leg of any robber; certainly, beauty was not its catch, nor value of its sire.

Yet for the merchant, this dog had tremendous use and in it he placed an unheard of trust. More so then any king his most closes council or any captain his most valiant sword. For what in this world has a greater love than merchant for his gold?

For by luck as the cart covered the doorway and our merchant squatted down with his dog, blind to any interference or suspect, I was knocked; sprawled in the dirt by some ignoramus. My head tilted in the cart's direction, I beheld below the ragged short skirt hung on the wheeled stall, a wondrous tale!

The merchant, gold coin in hand, had shoved his earnings up the dog's ass! Extracting his digit, he wiped it on the dog, then quickly stood up. Glances swept the area but did not scent of a one legged eye sprawled nearby.

The procession set off. The merchant, lighter in step, more casual in eye, for the burn of his wealth was placed in a cooler well than his sweaty palm. The dog and his own stride had found no change; it remained as sure and quick to follow though it now bore the means for independent life should it so wish!

Now, Brother, I have puzzled not that a dog is loyal with or without wealth. Or that a man so lusts for something, then is so urgent to hide it. That in that, endeavour and profit; sine and shame; crime and fugitive seem all much the same.

I will admit, Brother, that the finding does compel me to examine the glint of any dog droppings along certain streets. As of date no findings, the rainbow remains endless, yet even for that, I have not wondered as to the turmoil of a man who must toil the remainder of a day, one eye to any comings and goings of a bread thief and one eye to any comings and passings of a dog's bowel. If ever a man were torn between two mules, this is the webs of greed!

But my real head shakes at this, Brother: Why would a man abhor to touch another man's spittle, nay, even that man's skiing yet have no qualm in the daily probe of a dog's bunghole?

Is it in the bend of cheap copper versus the ever true of a king's metal; that value pays the senses to hold their revolt? Or is that a four limbed cur stands more sacred than a one limbed man? That the wealth found in one gives more worth in the probe than any value that may be plumbed from the other?"

Beggar: "Ah, little brother, you have no fear of being unsound by the use of your tongue, for it has been said in a far place that: "It is by tongue that one tells of the man, for no other limb is as close to the heart and soul of a man."

Boy: (laughing) "Yes an old healer, I won't say fake, once said a thing like that. The crowd disbelieving his claims of miracles encouraged him with jeers to where I lay.

He indeed looked deep upon my eye, then turned to the mob to exclaim "The gods allow heal the half man, even the quarter man. From hence my good magic. To bring men to wholeness. But this boy is already whole, nay, is four times the man on a lone leg than we are on two, bending our arms in worships. The gods see no need of plaster upon this statue of true manhood. His, the song of a rare one legged crane sung regal above the marsh frogs, their eyes tranced to the stalls.

It is no fault of the gods that your ears are too crippled to hear him!

Now, brother, I loved the old man's coin given and cursed him not for this truth, though the people howled him away with stones and laugher.

But times the wonder has crept in, that, if the gods will a man greater inside by per portion of a decay outside, then why am I not king and all the beggars my fellow courtiers? One day I had perhaps unsolved this riddle too long upon my tanned brow, for an old ragged hag, her hair bleached in years, dropped a copped in my cup and said 'young man, misery is not always found in an empty bowl' and then I groped the mean of it all! That up glancing down sees emptiness but down glancing up sees a world rimmed for the view! That not all gods live in airy flight and call their men to rise upward; such a forbidden task with the lead press of living soles. No, some gods; gods of the wheat, the bursting fertile earth, the trees thickened of rain, rivers, seas swelled in purpose, the hearth fires smoking at brotherhood, these gods looked upon purpose, the universe much different than the preach of a misguided man. The best world for them sloped to all a new cant, that upgrade was downgrade. That the highest temple was the deepest pit. That what was hailed kingly to men was called lowly to these gods. That a man unlimbed, bellied in his journey, gave closes embrace to these gods which had indeed moulded the living, rather than just observed from distance wings.

I said this unto a brother weeks of few ago and he exclaimed "But my little friend, you elevate the snake above the scorpion; the scorpion above the rat. All the loathsome which prey upon each other's flesh are now more regal than any flight in the cleaning sun. Why it seems to me that..." Just then a sparrow gave whistle as it graced in an arc over our heads , its song seemed a liberation of his thought. Then its shadow flicked, the talons of the hawk clutched a sparrow's breast and throat. The song lost in the blood and appetites of a tearing beak. The brother looked upon me and remained wordless. Humbled by this greater truth, I could only reply "Brother, the greater crime in thinking is to look upon life without the frame of death. Yet the greatest crime is to dwell upon life only under the shadow of death. That is to say 'What is to be done must best be done today. For today may set its last for some but neither is it good to waver today on the hope that tomorrow will never come."

"Ah my brother, tall in my shadow, withhold the dew I see well in your eyes' continued the boy to the Beggar. 'Joy should be our exchange not melancholies. Those concerts we sing only for men deafened with coinish rattles. Away with you, sir; to your voyage treasured mysterious in only your eyes. I love our scandal yet I must ply my bread. Your stance denies the plea of my cup to any passerby for one cries no pity amongst friendship.

But if your meander within yourself allows, pray, return to our idle's worships of life. Words are precious when of polished thought and a true crumb swells more fruitful than any basket of false miracles ground from a soul's terror; the grains of a beginner's hope.

Yet look not for a burdened lad such as this, for I shall be of then liberated from this tottering on one sole!

Beggar: (almost as a whisper) And how is that to pass, Little wings of my brother?

Boy: Ah, the disease of a man is not a disease of his centre. For thrice it has sought my soul, thrice defeated though the battlefield scarred and gnawed to half.But as the old man witch gave predict a large heart needs a worthy adversary; so this green viper swallows again. The fourth limb to be the altar of a godly conflict; angel vs. demon and where is the judgement to scorn who is who?

Yea but if I win and succeed as I must (for who gives alms to dust), then freedom rallies this withered lean. For then I shall be king as I must ride in litter through the streets as majestic as any procession. Borne by a sturdy man, paid to wear the hooves of a cripple's ass, I shall greet any folks with a smile for a gawk. My head ,now nobly borne, no longer the peer for trip or crack but eyes given now to original purpose: the measure of another's. Aw, sing miraculous, warbles the little boys amass in my follow: 'behold what was a short stone's throw of yesterday's now flies above ever our crowns! Ah, brother, you know I mock but truly is it such a care to be finally carried after such a long time of stumble?

But truly now, can you not see the balance gods give so naturally to pay the value of this new uplift of stance? Come now, brother, guess, what is it?

The boy remained waiting, a tremendous grin on his face.

Beggar: Ah, perhaps: Look under a man's feet for the name of his mountain; if you see no feet call his mountain: cloud.

Boy: Nicely put, brother, but rather a sad cast. No. The balance is: I must now spend coinage on a carrier but the coin is not missed at the bread stall for there is now less of me to feed!

At this, the boy gave off such a good heart of laughter, that the Beggar was seduced to join. Hands to shoulders were shook, goodbyes and returns promised, all amongst this hilarity and roar, so contagious a dog barked close by and two merchants glanced up.

The Beggar left the boy, both still snorting and ribs all a delightful a pain. Still smiling at the first corner, he turned, waved an open palm in answer to the raise of a crutch.

Then his eyes rolled to a new path, the first stepped into shadows driven beyond a crippled boy's vision. The Beggar tore the grin from his face as he stumbled along and wept in the creeping distance of twelve streets.

This brought the Beggar's young son upon the wall's edge at entrance yawing to the south; called the Gate of Moon's Laughter named so for the hyenas chained cental to the night's impasse.

For the iron teeth of the gap dropped shut when twilight rose, so that the beasts and beast-like men of deserts skulk and black's peril could not ravage inside the wall's shadows.

The daily guards would release from their pens, the manacled snarls still wild though known to the bowl of men since pups. Their meal the grieving flesh of any bones attempting to slip the barred boundaries between the iron ring of fence and the walled mortar.

Not just the slick of treachery that was gorged in this pitfall. Errant children have slipped into these foul doggish breaths. Once a blind man who could not see the sight of his torture tearing shreds of his old wrinkled meat.

In the first of light, the hyenas were winched to their dark caves molded from the wall. As other beings left other caves molded against the walls. The same borrow of teeth amongst different species. As if the gods flung only one jaw to an earth of many mouths.

The hyenas were winched with the chains dragged back in by a hole in the rear, since no man, nay, not even one so understanding as the guards who delighted the dying screams of criminals sent through the gate for music.

Not even these two legged kin could calm by boot or whip their less obedient brothers. Only the chain would hold this thing; fear was not enough. Into the caves they went, low and dark as a night is high and thick.

That passerby , merchanted on mule or camel, would roll an eye to these dim orifices, quiet in their ordeal of a sun's passing. But, lo, any urchin hand which might fancy indulge that a cool bottled wine or tucked lunch may wish liberation from its darkness.

Fortunately, the caves tale was well told to wise starts and nodding ears. Where it was not, a child and his stump had a story again of his foolish ends.

Near the Gate offering a different refreshment, were a number of stalls gathered with leantos that offered those full of a flat fare of sand a first taste of civilization. Cooled drinks rich in sugar served in tall clay cups , or at lesser cost was a tepid thin tea pooled in a wood bowl sloped the oval of a ladle, the handle torn from its lip.

Food too, the tastes not to exclude the finest crunch of sweetened goat's eyes down to boiled dog meat laden in flour not untasted by the very worms that were denied a dog's carcass for better feast. Had the dog ate of the goat which strayed to a wheat patch fertilized by the pause of the traveller, than the completeness of appetite truly seems of one tooth borne around each neck as a treasured pennant.

So the travellers and the travellers' servants and the travellers' herdsmen but not the travellers' slaves could all find a place to lay their cracked lips; dusting the corners of a baked mind; lay their lips upon moistened vessels and the hopeful beginnings of fresh trade and renewals of old pleasures.

Hollow stomachs, though not empty, yet unsatisfied to the taste of anything but gruel baked flat over dung or the cuttings of camel dead to any further whip and thus fit to nourish with its stringy sand tough hind what it once bore into the dust of a sur's wind.

These stomachs yearned the juiced pulp of fruit borne by other men, other ways just as they sold the dried dates, the rice those men craved as succulent, fluff brown cakes oozed in drips of honeyed layers.

Food and drink gather the travellers' scent; unwing the hawk to descend; join the tiger and gazelle in terrible embrace; bring the boar to a crocodile's grin; keep the oak rooted; hold the palm a welcome vision to all eyes.

Yet not just the travel over dust and danger that yields this gather but also the travel through regions more trailed, perhaps but equal in danger or at least uncharted. For is not always a wine bottle the candle illuminating the hunched forward of conspirators? And less evil but by no sound less whispered do not lovers linger to long stretched sup? Where does the scatters of family daily gather? Where in midday does toil stretch neighbourly basking in shadows hidden from the harsh master's sun? Eh, even to a dog who dines to the fingertips of an old man's generosity, even this, loyalty curled the knee of pleasant absorption, has a greater union in bread of passing scenes.

Who has not probed the hungered stranger into dew eyed brother by the tear of a loaf? Who has not seduced the ripened fig by the dance of a wet grape to her tongue's tip? Is there no purer cup than that which bears spiced wine for theinformed, who can neither beg nor thank so lost is their unwordly eyes to their body dwells?

So much of a man is his mouth then; so much prattles in round, round, the clucks of his tongue. The comings and goings of a flesh only of barely a frog's weight, hold the man and mold the states of civilized destinations.

That it will be said "Eat, then let us talk" or "Let us finish this talk and then eat" or even "Let us continue the talk while we eat." Ah, the dart's antenna of the insect, this tongue must give all address to so many concerns.

Called the instrument of evil, tis solely unfair, as it feeds the man and serves a mind's explore in the regimes vast of discard and discord. Both evil and good, call the tongue: the instrument of man.

Converse and consume are communal fare. A brother desires speak another, yet must witness his of hunger the while. Why? Perchance the inflow of earthal need denotes a man not the treacherous outward disguises of a god. The foods tells the discussion, remains man to man; not judge before prisoner. Perhaps, a watchful man knows the sated sin less and thus he is less to a depleted appetite. Reassurance lies in busy hands, not idle, ignoring deep suppress to gather from their unoccupation and strangle across tables. No, with food, with cup, the hands have little time to remember more distant urges than neighbourly fires.

Ancient laws forbid a death by the hand of the giver; what is laid to the altar of the tongue must not blasphemous and silence its glory with the laying on of treacherous hands. So sacred then this bond which raises a man's tongue above the bray of hard horn or the silent lap of a cur at a bloodied dog. That dog wilds upon dog in the feast or that cow rejoices the fall of its fellow is not always the whisper of men.

The tongue of men is both beastly and godly. To the fare and fair, the beasts eye equal and thus peace lounges, corner to corner. To the talk, the gods converse the ideals of existence, of question, their song of winds plays the storms not idle; there is no building of black clouds: eye to eye, the bolts remain in other hands; the lightening bolt finds no spark amongst this moist laden air, there is no drying salt of incrimination that breathes from divine tongues never swollen with need or drunk in tears. For a man can trust another man not to lie but can he a god?

It is right that the tongue of man speaks for both worlds; for its roots web from both.

Three brothers had gathered to a table at a smaller serving place but not one so close to the common dust as others. Their conversation was much heated, their tea cooled to limp in their disregard, the wine seeped of its coolness in the hang of a stifled air. Here one watched, as the Beggar did and learned of a tongue's act. For at some heated flare, when words bit into the air and a stabbing finger may turn to a belted steel, the tongue of the agreements would demand the tea, the wine sip. The argument cool, the fingers curve a cup not a hilt, the tongue in this obscure need of thirst; bringing again and again a god's wrath to a peaceful lull of brotherhood.

Again, again, the Beggar heard and saw each brother's tongue excite than soothe.

Delicately, the Beggar overheard enough to know the seeds of argument were well placed in these three. For of the three brothers, one ground the axe of an Executioner, another the probe and dissect of a Doctor, the third brother wits and weaves of a Lawyer's robes. Would that one asked these brothers if it be night or day, one would hear disagreement let alone the subject they had laid on the table with the fruit of indecision lodged throat wise in edge.

The subject dropped into the street was to the Beggar's appetite. For the words 'death; god; laws; obey; mercy; father' had his ear's nostril in swell. As if even the poorest or richest of philosophers must hunt. The uncontrolled sprint of a dog before a rabbit's start. The master barks but nature is longer legged.

Forward goes the Beggar defeated at everything but his sense of defeat. His humanity not yet barricaded at that injustice of self-betrayal. When a man loses the name for himself: Man.

Inward to the dealer of drink the Beggar goes and secures a drink of water in the manner of which all water is demanded in these places from these peoples: he begs for it.

Thirst is not always known or understood by the eyes squinting at intruders, the wealth of the bargain to come must be of plain tell to the gold orbed ears.

The Beggar sits to a table adjacent the quarrel of three brothers. The merchant, his floor wiping stalled a third time, is not at all pleased to have Beggars gather both water and shade from his stall, his hospitalities.

As if too much of the lower street will not only sip dry the barrel of his wash swillings but drag the sun itself into the cool surrounds, its glare transfixed in pursuit.

He stands to demand a beggar exit but something of the look, of the darkened swirl that pools in this vermin's eyes checks his damp clutch from gathering the beggar's attire in a tight ball around his throat. His arm outstretched, his body leaned, his mouth frozen calm in this hesitation of act.

In the frozen moment, the Beggar warms to this human gesture, albeit unsure in its motive and simply states "Twice, the kindness, makes double the debt and the giver more giant amongst men. Yes, good Man, I would like a second drench of this rain sweetened by your honeyed nature. And I beg more; that you idle while I worship those gods of labour which demand your daily kneel. For is not water such a marvel in its flow: a trickle joining dust and man and god; that the cup hard of clay is filled with the dew of its birth evaporated; in circle first filtered through the god's breath? "

With that his cup was placed in an astonished hand and the Beggar took upon his own kneel the burdens of a barter's will.

And so doing the Beggar inched in lazy circlets towards the brothers.

The brothers indeed had caught the fill of the merchant beggar exchange. The Doctor spoke in the direction of the lower pace: "Fellow, your words sound rather wide leaping form such a thin throat! Are you by change a learned man in disguise; your rags a mask from which to peek for uncommon folk or prey the nature of unknown things?"

To this the Beggar answered, all the while, swilling his work, "Sir, no disrespect this rag caught to a rag would wave onto any great men who unravel the full lengths of ancient scrolls but does it not seem that for a few learned who travel about disguised as ignorant there are many more ignorant who strut about disguised as learned? Which fronts more unseeingly: those who do not talk as they seem or those whose seams begin fail as they attempt stretch a true nature?"

The Doctor looked a trifle displaced while the Executioner roared with laughter shouting "There, brother, your ego has been bled of its irritating swell and I wager his fee staggers less in crumbs than yours of gold" At that, the brother of the gallows choked off into shaking tears, knitting the doctor's scowl an even tighter black.

The lawyer spoke up, his eye set down upon the Beggar who kept methodical to his duty's press, "Such is the case then, to gather evidence and cast a verdict, though the cast may well resemble unnumbered dice spilling from cups. If we disguise the learned and yet fools learn another disguise can any differ so long as all learn well?

For of both, did not one thing begin as something and end as another. The prosecution will condemn: Appearances are deceiving. Ah but the defence rests that appearance is convincing, for seeing halos is believing.

Divide the line 'tween a convincing deception and such deceitful convictions! Who can?! Does it not seem then that masks are playfully carved everywhere? All hide a little of what they are; many wear the foretold of what they'll be. Till there is no one mask or one mask inside out but rather pieces of cover glued ruddily about; a patchwork of clay disguise. It would be a grotesque view were it not so of familiar. Familiar in its similar; come look in a mirror or a market stall, or whatever.

The defence rests: Any man who comes disguised amongst all men disguised is not false, for look upon those who trial his incident: The defence cares less, the prosecution has sympathy, the judge has little judgement except in the nature of his next lunch. The jury if peer is false, if not is unworthy and last the executioner prefers his garden of flowers. Even the mob jeers their own man, still in his disguise of condemned. Why sentence when we cannot hang what we cannot see? Why declare innocent of what is no doubt guilty of all else?

This fruit our fingers drum on the skin like buyers checking the spoil. Alas, we can go no deeper so what's the wear? Fingers gone numb upon men's skulls and oh what a thunderous din civilized beatings are.

Enough, Doctorate brother! Must we seek the truth in yonder slouch of scoundrel as if a boil between his skins? And what of any truth itched upon us? If none are the gather of themselves, we are at least well at herd in our folds."

To this the executioner waggled: "Oh brother, you are indeed a great bleat among lulls and tumbled meadows. Such delight but tell: is it a great oracle you stream from your pinnacle or just a single thought echoing everlasting in the cavern dangling between sheepish lobes?"

The brother again roared; this time spewing a gulp of wine round the table. "Brother, brother, hulk as you are, your tongue swings as your blunt axe and makes mash of a delicate task whether a stretched neck or a stretched phrase! I beseech, detest, we are as already drenched in the splatterings of your wit!" fired back the lawyer, brushing at his cloths in demeanour.

To these volleys the Doctor finally offered a diagnosis: "Hey you untownsy folk of lick and spittle! Is this both your first day unburrowed from the desert. One a snappy bulk of a great droop-eyed lizard, all a lumber in his brains. The other attacks his thickened neck in a blind of harmless dart, were it but some deserted flower uprooted, some bright coloured winged buzz, a confused little crawl who mistakes the unfold of his reddish appends for a sunrise and the whirl of his verbs for a rapture of cool winds."

As both brothers leaned into the close to sally a worthy unrestraint, the Doctor flung his hands in a open palm resolve of plea: No, no, seek my ears some other time for the deserts of a drumming, for now the task is for more delicate and in haste."

As the executioner resumed his slump, the lawyer piqued "But round round we've cranked the screw, we cannot squeeze darkness into light. The question is not flesh but pit, the rock of Law, and thereby remains unanswerable in all but to the No."

The executioner rose into his cup, its dimensions unseen in the border of his huge encircle of hands.

"The answer stays a blind no to three but can there be another who can slaughter another door with a new eye to the hidden crack."

The Doctor laughed. "Brother, what team better to plow the furrow of how and the death of a man but we? Furious and bold have you dragged the steel; delicate our brother steered; pierce as a morning bird in dew, my eyes have starred the upturned. No avail, no seed for us to reap into any bread worth rising for our honest swallow."

The Beggar, having dribbled and scrubbed till almost under foot, rose upon his knees so that his neck came to the height of the table and spoke: "Forgive the intrude of a stranger amongst brothers but might I quote an old proverb that goes as such: 'Though a law finds minute truth upon the heaviest of scroll, the healer, his mole upon a mountain, the hangman threads the single fray at the thickest of rope still none have the beggar's eye for crumbs dainty upon the earth's crust.'"

The lawyer retorted "What? Pray, what can the rag polish that the silk not shine? Is the cypress grove now to bend in the ominous wave of weedy prattle? Take no offence, Beggar but I mean that all journeys are a day's toil to the horizon of first awake regardless of the motion of the beast. Yet equal toil shall not reap equal distance; the ant knows its rest in yards; the hawk slumbers after miles. The answers to one species are as hard to scurry as another's, even though perhaps the worth is the same as is the compare of a twig spanning an ant's river is everyman's bridge.

But no delude, here, beggar, not every man has the nimblest toes for twigs; those without a monkey's grin must lay planks for the greater weight of their stridings. For great things cross in great thunderous bounds."

Beggar: My greater learned, with the respect as high as I am humble, I did not mean that a mole is burdened with the solitary eye of some eagle, for there would be a doubling of despair. No, twas more as the old parable of three of the wisest, noblest kings who pathed together for some diviner purpose. On their wander, their oxen cart had its wheel journey in its own unique direction, the pin holding the hub having parted with the company but where to heaven or earth this pin?

The towering stature; the far away gaze; any of the three could lift the burden a level forward in all human design; the wheel be recoupled by the support of shoulders bulge and bronze in great tasks but the pin what prey is such effort ungainly without the pin? In the mud the huge gropings have only trampled upon the little signs; battered the puzzled piece deeper deeper in its voyage of mire.

All was lost as it was lost but for a blind slave boy. His delicacy of touch toed his path and thus made better an insights than kingly vision or pairs of servant hands.

Into the mud slithered this heel of a little brown snake, its tongue a toe tasting for the prey. The pin found, the fix complete, the kings travel on. Agreed the boy could neither plan the way, buy the cart or hold it up, yet his place was indeed unique and beyond the pluck of greater hands or eyes or minds.

Such was my offer, that you of great are greatly made, a marvel of construct, a colossus of intellect but by chance the solitarily pin lies in mud and needs small eyes and a finger dart to pluck it out!Thus, if you like, one puny boy does not hunt for a lion but he finds the thorn which impedes the greater chase.

To this Doctor grunts and gave an answer: "Very well, then, fellow, elevate thyself to a chair and heed this. We three brothers have a father, who is not only now alone in this world for own mother died ten years ago but now he suffers a most painful affliction. This disease will bring his death and welcome release but not for six lunar turns more at least. Now he would hasten that death but his affliction has castrated his strength, though not his will. He must in fact be assisted in all things. There is that which he demands assistance in which we cannot or have not as yet complied: his earlier death. He demands we secure poison for his drink to rid himself quicker of his body weighted in endless suffrage upon his soul.

As his sons terrible is our grieve to witness such a father's agony but hopeless are our hands to expel this demon since the law forbids such mercy. A law designed as my brother, the lawyer of us, has explained to keep the some cunning hands of greed away from any relative plenty. For lust may find more suffering in its denial than the pain of the sickly rich, yet would not a death cure both sufferings? Hence the law stands firm and calls mercy as murder.

My brothers and I, a doctor, a lawyer, an executioner have argued a day into a noon and then onward to dawn as resigned as before. The law holds the door closed. The executioner cannot act without decree; the law allows a healer no withdrawal of skill or cut to a letting of life; the lawyer cannot sentence only plea

. What were we to do but leave and have an old man writhe at our impotence, him to die cursing his fruit, his seed for what he claims have more of love of the law then himself.

But truly it is our conscience, for none believe the law grossly misguide. For as there is the odd time reason enough to kill one man, it is believed better to keep intact a law forbidding murder as without the law, would not many kill for little reason? To save many of good, a few evil may life. So too with the mercy killings. A few may suffer terrible but many will live who suffered little but for the thirst of evil around them.

The law is a wheel and all men conform to its trueness, its uniformity by remaining exact as spokes in the wheel; thus each man is governed by the wheel and the wheel remains sound by the contributions of each man. There can be no exceptions in shorter or longer spokes. To begin to allow such is to begin allow the disintegration of the law, the wobble of civilization.

So Beggar, with your delicate tiny teeth you so amply have described can you nibble through this granite door we have leaned at in no sway of opening? Can you pluck the pin so mysteriously withheld that such as we three cannot repair our father's hopeless path?

Beggar: When one looks upon the law with a passionate view such as yours and rightly so, it at times happens that the law being cold and logical will have no doing of please or even a sense more common then the loft of the law. Like a lover who looks upon the bared way of his enchanted passion's father, what can he see but denial but refusal? Is not his first thoughts to plot the dimmer ways and weaves to circumspect this ominous guardian? But should he not first have a clear look upon this father, to know what will bring a father step aside, to gladly allow the blessing."

There the executioner interrupted: "Brothers, you were right. The wind settles some long discourse with us disguised in rags? (Laughter) Beggar, play weddings at other tables, here, speak more solemn of graver things.

Beggar: By the father, friend, I mean the law. Too often that which may seem impassive gives passage; that which seems absolute is only of solid crust; a hollow egg awaiting the right drum of wing at its ivory skin. Men look at the mountain and peer for a channel's way; a creep then along at a snail's reach across wrinkles; they think not to thunder "is this mountain!?!!" Or like a puff adder, has a little thing, a mole's pilgrimage, a gnat's decree, been filled with the fetid air from trembling men and swelled a little thing to law? As with the state of a man's conscience, one must prick it for the test. This stab at a law's worth will tell a solid barricade against untruth or a single signpost where hang, where stretch, this illusion to false any approach. What I mean, sirs, is that a good law has no exceptions; it embraces full and fair the wide road of various human dwell and passage. Here a beggar's dog; a rich man's caravan bill the same toll; for payment is just to the road travelled and the roads denied. The good law looks not only upon when a man goes but upon where he could not go; it allows mercy but no exceptions. The bad law allows no mercy but is a road too thin to know the trespass of the way. And many are the way in this world.

So let us poke at a law as old men breath warm ashes with twists of sticks; seeking the final ember; stirring a recurrence of flames.

At the good law, intent is judged with act; on the narrow road, act is condemned unknown by intent and so unmercifully in that bad intent slips through in similar acts veiled as honeyed purpose or rich purchase.

There lies the question, sirs. When good intent meets good law shall purpose triumph or will good intent meet bad law and purpose die?

Lawyer: Hold a tongue, my friend. Have you not claimed a good law allows no exception, no skirt a pass, yet also claim a good law allows exception on good intent?

Beggar: A pardon, sir, in this confuse. The law is a thing of man and thus of man must stand both to logic of a mind and the emotion of a heart. As if to travel in a different direction is better than a rest.

For do not the wheels of a cart go round yet the cart pursues straight? The law holds fast the materials of a neighbour against theft, like the iron grip of a blind guardian. But say thy house at next door is set fire, the ladder coveted to release a trapped wife. The article is taken and in the tumble of confusion lost later amongst embers and forgotten. Later accusations outcry from a neighbour to the law to the general pursue. The investigation accuses you.

Will the pleas of 'burrow' or offer of 'retribution' appease the law now descending in its singular hammered stroke?Can any thief sing of 'returning' and the deed undone? Can the cost be denied with shadow and only paid when the hand stalking the fruit stall is seen? But can a law be bent, be fractured, be passed by?

Some would say let Wisdom overbear the law, let the peer call a sooty neighbour: thief, but let the judge call the desperate exempt!

But now we find not our thief on trial but the wisdom of the court; but what becomes the use of law, of trial, if in fact, when in the end, Wisdom is solely in the eye of one; wether proven guilty or not..if released by Wisdom, then the Law becomes useless.

Then if not wisdom, what hovers above this law to decorate the man in less guilty robes. The law? The law again, sirs. For does not the law forbid murder?

The man, though anguished to distraught at his wife's cries, has still in seconds split weighed law against law. Another day, to fix a shutter, would he steal this ladder? No, he would stay till a neighbourly permission. But time roars higher that he must steal to save life; had he remained not a thief, had he remained honest to his coveting; would he not then be condemned murderer?

For most men, the destiny of a wife has more sanction than a ladder bought, sold, broken, repaired; so the law of murder demands obedience of the man before the law of theft.

Lawyer: Ah, a little more clever your turn but we are on no new street. Whether we are past, through, above, we call the street a name: law and find some cart or wheel or slink about it whether the blaze of our glorious noon or under the hawk of its shadows. For if your law of murder rides rough shod over the law of theft, what verdict is rung if the man 'borrowed' the ladder to seal the shutters on his wife's escape? Now murderer instead of saviour, is he still a thief or not?

Beggar: Thus can one be called a murderous thief, or should the epitaph remain: a thieving murderer? For thou are right in your condemning, being a murderer he remains a thief but being saviour he is exempt. It must be so! Wisdom decrees it, common sense heeds it, every despairing wife demands it but it is not a law onto laws scribed well! What or whom judges all such laws piled atop laws, who is the gardener of such tangles, the needle of such thread bare heaps?

Let us call the thing a law either onto ourselves, onto our intimates or onto the society. Let us decree in the burning of scrolls (for what are scrolls but the dead of men's thoughts and as such not to be heeded by the unnerved in sane light) that the law onto ourselves is supreme, next the law onto intimates, next society's laws.

Doctor: What, now our street unbarricaded with calm's iron stance, run blood of lust, thievery and murder. The rabble unleashed and few masters to sate their glut and then as always? upon themselves they turn this law. Tis not law but unlaw! Men heed only the rule of other men, Beggar; conscience is but the whisper of another's whip.

Beggar: Ironic though there is nothing borne of men that is not birthed by man, there are as few a man trusted as men. Only when the men act as one man as in a mob do we then distrust men. For men remain a vagueness, an obscurity of multi-purpose which gives dilute to their thrust. Men are the collections of blunt spears; man is a slim dagger.

Whether in courtly minds or random judge, we deny or repent this law onto ourselves; it exists and shall exist so long as man exists. And where is men without man?

Lawyer: Beggar, for a snout to the dust, you root too much impractical. Answer this: Say thy neighbour was at his dwell when the flames illuminated the resultant theft. He, being the law onto himself only, denies our distraught husband its use. Why? Project because he envisions a burnt fire the runs of his carpentry livelihood and hence starvation. They squabble the husband kills the neighbour, though now too late; his wife has jumped and saved herself with a mere broken ankle. Unscramble this scatter of hatched release fluttering all directions now? Where has the 'law onto ourselves' stood in this frenzy?

Beggar: Ah, tis no fault of this centuries evolve in this lawyer that such creatures belong to the law as the law wavered in its purpose from the gentle nudge of guide to the bludgeon of calloused blame. Just as hand once had full fingers of extend; of reach; but is now only a fifth in its points of accusation.

Is this the function of the law solely as hawk pursues the untimely dart of the wary? Is the law carnivorous? If so, is there no danger in peeking for mercy amongst large teeth, their gaps piled with the scattered bones of its appetites. And its glut onto who, for itself, for men, for man?

With the law first solely onto a Man, what look is there for blame, for the Man is always solely righted or wronged onto himself. Being always to blame, he becomes blameless. Every second calls forth duty onto himself and that altar decrees his own law.

It matters not to each neighbour whether society judges them wrong, first they must judge themselves wrong but they must do so before the act, not after.

For in the begin of man, the law guided a man what is to be done, not what is not. For it was understood intimately that punishment was a thing of unreap or unreward not a clarion blaring amongst what was all ready shadows curled amongst shadows, like crusted worms shy of both sun and descending heel.

That was Man and the law onto self. What is men? Men are but the great herds of worms let breed and swell in the dank cast, never to even set one of a hundred cringe-a-ped feet into the sun. Amongst this fetid diggings is uproot to give the greenish decay; borne of wormy tooth upon necked slime; the law of social, of society; of men pulped into co-operation!

Where is hope trembled, much gnawed yet living, amongst all this? It dwells as the law of intimacy. Where lover, brother, friend, parents, children exist in the heart and call the soul to strive something more sacred, more sweetly scented then simple the hold of dagger upon throats; false eyes upon covet. Unto ourselves we are as gods, unto our loves we are human, unto our men we are worms.

Lawyer: Gods, then! It worsens! First tell we gave each man the robed judge and jailor's key, now we bestow an oracle's eye and wings to the infinite! And pray if the god errs who will tumble his throne?

Beggar: Again, err and the pursuit of err is maimed the foundation of law. Guilt is our worship; our eternal guest, not justice. For I ask you what if the god did right? Who dwells on these unlimits of destiny, of human? No one. No one takes the child and holds before it cupped empty hands and speaks solemn: "Here is your universe: Void, build upon it all things possible in you. Let nothing you envision, do, say, create be scarred or lessened by the hand of anyone else. Let your purity crystallize sparse into density, as cold liberates the vaporous wander of dew into clear sculpture. That what is built throughout the void, as if a web intricate, taut of single note, whatever structure whether precise minute as the bee comb or mammoth as any giant pilings, it is all a reflection, a shimmer of a mirrored soul. In return of our gift as the offer of the voice, your birth, you return for beholder, if truly believed, the creations of image in that portion to our worthiness'.

No one does this. Instead all stand before the child with cupped empty hands and say 'Spill, your dreams, assemble your living, contain your growth to these boundaries of rim and unrelenting surface; that behold at death when the hands open and you plunge downward, the hands will give mercy and not shake the bits of remembrance in all this adhesive cling. For as men your dreams are not air but solid as the destinies of dung'.

Sirs, this whisper I touch leads to greater roar. The first step understood yields disarming for the journey welcomed. The first law is first not because the last man huddle elsewhere but because the first man rose in a light and declared the dawn: law.

Many ways, many times this law has been labelled and drawn, renewed and hammered. Let us use the example I of lately heard and no sooner heard than saw mirrored as well which doubles the miraculous in this world of faces laden bent double upon all groans of masks.

Proud lifts my throat to remember a humble teacher who spoke: 'Do onto others as you would have them do onto you'.

Gentlest I hope of men, if not in occupation at least in dreams of mercy, if you see nothing of this law earliest decreed, envision, dwell, study the first word of first sentence of the first law of the first man: 'Do'.

What booms of destiny thunderous should echo if ever after when this first has cleared the air as if will and fate embrace palm weld against palm! See friends the word is not: 'Don't'. The law has no decree of: Don't do onto others as you would not have done onto you!

For infinite is the night, the darkness but seldom is the dream. Ask your brother what you should not do to him and the choices gather as numerous as the fines of a rat hair and those collected as infinite as all upon the rat, then multiply again by the vast summary of rats, on, on, on. There is no end to guilt. Yet innocence has its boundary exclusive. For oddly the eyes of guilt never cease their ravenous inward yet the eyes of innocence take their journeys only upon their brother's faces.

Under the first law we do not 'do' by the flog of don't; rather we 'do' into the folds of cherished, propelled always by the absoluteness of innocence; drunk in our purpose, as like the eagle designs the very mountain as borne to measure upon his personal acceleration, the air has breath near only his wings, the sun, the wind dance at the lift of only his wing tips. For how should an eagle fly but fly! Do we say onto the bird, don't walk, don't crawl, don't fall, don't lie, don't swim, on, on, on. No! We say 'fly as you would wish others fly. Fly into the wind as you would have the wind fly into thyself'.

The limbs of 'Do' are: reach; the limb of 'Don't' is: flinch. Reach into others as you would be reached'. The first law is to touch man to be touched.

Executioner: Do reach thy point, Beggar! The first law unto discussion should be brevity, thou remain untouched by its sentence, as if an endless jerking long after the rope has swung a longer neck.

Beggar: Ha, yes, I stand condemned and further plea would only enter more proven. Innocence is no brash song but well it should be; then, the world may yet unfail to resurrect what it has all begged denial. But I too deviate for iron sceptres are not so easy a wand in the wind.

To conclude of this law: The ignoble gather from the singular noble and decree; and decree in fear of the noble. Yet the noble as singular will venture (not adventure) in the instincts closest to justice; to truth since by his stance of alone, he yields less to all but the inner voice of Man. Likened to a great bellying note of gold who will tremble; who will twin its purity more? The ear drawn to inner or those scattered about the hillside unstrong to this call; a muted huddle against this giant's delicacy?

Then each man knows intimate the law and the inner voice of man which is to 'do' and that which is done is always of involuntary justice, the knee jerk of truth. Where wisdom has come again the full circle to instinct and need not be learned but knows the migrations 'tween scent and purpose as the marsh cranes, long in a neck swivel, still having no hesitate to straighten and thrust at what begs homeward.

The neighbour of the inflamed course; he measured his act first upon himself; one must not claim he would have thieved or even killed for his wife; no the claim rather is to be made upon his virtue only as seen by the juried of his eyes only. It is no good that the crowd surrounds and hounds and heckles; the Man can only dwell within.

For how can there be sin if there is no withholding; what is shame without the hideous circlings of glare.

To say, this, my gentlemen, is to say there can be no theft if there is no possession, that stands the hierarchy of the law and curses all blame boiling as ulcers upon the blamers.

For if there is no theft where there is no possession is not the persecution of the thief only a veil only a mask of the celebration of the grasp!

Oh Gods unleashed! And demons newly of naked revelling! Down 'flowers' up and the pinnacles of justice (mock this ye!) plunge amongst squealing ruts and snouts of old pullets. The Great Laws of Cities are unwalled; of Social are unmanned. For how can one tell false if no one speaks the truth? How can one murder if none can die? How does one cheat amongst those who welcome no barter and call all exchange fair? Who would be called glutton by the full and who would be termed traitor amongst a world unloyal to loyalty itself? How many fences can keep the snake from the toad, the vulture from the weak?

This thievery tried, who begs the trial upon the Man? Is it not the clutch of the ignoble; as a shielding of utter nakedness; this disembowelling of a serpent that reveals the torn child's carcass? Possession, friends, is no burden, nay, nay, it bears light feather upon the gaping breast of foul vulture and squint eyed hawk alike!

And the thief ravaged is the persecution of not the innocent but of the avenger of the hand to the throat of these possessors so godless so unmanned they must fill the echo of their howls with things!

The neighbour who sought to save life knew the man-instinct, breathed its compassionate heat full in his belly for that instant of destiny, of fate. The other, the neighbourly ladder, possessed and therefore had laden his soul godless with the great Chain of 'I am because I have'.

LET ONE MAN JUST ONE, ONE TEAR HOLES THRU THE DIMNESS BY DECLARE: "I AM BECAUSE I AM".

and no possession will need blemish his open hands.

To punish this crime, esp in the name of God, or worse in the name of humanity or greatly more absurd in the name of society is to revel in the shameless. Against the thief it has said: "Covet not thy neighbours possessions". Yet against the neighbour it has cried "Have no gods before God".

Tell me then is not the thief liberator of the conquered, unholy possessor? And does not the thief remain holy in the discard of the theft for loftier ideals, as we said a ladder does not equal a wife?

And does not the thief do onto the neighbour, EVEN ONTO HIS NEIGHBOUR'S DEATH; what he would likewise do onto himself? For would he not willingly give his life in the flames as his neighbour gave his in the struggle? So has not this saviour discarded stagnant life for pursuit of life? That is to say the huddle does not equal the climb but must be raised to it.

The means cannot succour the ends; nor the end praise all means. They are disjointed, a puzzle greatly at odds amongst man, men, cities, gods, fates, destinies, demons, devils and the simple sparks of erupt. But has not 'intent' a core of innocence, a steel of nobility?

I do not say our distraught saviour had good intent and killed or killed unknowingly. NO. I say he killed and stole knowingly through the best, the greatest, the purist of intentions.

"Pray, tell us" implores the limpid toads crowded upon the ropes warped around this giant's untragic stance. "We may excuse your blunder greatly if you tell the open gates of your stride".

And what will be said? Will he say 'I took as you were unable to give'? As if to say thievery is not of the lift of a thing discard but that two hands must be at the task unwillingly. The one hand unwillingly to release; the other unwillingly to remain empty.

Ah, I hear the grumbles all ready of food, of shelter, of wives, of precious inheritance, of earn and keep, on, on, on to say the things we need are not to be as left to the browse of passerby but must hoard heavy in our armpits and saddle in the shadows of our wide crotch; there we hold and cower to our tiny collect!

But, Brothers, if you have a belly empty, to eat is the task. The thing, food, is naught of much glutton set a foot from a chained man; but rather must be in hand. True likewise that the sated, may lie empty handed amongst the spillage, amongst 'things'. Here again there is no 'task' only things unhandled.

When a man is hungry, he eats; wary is the thief among men with food in their hand. But where the food has the frame of discard, that is of spoils of collect who now has the task of holy rites? or righteous hold? There a thief is no thief among unhandled things for, truly, a man can only possess what is in his hands, that is his present task.

And I would declare on to you all that a thief is he who would take a man's task but he would take things from another is a saviour likewise a man murders when he denies another's task but bears guiltless as the name of healer when he strikes in its defence.

Do you not see, then? That the law unto a man is his task while the laws onto man are only of things? The second law is not a lesser evil but becomes far greater in its skirt, its cloak of this crowding from evil. Like a tainted rag thrown over a corpse, then forgotten. Great shall be the trails and tribulations of the Man who months later will uproot what 'descends' have bred within.

And yes, in their social vision, they will spring upon him, an upwinged clouded dense of anxious teeth all abuzz of justice.

Can you see it now, you Brothers, or rather hear it tolling silent in the night, the black peril that hums of desolation's condemns at whisper. The Law of Task, of Man, of solely onto ourselves comes ringing as a benediction, as a calling; it is movement; it is the vision, the collection of the eyes, whereas the law of social is the collection of the sole, of the dust ground upon but not journeyed. For the city's laws; for the men's laws are the sweeping steps in a reluctance of blind; that is the infinitely tiny circlets of caution, that gladly do not lend to any encroaching or approaching dangerous task; merely things to be bartered by an incline and decline in the tremble of tinning cups

Lawyer: Agreed then, Beggar, while the tiny eyes deplore and give verdict like wasps stirred from trees, the bear will sieve the honey and judge theft by the sweet taste!

Beggar: No, better to say the wasps curse the flower for the toil of their lives! That the flower is beauty solely and holy in a display solitaire, grand yet unsecure for its aloof is driven, uprooted by the curse of those who can only distil its nectar to some more denser sweetness.

Thus the first law, sweet, light, instinctive is weighed down in the grasp of the blind groping hands in lesser meadows.

Intent will always flourish in its strike of moments, though peril comes slinking in the condemn of those who will not or cannot judge at its height. As if weeds choke the oak for the cause of its own shadow.

So the thief takes the ladder by intent, the possessor is dead and the judges from neighbourly encroach and whimper and whisper, baring the call of their self-nobility under the leavings and bad scents of civilization. Their judgement dared, even if in the end guilt or guiltless, brings its own condemned.Upon them as well for all are possessors of ladders without a stance of good intent.

Doctor: A philosophical position of personal stature may be but this seemingly inward decree of law vs social dismay of lawlessness does naught for the old man's dilemma's. Can he be killed or not, begs he? The laws of your social say no, the law of intimate of ourselves has more doubt.

Beggar: Follow this road then, sir. Say one were to stroll upon a seclude of road. After a tightened, turn of direction, the road has been a washed to a murderous depth for cart or chariot. Fearing one might be killed, the traveller begins to travel back, to request assistance at a civil repair noted a few miles back. Now as the traveller pursues his mercy, a chariot comes into view. 'Surely' the traveller thinks 'this fast pace will result in his death. I must warn him'.

To this cause, as the chariot propels past, the traveller raises an arm as if to speak to the driver. The chariot races by to a likely death. Now, ponder, has the traveller done all to his intent and his capable attempt?

Executioner: No so. A great shout of the danger across the brow of the driver would have been better.

Beggar: And should the driver in a town's outcry of burglary and murder misjudge a saviour for slayer and persevere the more zealous a route past friend into a less agile yet deadlier foe?

Doctor: Beggar, a pause, for are we not now at the game of juried intent or have decreed over an end sure but the means in doubt. For we agree the traveller's intent is well but condemn his means where the end is not secured. If the chariot stops, the intent is won, the means pure. At what point is the chariot driver more guilty of his own ends than the traveller at fault with his means?

Beggar: A good point in its lack of point, learned friend, in its becoming pointlessness. Just as the riddle of ladders and fires, when the substance of intent becomes fainter, the hands of faces orbited its pinpoint fold into clarity. That is to say a fellow conspirator is scented, is recognized more in the shadows then in the glare of light. Whether inward ourselves, or the loss of a noble lead or the falter behind in guilted delay or feeble stride, as the height of intent sputters, guilt clings to more neighbourly capes.

The intent is to save the chariot. Can there be any other shame but the strewn shatter of failure?

Executioner: Blockades of barricades, man! What would you have the intended fool do; fling himself before frothed hooves? Offer his skull as an appealing drum to stop?

Beggar: Should he?

Lawyer: Here intent has lost its purpose; for life negates life and why should the traveller give his life against the stubborn cautious life of another, especially when intent is now ill purposed?

Beggar: But our traveller flung not his life for one of reined relent but rather impaled his life most willingly upon the standard of his own noble intent. If a man will not die to his own purpose, what purpose is there to his living?

Think also, Brothers, this traveller is not all fool but has a rudiment of calculation below his squandered scalp.

Should the driver persist at a wave, death is assured a ready feast but a traveller appearing large in his path, three turns may come about. The driver halt and none die. The driver leaves the road and surely in this delay, beg a reason why. Only in the last, that the traveller gets an unwelcomed departure from this dusty path called world, is death fed. But fed a single bite only for the driver will yet desist his trip and return all bodies to safer dwells.

What do we find then that intent is as always not less impure by the weighted toss of chance; that a wiser man can calculate his perils of path though a summit towers unmoved.

Destiny, like the mountain top, will not topple downward and rob the traveller of his ordeal. For did the mountain top ask to be embraced? Did our hole in the road ask to be uncovered, denied its feed of whirling hooves and startled shouts? Did the driver, for all we know a cruel and venomous hand amongst men, deserving a death far less merciful than a caress of grave such as this, did this driver beg a traveller save his skin unbeknown to him. No.

Who then? Who then, does sew the fabrics anew; who lays a hand to strum new tapestries across historic notes? Only the traveller's intent has the alloy to iron this moment, claim this sceptre huge, like a sword cast before wind, daring its turn of force, a force like history known more for its sweep than a mercy.

Doctor: Very well to our traveller's noble intent but it seems we are allowed judge the means only if ends are not meant but pray tell in these odds what if our traveller risks all to halt, the chariot swerves the driver killed by the saving intent?

Beggar: Is intent fulfilled, whether by saviour or killer?

Executioner: Hardly, for the driver is not saved but bartered to death!

Beggar: Where?

Doctor: At the side of the road.

Beggar: A traveller's intent lies in the saving of life or in a pitfall empty of victim, which?

Lawyer: His original turn was to obtain assistance. The occurrence of another's imperil swelled a necessity to urgent. Was not the intent then to save this chariot driver's life?

Beggar: Yes but to save it from a pit, even onto the cost of the life itself, assuming that life is gambled to chance not surety.

A stone cast hard amongst the eyes driven a dangerous route may or may not kill but will in certain redirect from pitfalls; an arrow to the heart seems a waste of feathered shaft, does it not?

Lawyer: To, I, as logical as the next man's step, it seems an absurdity that a murderer becomes saviour by only the verdict of his intent. And that verdict passed only by the end if successful, that is if the intent fails there is no murder at a roadside but worse; in your words, for if there is failure hung limp armed, remorse in the dying vision of a chariot 'safely' escaped towards its pitfalls!

Beggar: It is your words, words out of the pre-judgement of your gaze, your gaze weak, weak onto all this intent as a child who peeks through its fingers at an astonishing display! Your tongue raises the hue and cry of murder but what is murder? The killing of another human being? A sword through a breast plate, that is no murder so long as war has been lawfully declared. What of rags laboured till death, such tenacious grip amongst great profits and narrow ledges, the ramshackle ladders and ropes frayed ever in justice yet do we not say no one asks a man build his own scaffold for meagre bread. What of simple subtract; seven mouths gathered to a six morsels; and a neighbour's eye has no taste for compassion.

Ah, but the word of these deeds is not murder, nay, call them glory, call them economy, call it all a social order, a noble decree. It is no point to us what these are called, only the confession taken that they are not called murder. So murder is not just to kill. Murder is to kill without social permission. Murder is to kill without the patient hands of thy voting elders; the city councils to the hilt. Murder is to kill for no profit or worse to kill for profit with no intend to share the rewards amongst nodding jackals.

How then our traveller condemned by the city council? A guess would say: if the driver was a debtor unpayable onto the elders terrible will be the traveller's guilt; if, however, the chariot had contained precious goods of an elder commissioned and these goods not lost to the mishap, than the traveller may gain freedom, indeed, likely with licence.

From this, we judge most as poor judges. But through the eye, the heart of the traveller, does murder appear as a blurred smear is his vision, a dark pulse of red blood?

Tis not, tis instead that the traveller intended life and met death; the doors were blank upon his choosing. Call him a poor gambler, yes; call him a murderer, no.

With what then was his dice? His rights at this chance?

The First Law.

Do onto others as you would have them do onto you.

Thus the traveller kills the driver without malice; with permission of intent; and remains more noble than any toad eyes ditched in reproof, though no doubt they will feast greatly after the fact.

Doctor: To say the traveller prefers death by chance than death by absolute, this allows the traveller choose likewise upon others; that in fact his intent has of sense brought them to his guardship bound in First Law. But, Beggar, surely you must allow, must heed some judgement of the means whether ends are met or severed hand.

Beggar: Let the 'Doer' be judge. Who better to judge First Law than those who enact its edict. In the act of 'Do', the traveller bears intent, means, ends, success, failure, reward, acclaim, judge, sentence, punishment; he bears all when his arm reaches to a fallen brother. For the 'Doing', is that not what men, in their belittled grasp but yet resurgence of old instinct called love? Does love begin at need and end at attempt? Or is love like horizon, the traveller bears only his limits, not the world's.

That is, where a traveller sees need, he also sees a need to end need. He has defined it all, not the world. The world may have a greater view but not so exact. A mountain's view is wide yet sweeps clumsy; only the valley knows the sweat of large stones. And even this, a thousand ant eyes still cling as to the smallest ledge whether inched from the plain or towering look; height does not necessarily breed courage.

Who can judge then the judge? Who can execute the executioner? Who can undo the doer? Where is there a lion's mane to warm the broken lambs? Who can love, who can reap, who can gather with the eyes of the unsown, who can offer water from an empty well.

No one.

But there is this for comfort amongst the snails and shelled spines who whisper amongst a man's toenails. There is a caution, there is a great wind which carries the Word amongst lips so heady that the snails hail it: Thunder.

Let us say that men grow out of themselves into Man when the 'doing' is done, when intent is borne, when First Law unfolds its greater wings.

Let us say that here men rise to Man and clouds, their vision as yet held to anything higher but still swallowing distance in a tumult of understanding; a cascade of intimate. Oh!, Floods of Humanity! That his grand embrace could ever sustain and even multiply! But at least and to the long stretched point of all, there are then glanced to the sides likewise others, others of man, not of men, who have burst into the sun flower of compassionate act; done well upon some lost or curling shadow below.

Now one may wish to say here that love can judge loving; giant amongst giant. Man to man. But, no, not even on this mountain's hair (I say hair because the near infinity can all of way's balance on the narrowest finite and because, remain lost to reptilian comprehend, as if a fly that swaggers like a lion need fear no lizard's throaty condemn, so long as it roars without buzz) can judgement hiss or the hissers easily plunge away; a smoky cinder of star; a puff snake withers in a squirm back to a thin stalk of flesh. For when Man looks at Man in outward squint; the mirror is broken; it is not a spell lost but rather a return; when this look comes, a cloud of filth upon the horizon, he is no longer of Man but returns to men.

Why? Because simple: the 'doing' is now done. The intent slipped from grasp. In act, the Man creates and thus elevates his spirit to Man. Judgement uncreates. As if horizons collapse narrow, narrow pulled like slaves bound to a falling slab; pulled by eyes shrinking from glory known as birthed suns to charcoal bits. Tasteless spice now rendered impure in the bitter salt heaped at a mountain's heel. Again, again, this preparation in the ceaseless grind!

But again I digress, tis our concern here of the Man who acts and CANNOT be judged by any but Himself. This is proven.

We have decreed and agreed that intent raises a man to a MAN and First Law is the 'doing' which was created in this 'explosion' of Man, just as the dust swirled when the eagle unfolds its feathered blare of intentions.

If the 'act' is truth then let he himself, the Man, follow the act, his proof always in the taste of change, of movement scented, like the salt of spray delicate upon a traveller's parted lip, a dew of anticipation swaying as if a bell toils for prayers.

Let the judgement be done, not as a gazing about in hollow stones, that is to say the shells of worms departed into yesterday but rather the dog consumes its own reflection by embracing, by drinking at another's need, not seeing the other as himself truly but as the dog would be, puzzled as to why another dog has such a rapture of anticipation, as if thirst coats always in blue circlet of halo. It is movement which disturbs the balance and then sound the destiny.

Doctor: What are these dogs gnawing into the light to do with anything? Bits of reason are not the marrow, how now does our 'bolder' stance judge his own truth as movement; for a man can spin and never to topple; yet is this your righteous directions?

Beggar: In the desert's storm, the Man is astride his intent hooved as a foam eyed mare, as if both to boil forward as first steam, then the parent hot itself issues from the spout of a boiling kettle.

Where is judgement of deed; where is the gate pole high towards the sun of righteous path?

The sand whirls, whirls all around, the eyes stung, defiled in their very raped of vision. Those who ride beside in the same hot mouthed fear and desperation are each one lost onto themselves, they are of no purpose for guide; for cannot all at this tilt be about to embrace death in a canyon's mouth of jagged tooth or yawing swallow?

All of present falls away, stripped of its grasp at his rein; behind him the wind allows no prisoners of time to plead old orations or shout of new innocence; there are no pardons given onto the dead.

Blind, deaf, alone what is the veil between chaos and purpose. Inner and outer world. The skin!

The skin, as in a reinless horse twins always the warmer instinct of home.

The taut skin tensed to this call beyond unreason; it is as if a drum which throbs only to the touch of begging fingertips; need; mankind's need always known solitaire in the single plaintive voice of final fires.

Remember this: final fires!

Souls, if you will believe, burn at desperation. If you do not believe in souls, no matter, call it then the final flare of dignity. An Inward outreach as the outward crumbles; like steam of a doused fire; the heat; the burst flare of its red blood splashing in the hot mist.

This beacons upon the breast of our rampage of 'Doer'. Begs his skin like a love's caress for embrace.

To do onto others then is to not fight fires but feed them. It is no place for the giving of tears or watered compassion. No, but rather, only the oak sinewy of sacrifice will flare again this fire in chaotic gusts of suffocate.

Bend down, Man, or you good Men and embrace your father's ember. Stoop and rise up from your tiny horizon. He has need of a 'Doer' while dignity, his dignity, still rubs raw upon your declining skin. Face his fire, do not yield to gawks and squawks and the judgement of what is now the skinless hearts of men about you.

Red raw, their hearts bled through their palms, how can they know of fires from their dark places; when the very touch of neighbour gives them squealing of fear, terrorized their hearts will fall from their dangle by a single last nerve in a rib cage open to the tarnish of dust.

There is a time for father and sons. He has given you flesh; his need begs of your skin, your purpose, your intent His pale twist of hand taps upon its woven fabric, begging of real life for both father and son.

For life is not of prolonging life but of saving life. And to save life has little to do with death.
Remember our chariot driver. Our traveller. Though death may not be prevented, lives were saved. If the traveller died, his life was saved from a dwelling ever after in the remorse of men. For that is a deathless existence without life. And would not the driver, even cruel as Hades, know now this act of 'Do'; its warmer breath upon his skin? Can a heart not but pulse different?

And if our traveller lives but the driver dies; dies before the pit, is this not your father?

Death was always certain but the Intent harvested it early. But was not Intent pure; innocent of all malice by the untarnished will of First Law? Why the puzzlement? For the father asks for a more abrupt road than a gnarled long gnaw upon the ragged teeth of pain; a pit long in anguish, long in drop. Can you not then 'Do onto others as you would have them do onto you'?

For I tell you this: those who will not live by the sword will find no mercy upon the sword. That is, if the sons will not kill the father, will any spare the sons? No. Those who cannot reap have sown nothing. And will lie in the same of grovel when their pain of dust settles upon their decline.

Doctor: But, Beggar, what of this: believing the law wrong and the father's need is true, can we not 'Do' in the fierce petition of the Law to undo this taut restraint?

Beggar: Again, again, sirs, I beg you understand, beg you sip my fault of whispers deep through your pores. The pain of a father is not the pit, it is just too long a road; it is the law which yaws as a hungry toad!

And two ways to change law. As Man, to 'Do' against law is to not just oblivious to law but oblivious to men. In the outrage falling, in the forth come of persecution of men among the Man, the Man struck down but always inevitable the law will topple. For men can obey, can shoulder any burden of law ever and ever but the murder of Giants lies uneasy upon their brow. They are a little burnt to it. For of the law they look only sideways but of the Man they must look in an ache upward. Good for the world and only this is good for the world that men have not as yet drooled away all taste of Manhood; have not as yet forgotten they are indeed the source of Man; just as the most starved of bitch-dog does not devour her final pup. From man issues Man, Man the embryo giant; the worms, though fearless in the grave, squirm into shadows at his living stride. And unlike worms have a path of regret to repent. And does not the martyrdom prop the Man ever higher should men peel upon his heart's intent to give bleed of regret. Terrible in its cost true but the end, the end of law is bartered through the blood of means. The other means? To petition first amongst men? To use law to heal law? A means into its own end? It can work. Can work even bloodless. Bloodless to you. Perhaps. Not the father.

For to petition is to nibble upon law with gums of unrest. Too big a bite and a shallow throat gags while the oration of men warble their disgust, their rise too of outrage. Long, long the saliva flow, a river indeed of anticipation, till justice is served, a cue of final unresistance.

It is at the pit, the law, to do this: the traveller heeds the danger, a great gaping crater of untruth. He resolves to render harmless. One by one, diligent, in ignore of time as a multi-wing of foe, he drops into the canyon the pebbles. To fill the law and smooth the road.

The solution has no denial, though seems only one jerk of a less absurd than if the man waited for driver and mulecart to fill it.

It is to be above man in the same lead as the turtle herds the snails.

It is also to remember that our traveller has a very wide back turned to the road as he labours all so diligent to his designs. It is likely that his corpse will indeed pebble the largest of his intent; driven into a short wing of flight from the careen of his neglect behind him. Lending avails to his list of unknown deeds and epitaph.

Lawyer: Here's greater rule we've found, tossed from oracle-eyed beggars, not despotic first or the flags of old womanish councils but rather the scythes of giant healers! Those whose orbs burnt away of all companionship, all brotherhood but rather as you say, alone in their dust (A dust of their own making, I scurry) are guided only by the inflame of chests rent by some glorious of expected sunrise or bathe in boiled sulfurs! And none can know the mad unless mad too! They, you say, are as unjudgeable as I say they are unmerciful.

Gods unleash, man, that society is the tree and the ripe harvest the unripe! Are the boughs so of scatter that what is unspoiled must be plunged away by the downward drippings of those might swollen in their feast upon inner worms!

See the streets, beggar. Give each man a sword and beg no questions. This one envisions his brother's wife a burden, this one has oracle of a family drowning, this one has pity for the lame, oh mercy upon the red bathed cobbles that so many can judge and execute their inner designs.

Come, friend, lean to my dagger as my other hand presses friendly upon your back, for I would save you from a great sorrowful harvest of so many deaths, of fire, flood, murder, intrigue, god, demon, pit, climb, sickness, old age by your death now, here, amongst these wiser giants. The natural, so called, of death is too unpredict, though sure in its fall, it has a vulture's eye for time and a desert's grain of origin. But I, Giant of your destiny sure, (though mine eludes outside the perimeter of your beatless heart) offer the Supernatural death.

Yes, beggar, these will be safer more religious streets for I, as they, will always 'Do onto others as I would have them carve me' but I will 'Do' you first.

Then, agreed, it is your turn!

The brothers explode their tension into laughter, spilling around table, chairs, wine glasses and then laughing at the beggar's face. A sadder face now for his has known before that the more bitter tail of mockery always proceeds the telling turn of an ass's bite. Questions answered, if received on the flattened ears of stubborn gait, digest quickly into answers questioned in such bays of indignation.

After a subside, as the brothers wipe all tears from eyes mirthed in remains from a wine's dancing, the beggar dwells his palms before their look, to beg silence, attention.

Beggar: Heal well, brothers, for the graver the matter the more need for lightness amongst this time's swirl of approach.

But a question, upon the robes of our only small court gathered here: the lawyer, is your father dying?

Lawyer: Of course, he is. This our end to a rather gasping draw of discussion

(More light chuckles)

Beggar: Are you dying?

Lawyer: As of all men, life daily forces an approach to death but I am not dying like my father.

Beggar: And how is he dying?

Lawyer: With great pain.

Beggar: To kill him is to remove great pain. To not kill him is to prolong great pain. Men will not allow you to kill him. We have offered another more loving hand that can kill him. A Man will give his own life to remove great pain. Men will not. Tell us, lawyer, what has death to do with that?

Executioner: But it is his death! Our father's death! What of our pain in his death?

Beggar: Death is a door in life's room. We depart through death. But death breeds no shadow upon what dwells in this room. Not even upon those who huddle, whisper, cringe from the door; it is only their trembling of lids that is the trickery of a winged death shadowy upon their soul. And lash for lash the strike of guilt or sin or remorse. Because they will not see or hear or rise.

Do not hate death for its end of life but rather beg forgiveness of death for the horrors, unmercies, terror your have laid wrongly upon its gentle sill.

If you do not believe me, ask the father. Ask him of death, of death of a father, of a law, of his son's fear.

What do you fear from a father's death? If you kill the father and the law of fathers, you will have his sons to embrace and their sons. And the First Law of Sons.

If you will not kill the father you remain as the father. In a tortured place between life and death. The father yearns the rend of a fighting cocoon that his metamorphosis may unfold. Who are we as worms, as the pace of inches to judge or condemn his spectacle of flight?

For to hesitate upon the hilt, upon the poison cup, is to judge and to condemn father, sons, sons of sons and even the law itself to a writhing state of perpetual darkness. Here we have chosen body and murdered spirit!

It is as if handless men fumble to mortar the crumbling walls at the Temple of The Falling Sword! Turn away from this evil task ; let it crumble, that you may truly rest upon the ponder of your heart's cripple and in time regrow the finger's of a brother's caress; a child's reach, a Son's grip upon Life.

But if you cannot or will not or shall not because your hands have been left offered in the Urn of Reluctance, your eyes come rolling behind you in the dust like blind toads, your ears do not open to the wind but are folded grotesque in the closed scar of all brands of truth, your legs toppled upon the twin hooves of the Herd, your will: the will of rats peeking, judgement you let roam as the fly flights from scents of carrion, frenzied for a burrow to lay down its tiny maggot of Righteousness, your mind a lizard tailless in its ever circle of consume in the fever of your glaring skull-bowl, your spirits, oh ye Sons of a Reaching Father, what are they?

What are they but pulped, bloodied things now pale to a pink of transparent so bled they are trailed behind by a strand of eternal homage; suffrage. An umbilical cord of religious worship. But do not confuse which of the twins is After Birth and which is the All Birth of the Son.Trailed through the wastelands of indecent Ruins.

Do not confuse which is the empty cup and which lies the stain of wanton spillage, of careless neglect. For if you revere these bodies of the law, go onto the desert thirst; offer to a man there a choice of empty cup and water thrown to the sand. You will have no doubt as to his thought of Treasure; just look upon the salt-like stain of his lips, the granular feast as he sucks upon the soul caked in dust.

But do not blink at the son of me, go upon thy Father with cups echoing of unharvest. Offer to him the 'justice' of bodied law; I tell you he would beg the spittle from your venomous throats, a drink sure to close his eyes final from such foulness cleaved from his own spirit's flesh.

At this the Beggar abruptly stopped and openly wept to the faces of three brothers. For he saw that in their faces, in their eyes, a tearing and convulsing, an ancient struggle so timeless in renewal as each new Man was birthed in such tiny cradles. That where Light and a Dignity of strong gentle Hand struggled so hugely, oh God, oh God, so titanic, so multitude was the breed of dark Things which scurried and laid a putrid mountain upon even a twitching of Remembrance. As if foul huge warts grew ravenous upon all living flesh, any movement simply birthed a renewal of suffocating quivers, the dark fester of columns reviling upon any sole inner voice that dared whisper for hope; an avalanche of reprisal.

He remembered before, so many times, how his own father's words would yield upon men's faces such tortures such inward hate.How the Beggar, even too some of the disciples, would flee their eyes from such a reminder howling of a world so strangely passionate than this physical slumber most believed as complete in its near frozen hold. How his father oblivious to all, so overzealed was his Will to conquer this Swarm, would foam his eyes, words sweeping unintelligible to the masses yet profoundly cutting to each single heart, his hands would pluck to some mad driven brain and cast out completely, utterly all Things of foul, of weight of decay.

For minutes, in the other worldly descent of peace surrounding such a Man removed of all corruption, all sin, all that is not a Man, a circle would form as if all others would recognize this not to be now of men but more, much more.

Minutes in a holy state, his father's eyes, the Man's eyes communicating in a Song of Language which remained as oblivious to the world as the hushed awe was oblivious to them.

He had asked his father what was spoken at those times. (for none of the disciples seemed to dare speak of it; except a couple perhaps later). His father had replied: "To remain of Faith, my little joy. I begged him remember, for if he could remember, retain as little as a seed, his Faith would dwarf the mountains gathering already at his stride."

Whether they remembered or not, he did not know. But in minutes, the Legions sprung again, their numbers bred from the urns and vessels surround; into the Lighted Man they sprung. And he was quickly lost. His face losing light as if a lamp sputtering, receding away without distance.

And the grief of his father pale, as he watched, would drive even a small Beggar's heart curling, weeping into a small dark cavern so far down himself. It would be hours, till nightfall, then finally, curled to his father's comfort and kiss; there he could let his tears sing long into such a night given onto mankind. He always felt that though his father did not speak, he was grateful to let a child weep for both of them, the Father and the son.

But he was not his father and could not 'pluck' a Man from amongst men. He could not save Man amongst men, the best he could offer was to be their Hands if they would only will so.

His damp palms settled to the table, as if they bore an imprint of a different face he wished kept turned from the world. His eyes gathered up the expressions of the brothers. The Legions slumbered, Light lay deep away, the reason and sanity of the everyday had surfaced and played slightly aghast to envision a brief passing of such pools of madness swimming eye to eye about the common table; a table only of moments ago had seemed a tilting, swirling. Plain where made the Ware of Destitution, of Manless victories. Having no faith in where they had been, they forgot their madness, only remembered the Beggar's. A Brotherhood of fear of revulsion, as if the dismembered shudder and point with bloody stubs at the disembowelled. Where the talk is not of the Lost but who has lost more than what an average of men then decrees decent.

Beggar: "Brothers, forgive me. My tongue has a serpent's look when I do not grasps it well above the tail. I make no strike amongst your souls. I am a man of nothing, carry nothing, own nothing. Therefore, I can offer nothing and in offering nothing, nothing will be repaid, or judged. For me the law is nothing, as I am nothing to the law.

You have not idle hands but restrained hands, this I see and make no judgement. They are bound to something.

But I bound to nothing. So if you must go to the Father and do nothing, then do nothing through me. Take me to your Father and with my heart, my will, my hands, together, all, his will shall be done. Yet nothing will be done by you but through my name.

Then you will be both clear of conscience for both law and First Law. For by the law you did nothing but by First Law something was done. Both the body and the spirit of father and sons is replete through the uphold of nothing in my hands.

Executioner: Are we to take you, Beggar, to our father that you may kill him?

Beggar: If that is the father's will, yes.

Doctor: But what of the law and us, correct me, Brother of the law if err is spoken but whether we bring a poisoned knife, a poisoned cup or a poisoned beggar to the father, will we not still be gathered as accomplice by the Law?

Lawyer: Most certainly, justice begs follow the means from end to end.

Beggar: Not quite true, sir. For the milkmaid of the goats that raised the baby goat, whose skin made a sheath whose knife was sold in the city, whose buyer stabbed his friend, she is not guilty of the cut, is she?

Lawyer: No, no, of course not. The goat skin could have made a thousand things or even a thousand sheaths none of which gave harbour a villain's knife.

Beggar: But, nonetheless, it was her act which remains part of the means.

Lawyer: But any act but hers would remain the same purpose. The random select absolves her guilt. Only when the act is directed to a certain end does guilt arise.

Beggar: Intent

Lawyer: Yes, yes, yes, what of it?

Beggar: Take me to your father. That is your intent. His intent will be whether I kill him or not, that is of nothing now to you, is it not?

Lawyer: No so simple, if his will is to not be killed, we are absolved; if it is to be killed, we become guilty. In the same way, if we placed him at a wall's edge, if he jumps, then we are guilty; not the wall.

Beggar: Lost, lost brothers. You can neither do your father's will by the ends, the means, the way, through nothing or something. To be so ungentle with hands held from a father's reach. And in not choosing, you have chosen. In the ungather you reap a more bitter harvest, that of your soul's famine. Yet what is asked of you is nothing. But, alas, through Nothing would be found Everything. Lost to those who clutch amongst Something.

Doctor: What means all this nothing, everything?

Beggar: Call the closed door: Something. Open it, and step through Nothing to the dwell of Everything. Yet the name of the latch I do not know. In that, a failure to fathers binds I as a brother too. I can only call the latch: Word. And in that I know only a little of Something; the weight of so little crushes my reach to a palmless hand; it slips away, Brothers, the Word always passes beyond. Through Nothing in my very soul.

Lawyer, with a confident lean back of his chair, (that slouch that radiates of a vulture's patient reward): Then this empty thing, with this then you too gawk Wordless stand to the father's question of Pain?

The Beggar answered in a voice like a foot scraped across long blown sand: Wordless, yes. As soundless a thing as a trembling hand where hope has seen the end of its day; As still as eyes which bear the repeat of walls, the eternal Thou shalt not of men, day upon ever spill of day; As nameless as the sons' names who cannot lie grateful upon wretched lips. As Wordless as the Father's reward in his late delayed departure from a grief bottomless but for the swim of his own and unspoken forgiveness.

"FORGIVENESS, HA! WHAT'S TO FORGIVE?" This booming from a crag of a long beard of mouth which came birthed in a mountain swell of a man, his bull frame swallowing the light of the tavern's door. Draped from shoulder to knee, in a wind polished wrap of animal skin; old camel or old goat. Hands well able to seize any point whether by throat or the gnarled trunk of a staff he used to speed brute or man in a path of his opinion. And the thick brown legs and feet to propel a similar will. Cast of the shadow huge at it was, the only two things small of this visitation were the brown black darts of vision incessantly flicking in motion just shy of a mad rolling mind and his love of hypocrisy damned in shallow skulls. Perhaps the immense tail ponied along his worldly back gave a sense of a taste for reckless thinking.

The Beggar turned, looked, lighted his eye and said "Friend, come join this gather of understanding attempt but take upon thy wondrous wind the salt of a little delicacy for these brothers are as much in a soul search of a grave matter."

Two strides and the stranger loomed at the table and in a somewhat lesser bellow (though the wine yet trembled in the brothers' hands so much their limbs noticed of his wind): Oh, a windy matter tis this. Yes. And tis good for a soul to search of graves. Tell me, Ragman and I mean no offence for I be a Herdsman, borne to an udder sweet of my nature, lived to follow the Dance of the Dung Gatherer and no doubt die to sprout a bush scrag where the jackals rest a hindquarter and mark a freedom no envious of this fool's point of toe; but tell me have these gathers of noble stewed upon a painful request and asked you nibble its aged curd as well?

Lawyer: Beast, gather thy flock of bleating wits and go thy wilt in the sun. For this is the dwelling of manly discussion not a field for the romp and snort of wide nostrils, dumb to all but the whiff of cow's droppings.

Lucky for the tavern owner here that a fierce blood rise, heated to iron's temper, did not blaze the curl beard of the mountain for surely then it would be exclaimed miraculous that the sun had arose dual in a day, once over a roof and once below it.

As it was, the trunk of staff shook a little in the new season, the eyes darkened in the shade, the shadow hovered a little closer to full descend. And despite the new heat, the doctor felt a decided chill and leaned away towards a more cosy corner.

The Beggar with a friendly hand in good reach upon the mountain's shoulder: "Ease upon thy storm, Titan friend, for thunder clapped upon tiny ears, is but a storm's waste of a far reach of note. Work thy wondrous hands for uplift rather than the creation of more dust in a world much dry of mercy's rain.

Instantly the giant herder's face swam in a long toothed grin: "Ho, Brothers Three! Has your match been met in this bundled cricket who sings even in the throat of weather black from a vulture's prodding! Has he wrenched a long ache of ghosts from your six-handed guilt? "And with a far raise of his staff, high enough to scatter cloud debris from the trembled ceilings "HALLILUYAH TO THE TEN UDDERED GOAT-GOD OF THE ONE-LEGGED SHEPHERD, the fathers can rest; their ash unstirred by whispers of failings from the puckered lips of sons and asses!"

Upon this the Executioner rose in the topple of a chair, his arms as rigid as scaffold "Beware, fool, thy tongue has too much filth to speak of.."

The Beggar interjected "Ease, my men, ease. For if any tongue or lip has failed a day it is mine."

Turning to the giant he said "With grief friend I reply that I have not resolved any good service upon the great dilemma these brothers bear so heart and heavy. And with only light reproach, for how heavy handed can be a torn rag, I implore you unmock their wearing wring of hands in a father's will of dying torment."

At this the Herdsman turned full to the Beggar's face and in a rain of spittled syllable: 'MOCK THE DYING IS IT?! HAH! I HAVE THE DOUBTS OF A MULE AT A BROKEN BRIDGE that their father's torment will ever find a death end. And this too, weaver of rag bits, more's the grief and weep this beast bears burden when I recall their father's agony till death while these shift of scaly eyes have wandered, cross and recross, the path finished by fate two years ago.

Beggar with a hand to the giant and a flinch at the Brothers: "You mean the father has been dead two years already?"

Giant: Yes, a slight detail these dogs leave in their teeth to keep the flies like you a-buzzin their worn heads. But what do lamps know of a desert's dark howl and the ache of thirst gone rolling across tipped dustbowls, eh?

For while these gathered their 'strength' amongst the silent cups and advising fools, I, Kreck, the camel flogger obeyed a server's duty and MAN'S LOVE; I stayed to the final six months of my Master's agony: their Father's wretchedness.And there the more flogged my eyes than all the storms I had swallowed before.

Terrible the fits and frenzy, the rage, fevers, yet more gruesome the still quiet grip of a guts awakened hell.

While those Brothers swilled and swaggered, a trouble of digestion about a simple task to which they had no relish.

Lawyer: And what of you brave straw man; where were your hands at my father's bedside, doubtless idle in his pockets.

Pale to white heat, the blackened specks of a giant's indignation, nailed themselves to the Lawyer's reproach and a voice whispered by emotion spoke: "I? My hands? Paws to carry a one year calf or snap the back of snapping wolves? He, limp as weather, he tied them secure, well beyond his desperation. He said he could not die of my hands for he told me that love in its great simpler ways cannot demand more burden upon the giver than the taker. That mercy refused is for that love a greater mercy."

The giant streaked the tears across his face with wipe of fist "That he thought I did not love him enough, master or not, orphan or not, grieves like a brand thrust into my eyes which harbour his memory.

Beggar: "No, you are erred, my roughened dove. He meant you loved him too much. His bequeath, his will of you was for unsoiled hands. For some loves one too whole to allow part; those loves cannot kill what they love. For in the killing of love they destroy themselves and your master would allow none of that cruelty upon you. What father would allow his child starve that he may eat? What song of the sparrow nest denied that a limb can burn into frozen nights? The greatest things are weaved simple things but oh so beautifully held in the minds childlike of wonder, of daily heart. But fragile as dew swinging upon webs.

Rightly so, the father knew this love could not act for surely the child would not bear red hands added to a black grief; an awakening surely to spawn the end of unreason, the terrible lifting of a child's hood. And that guilt, that pain the father would not carry onto his own grave.

Flail no more of 'a lesser love' my friend.

But remain in its stance of greatness. Love has its own contestings, its own arena. And its own strange victories. Yours was one.

Giant: But I begged even upon knees that he at least no longer swallow the food which robbed him of a quicker faint away to death. He would not. Rather he spoke that those who had need of task should not be robbed of their wedding day. If the choosing is cheated away from their reaching hearts would their hands ever glide to an embrace of light, of love? He said he would hold the door open as long as his breath wheezed its will so that the Grooms would reap no denial, find no stone unhinged for their inner emergence. They had only to say 'Yes', no act, no play, no feast upon carved things was to be allowed sour in their mouths, instead the father would 'act' and allow the Grooms carry each their Innocence back into full Life. And with it a love of 'Yes'.

Though with the track of a staid pursuit I gathered those words from his gasp and murmur over the last weeks, I do not know what Grooms or things then were. Only that nothing came. Till death. In the final ill fit of convulsion, he shouted: Take me then, Beast, thy cold bone a better feast of hope than any flesh of mine.

The giant continued "Beggar, what did he mean?"

The Beggar knew what those words meant but knew the full truth would only turn a great grief into a greater hate. And that hate would solve nothing more.

He spoke: "He meant though death is a cold night, it brings blessing upon flesh fevered to heat. As a man welcomes ice upon a hand drawn from the fire".

Giant: But these Grooms, who were they?

Beggar: Thoughts, my large friend, just thoughts. Thoughts of life and death and love and pain. Thoughts he wished come onto him like angelic flutters and caress his aches into peace. An answer out of his own life's doings.

Giant: And... and... do you think the Answer came to him?

The Beggar looking full upon the Brothers: "Yes, I believe his Answer did weight much upon his last hours."

Taking the giant by the elbow, he turned his back to the scene; the Brothers shifting themselves back into their chairs. "Come, friend, there is no good to dwell here longer."

"NO" the giant jerked away. A finger pointed arm's length at the Brothers'.

The Giant cried out "No, it was these swine who were the grooms. I know now! He fed in pain awaiting their offer of mercy. BASTARDS!!"

His club-staff rose and descended fierce upon the round wood which gave separate and splinter; spilling the debris of communal fare and support all about the Brothers and Beggar.

The executioner turned swift to unsheathe a sword as brave and broad as his calling but the Giant's work was swifter upon lions than upon bound lambs. The long cudgel swung new fate and executioner and his head went spinning into a corner; still attached but rather lazy in its droops.

Black and even larger in rage, the Mountain began its descend upon the two remaining moles, one who gestured defiance with a clownish raise of a broke chair; the other who appeared to already begin examine his injuries, so engrossed his hands were, covering his trembling skull.

But as the great arms rose a fearsome potential, the Beggar stepped 'tween gong and the brassy shells "Enough, friend, enough. All is a clucking, there is no need for the crack of eggs to spill disaster upon a great Eagle of soul. Righteous though it is, your manner of serving waylays no satisfaction here. A hand gentle upon a father has no place in the scurry of his flesh. Let us go and leave the dead remain amongst the dead."

Dangerous intent crawling across his eyes, the Giant held check the waver of stiff resolve and blared "Give away the arena. Little lamb, this Lion will not stand the such as their bait. Decided or not, the sons shall be sent hither upon the father; I of one in hope their souls lose the coming debate."

The Beggar unmoved replied, "Where the undecided goes also Wrath, for what is unjust is wrath which skirts an act of man for the easy pluck of brutish rage. A sourish task much lower than thy full limb can reach."

Giant: "Ha, tis always a tongue which glides left right and leaves no salt of justice. The eye of Desert knows the way through storm or glare which forever devour the hesitant! Let the pretty lizard glide off the path for foul waters must be loosed for a taste of dust."

A perception of groan moved from cornerwise, the Executioner sat partial up and gazed into slow recovery.

Beggar: "He lives. Allow the weakly living their corner; for thy foot looks to wide light and has no need of black tread. You have given a just blow, it will ring long of its message. These brothers will hark its turn and now as like remain silent. What need is there to strike amongst the fangless snake but memory? A difficult task, a death of memory, strike at one and another better is lost. For like as not, the sons here are now the father, deny their living, the father is lost forever from your love. Again, my burdened friend, you must stall before pain before injustice, held by nobler grip of love. You must love what the father loved, your love cannot stop and start in different places. Love joins not gulfs.

The great stick lowered, the Giant at turning spoke grim yet in a tear "So be it. The sparrow has saved his three crows, though doubt will see truth in a next sun's rise that an old verse will resume. These ears will hear cackles no more. The desert's chatter has less gloom. I return there. Old is the saying 'Less the whispering men, less the dying din' but now is its dawn of understand.

I go back amongst the howling things of dust and dry to wet my lips upon unwatered wine; the better grasp is for a lone herder than this drool of less and less passed so many hands around. Only onto you, Beggar, do I thank the lift of a father's doubt: A new treasure borne well in my heart."

With a sweep of coal eyes he added "Odd that so little can fill up a heart while so much is lost at hand.

Penniless fates we are, Beggar, but better the height of hollowed handed hawks then lizard tails and tongues dragged endless in the dust."

At that, he strode out to his desert, again the light blinking as the Mountain gave the doorway a common use, yet a fuller fate than norm.

With the danger of retribution passed, the Innkeeper piped his message to the remaining ears "And whose to pay the damages tabled, sirs?"

Beggar: "Bill thyself, keeper, for tis of your doing."

Innkeeper: "I! I broke no table or chair unlegged!"

Beggar: "By accident, I know but did I not perceive the sideways glance of your all ears laid amongst the conversation?"

Innkeeper: "Yes but..."

Beggar: "Then you know that it was by your means, that is, your table, your chairs, your inn, that this end was result."

Innkeeper: "But I purchased an inn not for assault but salt. I did not force these ends. "I am innocent."

Beggar: "Nor did I on enter for see the splintered result. Nor these brothers, nor Giant. Therefore, we are as innocent as thou in intent. But whereas we sought to be replete and sate, we found only strive. Built only about the round of your means. We are cheated and must serve sentence upon the table and its master, just as soldier and king pay alike for victory or defeat. The table has had its sentence; now yours is to pay of a condemned table."

The Innkeeper had a retort sneered on his face, when a coin conveniently flipped to his chest and rattled its decline around in quick turn of stance.

"There you see, that gold does the work of many tongues, Beggar"The lawyer tugged at a snap of his purse string. "Now you know our tale. Take it tucked amongst your rags and depart from among us. Your ridicule is not a wanted dessert, there is no due or its payment and its flavour will likely yield more bitter protest than even your throat can swallow."

Beggar: "Ridicule is only a thing for men who quickly forget their defeats. How can a Beggar claim full victory over life? In love, how can any herald of victory or defeat when there is only a last separation?

I only say this to comfort loss. The father could kill as well choose to be killed in the greater Man, beyond the law. But there in that place, for him, lied greater law of greater burden. For love he could not kill the Father, nor the Sons, nor the Giant. His agony was not disease but rather health. Health of Spirit. Spirit surpasses Body but for Love cannot conquer the Bodies of lesser Spirit.

Understand that the Father's agony was and is held while the son gives search of Man. As if the Father's agony would yet birth Man through Son.

This is not a thing to be completed or lost or failed but is instead a task always upon the Sons. To seek Man and end agony.

Despite a giant's wrath, borne of a simple love of Nothing, do not relinquish your task.

Evil forgets quickly. Good remains always a ponderous memory. It is the question that liberates not the answer, just as thirst carries to water, not the look of water itself. Thirst breeds movement away from dust.

Remain ever at the Father's agony. Though not quite of Man, you at least are not either lost amongst men.

It is the burden of the Son to foot in both worlds and question. With Answer mirrored in agony. And in that too, we stand Brothers.

With that the Beggar turned and followed the way of Giants: though his pass left a doorway less filled; more light around his exit.

Though no one gauged the effects. The doctor remonstrated to his brother's rising side while the lawyer called for fresh wine and a new table for its prop. But no meal, he ordered no meal. For even amongst men, there are times a man's hunger will pass by food for thought.

The Seventh Day

The Beggar awoke. He had slept wall-slumped, head and arms

upon knees; as a crown wearied of what bends to it, yet helpless to burden itself elsewhere. The knees of a man bent lower purpose than mind's elevation, no matter the mount or lowest valley destine. Stares to the purpose, ever bearing even onto a dust of kneel, even onto to perpetual thankless and curse, the knees withhold no grudges and will pillow a tyrant's dreams. Perhaps it is in their pairing that they find this strength and solace at a condemned pacing. Or in simple passage, creak joy only as movement. Perhaps as husband and wife, or jailed cell mates or sold brother and sister, they believe that purpose will sow a resting place if they but hold daily at task.

Hunger did not awaken the beggar. He had fed that night from a little bread offered by one of the guardians of the City Gate who offered not upon a necessity of proving brutes have compassion but rather where deep voids are seen,pebbles will fall. Crumbs offered into the abyss of man's eyes yet trail no sounding. The guard thanked, yet nothing was unhungered. The guard returned to his ever stance of unpassing, yet still glancing wary at a Need only his day of wants could shield from his knowledge. A knowledge easily and uneasily forgotten ...and forgiven.

As for the Beggar, he ate and retired, reposed at the walls of mortared undreaming.

Hunger did not awaken the Beggar. It was vision. But not his vision. His eyes had remained black to the night's marching despite a continuous jerking in limbs twitching at a cold air's settle or arousal. No, it was another's vision. A stranger's eyes which pulled down into a beggar's cradle and demanded attention.

The way one is moved to turn and ply reason from another's stare. The mind's hands rummaging then discards memorized for the fit of who or why. Busy round a dread that one is being stared at for reasons uncollected in the past. The new unknown has such foreboding, such a whisper roaring into unconscious. It is a bad thing to awaken to, like the scrapes of sound shuffled outside a desert tent; the night's hand lingering with intentions.

Hunger did not awaken the Beggar. But there is so much in a man that is hunger, that is thirst yet a hand has too much frail, too much clumsy, too blind, too sieved to gather it to a mouth yawing at another's stare. Like newborn near the breast, another's vision causes hunger unmask itself; and this is a vulnerable too much in tremble, too much in a world seethed with iron flies, to be denied. A man's soul is open, staggered with a relentless cup does not know what he will not and prefers closed, even onto emptiness. Escaping untouched. But beggars have lost their fear in this want of trade. Like certain desert rats, depletion can be held to the world, the loose folds of a belly skins stretched taunt outward by a full reach extended. Beggars straddle the street moving like a tiny bowl gathered to the backs of relentless spiders. Feared more than fearless. That open sore dogged in its bark at the cat clawing for flee inside each bypasser.

So hunger did awaken the Beggar. Without fear, without surprise. A trade, a calling stirred by placement of another's eyes. The Beggar's eyes scattered for a brief time along the beginning shuffles and churns of daily purpose. Plunged the scene, refreshed, then streamed quickly along the flow to a figure. This unordinary was startling; as a statue parts the common melee.

The figure indescript, wrapped as it was in a dirt washed hang of old robe, tight at the waist by a lash of unknown fibre. Thin, tall height through a difficult estimate so stooped was the figure with the weight of a large stone slab secured upon its back by a rope going

round and round the chest. An agony of burden 'thought the Beggar to chastise even full breath at the task so heavily bent'. The hair, brownish tint to gray, dishevelled but unmatted, tossed more than torn, upheaved more than tangled, as long as to the waist; though with the stoop the covering hung forward and swayed like the mane of some powerful beast ruminating upon the plain; in all appearance chewing only at the wind.

So the mouth moved, silent, as if caressing its own lips; the upper on lower, the tongue parting and delicately but only briefly. What could be seen of the mouthings for hair screened the face too well. Or not well enough.

But the eyes flowered wide as a solid pink passion born rare behind a forest's shield of entanglement. Pink eyes so rare amongst the sober, the sane, in drunken glean discard or fear.

Sin mad they beg worship obsession. The eyes told him in some deep sense the gender of the figure: Woman. Though the age of the face swam from twenty to ninety, a fleet of change dependent on hair strands and patches of skin revealed to the sun's catch. Moments passed, minutes unused, even speculation; spell-bound, that interlude 'tween shelter secured and storm awaited. All inside hushed while a taunt string was weighted, secured, tested along vision. Power hinted, brute compare without the touch of another. A sign language rapid in tally though the long fingers of invisible. Decision. Without comprehension's nod. Like a migration turning of sensed, the wings place their backs upon destiny at the fall of new degree, though the present is still bound to a history seasoned of fattening. The altar and the calf are well met, though unsure of definition. That must await a knife's point. She strides near him, stops, and beckons.

A cackle both discards the electric air and tells an older woman's secret. Her arm rises at a sure curve from hung side to slabbed back and a strong voice rattles across the cobble to his feet."Come, boy. The time of creeping between smooth crevasses has been walled away. Your manhood is destined for the roughened dry of far more ancient need."Another cackle and She begins trod away, his surprise at the lightness of her barren tread despite the weighted shield guarding so zealous her back from any fates descending.

Despite a common laughter travelled round the on-lookers, the Beggar's Young Son instantly rises, shouldering nothing but her request.

A few streets he follows, his stride quick but still decreasing their distance only slight. Her pace so agile, so sure, the still sensual sway of her hips even under such store. Her long fingers curled, rubbing the bottom corners of the stone as if not to assist the bear of its weight but in rather the slumber of its rest. Like a child, so like a child, she carries this dead rigor.

The Beggar cannot believe this an old woman, so drawn are his eyes to the smooth firm of legs taunting in youthful abandonment as they dart in and out of the robe parted below knee.

Suddenly she stops. The beginnings of a small market. Staring at a particular stall of bruised fruit and limp hang of meat. The owner, bearded with scowl, converses to his right neighbour in a mix of whines, whereas and head shakings. The proverbial language exchanged in the commiseration of vultures and buissness.

The Beggar watches where she watches and finally sees what she sees. A hand, thin as a snake, has emerged dark olive from the tabled shadow and creeps ever so slowly towards a bowl balanced near the edge. The finger tips almost elongated unhumanly touch the bowl, then creep spider-like, as if the Brothers Five Eel swimming to supper, play across to select a choice.

Unfortunate for the hungry tentacles, not the owner but the neighbour, whose eyes are ever estimating of the other's goods, spies the rummage by hands obviously lightened without coin.

He does not shout, for that would alarm small feet into flight but rather extends his arm full to singular point aimed at such evil encroaching his neighbour's open expose of his goods.

A dark, hairy hand hawks upon the bowl and grasps the useless squirmings of a smaller olive one. Shouts of indignation blend with the flings of encouragement sent congratulate from other stalls. The boy is hauled out, dirty, ragged and trembled all over. A sturdy stick gathers in the stall owner's hand and both hands clap boy and stick together, again and again.

A celebration of victory, of bravery well acted. "Blasphemy" bellows the old woman as she bounds over slicing the thongs round her chest with a small knife taken from her robed thigh. The stone is lifted and, before the owner can intercede, is sent flying into the stall. The ferocity of the hurl explodes all into fragments of rock, fruit, bowl, wood, meat as if a mountain had descended upon a fruit tree laden with pickers.

From a single fruit to slaughtered worth, the owner turns his rage, the street boy making timely exit, bloodied ears in hand.

"BLOODY OLD BITCH" now you'll pay, foamed spittle on the glaring beard as the owner's stick was raised at the woman.

The Beggar raced to the old woman's side but there was no need. For though he could not seethe pink eyes flare to rose, the owner could, and mad but not mad, he simmered before the boil of madness itself.

Still as laughter began emerge round the picture of bear defied by bee, the owner must offer something to his dignity altered and growled "That boy was a thief".

Shrugging, she replied "No. He was a thief without a stall. No less now than others. Perhaps more. For when thieves gather, darkness shields their property. But when the truth descends it is the guiltful who remain at cause."

"What guilt, the wretch stoled from I?"

"And you from God. For God gave the fruit onto man that man maybe fruitful with child. You deny the fruit from the child; to separate child and child things is to end belonging; you have stolen from the Will of God.".

"What are you, his Prophet, eh, then?"

"No I am but a sliver of his thumbnail; though it scratches your foul, well indeed. I pray the wound gives long fester; may yet allow the ooze of your soul back from putridness."

With that, she turned and tugging at the Beggar's half sleeve, began away.

They walked a street, unspoken, the Beggar still a little astounded by the woman. Her form, now when poised erect with breasts unburdened by the lashing of stone, so fresh; her face still largely obscured but showing more hint of age with the hair settled away.

Finally he swallowed an unusual dryness and spoke, "Woman, how old are you?"

The elder cackle then a voice husky with restraint: "Why a wish for age, do you wish to breed with me that we will flower children raised to twelve men high, who will devour fruit stalls for breakfast" , brushing her swaying hip against his thigh .

"Why then was there that stone you carried, woman?"

"Find a woman without stone upon her back and I shall brush the worms from her face and call her long hair the ornament of Death not Vanity!"

"Then are you free now from the abrasive weight?"

"Are you free from yours, boy?"

Silent again, they strode. They passed then the gates, the guards gawking the way fools do when they have an idea that they know something of nothing.

She spoke.

"Like all sisters, I am a poet. I love what I kill and kill what I love: For the Moon loves the night as it destroys darkness, yet weeps in her hands in the cycles of shame."

"I do not understand."

"Of course not, boy" was the spit of response.

"But whyis woman this poet of killing love? Does not race emerge continuous from her?"

"Ah, boy, my boy. To conceive is to create, to birth is to destroy; for is not birth the beginning of death? The journey turns bloody at the womb's gate. The Father then conceives hope, the Mother gives death."

"No. The Mother gives life as well."

"Boy, choose. Is life hope or death?"

He gave no answer.

The mountains drew closer, their roundness low under the clouds gathered, moving like wisps of large fires; yet nothing burns in the desert but the desert itself.

"From there" her arm graced the air "I chisel slabs. And carve onto their bellies my birthings made of live or death Each day, each week, but always of them. The stalls, the broken children, the streets paved by my sisters' discarded wombs. A day love is cradled, I will write hope across my stone, the words milked presicely. I return with homage and see cruelty batter its own fruits to apulp of mindless. The poem is strengthened. Again. Again. Hate tasted, yet tomorrow compassion drunk so why burden the flower with stone. The palm is broken. Endless has this cycle. The words borne past die in dawn. Always. It is as futile as your races you men drag from our wombs but at least only these mad claws are the God of poems not yours, boy."

"But why stone if there is no permanence?"

"Fool, boy, fool. Blood. Blood flows here. From sun raged eyes to the rodent under the fall of the mountain, blood pours as a testament of forgiveness. To live, to beg forgiveness at the congeal of death. For death is a stiff blood. So granite is blood hardened to the mind's run. The wet earth drenched to a wretched mud on the nights a Moon weeps."She stops, turns fierce upon him.

"See? See?" Holding her left arm high turned gold streaming out of the soiled sleeve; it falls away leaving the elbow to fingertip naked onto sun. The right hand holds the blade she has torn from her robe. The point penetrates near the wrist and a thin red line weaves downward as she snakes the blade in oscillate to her elbow. The cut of design begins a multitude of thin lines bursting from the main weave, those lines crisscrossing, alternating till a delicate lace of red is created from elbow to wrist.

The white fist upheld, the red lace on tan, the soiled robe sleeve now sopped of red such a symbol to tumble the Beggar a step back.

"See? Blood of life, blood of death, blood of reach, blood of first. Till congealing. Till stone. Then no return, boy." Her eyes almost scarlet, she continues "But we must not let hardened air gather between us, boy. No. No."

Her fist unclenched, the fingers dance as the wrist slackened and she turned it, revolving limply in the air. The right hand scrapes the blade slowly upward the arm, spooning a pool of slightly stiffened flow. She holds the point tilted to her mouth, drops falling into swallow, a tongue poised on the blade's underside. She stopped, levelled the knife and spoke to his still face

"We must share blood, man and woman. Before stone separates. Besides there is so little else of plenty in deserts."

With that she brought the knife to his mouth, he opened and she tilted it again upward. Her left hand came to his throat. Stronger and stronger grew the grip, while the knife blade inched a path deeper and deeper in his mouth. He tasted salt, blood; though with the fierce grip squeezing his breath his senses were blurred to whether his blood or hers decorated its long edge.

"Now" came a whisper cross his ear, "I gave you the blood of my death, shall I take the blood of your life?"

Seconds passed. The Beggar contemplated defence but any movement begged of instant thrust; he could not speak his mouth, throat gagged by pressing steel. His eyes saw only the tears strained by her grip. So he shrugged; a bare movement but a gesture befitting man or rat now beyond scurry, limp at the teeth of predation.

Her laughter blew red foam on his cheek, the knife withdrawn, she staggered away, clutching her sides mad with sobbish glee.

He simply stared at her, massaging his throat with his hand, swallowing at the dryness, a boyish grin creeping across his face.

She returned, tears and blood smeared in her hair, her face more obscure than ever but for the pink dance of eyes and the teeth singed with red, still wide with laughter.

Though the right arm still dangled with blade, the left rose to cup his shoulder. He did not flinch or harbour less of a grin.

"Forgive me" an almost girlish song giggled "but so like a boy to answer into manhood. Is there anything more to be said to a woman for his bathe of blood? Her blood spilling his ankle to tongue? For man is the bread, woman is the grape. One is formed, hardened; the other crushed, drained. So death can feast! For that a shrug is as good an answer as any man lip can wind and pass the crumbs of his own breaking.

Again her fit, full of laughter.

"Oh, enough, enough" she exclaimed, her body coyish in his direction. "We must celebrate grandly your decided oration into blushes and brushes of manhood. I know. Would you have me dance for you, boy? Or should I say, Maaaan, now?!" spoken with her hips already half a sway.

She stood first rigid, in long body her arms rose wavering, flaunting her hair cascade back over each shoulder, her face, chin tilted away, the long neck of a gazelle rigid in arc to a sun touch. The arms rose above the beaded dew on her crown till full extend, fists curled together, the blood knife at apex. For a moment brief, the Beggar could glance enough face to again note the crow's feet, the tortured skin of long travel, then the sun shifted and mirrored glare, exploding from a single knife point.

She bursts into a whirl, first a foot sweeping dust, then lifting to expose graceful thigh all awhile pivots effortless upon a foot tenured in vertical arch.

The hands clapping, knife sweeping up, down a pulse of sun reflect, the robe half unravelled shuddering behind like a white eagle in prey of fire flies. The pink eyes widening, narrowing; pulsating to red. The whirling containing all till he saw only blurs of white, skin gold, red; a flash building, cresending, inverting.

Mesmerized, an image began appear to the Beggar, a woman well formed, crested breast, naked next for silver grasses at skirt, deep auburn hair wild in a weave of mirror lace, her pale face carved exquisite where set blue eyes dark into sea, pools of mock at his own abandonment.

The Beggar heard drums yet only the sun beat. Sweat decorated his skin, his fists gripped their own hollow, his manhood began bulge, rise to the weave of her Song.

The image, She, the mirage reformed. A young man, fainter brown skin, naked for dark tight curls at his head, his sex, a sword afire he twirled as he spun, its light and shade flickering his long lithe limbs, his graceful torso in and out of desperation of escape into full illumination. His eyes now cream yellow, the pluck of valleyed spring; then high green the shield of rolling hills. His mouth wording silent, yet so drawing of form. The Beggar heard without ears: 'Come. Release me.'

The flame turned on its wind even higher yet only the desert sun brought scorch. Rivers sprang into dust from the Beggar's limbs. His nails gave his own palms a bloody kiss, so passioned to reach. His loins barely knew of any mind's leash, so strained and at wild for the taste of flesh.

The dancing slowed, the robe fell, a young girl's features emerged yet strange familiar in golden wings around her crown and eyes a shade less red tinted ivory. The breasts now given higher crested, firmed as fruits barely ripe, yet sweet, so sweet to the rasp of a begging lip. Her hands held only a rose, stiff to circular breeze of her rapture. Hips, thighs, legs formed the perfect pedestal revolve of her soft down brushed upon her maiden hood. All around her, as succulence spiralled slowly towards the Beggar, white heat pulsed from her skin, giving an aura of moon taking away the night's darker reason.

The steel willed its rise from coal, a purity unstained in melt yet only the sun bore ash cascading from its reflection.

Only a core of the Beggar could hold cool, unablaze, the rest at the gates of oblivion merciless at their hold, their rage pulsed red at his eyes, his temple, his groin and dripped their tears from his palms.

Then She was upon him. Embraced before to his half side, her heat rippling on his thigh, her hand left upon the small of his neck circling, a leg kneed up and down his inner leg, her hair burning his shoulder, his chest. A breast nippled his at perfect height while her right hand rubbed with the rose ever so slowly upon his throb at release.

A warm moist breezed across his ear: "Do you want to play, Man-Boy?"

His "No" was softer than the folding of wings but nonetheless echoed hideously across the chasm of his needs. He ignored their replies.

Her head turned, the motions stopped, though heat flowed in "No?"

"No."

He heard the knife fall between his feet as She turned away. He watched as her nakedness aged only slightly, the buttocks still well firmed as She stooped at the robe. He ignored the whimperings still unsatisfied inside himself.

Dressed, She turned, yet again, the hair had found a tousled place for obscurity.

Crossing her arms at breast breathing a little deeper she spoke: "Did you find the three evil then?"

"No. Only false."

"Love is false then?"

"No. Though love has a certain blindness, it knows truth in what it does see. It never sees falsely in what it can see."

"Had they come as the night silk, your blindness would have burned into Love. Warm is the drench of Blood as four entwine into one. One solid balanced upon black knife, rocking to a winds hair."

"I do not understand" He replied.

"What, Man, is to be understood?"

"I do not understand what you said."

"But, Man, when does one cease the plea for understanding?"

"When one begins to understand."

"Ahh. I see...And...as the man-boy begins to understand, when will all be understood?"

"At the fullness of understanding."

"Call such the completion of understanding?"

"yes"

"Then from beginning to completion is ending. What do you say at the end of understanding, man?"

"I do not understand."

A cackle. "Ah, but now you do understand. Now come, dry your palms upon my sleeve, my wear of it will drag no heavier than the blood of other boys carved into a rock's shadow." With that she strode to him and offered her arm. Wiping the blood upon his chest he asked "Have you killed other men who wandering in anguish tread upon this cracked wind?"

"No. Those who stagger blindly are taken to the hills, the mountains. But those men who are lured and leap upon temptation receive more lasting thrust than flesh can sustain."

"But why? Why save child and destroy man?"

She turned towards the city, though only a dust more clouded, gave any sign of its past. "Why not? Blood for blood. Timeless, Woman has been dragged, lured to bed stones and founted blood for the Sin of her Being. She the river inner to be spilled open by staff wood or flesh and drench life into living. The terror Nature howled and gave Woman. The fruitful God grieved, begged forgiveness onto her and gave Child. What is left is Man-made and crumbles. Belongs at Woman's feet though its prayer is wild with teeth. She has only to stride and the Man-made is crushed.

Yet some men do enter desert more as Woman. Bloodied, all knowledge, all brute, raped from their skulls whether by self or the other claws of greeding. They flee with their cages flapping open hearted to sun, to wind and are thus in spirit, Woman. As close as man can be to Woman.

These salvaged make better Man than men. For a time, at least " Then She begin to softly cry, leaving her face, hair into the Beggar's shoulder, her arms tucked around him gently.

She cried a long time, in an even melody of trembling and small breaths. The Beggar said nothing but with his hands stroking her hair, caressing her upper back.

When subsided, he cupped her face in his hands stained form his ordeal and spoke to the pink eyes washed paler behind strands "I understand now and if I was a little madder, I'd call you Mother."

She smiled, kissed him on the cheek. "And if I was a little saner I would call you Son."

Silent again, they walked towards the mountains, touching now without touching.

He asked in a little while.

"What is your name?"

"What is the time when the sun is gouged to a blood puss of burst and men's eyes tremble of dread at the change of incandescent?"

"Your name is Eve, then?"

"Because you are a good man. If you had been an evil man, you would have called me Dawn."

Silent again, they strode, limbs feeding upon the sun, seething in harvest.

The woman spoke: "Your Father would be proud of you."

Startled he stopped, turned her toward his widening eyes.

"You know my Father?"

"A Woman knows many fathers. The father of her father, her father, the father of her child, the father of her child's child. All the same. Their lands caress her skin into Hope, their hooves drum her skull into despair. But no, I did not know your father, only of him, through you."

"But I have not spoken of him."

"A Woman's thing. A burden. You have iron balls, I have crystal ones." Her wild laughter stirred nothing but a boyish grin and her own wisps of hair.

The walking began, then she asked:

"Man, tell what you seek in this place of ruptured soul?"

"A word, only a word."

"What word?"

"I don't know it. I seek it in the way a hand opens and closes helplessly trying to gather more water than it can."

"Then, tell me what words you have found, Man, and perhaps the one lost will be known onto its sole absence."

So the Beggar discarded his past into her own collection as they distanced themselves from the city's eyes. He told her of his Father, of his Father's death. He spit the tale of disciples disguardianship of himself and his father's. Truth as they began resurrect new walls with old bricks. The he flowed to the six days full of reach, hollow of failure. Of gods sold cheap but carried dear, of men who know the weight of masks but fear their fall. Told her of mirrors that cannot reflect, of mirrors placed before mirrors, of mirrors windowed in walls, crossed in pain so the looker is quartered to the winds.

The judgement and sentence. Neither defeat or victory, yet failure when the wounded will not drag to dressing for fear of salt. Told her how he could curtail a beating but could not vanquish the philosophy of a beating. The bush shook a little but would not part its game to his hand.

Then down below the downtrodden he went where empty hands have a paradise sinless amongst neighbours, for none have anything to covet. Where despair is not the music of mad or the idle thoughts of the slaven but walls hard in the gut and forms a different man. A man who will not give up or down or out but rather gives as the sand gives to surf; a deception of servitude; passive inclines into resistance, the crest never victorious, though the small plain overwhelmed. The passage of time, yet the grains remain clung as a grip sucking at any heel come down.

He spoke along of the slaves and cried a little, for there failure had torn away throats in its fall. Describing the King, he framed anti-Man, gluttonous swallow upon tiny feet, pudge hands drunk with flesh. Yet what he could not do amongst feet, low of trodden, neither could he enlighten the crown all life a dark well, light swallowed mouth to bottom

Then of one-legged boys, unresolved dreams till unto the death of a father which denied the quest of the sons. A mockery of a grieved masks pretending the dead would arise from a faith in words and endless, useless, debate.

And a giant's love that drew its battle lines haphazard in mad yet as pure a thing as the Beggar had seen passionate yet. Until at least this She beside him, smoothing his flails with an occasion of caress upon his back. Turning upon her eyes mooned with compassion, their pink damp with comprehension he asked her: "What then is the word passed by, unseen or even onto discard as if like hands fired by the rope, now opened to cooler death."

"Man, the Word was heard, seen, used all through this. It was hammer upon the skull anvil, bone into fire, sun etch upon lifting brow. Call its sister gall on impale, call its brother lips ravishing lip, call its child Hope licking a sythe's edge of flower. And remember its Mother howls from caves of a lizard's droppings, its Father has a mountain upon his back yet scampers free in the dusk. It breathes blood scorched black with curls of skin, yet can speak without the stirring of a dove.

Bitter the salt, it lies upon its own succulence of juices, dripping, crippling, into an old woman's crevasses. It shreds Gods, births Gods, and piles corpses upon its tongue for the pleasures of its Gods. Yet all Gods know it even those who beg it life.

For how did the Father hold the squirming, Love above Death? What makes disciple discard or a boy break away like truth falling away from the tree ripened?; what stems his journey, Man? How are the Gods sold, by what illusion and by that illusion how is cheap carried like great stone precious or heavy of hollow? What holds the Mask, what blinds the mirrors; what harbours in Law yet gives escape to justice? For Law can the judge sentence, what gives divide to innocence and its twin: guilt?

Yes, you are right, Man the Beatings continue, the beaten continue, the Poor hold to life and the Slaves give their death freely but what is it they all anguish? A king's rule is harsh iron, Man, yet a boy's stump is soft steel, how does such exist as gather in your skull galloping round, round these signposts high of folly?

The dream has real when you frame the word, Man just as the Father held his Sons without release. The word is the same for Sons, yet binds to Law not knife. But the Giant's binds to love though mad, mad thongs across his teeth. And even I, Woman is only the Word, mad upon my back, blood splashed across a universe falling at all wish of any Visions.

Hands to his shoulders, a solitary tear draining blood from each stranded cheek. She spoke with a rising wind of darkness ending " The Word is Belief, man. You have only to Believe and its mad, joyous terror of World cradles in that Word alone."

Such a ridiculous simple answer, he would have laughed, even shrugged but for the total fire of her Being she had concentrated in her speech, the madness of her eyes allowed no easy ridicule, not for least his own peril of life.

Faced with Answer, laid so heavy upon his shoulders, its bronze challenge at his soul, he sought old refuge in questions.

"But of what shall I believe in?"

She exploded.

A flick of her wrists sent him tumble head over heels. Recovering in the dust of his reversal, he looked up and at first the sun's glare obscured his frightened vision. Mind at mirage's lap, it thought her now towering at ten feed stand. But sand shunned the hot beams, settled and he saw She stood upon a large rock, a few feet away.

"BELIEVE? BELIEVE?" she raged, the knife out again dancing, pointed for his eyes fixation.

"BELIEVE IN THIS, MAN!" the shout followed by her arm rigidly, rigidly descending, rapid to instant stop at side, where the hand released its grip. Incredible, the knife penetrated an inch of stone and held; a hair from her own hard foot. As if it had chosen easier rest than her flesh would give.

She continued in half rant, her body still, half guarding the sun from his eyes "Believe in the stone, the rock, man. For is it not as faithful as the dog bitch? Though slow to follow, leave here and it will be found on your return. Call it mother, for it shadows the harsh and blinds the wind. Call it master, for a stride on its back serves greater vision. Drench your eyes of its nakedness daily in the sun, its warmth when you curl around it nightly will hold fire longer than any woman's tongue. Call it wise, man, for it has as good a thought as most men and spills not to a gush of rubble upon the first knock. It signs the watchful traveller but has no money upon the succulent soft toes of any idle worship. Read its knowledge, for it is a book; wind, sun, rain, breath, heat, sand have etched the word across its face unturned to its destiny. What of man, woman, of stench collect, of pure hills gush, death, life, blood, unreason?

Have all gathered at its waiting paws and spilled mysteries to good ears. And better mouth. The gazelle birthed here, the jackal supped. The woman taken in its shadow, the man flailed upon its toothy back, their points smoothed by an eternity's feast.

The knife rapes its virtuous back, man. Oh so quick to howl is a stone heart behind flaccid roll of flesh but slow, slow draws the breath of liquid heart under hard shell. Yet, man, if we but await but await, our lives, more lives, if we but build and wait generations about this tone enraged a howl will indeed spew long day from this! Believe it!

The pain of stone will rage out in fire blood and rain the generations a thousand, thousand killing knifes upon their flesh. Their world pillared of flesh will tremble and fall fit into the carnivore dust. Believe it!, man, the knife has reaped resurrection, time only awaits the spill of days, a dance of rock in revolution.

The good brute slumbers till pricked; a calm sea rests till whistled for by the wind."

Cautious he spoke "Forgive the dense of my incline but there is a puzzle still buzzed solid at my hear. That others believe and thus move or contain their heart but more stone will not lighten my stride."

She nimbled a step off the rock, walked to him then sat as a lotus flower before him.

"Man, listen. All has been and is and will be stone for such as you. The others, your children, even I, though of greater strain, your child. As child, we are given shelter, for the pale wind has an appetite drunk upon innocence. We are given something to believe. Chose, seldom, though there are times of unburden for new burden.

But, Man, oh so emptied man, you have chosen nothing. For we believe, we breath the belief of how, mad, love, blood, hate passion, Gods, death, power, child, universe. The child seed finds root and thus holds before the wind of Chaos, of unbeing. From an unbirth in cold, the womb of Nothing itself, that beginning warmth blood of being spews us out to grasp Something. And build life around it as the sand crests to the rock. Without the rock, our Belief would remain as moving grains, nothing, endless shift of time. Children unborn.

But why, Man, have you nothing? Because you have chose, been chosen, for Nothing. Philosophers, true to all emptiness. A prophet of prophets. You must believe in belief and belief is nothing onto itself. You CANNOT love, hate, blood, passion, mad, eat, drink of any belief. Yours the way of long tongue inches from pool only the crusted eyes can drink, lapping without sensation.

Man, your stride is not heavy for the way, there is no way, you are there. Look upon thy back, Nothing! Yet there bears the world of Something, of all child in Belief.

THIEF, DO NOT STEAL FROM YOUR CHILDREN!

That you must bear this believe in belief cannot be unshackled, lightened. Do not pluck their belief into your hands, your scaly mouth. Do not hang such upon your manhood, or stuff your ears to pitch the whines of abyss away.

You must bear Belief and thus hold bloody Worlds from the endless you at your own feet, the catacombs returning child into a darkness of unbelief. You are the stem of the rose, man, your hands thorns, your feet roots to be endlessly plucked from dust and regrown inching across this destiny of bridge."

To say dismay filled the Beggar's face as he understood a little, is to say night is but a shadow of light, that is Hope sometimes attempts seduction with much too much understatement.

The Beggar held the pieces of his expressed composure in his hands and whispered through his palms: "But of what is the purpose of this belief of another's belief? For if that gives a beggar's life, of what task is his bowl?"

"Your bowl is doubt, man. To scrap rough upon the hides of disbelief, flilled and emptied with the world's open sores of decay. To gorge disease from the leper and leave the half-limbs healthy of their belief. To slop sin off the sinner and leave Innocence breath. Doubt is the knife probing for steel arrowed into dead flesh but the sharp barb is the living to be left, not the gangerous boilings of hate.

Whoever gathers among you, whoever lays their salt at your tongue. You as the Doubtfull reaper must lay upon their brow with fierce blows till a skull flowers out buried resolve; then you have healed and will rewander. You do not judge believe, only unbury it; sentence, persecution is for believers, healers do not point only beckon.

Yet from this rapine of healing, man, you are hated. Always, like the cold death which sings a huddle inward at soul, your eyes are scarcely angel to dim hesitators who cringe at your light drumming towards their walls.

Never forgotten, never forgiven.

For those of a little ash left from the fire of your Doubt, must rebuild. True at believe, like naked skins flailed, scattered across leagues, the raw muscle, the exposed organs must relearn again old smotherings, old lies or set their long teeth into the wind and stay true blood of Belief. All depends of whether the belief is a thing of snake's nightly lick or a day warm to the embrace of delicate reach.

But none the less, no one praises the time of grim reaping, of storming, of chasm encircling whether prisoner freed or guard toppled.

It is your destiny, Beggar-man. Go fill your bowl with Nothing, the WORLD clawed ever deeply your graceful back, like a savage thing you would carry for its broken limbs. Let your mouth, hands, ears, eyes, bowl with their everlasting hate that your feast will then starve their wretchedness into fruitfull love.

Man, you are condemned to believe solely in their belief and cannot doubt it!"

The truth of her baring give final puncture to his heart; he folded forward into a half curl at her lap and wept in that endless place of furthest misery, where solace is but an observe from distance horizons behind.

Somewhere from the sobs and half breaths, his mind still ventured for reason, yet so feeble a philosophy he would have shamed it silent but from the smallness, the tender innocence of its voice "Why me?"

She did not laugh at such crude thinking. Her hands still holding the trembles of his head, rubbing the tenseness of his neck and shoulders.

She replied. "If one dwells quiet, slow enough, in unmoving, unheaving, in the dark still, you will hear in time, if slowed to its own pace, the rock give single cry. So small a thing flies do not flight but a cry none the less. For thousands upon thousands of years, it has dreamed to run the night or gallop the sun just an hour, a moment, a footstep. But it cannot and weeps.

If you can tell rock why it cannot run, it may be then wise enough to tell you of your Doubt. But none can. Nor I. In that it is your Brother. Though I am Woman, Mother, Sister, Lover, some comforts I cannot give even from hand or body or heart. Unto man. Just as men cannot do onto woman.

Go to your Brother, Man and share your burdens."

From her lap to the rock, Beggar crawled four limbed a trail of tears dampened between the twin shallow ruts made through the sand burnt to near ash colour by a sun noon in its blaze.

He crawled upon the rock and prostrate began beating his fists upon it, his sobs giving to wailings then strangely following the beat of stone and flesh pound into a chant grieve in some guttural language, neither he nor rock nor woman understood but understood back to the beginnings of Doubt.

The sun shifted, again, glint brought the knife still at harbour in a Brother's sheath of stone to view.

The chants stopped, a long moan began.

The Beggar rose on his knees, his hands half above his head, open to wind. The right arm fell, reached at the radiant knife, plucked it away. The left hand gathered both in its grip and turned a deadly will towards a begging heart.

His arms bunched, his eyes closed to all but the great sweet 'yes' that floated across his mind broken wide with unreason, his head nodded once slightly downward to give blessing and the blade drove towards its heart of prey.

A slender leg cut the air across his chest, her instep striking wrists, the knife turned from its momentum, flying from grip and rattled off a Brother's back to sand rest. Alive, though the knife had managed a kiss of red strip along his chest, the Beggar opened his eyes to harsh light.

Four long breaths, the trembling of his skin began cooling in the sun.

He looked then upon the Woman, her face blank, awaiting death's cheated response.

A grin from his face followed "Brothers play rough games in wide streets."

She did not grin. "No, truly, he loves you very much to try to give such a gift. It is I, Mother, who am cruel and will not allow that pleasant long sleep. And drag you awake to fates driven other ways. Forgive me but you cannot be spared". At that she retrieved her knife.

He got down from the rock, his legs stumbled a little to her, then supported, he replied as he kissed her brow, "I understand now to the end of my understanding. Take me now to the full place of no understanding, that I may lift new light from under the shadow of long doubts."

Onward they walked towards the hills, their heights rising in anticipation.

And as the undulated horizon gathered around their view like a closing hand, her own tale of journey was set free into the small air between them.

She had spilled to sand and filth, born under the shadow of a reclined camel. Her mother had died given her that passage, her pain rising out of a throat racked with pain; given to a god's name but recalling only the ever circle of desert kites.

Her father drunk and wild before, after, during. A towering, bearded cruel shadow that gave no milder touch even upon this frail gift for his immortal grasping. A Herder-Breeder needs sons for their labour under the bequeath of fist; two-legged issue has no swell of value amongst the four legged race.

Her mother's ancient servant maid took the child, fed her the milk snatched from camel's teat while father snored away the acts of his oblivion. By travel, the child was covered in skirt to avoid a whip or blow from a man who despaired his loss. Loss of a breeder he had bartered two white stallions for so little time ago and most now dilute his wine for again.

Love sheltered her five years. Her body growing quick on the rick milk, her mind miraculous growing even quicker on the blank desert view. The ancient supplicant was herself no fool, had an art of healing and in the final year was constantly marvelled on the retention of the tiny mind. Hardly a day passed without some potion, some herb, some broth being passed easily mind to mind with only a rare syllable dropped.

But a night came in a spree drunk with senseless rage; the horses untethered from a single rope bridal to bridal; before the other herders could interfere the madness or decide on the courage, the fright-maned thundered away, hurled from the foam and flame bulging from a nightmare's eyes; eyes rocking above a beard grape-stained with insane droolings.

The shorts and leaps at the men-fire turned the dust away from that shatter against tents, but alas, the turning drove the wild release towards a solitaire tent; set apart by a fatherly verdict that: "no dung of death shall give a stench to the place of man; let the night's beasts dwell together". So the ancient care and motherless child had gathered sleep under a ragged discard of tent skin; only a stick, a vigilant though puny fire and old determined eyes kept the jaws of skulking dart away from her morsel tender of human flesh.

Awakened then, wrinkles peered instantly at the danger and exchanged stick for earth. As any mother, any woman has only one gift, one weapon, one sacrifice. Her body. This the fragile skin to cover the child yet hard as stone back as well. For as the tent was devoured by plunge, as the hooves rode death upon her flesh, the hands held dust and would not allow the already lifeless corpse to roll away.

As if all life will had gathered in finger tips that nailed themselves into death for this saving of another's life.

The child lived.

For a few weeks, the labourers tried to take turns caring, comforting the girl who now seemed strangely grown so old in eyes, so hardened of some character, some stone of destiny. Their love was trying upon them as for the old woman for much was the whip and tongue they were lashed, for spending time on "The lesser beasts."

But it was not of just this, the father increased his hate, though no one in close of the five years could have imagined a carcass bloating more menacingly, more maggot crammed into a skull.

But fear can. For now times, the tiny girl would stand on a rock, the desert winds her brush of hair and silently pursue every inch of her father's way. Every step, every turn, he knew her eyes and feared. Feared a five year old girl with ancient views. His fear bred with hate and festered release.

A few weeks of this stalking cringe and the overboil reached for bow and bent its task to arrowed crime; in the descending red of a wind's drop. The glare of a childling form laid a 100 paces away, its huntress chin and incline resting on a low rock, its lioness eyes never asleep.

Before purpose came to full raise, one of the labourer's delivered a 'No' at Sin's ear and immediately trembled at the echo of its death tone now turning towards him.

The labourer groped for life and offered a flicker of memory for welcomed barter. He spilled the clink of silver into evil's ever yawing purse..

That there was a secluded, shunned village a few leagues away. Why he asked his master would you wish spill good wine to soak dust? He had called 'no' not for a child's heart beat but for a master's purse. As any good servant would who knows an empty purse hollows both master and servant.

Sent with the 'stank eyed bloat of a camel's udder' to capture the silver next morning, the labourer rode toward this village he remembered. When he had conferred to his fellows that night of the actual memory, they sparked indignation, horror, even onto a curse of his interference.

For the place of her destiny was a bitter place. An oasis ignored by the common trek for the water laid heavy with salt and few figs struggled for life. It was a place left to those unmoving across the desert. A village blunted with human huddle about the stunted olive. A leper colony.

The other men tore at the conscience of this but in the end were silenced by a shrug and the statement:

"Better a chance of life amongst the halves than certain death amongst the unwhole."

The next day, story and barter were exchanged over a long distance, a low wind driving words in confusion, so hoarse was the labourer's tongue from dust and doubt and so muffled the lips of the leper 'king' wrapped in the blackened rags at his teeth.

Once done, a little silver was bundled and propelled by the one strong arm of the village, to lay in a little swirl of hollowed dust. A little closer the horse was nudged, the labourer piercing the cloth and lifting it high and distant from his touch. He did not count it, preferring death immediate by a master's rage of ill-bargain than death oozed into the grave by a long, long unglueing.

It was held instead as a flag for the return, a black sack upon the mast; a drum clinking destiny's spoils; like a shrunken head, he thought, black and wrinkled with the glassy eyes inside rolling about for vision.

Shaking his head, he lifted the girl down to leave her. But she at five was well aware of the disease of her betrayal, her abandonment. Holding to the bridal she begged the early reap of her heart, her blood, even a return to the churning black of her father's mad, anything than this life promised now of visual disgust and horror. The daily hate, the death by hard heat is never so welcome but when in the clawed embrace of nightmares endless in their swarm.

He nudged his horse to trot, then gallop but the girl had learned the grip of her godmother, her tiny legs simply brushing the sand almost merry in their playful sweepings, touching sand here and there as bird glides down a beach.

He considered prying her white grip away but worried the spill may go undertow and the hooves finish a previous feast. Or only maim. Though she desired death, he could not stomach killing.

He halted his horse and retrieving some thong from his sidepack, he pried her hands away and bound them. Then her ankles to avoid an attempt for a two handed grip on his escape.

She ceased to cry or weep but lay soundlessly declined to her fate. But her eyes raked his face and throat with the claws of a small rat furious; its body raging in twists at capture; her soul snapping the whip of its tail at this teeth of deception. The heat of this hate blushed his faced; a scar tearing to his man-heart to be never cooled. But short time compels action oddly to be not assessed as forever unforgiven until the long time unfolds; that is a man can blindly do in an instant what a life time of vision will never allow repent.

He rode away, leaving her wound in the dust; she, unlimbed, bound to her fate; he bound forever to his herder's fates.

Half feet came to her. A few fingers untied her. A partial of arms cradled her back to the village shrouded in terrible ill.

It was a childless woman who had purchased her. Not childless out of maidenhood, for love lies amongst lepers, the eyes of a lover are still no less a moon in the gentle mask of night but rather the strange decrees of fate had simply laid the marriage barren. A woman of some means driven to the village by a family of closed doors that she would not ever again open upon her lips.

After the first year of horror and revulsion, a gentle reach had recovered her heart but alas no other gift was allowed her stark altar. Till this child bought from death.

Condemn might ask 'of what right do lepers have to love and worse bear fruit to only decay unnatural?' One might look to the insides of a city and demand the same recrimination. Decay is decay but at least the outward decay can find some peace in early discard; at least it will not bring foul to the final taste of a soul.

Be that judge as it will, the village had sprung also upon a strange magic. Though of no healing to those already diseased, it was joyfully found over time that the daily bathing of a child in the bitter salt of the oasis (and as well the separation of cutting utensils between those of full and lesser grip) prevented the grim reapings upon youthful limb and skin.

Strange in an unworldly way, were then raised these children who remained whole in the love of the sick and diseased. Who knew no fear of the gradual pull of grave, the rot of death, who would joyfully embrace sores; feeling only the heart.

Here then in this village refuged from unwelcomed scorn, the girl exchanged five years of love cowering from robust and muscled hate for five years of love borne open and free in a place of muffled, staggering rot.

In fact, only a single condemnation might be said of this schooling: will not such children grow to hate their own whole state as a thing unlovable since love seemingly must wear a disfigured cast? Perhaps this result if only one child was sweet limbed and thus oddly began a deception of adolescent outcast. But enough full flowers grew in the harsh garden, that what revealed was love that shed itself without any particular means of grasp or reach. That is one did not have to 'have' or 'have-not' to love. Love was a continuous gentle rain fresh to any now or battered cup and any cup could gather and be sipped from.

Outside this garden of love, however,, black harsh reined like stone winds, the lumps and contorts of its fallen flash scattering the landscape outside the fence of this more seasonable nature.

Food was not prayed for but preyed for. Pried for. What could be grown wrenched from the tiny plots of endless service, was barely enough. Little trade was allowed or done by the village for who would wish a half hand shook upon barter over even the smallest meagre purchase? When the eyes hunger wide at no relief what will the empty left hand do when the right hand's coins are spat away? Animal wants breed animal means, The left hand darts quick in the darkness of inhuman times and secures a living from out of stone.

Darts are not swords to be carried bold, large and heavy. They spring small, thin and lithe, under cover of a dead moon's welcomed for, these children issued from the scorn. Stealing amongst the healthy grasp of passing caravans or bandit tents. A dangerous occupation, its very unhealthy of consequence, this dance before slumbered eyes, for any failure tastes of blood not bread.

Breathless mother or unlegged father waited while love crouched with waiting shadow for some dog or revery to slump into opportunity. Then little hands to gather the fruit of a thief in labour and return; laden with life for the empty garden.

A game, a contest like any doing with a child's heart. Brought back to the village, the spills tucked in rags or indifferent sacks, the collected mounded in a single pile for a fair village share. But each hawk knew the size of his or her catch, the largest spoil strutting in an off hand manner, filled with the prideful pot of a father's eye or the idyllic glance of some younger fledgling.

The parents did try to curtail this contest for the added reach yields added risk. But what could they do? After love, pride yields the most human stance. If their dignity rose solely in their offspring, how difficult it was to find ill in the childrens' pride in themselves. To subdue the clamour and skipping of tales; of victory stolen under the perch of some fat hover stone perch.

Or the pursuits, the shouts and curses, easily confused by such weaves and illusions of dust and stone. Hiding in burrows stolen from a lizard, standing an hour poised along the profile of some twist of plant.

But tragedies did come. Caught in some stumble of trap, death released a different song of freedom. Each child carried a little knife, sheathed, poisoned at the edge. A small cut delivered in a moment, the child, from any tortures or terrors (and the release of a village's existence).

Even a child, perhaps especially a child, has a strange ferocity at this entrance to death. For a few stunned encroachers have bled to death in the swift scratch of this single hawk's claw. Destiny of a song's share in a single dying moment. When sunset spills, a shadow of soul lifts a wing from its liquid surface; many times a small flock follows its climb.

Yet, though those nights gave the village such a hollow feast, grief has the same fuel as joy,and must be fed. A few nights silent of the spreading of small grins; then the time would come. The coal- smeared tiny gladiators gather, the spectators wreath their necks with an excess of kiss and hugs; tears of warning and prayer; then, to the shadows spread hungry footsteps.

In all this, it was the older who trained the younger, an art more than an apprenticeship. Being such a whirl of quick wind and rigid stance. Such an eye for the landscape of dark and threatening light. A study in seconds where a less knowing eye would lay blind for hours. The act of the eye, the foot, the hand and the knife, till the snake, the mongoose, the gazelle and the lion, were sculpted in fluid form. This act learned hand to hand, stalk upon stalk, shadows mimicking shadows.

Only the knife art was taught by larger knowledge, a man of solitarity limb, his throwing arm; which before the ravish of disease, had carried his living as a trickster performs. Now propped against some stone or tree, he taught the children how to laugh at death. To pierce anything that was flung, rolled or tossed in view. The combat at close body; where to wound and where not to wound; when to kill outward and when to kill inward.

All this then, the girl learned and learned well. Driven even more by just love and duty, pride and game. Her black anger, seldom seen outward, embraced the nights and the knife. Her very soul loved the dance for the sake of the dance itself, for its power bordered on inhuman. Truly feline, at day her mother's warmth and caresses kept her calm; curled and playful in the whole human village touch. But in the night's dawn, something inside her would stretch long and crave the stalking ahead.

By eight or nine years old, she had become the best though many times it was a puzzle when she would return with some mere morsel taken from incredible risks. She never killed though many dark moments a yellow bile rose clawing vile at her throat begging for flesh upon its teeth. Crouched at some stank of snoring drunk, she would have to deny again and again the reach for her knife, the fierce trembling in every muscle so that in the end, she would in the end leave with hands both empty of bread... and blood.

The old knife thrower knew this and worked her skills the harder than any other child. For he believed the more one knew how to kill the less one was likely to kill, if the heart could remain above the black. His philosophy seemed to work. For her art of knife and movement grew so refined, that grace seemed to spin from her rapid gestures. Others would watch spellbound as she at twelve now, tall for her age and lithe as the stalk of wind, would combine feet, knife and hand into a true dance, martial in intent but easily following into rapture.

And some how this expression of terrible beauty kept her sane, kept unified her dark animal blood and cool human skin.

Then one night, a week before she would be a natural thirteen, one of the older boys did not return from his forage. He had come upon a heavily armed caravan of some royal personage. Sense called for retreat but his heart beat more rapid at the thought of pride; pride in the succulent fare he could gather amongst the finer silken tents. With so many guards, the change of watch was frequent through the night. Few slumbered. He was caught, a swift sword stroke severing hand which drew his knife, cut away before its salvation could be hurled upon.

His courage was not larger than their torturous means, though valiant, few boys and fewer men can withstand their unflowering by firebrands, He talked into his death of the village lepers and where. A few days passed and then... Before dawn, at no warning, suddenly at a casual distance, a hundred archers circled the village. Pots of flame appeared all around the flat horizons illuminating the groups of horsed Death. Pitch for their arrows.

No words were challenged. A single command barked at the partial moon and the sky began raining Hell.

Half the village died in their huts roaring of tinder and greasy rags. The rest dragged by their children or crawling, stumbling, were easy targets, illuminated in the grotesque scene. Each new kill flamed high to cheat its neighbour of any shadowy cringe.

The children, lost in the anguish of their parents holocaust forgot all sense of cower or hide. Panicked, screaming their upright horrors made still more targets for the archers vision.

In the end only one survived. She did. She had a frequent custom of sleeping crosslegged on the solitary large rock in the village, so that Dawn would bless her eyes open at the first penetrate of horizon. But that right forgetting her wrap in grief for her missing friend, she had grown cold in the sleep of the night. She had crawled half under the rock, a warm spot in the day's sand. And been awakened by the flames and shrieks.

Running to the tent of her mother, it was already half ash, her mother's blackened hand a half claw hanging out the blazing flap of door. Already lifeless. Even with the flames peeling at her skin, her mad will tried to pull her mother's corpse out. She could not and fell back just as three arrows sang before her face. Instinct, she crawled back to the burrow, her tears stinging on raw flesh.

And if she had remained there, her presence would have gone unnoticed for no archers would dare come close to the leper village, purified by fire or not.

But the carnage, the stench, the screams and mostly her grief pummelled at her mind. The animal urge for flee into the desert's womb snapped at her heels. She began crawl, bellying out of the light deadly in its show. The archers where thinly lined, eyes blind to a closer darkness as they raked the glare for more victims. Careless in their laughter and singing strings.

She passed their feet, only yards away, a silent snake amongst hooves.

Then more yards, knowing their backs were blind even in the beginning sun, she stood up and ran.

A mistake. A gamble weighed against the sun rising when the horizon she must cross was empty. Soon, the archers may turn away and spot the mark of even her crawl. A gamble, then, successful but for a full bladder.

One of the archers had descended from his horse a moment after her pass to relieve himself. Facing away from the flames, his eyes grew stronger in the cooling darkness and saw the gazelle spring for her escape.

He shouted. Half shouted. On hearing the beginning of his alarm, her knife had reached his throat, thrown without her falter of purposed gait; just a half of upper body and eye to a taste of this first blood; a new religion, perhaps of a mecca pilgrimed from Death itself.

A dozen archers wheeled and began squint the length of their arrows, peering shallow eyed, awaiting the fire stone to roll from their view and measure a sprint of darkness.

One keen eyed Captain was first to see her moving form; he realized her single flee was not a rampage of attack but a single calf. Noting the pace of her limbs, he saw sport in the kill.

A command held the arrows, Captain and lance surged into the gray dawn, his white steed moving across dark sand; a wave foam of effortless pattern.

...the rabbit knew before it saw. The tremors of pursuit danced around its nostrils in an odour of blood heat. Its ears noting the mere rapid beat pressing fear and danger cold upon its back. A quick glance scented the long single talon rigid for impale, the dark supple wings folded long in the wind in a flat dive, the white underbelly pulsing with the flight, the hawkish eyes fixated in an unwave of appetite. And racing from a grave spilling like caving sand at the heels can find longer stride, harder rythmn but distance is a slipping ally between hawk and prey. Seconds falling backwards into the endless abyss. The hawk's shadow is heard to laugh...

But this rabbit has hands; an eye catches a stone, raises its inert flesh; the body spins and an arm spits challenge.

So close, the Captain can but swerve a little, the rock tears his shoulder, the lance is swerved from her heart and both her hands grip its wood as the horse thunders past.

The Captain chooses and releases his lance before his wrist snaps at the held momentum.

A circle of dust, the horse stilled. Eye to eye, the Captain stares upon a panting mongoose dangling before his charge one long tooth. Despite a humilation before his men, the Captain is much impressed by such a fury gathered out of ill borne wind.

She stares too. Her body, soul craves another kill but her mind cautions her arms that the feel of a lance is rougher then the finesse of narrow steel.More horror may cling to living failure than a defeat dignified by her own will.

She lifts the lance to turn it on her own breast; to have a young brave heart upon it.

A wrist moves, a whip flicks the small distance, snakes the girl and shaft into a solid coil.

The gallop is resumed. The girl straddles over the lance, its blunt end rutting in the sand, the deadly blade inching towards her throat by the friction's drag. She can neither move to cut the whip nor slow the approach slipping through her hands.

Who can call destiny an idle thing? Or think design a purpose as narrow as an eye's squint in lowering fog? For just as evil can slice as a careless swing so can good save by a different turn; till these effects, so cooled and uncalculating, have that look of the most forgiving and most trustworthy god: Random. Random forgives; for blame is a mantle of fools who see purpose by closing one eye to a pair of blank doors; Random, most trustworthy, sees it lays always half a trap and half a ladder in every hole. Never wavering from its waver. For what men rail as evil in unpredictable is but the bewailing of a left handed stride. Random is not dice but men would play life as such.

For her then, Random turned and opened a hole in the sky. No death chariot swept through this to swallow up her fill but rather a red dawn called all the Faithful to kneel in the very dust of their deeds.

The Captain halted, dismounted and prayed upon the woven mat of his fathers.

The girl lay unconscious, still entwined at the spear, the line running taut to the horse, whose chest as speckled foam from the frenzy of its run. Her body gave no movement, no tremble of shame or fear. Its naked exposed with even her rags tore mostly away.

Her eyelids sealed from any perusal of the morning's religion. Only her throat lived, pulsating gently, its skin curved delicate away from the razor edge an inch distant.

The captain rose, his soul blessed for the day, turned to his horse and slackened the rope. At the approach to the girl, he stood a foot away and surveyed her living form. 'Still alive', he thought and seems without disease. 'Allah, perhaps has willed her life'.

He barked for some men and another whip. Taking no chances he ordered two of his guards to bind her arms, with the old whip. He ordered the spear to be splintered and discarded and placed the new whip coiled at his saddle.

Not sparing precious water, she was then awakened by a guard urinating upon her face.

As the troop saddled and trotted a return to camp with this solitary bounty in tow, the Captain spoke to his second of command: "Allah, it seems has willed this creature remain to man. So be it. But her tainted birth and cat claws make her no prize for a Prince or his house. There is, however, a merchant I despise, a brothel owner, who has an eye for bargains but a deaf ear to cause."

"Besides", laughs the Captain," He will not hear what I do not tell him!

And I have heard he prefers to stride the new young mares himself to ensure they are well broken under his obese rule. Perhaps this feast, lusted of unpolished fruit, will yield a relentless diet upon his own quivering bulk. I dare say there folds enough of him to drop away the flesh of three or four normal lepers.

That is, if the cat doesn't pluck his eyes and plug his wailing throat with them first!"

And so after a week's sweat and a leer's fondle, she became the promised bride of all men, at least those with coin.

Upon examination by the House 'mother' she was declared virgin, giving the merchant an even more swollen bulbous of lips; a grin lizards would shun.

But fate had it that a caravan was eminent for the merchants travel and business. Wishing to savour the fig longer, he ordered her bound by anklet and arm chains and allowed no leaving of the house nor male 'visitors'. Let the bride stay fresh and pale for the night of her returning groom.

Thus she was spared womanhood for another three months; destiny's presumptions are not halted but at least eclipsed.

Those three months gave graphic tale of another side of love, hate painted with gild. The Ruts and Unchosen which came here did not pay for bodies but rather for the ornament of faces. That gave distance to hate. In the remains of void, love would then be imagined. The better the face, the greater the void.

Graphic for her in details given and through the instruction of a boudoir's peephole where she was made to view. And beaten for much blinking.

Taught the feigns of pleasure and the syllables of ecstasy, to encourage the return of brief and golden moments; time travelled across desert and clinked in a hand.

Her 'sisters' were kind to her in the way that broken soldiers have with unwounded youth, making much of no glory, making little of much fear. Like cats around the kitten yet knowing the inevitability of the dog.

She learned it but accepted none of it. Even such a young heart could see dignity remain arise from any position; that here though in various degrees of decayed and diseased, touch was above purchase. Indeed there was truth because of the open purchase. The paw of the Beast holds no deceit here in this market place tucked away from the false clarions of hope.

But it has been stated she would not accept it. There lied no longer an innocence about her to tremble a glancing soul into the night's corner. Her streak face silent yet her lips were a continuous taunt in a silent growl. She was civil but still desert.

The dog in time regained his kennel and barked once at the approaching moon. Her sisters delighted in the folds and wraps they reigned upon this flower; petals for the hasty cumbersome peel at another's garden.

Upon a couch she waited, the embroidered props were as stones to her rigid skin, tight as her eyes which dragged at the ceiling. As if willing a hole to gather thunderous and the hand of Death itself to devour her itself. Her legs and arms free for the first time in months but the door locked.

The keyed lock on the door was turned and this once her body gave in to a single wretch of shiver. Then repoised itself.

The merchant entered with another man almost equally as grotesque in flab and offensive finery.

The second there having paid dearly for the show of first hand and then his own follow: this perhaps to ensure groom and commence were indeed twins at the same womb.

Standing side to side and each leering at her from pinholes of inhumanity pooled in flesh, she was struck by the image of a royal camel with two monkeys peering over the cheeks of its rump.

She smiled.

Encouraged, though a perhaps trifle disappointed that the kitten had no claws to sweeten his back, the merchant slipped from his shoulder his outer cloak. He threw it to a wall hook but it missed and fell to the floor.

Only a cat's ears would have scented the click of metal to floor, muffled in satin gold. Like the moon picking at its tooth.

A larger grin as she rose, gracing the sirs with a long look at her legs bared in the movement.

She spoke in the higher whispers of attending submission "Oh, no Sir, such a garment as this weave on the sun should remain high."

She glided past the men, whose four eyes played delighted at the now less gentle heave of her small bosom.

And finally enjoyed the rapture of her bent frame as it curved towards the crumple of cloaked.

Turned from those eyes, the right hand sought the hard form of her anticipation, while the left hand raised the collar to the hanger.

Better, much better than gold or coin, a hilt was found, grasped. And her soul of woman sang.

A swift turn, an arc, the nine inch blade drinks into the merchant's heart, his life gushing outward in a soundless stream of following. She wheels on the other as his alarm gathers past the horror first restricted at his throat. Her girlish fingers lay upon his lips while the knife points a froth of grin below his chins.

Both men topple in bloody harvest; criss-crossed upon the bed, its pillows gathering red in this savage dew.

The key taken she removes a good half of her garments for flight. The door is open, relocked.

In the hallway, there was no one, for the peephole was 'stoppered' to avoid any gossip at the Master's expense. Her feet slipped the stairs without creak and darted for the street door.

Night air, cooled with a dungish tinge, welcomed her nostrils. In a quarter of an hour, the desert welcomes her feet. It is hours before the deed is witnessed since the 'house mother' did not dare disturb the Merchant and client in their supposed reveries.

Alarm was near futile; search quickly abandoned. Days later the murders were near forgotten but for the wide laughter of a Captain's mouth.

But she knew none of this. Expecting the savagery of revenge to descend rapid, she ran the day in heat and matted dust. And the next.

The second night found her curled in the hollow of sand cupped under a layer flat rock. Exhaustion finally overcame the scream of thirst in her mind and she slept.

But troubled. Dreams and memories mixed to convulse at her limbs, her throat pitching demons out in loud utterance or mumbled words.

Only to have them return and carve in hairy tooth upon the loved things she gathered to the safe corners of her skull.

Twice the black dream caused her to raise upward, blooding her brow upon the unyielding stone sky above her. Her nails too racked sand and stone to the ferocity of injury so that the mounds around her had the trails of severed worms.

The desert watched and smelled upon this fresh scent churning from caves. Watched with the glow of small eyes and clawed feet which would bolt at any of the fiercesome cries from the cave; then step round to vigilance again.

Just before dawn, the girl awoke in a state drained yet semi-lucid, enough now to discern somewhat of her plight and its happenings. But the dream time with its horrors still overlapped so that she was awake in a state of half-immerse. Like a drunkard being who imagines snakes to be crawling subjects thus poisoned by his own delusions.

As she crawled out into the pale dark, the clawed feet scurried into distance, unseen through her veil of stranded adornment.

She sat leaning upon the rock, awaiting the likelihood of her last sun.

A wetness gathered at her thighs. Her hands reached and scooped reddened sand to her view in the holocaust of her living past.

"Whether by the lust of life or death, I bleed by the touch of

men she thought.' 'In taking life, the earth drinks life from me. Yet life took my living from me and thrust this death into my womb."

Rocking herself, curled at the knees, she cried "Why should a feather or claw get so much more than I? To live and run, to shelter and die, to eat or be eaten without a single curse upon its unknowing eyes. To be held by a mother, loved by a mother and in the time of its seasons, turned away by the mother.

THEY TOOK MY MOTHERS! THEY SHOULD DIE, oh, yes, yes they should die. It was right they should die. Why should I bleed of their death, I did not bleed at my mothers' deaths? I have bled them for their unbleeding! Where I have a womb, they have a throat!"

Hysterical, she raised her fists laughing, shouting, where a woman bleeds under stone, let there be equally a man bleeding upon it.

"Men, they, dogs of a motherless land, have built such an iron cage of hard hands. And come lolling close like wooden tongued camels shrunken in thirst at the first scent of ripe.

Wall, the lamb has grown a claw, the mare a horn! Come, men gape your pale eye close to our trembles of desire. And hear the very AIR ABOUT YOU SLICE BLIND!"

She froze. The knife held rigid in a motion of slice outstretched from her arm. Her eyes stayed upon its furthest point. Awaiting her return to savagery for a voice within had taken her heart elsewhere.

Her colder breath left her still lips a foot away in the wind's lift. Another breath. Another. Formed first to pole white hands, then gathering insane out of those hands into a bodily form

of a young woman, breath rising from that throat miraged to a fan and turn long hour as the hands. Only the lips were red, parted and spoke in the girls mind.

The knife fell as the girl crumbled into the stained sand.

Her voice weeping low, she spoke to her image "But my mother they took you. All of you and they only have a word for love and it is an ugly word and all their other words only mean death."

A chill rose and laid its touch upon her neck. The girl raised her head, her breath held so much closer, the image more solid. Its eyes a concentrate of mist; at the edge of rain, again the girl's mind heeded the movement of lips.

The girl's body trembled as her head fell and she whispered to the night: "But I am just a child, Mother. I cannot love what you loved. They took my eyes, Mother. I am just a child with a woman's song stuck too soon down her throat. Mother, mother why do I bleed if not for the sword of a father killer churning unsheathed within?"

Her breath pulsed harder. Its force began push the image a little away.

Her lips opened more but no words weaved now in the girl's mind, the hair of image strangely solidified to a blacken dense, becoming the only real outline of presence; a wreath bearing the final crown of the grave.

The girl's heart sprung at her very soul at the realize of this new loss being driven from her eyes. Yet, already, terrible anger was settling like black wings folding over her mind. She rose to full on her knees; her arms the taut thin of beseech; the bits of rags upon her finding life in the rise of wind; her eyes, brow, mouth the mask of madness beginning its storm. Grief gave its repent in words but salted with rage "Mother, please, I can forgive them. I can forgive them." Her arms fell a little "when they are dead, Mother. When we are equal, when we are all bled,

Mother."

Behind the gray black haired mist, darkness began to find power; to concentrate into a man form larger than the woman. It was an evilness instinctively known to the girl, a face or name was not needed. Large dark hands, dense with patch of hair, reached and stroked the black silk of the woman-mist.

The girl leaped up and screamed "Father? Father? Oh, yes, I would forgive father. The FIRST OF MOTHER KILLERS. Though it would take a very long blade to forgive father."

The hands gripped the hair tighter, tighter, Blood began trickle from the eyes, the mouth as the head began pulled back. The girl could hear the laughter of the hands.

"NO!" Her knife whistled into the images as the mouth opened wider, wider, the blood flow as rivers cascading down out of ever widening teeth. The images lost now as the mouth swallowed all horizons, the teeth the jagged mountains of perimeter, the hollow a sea of thickening red into which the knife whirled descent.

She shrieked in collapse as the knife splashed. The image exploded in a thunder of white flash. A black dead limbed brush appeared in the like of a clutched hand, opened, and released a dove. Flight lifted it upward, the circling, tighter, tighter, faster, circles till the dove was a spinning center of itself. And became a crucifix of spinning blades.

From some bowel of her mind, a dark thing is flung forward. A man. Propelled to the crucifix. His face travelling away from her inner eyes in a cutout of horror and hate.

Arms outstretched, the man-thing is impinged against this iron bed. A howl and the spin resumes. Blood issues, sprinkles, outward, flung by momentum, then cascades. The image, the girl, the world is drenched with this rain.

Her tongue probes outward into the sky as her neck arches instinct. The rain finds riverlets to the hollows dug below her feet. She falls down to it, scoops the red stained sand and tries to suck its fresh dampness into her throat, its salt linger diluted by the rain but not yet tasteless.

She gags upon the grit and vomits.

The cross explodes in a green flame in her brow.

The rain ceases at the end of her long weep. Her weeping, thoughtless, so chaotic the inner rampage for a single voice out of many desiring rule. But one voice, deep and archaic, as ancient as first-borne woman, has crawled its way to the front of her throat.

Its destiny powers her very frame again to an upright kneel. Her hands claw away the reddened grit driven into her eyes by despair and thirst.

She shouts "Where is the god of all this?" Just as her stained eyes open to the red sun erupting as the victor over its own descent. And her pupils are annealed forever in the colour of blood and new dawn.

The god-woman, its robe a cascade of deep red brown and jagged hem; her arms out in long spread the due of bruise; her hair the wild gray thick mists of burning auburn; her face: the furnace of 50

living creation, the glare of raging consume.

Before the girl's naked visions, it rose upward; engulfing half the sky in new flame; burning away all darkness but that which hid from its terrible view, sought sanctuary behind the physical stance of rock or bush or girl until a day's time to gather its own resolve and regain its night.

The girl did not flinch her stare, remained immobile to the god's trial upon her eyes, the archaic one inside denied the probe, despised the judgement and cried: "You then, God of Woman, you bring the light, then lie with darkness! The Great Bitch cycle of all heat and then all spent Will. Breath and Death weave in and out of your cowardice, your endless world of reach and plundered. Could you but hold once and deny the death power which lusts your flame, the world of woman would not be a history of statured blood; an issue of life given into the Night's cackling gut."

Sweat sprung from the girl's brown, flowing in and out her eyes; streams caressed around her lips, gathered with others stained from the cheeks and fell as if diamonds being sheered from stone.

From the chin they fell to the hollow of her breast, that already being soaked in its own release, the half blood, half sweat upon it soaked at the nipples and curving crests the rivers joined, filled the flat belly in a shimmer of silver even as the flow was unceasingly pulled downward.

Bathed in the short pubic of her new woman, gathered to the lesser red damp and spilled rapid down the inner legs forming intricate webs of faint pink. Fainter and fainter as the damp from the legs diluted the upper flow.

Outward from the bare feet, the circles of dampness fought the

oblivion by drying sand, sought a continious oasis against the overbearing heat, sought to fruit a living stance above the dust, the hell of the girl's rooted defence.

Her eyes, even with the salt of sweat giving more pain to the light's pierce, did not blink in falter. Her right arm raised up, stiff at the elbow, the fingers half clawed. Her right arm raised up, in the slow tortuous slice at a belly. Her right arm raised up, as if the iron lever of sentence, to decree banish or embrace in the flinch of a wrist.

"HEAT DOG OF ALL MOTHERS! Where is the long point of your ears, that you do not heed your daughters torn on the land! To what are you leashed, oh maimed jaws, that you cannot revenge amongst the transgressors of the Living Blood, Woman!

I see thy frontal paws, churning an anguished air but where is the rear to bear thy savagery and give full pursuit? Due to seek and devour the lasting shadows?

In the begin of all time, were you not the full prance of a she-wolve? WHERE ARE YOUR LEGS BITCH"

Gone to the stumps, worn to the knee by the grind of your lust for creation! Lost in every crack and crevasse of the blood land; your very legs devoured by your own carnivorous bitch-womb, so relentless is its yaw to bend spirit into flesh!

Where is Death, thy graven mate but writhing, convulsing behind all light, its black fever moaning for your re-descent. And its spawn, the motherkillers? Where are they but ploughing the trembling outraged earth? And out of such fertile dung, thy insatiable vision births the four-limbed bowl. To be filled with blood or death."

The wind, hot with the dryness of dead skin rose in the girl's hair.Though matted, drenched in the sweat of her defiance, the ends became free in the brush of heat. Danced before her eyes that till then were filled only with a fierce red passion, birthed between daughter and god.

The light wafts swaying, burning before her gave the ancient voice a passive brush to its lips, the way one would still the troubled whispers upon a confused dazed mouth, the wrinkles deep around it a confession of memory made more bitter, more bewildered in its forgotten moments of sweetness.

The wind cradled the girl to her knees, her right arm gave to the heavy stone of its poise and curled to embrace her chest with the left. Yet the eyes still held open to the god, without rage, without hope. The glass of a window slight turned so as to mirror without a hint of some passage.

She spoke in the voice of her existing child leaned to something larger:"I see the webs of your giving, the long fingers of child in your light. A gentler mean of darkness which has no blade but rather is but the weave of reach. As the spider gathers its path across the open limb, as the wheat tickles the wind's throat, as a wing flutters so like a child's teasing hand, as the woman whirls her love, her delicate eyes, a fruit giggling in the lift of her song.

There the forms of crystalline and edge, Death and Creation flower as child. What was and what will befind form in this sanctuary of being. A delicate eruption of living faith, that all living have faith in the love of life. The child is both the clarion of creation and the banner of death, for does it not give the living itself full passage.

As is not love but travelling through these parallel of forces. A sheer of infinite winds raging past each other in opposite of design.

So that terror and hope are the limbs of the Eye, so that Void and Infinite are all endless torn and grievous upon the ear of love.

That only the Beginning is immortal of end, the endless child breathes as lastgasp; its skin the multitude shedding of layers unend.

That who would bruise, who would caress this love, closes or opens their passage through life.

For the unliving are as mad before Creation as they are foaming before Death.

That the child comes out of creation and grasping love seeks the gather, the resurrection of Death.

Including its creation in the resurrection of all Death.

Death looks upon Child and sees the Saviour beyond its own appetite. And Creation looks upon Child and sees the living hands of Dream, as one would see the first crawl emerge from the dark feted mud of original dwelling.

Such was the offer then of your legged, immobility that all light shone yet flared in Void and remained an eyeless as Dark. Shadow of one leg was given to birth the light as cold in its contrast fires heat. The other for child, for eyes to harvest worship and adorn even as the Death devours with a breath sucked on rotten throat.

Even for a goddess of all Sun there lies no other way to life but die, that which journeys must end, that which sees must slumber, breath must exhale, a footstep must return to dust, the motion of all is circle on there is no motion.

Only the stones travel in straight lines. The same in past, present, future without deviate or curve and remains gray to light or dark; forever unchoosing as it is without choice.

But the God-Mother chooses life above light; chooses pulse above warmth; the God-Mother herself shed brilliance of throne for the endless belly drags across Desert. To bleed ever in the dust and give breath itself to light, to birth what is from what could not be!"

The girl rose full to her length, both arms flung to the wind stronger at her gather; her eyes as burnt in thought-fever as her God's form.

"She; the She-One; that she cleaved at her centre, that One becomes the Three given in red flow, ever the red pour of deathlessness overwhelming death, of red holding black and white apart from a gray oblivion, just as She herself holds heaven sky from dark lands, the red winds of her breath riving shadow from the green reach.

"RED IS SHE. RED IS CHILD. BLOOD is their bathe, blood is their join, living is blood. Not for worship but that existence storms for worship. BLOOD IS AND THUS IS WORSHIPPED."

Her body knelt again, the arms remained outward. Her face gathered a rigid contort, an unmasking to the depths of some deep joining of forces or emotions which stir only when sanity ceases to have any cause and revelation rears full rein at the tongue. In a low churn of voice almost as if the half growl of wolf, the bark of dog, the Girl-She decreed testament onto Desert:

"Tis birth of Child which is both worship and to be worshipped. Yet Child is death's past as stone is blood's inherit. Let the worship be as is worshipped. LET THE PRAYER BE AS THE TEMPLE. Rise and fall, heal and cut, death itself birthed, cradled in the passage of Child huddling into stone; descending into the blood frozen of regret. Let the words be spoken, then broken.

Let Death bring the wound upon Creation and then let Child issue. Let Child, let Blood free and then as all things bring forth the Death need. So that where there is Death, there no longer is Child but Creation is always. For Creation was the first cleave of Sun-Mother. All but Child is the Motherkillers yet Creation is the death-mate to bear child.

So let all both die and live! And let true worship of the Sun-blood both die and live! Endless of tears, of blood sweat for the rut of resurrection! Death has no power, Life has no hold, Child is a broken bone, Sun is but a gash in the Night, Darkness a mumble's fever; all is void without void; lost without the true worship. The Worship of Woman, by Woman encircles all and gives the hallowed bless. Through the instruments of blood. Wielded by woman. Only woman. GOD-WOMAN!! GOD-WOMAN ARISE FROM THE BLOOD!

Thy destiny is the eternal crush of the motherkillers stone! Let the blood course around all stone; let the blood vein the stone, boil and plunder its form.

Let the woman covet child till the child dies into stone and spills into the storm winds of death or creation. When the god ceases to be god and descends to man, there let Creation swallow Death and issue again and again and again the god. The God-Child, the stone and blood, the moving lines of Song! Let Woman sing endless the Song, let Woman howl the Blood Song from the Desert Gorge of her belly, rising, rising to flare wild from her lips, from the tongue of her soul, from the rapture of her self-worship. Higher, higher, let the blood flow, let it bathe the land, let it gather to the valleys, the hollows, the pits, the beds, the millennia of footprints upon the land. LIQUID FIRE! Let the roots pulse of it, let all created be swallowed of it. Let it be SEEN as it truly is! Let no eyes remain blind to each limb running in blood. Let all divine and kneel. By DEATH OR WILL, to the Great Flood which was, is, shall be.

Let worship, let woman, let the blood tooth, the pulse flower of Sun, mirror the red glory of this Womanly Terror! Let the Claw of Knife plunder the Red Spirit and thus the Sun-Womb continue its kiss of flow upon the Land."

A knife point sliced the skin inside her upper thigh, did likewise on the other thigh. Without flinch this was done, without a wave of blink before the God. The point then circled on each breast, a circumference a little larger than each small erect nipple. The palms were cut, then the knife held two handed; its iron point drenched of blood, pointed straight to the slay. An appearance of an amputated rose.

She standing rigid. Swaying. Life blood clothing her legs, her arms, her belly in a crimson sheen, dark and light in beginning swirls of congealing flow. She chanted in a high pitching reach as delirium became more and more, and even the convulse of prophesy began faint. She swayed in tiny circles from the ankles, the knife blade moving in a small continuous revolution. Still, the eyes remained open to her larger soul hung in a sky gorged by the fire to pure glass.

"She is the god. I am she. She is the god. I am god. Worship child. I am child. Blood is she. I am blood. I am the blood things. Blood of I. Knife and Cunt. Instruments of god. Knife and Cunt.I am Knife. I am Cunt. blood is ..... knife

..... she ..... God ...........................I.

The swaying was faltering in rythum as the knife circles grew larger. Her eyes no longer were full open, the eyelids began struggling to close over the heat of her vision. All around her was the blood smell. Two vultures had scented it and circled between her and the sun.

Her mind gathered their moving specks. Her lips had ceased any chant, the blood had slowed a little, death hovered in the air closer and closer.

Her mind welcomed the reach of these hands, the soft black fingers of Sun-Mother. Downward to her, to seek the touch of her flesh, to lift her into the womb drenched in living and cool away the death air upon her skin. Closer came the hands; she had no fear only a stance of will to hold eyes, body open that she may welcome the Mother as a worthy child. Courage of knife and womb for the journey back to her.

The combined flail of the twin vultures, talons would have torn her face, throat to shreds on impact. But in the split second before impale, two jackals streaked from under stone. One leaped at the vultures to falter their intent, one collided full into the girl's back. The blow sprawled her out of claw's grasp only a wing spread slapped her face. She spun and landed upon the sand prostrate. The caking of it upon her wounds slowed the blood flow even as the jackals persisted in driving the frustrated screeching of ravenous away.

Unconscious for a hour or so, she awoke in a fierce throb of heat and head. Barely alive for blood loss and thirst, she managed to raise up to a squat and open her eyes.

Lucid had returned and doubted the small vague forms circled around her on the sand. As the shadows grew clearer, apprehension tightened at her waist.

Ten jackals sat in a haunched stillness, their eyes fixated on her face, their ears poised forward, only the long hair tufts at their ears stirred gently in the moving air.

Her eyes moved to the sand where the knife layed a yard away, cast out from her sprawl. Her hand began an inch towards it, without a tremor for perception, as if the wind was bending a stalk, a flex without unnatural intent.

But small hunters have an eye keen upon the minute. The jackal closest to the knife rose and trotted to it. A flick of jaw downward and it held the knife, turned to the girl. Their eyes gathered between each, the girl felt a strange sense of homage came stir at her heart. The jackal came to her and dropped the knife at her hand before returning to its rank.

The meaning borne in this seemed beyond even a Desert Child's comprehendsion. An unnatural faith or a supernatural force; hunters kneeled as if at prayer upon prey; yet something of it brushed at her soul in the wide horizons opened by her near death.

Some response, some acknowledgment drifted to her mind, something to break the haunt of greedy open look above closed jaws. Even in the abnormal, the normal attempts intercourse; as if to stall for a time of adjust or retreat.

She tried to ask 'what do you want' but the words issued only as a croak dried in the long parch of her throat. She wavered for strength, lost its grasp and slumped faint again. Three jackals left the circle, the rest remained.

A few minutes passed, the sun inching in the sky as a like a fire hovers in its full rage. A damp nose prodded her cheek, stirred her eyelids to fight endless collapse; they dragged her shallow breath back around the veiled darkness.

The jackal sat very close, its eyes hinting, taunting of some message that could not be spoken outside a language of body, of unspoken movement.

Another jackal barked, startled her. It rose and came to the closer jackal. Its snout close to the first, as if a kiss, its tongue darted to the lips of the first. It was then she saw the drops dewed of the lower lips, below eyes almost shouting the secret it held.

Comprehending, she cupped her hands and held them before the jackal.

The mouth opened showing a sheen of damp pin sharp teeth, behind those a pink tongue pooled in a water held by the mouthful. The jaw tilted downward and the liquid flowed to her hands.

She sucked at her hands till parch dry again.

To be refreshed again, again by a second a third jackal.

Then another came with the fresh blood carcass of a desert bird. This she devoured, before her accompaniment of serving audience; entrails and flesh; blood colouring her lips; bits of down flowering her breasts.

Thus in that brief time of blood and illusion of natural and unnatural speech, of mystic riding the winds of desolate, of service bloody in endless wounded eyes and womb that the woman defined her conflagration of self-worship, of faith to the Blood-God of Creation. Of Death, the merciless and her creator gave her blessing of life and of the jaws of frozen in the black shine of jaws descending. Born by hawks, dark, fetid and endless from its starve, painted from the night's breath. A breath but this worship was to be fed, the faith of woman-god was the endless vision canted through the red pools.

To chisel of stone the blood words of love, of child, of hate, of loss pain tearing as an umbilical cord attached, dragged endless by the beast furies of death. Such that a woman moves ever the very earth itself, a great stone wrenching to the roots of her womb as she wanders purpose; calls with vision into the hollow of retracting footsteps, bemoaning but unshedding this last Secret no man can know.

To smash the poems upon the earth dust or contorted brows of death, of anti-god where Child is ravished where love is not passed like a blessed cup filled with sun.

She would kill. Kill the transgressors, the two limbed snakes who dared rear from the cities shadow and spit into the sacred alter of Desert.

She would save. Save the gazelles, the broken nosed herds who had plucked themselves from the ring before the knifes of fat hands could drink of their cries. Who had wandered to Desert as a Child gropes for the alley beyond the heels of wine slobbered rage. She found them and huddled their bleeding into the mountains; a garden very high in the mountains where flowered much hope, a new village of people...not just men. Where a greater humanity flowered.

Yet, also, flowers have a cycle too.

He spoke into the end of her story just as the foothills were rounded at their feet "So this haven of village has gathered a more gracious limb than the usual grasp of man in a cramped melee?"

She halted and turned her tears into his gaze "It was so a time yet abomination is not sole of a thing rotten in the night's arms but goes deep deep into even the most delicate of eye like the

stamen drenched in honey. Even the most brilliant fire has a shimmer of shadow above it, even the purest candle of heart-kind bears the wick of man darkly in its center."

"But why is it so? What breeds such impossibility that men cannot shed from their mirrors all skins of fear and harbour uniqueness into a vessel of change?"

She shook her strands of hair in a slight tremble of wind and turned to their aim. Her hand gestured for his follow as she replied "I do not know. Years of this hunt yet I do not know. Perhaps it is that they die. And know the intimacy of that death. And drag it behind their will the way an oxcart wheel squeaks a haunt of pursue behind the slumbering sway of dumb. Knowing they cannot flee its harness, perhaps they hold eternity in folded ears.

Or perhaps in their believe, they first did find Worship. Worship of Self but their ears pained to its continuous roar of sacrifice, as if like a trumpet they dwelled too long at its mouthing glories not to the task of a small throat

out the belly of wisdom. And thus, fell to the mumblings of faith, as all faith is the mere blind of gropings lost to worship but lingered of believing memories. The present prostrate as a faint past. Faith is to worship as stone is to vain. Those who fear the bleed, those who hesitate at the banks of flood become only the faithful. Their sprinkles of absolution mock the immersions of worship.

Believers. Perhaps there are no true or false believers. Only believers. Those who scurry only in faith have no throat large for wild drench song but rather remain a dry whisper; a hollow skin weekly watered and easily scattered by the heel of the Sun."

He replied "But it has been said that faith alone will move mountains."

She stopped again, her hands groped his two shoulders, her voice spoke from her belly drawing inward. "Indeed, Man-Beggar, so it is so! But what pray are the mountains the faithful humble to, turn to in eyes beseeching against lives stumbling into wide earths. Worship is the mountain. We, who worship we, we are their mountains! They pray and we come upon them, dwell and move among them. That faith, that faint cry across endless moon cycles, may be reborn upon their very decay of tooth.

That in the stretch of their eyes, they may raise to our vision; putting themselveson top of their own shoulders then again then again till they are indeed a small history raised into the present mountain.

It is our winds buffeting at thin backs that sweep the shadow from their heels and ignite their limbs into the run of stars! For the cities of men are of little prayer, but the Desert is a Song of Giants in Worship.

Faith moves us, Beggar-Child but our worship may not move faith. Indeed we move gingerly about their toes till we are indeed the dust of all. A mountain can do no more than come to the herd and bray for a courageous hoof.

But come, haste, let us skirt the village first and I will show the sore before you have a greeting from the cause.

Over higher hills they walked, he saw the village to his downward left, a couple dozen sturdy stone habitats, specks of humans moving about. Smoke curled from a few pits, a watch pointed to them, sounded a horn. She answered from cupped hands in a rise and fall of hawk cry. The watch waved, his horn a glint of reflected ray. A few below gathered and watched their direction of stride. Then began to head in about the same as if to intercept.

The beggar and poet descended down a hill and came to gully, perhaps an ancient river bed or glacier gorge which descending continuously towards the plain without any hill interrupting though it did weave like the trail of a snake.

They followed the gully upward, rounding a few corners till they were coming close to a rock face rising high as the begin of the first mountain.

They rounded a corner, the banks particularly steep. She halted and panted ahead, crying: "Behold the follies of the all Faithful!" And there a few hundred paces ahead, was carved from the rock face a ball of stone twenty heights of man high. Completely round from heel to top, without wrinkle or chip, smooth as the sense of its hovering intent. Carved in such a way that its gravity leaned to escape the face and be spat into the gully. Where it could begin to ominous rubble downward like a bull gathering wind in its snout.

It was still held by a single bridge only a few inches thick and long so easily poised was the balance of the skills that had rubbed and chiselled it into potential life.

The beggar, first a little awed to its size, so unusual is such a grandiose construct from the hands of desert bands.Yet it did recollect some of the things in cities that men point to and decree by their half joints, greater history. Some pointing with their eyes ablaze, some with a gesture that mumbles from their lips.

He spoke: "What is the belief that formed such an idol?"

She spat wild at the Stone, her chin lifted quick in contempt: "Belief? The belief of children digging holes in the road for the joy of caressing mud. What do they know of fate till it crashes in limb and axle into the very pits of their pleasure!

Oh, they came to here in a belief. A belief in life after city. Bearing their stone eyes upon their backs to heal in the Mother's wind. To a seeing faith. In their moving hands, their stone huts, the laughter of their child once only a whimper in alleyed bowels. In the fire of their build, what was unmanly, unwomanly, unhuman became the ash of slapping mortar.

And yet that purity had even yet an unclean which even my nostrils ripened in sun could not scent.

They had no walls yet remained a wall. For they called their new destiny: lifting hands. And remained ever faithful to that vision. Though some came to a worship of self, holy in its recline like a long wind hovering, most remained not far in their unidle hearts from builders of men."

She fell to her knees, her hands rubbing up and down her legs in rapid agitation.

"What is new hope but the mask laid blink upon prophecy?! As if one reasons in the despair of pursuit that the wolves' cry heralds the ending of night. FOOL I AM. To see only joy, only brotherhood in these fresh carpenters, these stone apprentices. Not to see that it is such with all men, when left restless amongst old tools and crumbled ruins. Creatures of the rise and fall, like all breathers of wind, without worship what can they do but horizon history with fresh paints? Stone.

Stone was their eyes. Stone was their faith. In a time, when the commune became in its necessity complete, their union turned to me and begged peace for their grasping hands.

And I, the fool mother, the maddened guide, I, who daily laid a worship of chiselled sentence and scattered word gave them a hand to a legacy blindly done.

GO TO STONE and declare WORSHIP, I cried. For the parent gives as the parent has and by a child's love, the child is robbed of a higher stance. For does the parent say 'Rise above me and wonder of thy self what I have lost in the shudders of old limbs. Do not gaze so long in stooped eyes for I am now more a thing of what is not, then what is!

No, rather the parent whispers low to the back of her heart: 'What I am has raised you three feet, then what I dream will raise you another. Take the blood and flesh of my dream, of my worship and it will feed they own growth."

Her pointed hand raged towards the beggar's face. "IT IS A LIE! HEED, BEGGAR! To lie amongst your child is the greater sin! If you can give them NOTHING, then do not give them less than that.

Do not lay upon its fragile back the heavy half of what you are not. For they will take that half and be a half of that!

Better I shrugged these children. Or scattered their tools into the pits of their empty mouths. That hate may have fired a greater purpose than this cold destiny of chipping endless flake."

Her hand fell. She stared in the dust the way one collects a water's reflection.

The beggar knelt to her, placed a hand on her shoulder. "But the thing is done and like a poem can it not be undone or forgotten. Are not childrens' hearts more easily loosened to new places than the bitter grip of men's?"

Her head shook a little sideways. "No, you have not the full understanding. I told them to go to the mountains and purify the artistry of their hands in build and destroy. Gathering my dream in the edge of their tools, their path was innocent. Following this gully, their ascent was without deep breath.

They would begin a testimony of their history, pictured on the great face of rock.

By design, they chose first a frame of great circle into which they would have a panorama of artistic evolve, of the faithful singing, bent to the task carts of believe into a chiselled sun, they would etch a permanent record of scorch, of immortality, not given to ask.

Of that even I had doubt, for while the builders sweat into their narrow groves one upon one, who will birth the destroyers to complete the end? But ends curve away from even those first designs; the tools are swayed by more than hands.

For only the circle was chipped, deeper, deeper. In the banks of toiling minds the history was unremembered; an image of man-sun was borne.

They ravished the face to that round, then carried to the back of their sun. Deeper, deeper.

And in that shadow lower intent moved along the swinging shafts and struck spark upon their molish tempers.

Some grim eyed genius had a dream of a great ball descending as the Eye of Retribution upon the city. Destroying hundreds in its low swoop of hovel and ornate walls.

From that dream, nightmares flowered; shadows of an old history shimmered seductive as a new history.

'Unleash the talon' some decried ' that out of devastation will be borne stronger growth. The walls of men crushed will let man again dwell desert-kin, free and full without hid of sun.'

Others: "No. Delegate into the city for a new order of freedom and equal heights. Destruction is unnessary. Walls are but the tabernacles to what men kneel most: fear. Use that worship to threaten to reign justice upon their cower of the Great Ball."

"No" `argued the first if we tell of the Ball, they will want to divert its purpose and then hunt us down for the price of our follies of barter. Peace and union are not a thing to come out of turn landed over but only after all is level in equal horizons.'

Another arguement came "But what of the dead? What of the hordes and wild beasts let upon the remaining? Should not calmer future be given first ear? What if a half city's unionfied comes not from piercing brotherhood but more as like the bond: Revenge?"

`'Dead are the dead whether today or tomorrow. The Ball is the Saviour of men not a man. Just as it was for us. Did we halt the height lest a man fall and die61

stamen drenched in honey. Even the most brilliant fire has a shimmer of shadow above it, even the purest candle of heart-kind bears the wick of man darkly in its center.'and thus the chatter of mice goes on and on....."

The Beggar asked "But why is it so? What breeds such impossibility that men cannot shed from their mirrors all skins of fear and harbour uniqueness into a vessel of change?"

She shook her strands of hair in a slight tremble of wind and turned to their aim. Her hand gestured for his follow as she replied "I do not know. Years of this hunt yet I do not know. Perhaps it is that they die. And know the intimacy of that death. And drag it behind their will the way an oxcart wheel squeaks a haunt of pursue behind the slumbering sway of dumb. Knowing they cannot flee its harness, perhaps they hold eternity in folded ears.

Or perhaps in their believe, they first did find Worship. Worship of self but their ears pained to its continuous roar of sacrifice, as if like a trumpet they dwelled to long at its mouthing glories not to the task of a small throat

out the belly of wisdom. And thus, fell to the mumblings of faith, as all faith is the mere blind of gropings lost to worship but lingered of believing memories. The present prostrate as a faint past. Faith is to worship as stone is to vain. Those who fear the bleed, those who hesitate at the banks of flood become only the faithful. Their sprinkles of absolution mock the immersions of worship.

Believers. Perhaps there are no true or false believers. Only believers. Those who scurry only in faith have no throat large for wild drench song but rather remain a dry whisper; a hollow skin weekly watered and easily scattered by the heel of the Sun."

He replied "But it has been said that faith alone will move mountains."

She stopped again, her hands groped his two shoulders, her voice spoke from her belly drawing inward. "Indeed, Man-Beggar, so it is so! But what pray are the mountains the faithful humble to, turn to in eyes beseeching against lives stumbling into wide earths. Worship is the mountain. We, who worship we, we are their mountains! They pray and we come upon them, dwell and move among them. That faith, that faint cry across endless moon cycles, may be reborn upon their very decay of tooth.

That in the stretch of their eyes of look, they may raise to our vision; putting themselves on top of their own shoulders then again then again till they are indeed a small history raised into present mountain. It is our winds buffeting at thin backs that sweep the shadow from their heels and ignite their limbs into the run of stars! For the cities of men are of little prayer, but the Desert is a Song of Giants in Worship.

Faith moves us, Beggar-Child but our worship may not move faith. Indeed we move gingerly about their toes till we are indeed the dust of all. A mountain can do no more than come to the herd and bray for a courageous hoof.

But come, haste, let us skirt the village first and I will show the sore before you have a greeting from the cause.

Over higher hills they walked, he saw the village to his downward left, a couple dozen sturdy stone habitats, specks of humans moving about. Smoke curled from a few pits, a watch pointed to them, sounded a horn. She answered from cupped hands in a rise and fall of hawk cry. The watch waved, his horn a glint of reflected ray. A few below gathered and watched their direction of stride. Then began to head in about the same as if to intercept.

The beggar and poet descended down a hill and came to gully, perhaps an ancient river bed or glacier gorge which descending continuously towards the plain without any hill interrupt though it did weave like the trail of a snake.

They followed the gully upward, rounding a few corners till they were coming close to a rock face rising high as the begin of the first mountain.

They rounded a corner, the banks particularly steep. She halted and panted ahead, crying: "Behold the follies of the all Faithful!" And there a few hundred paces ahead, was carved from the rock face a ball of stone twenty heights of man high. Completely round from heel to top, without wrinkle or chip, smooth as the sense of its hovering intent. Carved in such a way that its gravity leaned to escape the face and be spat into the gully. Where it could begin to ominous rubble downward like a bull gathering wind in its snout.

It was still held by a single bridge only a few inches thick and long so easily poised was the balance of the skills that had rubbed and chiselled it into potential life.

The beggar, first a little awed to its size, so unusual is such a grandiose construct from the hands of desert bands. Yet it did recollect some of the things in a cities that men point to and decree by their half joints, greater history. Some pointing with their eyes ablaze, some with a gesture that mumbles from their lips.

He spoke: "What is the belief that formed such an idol?"

She spat wild at the Stone, her chin lifted quick in contempt: "Belief? The belief of children digging holes in the road for the joy of caressing mud. What do they know of fate till it crashes in limb and axle into the very pits of their pleasure!

Oh, they came to here in a belief. A belief in life after city. Bearing their stone eyes upon their backs to heal in the Mother's wind. To a seeing faith. In their moving hands, their stone huts, the laughter of their child once only a whimper in alleyed bowels. In the fire of their build, what was unmanly unhuman became the ash of slapping mortar.

And yet that purity had even yet an unclean which even my nostrils ripened in sun could not scent.

They had no walls yet remained a wall. For they called their new destiny: lifting hands. And remained ever faithful to that vision. Though some came to a worship of self, holy in its recline like a long wind hovering, most remained not far in their unidle hearts from builders of men."

She fell to her knees, her hands rubbing up and down her legs in an agitate of rapid.

"What is new hope but the mask laid blink upon prophecy?! As if one reasons in the despair of pursuit that the wolves' cry heralds the ending of night. FOOL I AM. To see only joy, only brotherhood in these fresh carpenters, these stone apprentices. Not to see that it is such with all men, when left restless amongst old tools and crumbled ruins. Creatures of the rise and fall, like all breathers of wind, without worship what can they do but horizon history with fresh paints? Stone.

Stone was their eyes. Stone was their faith. In a time, hen the commune became in its necessity complete, their union turned to me and begged peace for their grasping hands.

And I, the fool mother, the maddened guide, I, who daily laid a worship of chiselled sentence and scattered word gave them a hand to a legacy blindly done.

GO TO STONE and declare WORSHIP, I cried. For the parent gives as the parent has and by a child's love, the child is robbed of a higher stance. For does the parent say 'Raise above me and wonder of they self what I have lost in the shudders of old limbs. Do not gaze so long in stooped eyes for I am now more a thing of what is not, then what is!

No, rather the parent whispers low to the back of her heart: 'What I am has raised you three feet, then what I dream will raise you another. Take the blood and flesh of my dream, of my worship and it will feed they own growth."

Her painted hand raged towards the beggar's face. "IT IS A LIE! HEED, BEGGAR! To lie amongst your child is the greater sin! If you can give them NOTHING, then do not give them less than that.

Do not lay upon its fragile back the heavy half of what you are not. For they will take that half and be a half of that!

Better I shrugged these children. Or scattered their tools into the pits of their empty mouths. That hate may have fired a greater purpose than this cold destiny of chipping endless flake."

Her hand fell. She stared in the dust the way one collects a water's reflection.

The beggar knelt to her, placed a hand on her shoulder. "But the thing is done and like a poem can it not be undone or forgotten. Are not children's hearts more easily loosened to new places than the bitter grip of men's?"

Her head shook a little sideways. "No you have not the full understanding. I told them to go to the mountains and purify the artistry of their hands in build and destroy. Gathering my dream in the edge of their tools, their path was innocent. Following this gully, their ascent was without deep breath.

They would begin a testimony of their history, pictured on the great face

Such on and on the debating goes, Beggar, without resolve, divided equally like mules on opposite ends of a broken cart. And I as useless as a whip: as much the healer as a single carrot."

The Beggar spoke, with his eyes upon the stone, "But is it such a monument of hesitate? For will not time erode the difference of unresolve. And is that not the benefit of men anywhere? Harmony is indeed the follow of discord just as the hungry learn the gait of the full? If the price paid is the roll of a heavy dice, is that not the way of sun, and death, alloyed in stone? I do not understand of what is a little city's blood to you?"

She weighed his eyes long in hers before answer. "History. And worship." Her arm swung towards the stone. "What is all this but again and again men calling their history by the course of other man's history. By claiming that change, they claim change. Like the whimpers of lamb which turn the course of the wolf. The lamb is devoured and though now intimate of the wolf no one would call it changed to a wolf!

Yes the Mother Sun and the Father Death demand endless or cycle. But as a worship as One, not a faith of beetles to the freshened dung.

In the course of their own blood path, each man, each woman must paint their worship as their history. High on the back of stone, delusion calls this blindness: a Vision. There is but the cycle of the shuffling lame.

They are no more a Man yet than any other man for the building and destroying of men does not create Man but is the inch of wind dunes. No More.

And worse. They have become chained to this Ball in their dreams of grand men. They have lost their mother's tongue, heed me no more, there is the language of mumbled pebbles.

They sought change without changing and this remains unchangeable. Deaf to their own song of worship, dead to any life beyond their moving hands.

Whether it arms or jaw, they remain fleas of the bitch, men-kind and will never prance as the solitary howl.

This stone is failure. Indeed a momument to failure. Mine. Theirs. A testament of what I could not hear them envision. That men is the individual Mans. No less.

That to be Man, men must turn their backs to the history, to the builders, to the shakers, to the follies of all men of all ungodly, unnatural of the broken cycle.

For as the day is new so shall the Man be new. So shall the Woman glorify. Tearing asunder what they were that the day will mold fine into them, their cavities unplugged with the bone and ash of pre-histories."

She looked again upon the Ball and shook her head in slow and repeat "No one can drink fresh from the Mother with this seed of unchanging lodged in their throat."

She turned back to the Beggar, placing full palms on his face "And what of you, Begging-God? You have now witnessed the ever disease chiselled into a heart's last hope, where are your days to bleed away now?"

Turning from her, he sat squat, looking out from the hills across plain towards the city.

"I entered these days without hope and leave the end of these days with nothing less. I sought wisdom. I sought word as one would seek an edible root in the dust. From end to end of this Time's garden's I burrowed yet found nothing of what the hearts of men could sustain upon.

Yet sustain, they do and more miraculous only half a mad swallow. For perhaps the jackals, the horses, the wind have no memory, no prophecy. Thus the day's grovel or terror or flee is only in the moment and a moment is forgotten in the pass of a shadow.

No man has such luxury. One wonders why they are not endless in froth.

You called it Believe. Even a little in some insignificance of clutch holds a man's grasp from endless foam. Yet Believe brings it curse too like a saltwater drink."

He pointed at the Stone. "For there is belief which holds a few to less than being, yet turns the hammer from raving on skulls."

He looked at her. "Perhaps it is again as you say. That so many believe in so little. Few have worship. Few are wild eyed drunk to the power of purpose or simple destiny. A little belief sustains the soul's yawings in the manner of meagre corn to the fowl of a better's dine.

For they have enough knowledge to rise their bread but not enough to understand its swallow. Knowledge gives a life but no meaning of living.

I understand now your place of uncomprehending. A place of dark empty where each object entered no matter the trivial or plain, is elevated to awe by the fierce light of its unique intrusion.

Could it not be that when one's self finally enters this altar, that it is elevated to a radiant stature of a god?

Being god what is its task, its duty? As a god of no knowledge of men.

That men only 'see' is true. Gods 'do'; there is your worship. The dying 'acts' of men are but a mockery thrown a blind faith. As different as blood to stone.

In the days left it is not then what I do but why I do that treads a giant footfall or darker pit.

Lost of all knowledge, I cannot see. What shall my God 'do'? As living act yet without blind act?

You declared that after understanding comes wisdom without knowledge, in the way of a heart migrating winged to its unborn beginnings; in the way the calf rises out of its birth blood and hobbles to its suckle; in the way a river turns to its valley breath descends from the wind to a waiting lung.

So I do not see a history but must live forth a history.

That this god has belief but has no means to gather that cause upon its back. That blind it is limbless in mirror to a reach or a stride cannot return what it did not give. Yet cannot pass by the empty bowl.

Can a god be abused into a proper usage or tempered by the draw of eyes?

What is of greater poverty than a god with an ampulate of reach in its soul? Is it not the lowest form that it cannot lead even its own destiny?

What a thing it is to be above law but to have no lawlessness, that by its blindness to the man-need it remains an immobile rigid signing all laws.

The god of this worship is indeed blind as the flame. It is by the palm of man which it journeys; creates. Thus the god and the man anneal. At the burning palm.

The god must give all to the man to become the god man. Men exist as the means of this giving. The same as your blood creation. It is not death that cycles. But the sacrifice of your mother to your blood. Your blood on their stone. My father on thin cross. My god to their palms.

We do not sacrifice to fulfill an intention of dying. Nay. We sacrifice to fulfil an intent to the living. The man living.

Man bleeds through man to become godly.

Yet remains not of men but stands instead more manly.

Like the worm burrowed to a grave seek, he bears all the world on his squirming spine.

Wisdom calls then the god a hoof, the man astride. The living act of precious care. Yet much is the slaughter of gods and man, though they win fall no farther then the full height of a proudfull reach. Death levels the attempt but history marks all high waters! To be as one godly and manly they must be. Annealed only by a love of unwinded dignity.

And then gauge the mirror to go and do likewise.

For the bodily man.

Wisdom declares then a man is as much a mule as any mule.

To the city the god returns. With no knowledge. With no word but a faint fragrance of believe, of love, of sacrifice of wise intent. Something of the word is of all these. And something of a mule. In the city lays an unlimbed boy who has as much a need for an empty mule as any man.

I shall return to that altar of myself and await his word; the man below the boy mirrors the god below the man. Perhaps in that worship, a dignity is found."

She spoke to him with a nod of approval, "If indeed it is the wisdom of your worship it is itself dignified for are not worship and dignity the right and left limbs of the moving, living act?

Thus you gather all that you are into the first breath and discard it into the first step. What is necessary for journey will linger along. Take only that to the City."

A gruff voice turned their direction from sun back to the stone. "No one sees the stone and is permitted to leave with that knowledge!"

About ten of the villagers had come up the gulley's throat, a few women; more of the men. Scattered in size and height shaven, haired or bold, then were dissimilar to each other but for leaned frames and their hands hung in fists by their sides. Each had a pair of reddish, roughened almost oversize in their swell of sinew and muscled grip. A lifetime task reforms the means, curved to the ball, the body spilling into the rim of there unfilled bowls which cupped a heavy meal of granite daily.

The man who had spoken was tall with a half beard wild and unkempt on his face, an almost unsettling effect compared to the shaved upper jaw and cheeks. His hair was thin rooted in a deep tan skull. One eye was a fierce deep blue, the other buried in a fold of scar borne by a flying chip: a zealous cut. His hands were the largest.

She spat. "Exas! (for that was the man's name) What is this new sentence: That a man trips over pebble, he will ease to walk?"

Exas glared at her, his eyes fixated though he flinched his head towards the Beggar "You know my mean. The Stone's cause is too perilous to all. Whether carved upon or simply seen, the Stone binds all. He is now one of us. If he leaves and tells its tale its purpose will surely die with a hundred swords at our throats. Till its destiny is unrolled, he is as bound to it as we are."

Her eyes opened wider, fiercer, the sun behind her like its concentrate of force, as if her mind a prism of the flame.

"Hammer handed fools! Away from his path, you are but the chips under his calloused feet. Precious stone! More like a grave marker of dead wills, your fear rules your rules indeed with all the nobility of piling crumble! You worship this bloodless beast as if it were a man saviour. Well a thing does as it is. How can that which denies one man's true road, miraculously open ten thousand bolted gates? It cannot!

Hold it forever as the vision of your own death shadow, if they cringe but do not roll such obscenities, such a testicle of impotent before a man!"

Exas visibly shook as rage stirred like hooves pawing his gall. "Old woman, your bile spits like a viper but I TELL YOU NOW THAT YOUR DAYS OF HERDING SHEEP BY A FIRE EYE AND A DANCE OF RATTLE ARE OVER!" His fists lifted, switched sides, bringing a fold of arms crossed. "The village has voted. All agree. We are not ungrateful of your bearing in our early wanderings but the yoke of this new Stone is too heavy to grind upon aged shoulder. You are no longer our leader, though of course, you remain the revered mother."

Her eyes remained in their bowls of ferocity, though for a moment her features grayed to a saddened fall. She replied "And an Exas of chiselled Stone will now replace the blood fire's wind?"

"No. That has not be as yet decided. The haste was for departure not arrival, much like the frogs with a snake amongst them. Now lies a time for singing, not counting."

She spat. "More like a time for rabbits to get lost in the night now that the wolve's howl is driven from the gate."

Exas returned: "Blood was spewed from the Mother but has a natural cooling; a solidification to purpose as it journeys into higher horizons. For it is the way of each new man to carve above the last man, each child takes from the mother: Blood to mold new history. It lies the mother's duty to applaud, not hinder; for the uprising is a thing of future, she has no belong to it being part of past. Having issued the living destiny, she should bury herself in the dead, singing no laments for her noble givings."

One arm of Exas stretched out, a finger at her face; the other arm kept its fist tight at his side. "THIS YOU HAVE NOT DONE! What mother rages foul lipped upon her child's fragile skin? What leader leads then roars obscene for full circle?

What savour begs her flesh remain ever thrown again and again upon the worldly blade?!?

You have despised us gray for the wiping of blind red from our seeking eyes. But it is rather that the sun is better worshiped by a declare in and out of shadow.

HEED, MOTHER! Your children see more of the light than thy eyes now burnt away in heat. For the new Stone is a thing to liberate! It shall crush the Worldly Knife, that of which your pin pricks have raved and duelled upon; empty whirlings; noble but now the reap of drained limbs like most hung in the wind.

Tired ones must come to rest. Stay in our village for your days. But a caution. Tiring things must come to a rest as well. Give a tongue stay for your days also; for your children find its rasp a grating thing: an unneeded erode upon well formed backs.

Your past is honoured amongst all. It is our own future which is voted new assemble. Be still now and remain revered among us." He crossed his arms again being even more sure of his poise "Crackle on and be driven from the communal flame; like an irksome ember tossed from the hearth into the night!"

She looked at the Beggar. Her hand tossed toward the villagers "See. Children of the Worm squirm and return to the nigh's crack of empty! Seeking the altar of unborn, do not all men declare a new blindness sacred; and pull the cowardice festered upon their back long over their eyes, like a rag of hood now exposing the flee of backsides!"

She turned back to Exas and the villagers. "That the sun rises and opens its blink of womb, so must mouth rise and fall in the tides of blood. A destiny of preened oracle cannot be turned by the folding of ears or the rise of hands like grass before the poised lions.

Yet I have been a fool's ear amongst foolish chatter. Your hands raised are but an overdue exhale of fallen spirit. When the follow has turned away. There is no leader. You today tell me an old tale.

The she-wolve festers in wounds decay, yet the distance of the pups does not make them wolves!

YOU STILL DO NOT SEE! Denial is not REACH. Like babes in a night, you cringe of what is not there and wail against all offers for it is as simple as the will of eyes stoned in their close.

Destiny is not a moral of brand though it has its hunger. You stop no path in denying a Beggar's. You learn no language in the hollow of an old woman's torn mouth."

She pointed at the Stone. "There, see it as such is! That is your monstrosity of indecisive. Round as a world, you would release it to flatten a world under a world. But there will spring no fresh of green freshened Man. It is the shadow of what you are and is but the Seed of recurring history. It is of all things unopened, filled in its hollow with a frozen contort of all things untouched. It is YOUR HISTORY CARVED but remains a destiny unopened. For you have now discarded everything into it. Think ye immortal!? This heart's well which you claim deny's at its throat the sands of time? Plugged it is with rock!? Man made or time made, there is still no froth of living at its womb! No bucket can pierce this crust even if your hands remain sure to the woven hope!

"ENOUGH! ENOUGH!" She stooped and picked up a stone.

"Raise yourself from the unfeeling posture of four, my children, and turn back your hammers! Lay upon this boil, crack it and a quench your living search upon the single drop of worship upward ; the condensation of fever that flares destiny above the flat history of running worms!"

The stone from her hand curved over the villagers and struck hard at the Stone; a click like a knife falling from the sky.

"OLD BITCH, CEASE I TELL YOU!" Exas picked up a stone, his eyes levelling for aim. Most of the villagers did as likewise.

She flung another arguing "Death of stone or death of mother! What is all that but a child's song!? What is silence but the rain of stone!?"

The stoned arm of Exas gathered its momentum backwards like an egg held away from the throng. More of the villagers did as likewise.

The Beggar moved to front a blockade before the She. Her leg struck his abdomen; he sprawled away gasping. "No! Shadow not the Breast from her cubs' teethings!" She threw another stone, chipping the Ball.

"SING IN THE SUCKLE OF BLOOD THEN"roared Exas, he threw plunged a rock into her chest and stooped for another. All of the villagers did as likewise.

She sank to her fours, already blood seeping from her robe, her hair as the stones gathered at her flesh; the thuds like a rhythmic drawn. She fell over, stilled, the sand lapping red below her. The stones ceased, the air hung disarmed of its menace. The villagers as likewise. Only Exas held his will steady in the curve of his palm; his chest breathless for a sign of rising or heaving; as a child does when unsure of its previous act yet determined to hold away repent by continuing the act.

She rose to her knees, her back slowly straightened and ceased 80

trembling; her eyes reached out of the blood pulp and moved about the villagers'. Out the blood spittle came her voice: "When the life given turns to devour the life giver, this is the most evil, hide the Mother scorched at a mirror. For the cycle calls to the child to hunt another child's parent, likewise a parent consumes all that is not its own child. And thus the circle remains wide to let life continuous in pass through. Childish arms, your reach does more than this injustice, though your eyes see only the horizon of my broken brow.

And I shall rob you of even this history. Motherkillers.

Remember this for your shall soon do likewise with your Stone!"

Her head titled back, causing the blood of her chin and cheeks to stream upon her long neck. Her mouth opened as her hand darted in robe.

A long knife whistled upward like a black form arrowed high, then plunged downward.

She saw it rising, its grace of while an unfold like the heart of black haw gathering thinking it of the sun. She had no thoughts of a death or a life, these were things to be cast when those times were dwelt. At the gate passage, she discards with single breath what was to be done or undone; of what is to be entered there is no new memory as yet.

The mortal taking is perhaps the only undertaking where all distractions are passed by intends of stripped away by the rush of wind. Like the hawk: heart, wing, eyes fuse in a of full intention; that intention not even of prey but rather of the single will to plummet for solitary act.

The hawk reached; rose swift to its climax; folded its wings to hold embrace the power of its being gained height; a glint of sun upon its solitary claw drawn.

As alone in gaze, as the traveller vanishes spreading eyes before the last plain, she thought only of that beauty; of a brief second of eternity kneeling before act. Her act.

The hawk descended; swift but not in the eagerness of defile, rather in the musical flow of note. For the song intended.

The rabbit did not regret for she had called forth the hawk to end righteous a burrow spent in long nights.

Perhaps it is indeed found in a strength of living that whereas young things have no Mother to greet their beginning; old things can make a verse of their own departure.

Her heart hummed in the air silent of these surroundings. Her soul stayed its rejoice, like a choral not yet needed. Her mind would not answer a body's last plea for existence.

He rocked her body, his face smeared of her slowing blood, alternating between gaze at her death eyes folding into her curve throat or an ear to breast, unable to hear the higher song. His hands, too, mixed her hair, face, blood in the gestures of a stupefied man painting in the rain, his touch both attempts at smear and cleaning as both rage and gentleness had each a grievous brush.

He did not weep. Weeping is the control of a dignified offer to a lose. He did not lament. For wail is the outburst of life beginning even at death's very instance to rage forward again.

It was sobs tore from his throat like some half dement slapped away from a piece of bread. The weepings of a child cradling a broken toy.

A thing had broken inside himself. What contains a man in heart and mind and soul remain ever walled from each had crumbled. Stone had dimished in blood.

That wall protecting a man from grasping the large black hand that curls in the multi tenacles of date or grasps him.

With the will to see death is not to see one's own death. The wall prevents the filling of empty footprints with the entire being of that traveller's heartache. The wall will not allow the soul's yearns at eternity to howl down upon each minor heart loss and fill them to chasms of perpetual. The mind cannot 'peek' over and turn away mad to the visions of touch and untouch as the heart gropes endless for even a single dual note of harmony in a desert of life.

The mind, soul, heart knew only whispers faint, unclear passed to each other, stone-through. Like of savour outside, yet ironic, their hope circling around around like wind in a shell plugged by the sand of its own carry.

This wall had broken in a Beggar.

Her death lay as a flowing limp of his walk. Fainter as the yaw of some great dark mouth called to him for the salt of his name.

Death in a death is of no fear, it is the irony which crumbles even the stiffest back.

He could not explain this death nor its life before it. Nor his own.

The heart, soul mind of his footprints had as if gathered and dug her grave. She died simply to die before him. As if the desert lives to swallow rain. The hawk gives the air means for its cause.

A religion of inertia held breathless at the edge into void.

She existed simply to give his existence a distance from nothing.

Now nothing laughed at his feet. And heart, mind, soul were bound to an embrace from this full comprehension.Of void.

For now, again, he had lost something unaccountable. Unmeasurable for it was an intimate of himself as well.

It was as logical to grieve of just this loss as a drowning man deplores his life savings lost in the money bag that drags him down.

Things had died with her, of her, yet would not be buried.

Heart, soul, mind had lost the horizons of his physical body and deplored the universe in each other's eyes.

A fraternal devouring was this death. The brother is consumed with the sister.

Death of a loved carries away parts of the lover living.

Death of a loved one buries all of the lover living. Yet the physical continues drag like a chain into the grave. So that a few parts are pulled away; enough to call the living, human. But never whole. Voices remain unearthed. Her voices, some, walk even now in his breast.

A language of islands is whispered. To the passerby it is only wisps, smoke in empty horizons. To the islanders, it remains a clear sadness of broken peddles.

A long time, he grieved. The villagers shuffled; waited. His grief gnawing the ragged edges where their grieve remained as a hole; torn away by the still fresh raw of their act. Murders dispels, forbids any sense of loss. Or becomes in itself; senseless. Thus, the mind will not allow but holds to the act as justice or the mind becomes in itself: mindless. That entity of self-survival feels too feeble a means before such a powerful force as death to allow death to be called: random. Grief in the murderer is the acceptance of chaos as the primal god.

Finally, scraps of living gathered near the Beggar's hold; tugged at his mind; he rose with the blood, the only awakening as yet was that of his feet, ready to begin their task to the city. All else remained at her name falling away from his eyes.

His feet responded to the shudder inside and moved forward with a slow step.

Exas spoke as he saw the Beggar begin to move away, holding She in his arms: "Hold away, man. The mother is ours to bury and as well, your journey remains now with ours."

The Beggar turned toward the villagers, startling most. For the sun had sunk lower and came new behind the Beggar in the gathering dense of flame. Both himself and the woman carried crosswise to his body were a smear of red, white grey rags, a flow of her stained hair, his smudge red turban, faces both burnt in the colour of death, ash and blood.

An effigy of some terrible idol crossed; emerging out of dying fire.

The blood and tears mixed at his eyes to give a dooming sheen in his glare. A glow of hallucinating pink.

He spoke, low and even, with hardly a part in his teeth: "Who is the friend who lifts a traveller's soul weight? Who is the foe who holds a traveller's sole rise? Can such two hands breath of the same tongue?"

Before Exas could recover his mind from this unrational twist another villager spoke loud "Behold, tis a sign in his eyes, this man has the spirit of the mother!"

"Yes" said another. "The son is the gift from the old passage."

A shorter man added "True! Here are shoulders, young and worthy to the Stone; his vision filled with the task!"

A wide, fat lipped mouth exclaimed "Was it not to be written that 'In the pit, tools will be exchanged!' Look! He rises from her grave as one of hers and one of us."

More of the same milled from the crowd while Exas stood puzzled in this fate overturned, like a breath held in a tipping cart.

Held till the words 'new' and 'leader' became clear in the rubble settling before the stone. That brought his exclaim "WHAT!" He pointed at the Beggar "This is a shadow! The sun paints an image true but as flies to flee into it as some mere bloody gesture. We know nothing of him. He may well be a spy or a some flee of justice willing to return to city and barter our lives for his pay."

An older woman spoke back, out of the cant of her lowered lip "Exas, the great doubter, the village knows your love of stone and the righteous of your hesitation. But mad as the mother was, her heart was ever fierce; no wing beat of hers would carry a hyena amongst us. All others she found, she gave to the village. Only this man did she bring to stone first! Meaning he is first of stone!"

"Old fool! Reading signs in the stagger of ancient fevers, like a jackal calling the wiles of a three legged goat: crafty. We have slaughtered one outrage, do not raise another! Let us at least bury and mourn before we strip the body of our..."

"Enough. Enough." spoke out the Beggar. He lowered her body to the ground. "There is no need for words thrashing like oars beached. For I will lead no one. Indeed I barely follow myself." He opened his palm towards the body "I leave your altar to you. She was desert and will know rest or unrest anywhere. For perhaps the last desert is buried with her, like arms folded. The reach she travelled finds now the centre, the swirl of her horizons visioned; she consumes with the worms a unique world she created.

Stoned or not, in that she was god."

He looked among them, saw nothing. "I cannot replace her. That fate is hers and your own. A rock needs no leash for its journey, your act needs now no leader. The Stone must travel another way"

He looked at Exas and saw something. "But I shall leave this place. By foot or by death. The cause is mine own, the means is your choosing. It is your fate you must discard; your blood rises but can it break a fateful grip?"

"Journey downward then, brother!" barked Exas as he stooped to pick up a stone. The villagers murmured but none moved to stone nor raise a defence.

The Beggar held sad the movements of Exas, as one would watch a dog chase a wounded bear into a cave.

He spoke "Throw then, Exas. I will not fight. My shield lies at my broken feet."

As Exas drew back to throw, his mid finger slipped to a grove in the two fisted sized rock to taut a better grip. That obtrusion disturbed a small tiny but deadly scorpion at rest till night's prey. It struck deep under his nail.

He crumbled in a howl and balled his hand up in pain in the other.

The Beggar and one of the women villagers ran to him; the Beggar pried his curled arm out from his body. The woman saw the poison already spreading in a web of purplish veins. Her eyes came to the Beggar's; they read death between them in the air of a wheezzing Exas. The Beggar went near to the body of her mother and returned with the knife.

The woman nodded for some men. Exas, barely conscious did not resist as the men sprawled upon him to hold his body and limbs firm upon the ground. The Beggar grasping the hand of Exas and held its elbow joint tight on a flat rock.

The woman cut through it in two deft cuts, ignoring the jerk of a wild scream before the second.

Red deep blood poured from the severed joint, saving the life from a poisoned death.

With wide strips from the Beggar's robe, the woman bound the stump tight against the body. Using a fragment to drain her brow, she rose and oddly spoke first to the Beggar dressed now in only loincloth and dirt red turban.

"He may live. Likely was a female night deadly, a scorpion for smaller, yet deadlier than the male, The only saving thing of it, is that its venom has such a potency that the muscles near the sting contort rigid and slow the blood spread. It cannot be sucked out as it is as deadly in the mouth as in the wood. Now, he must be moved to the village, to cauterize the wound's infest."

A greasy beard spoke, wiping the splatter of blood from his cheek: "What of the Beggar here? Nothing is as yet decided."

Eyes hawked in a tan of burnt spoke next "I have a thought that Exas may have gripped more than just a desert's whim."

Woman: "What do you mean?"

Greasy Beard: "I mean if a man raises a fist at another and falls in a fever, there is croft about. And I say that a craft that can so swift remove a man's arm can blind the eyes of an old woman's heart."

A strained tunic spoke next: "As we nearly were. But for the fearless doubt of Exas, clear in the shadows. I agree, no one man could turn so many tricks, but a demon-soul has a rapid hand under its skin of cloak!"

The woman shook her head a little at them, then spoke again to the Beggar: "What words for your fate, now, man? The crowd tilts in the sway of an arm."

Strangely, at least to the crowd, the Beggar laughed and replied "Many a leader of pluck is downed wing bare by the pluckings of his own house. Whether a rooster crows once, thrice or none at all, the fury of the beaks are like the cracking of eggs. The more a man speaks, the more fragile becomes his shell. Once condemned as a eloquent devil, his tongue becomes his own noose!"

She laughed. The village did not.

A villager retorted "And trust a woman to be the first to be swayed by the swing of his lips!"

A man from the rear, with a chin as a heavy weight upon his face, held up a coil of thick rope and shouted "Swing is the word for the moon's unholy kites."

The woman turned on him "Fool!" You would go through leaders like a dog snapping flies from its nose!"

"But neither shall the dog be lead into fire by the hymn of a jackal's flea!" rattled a thin fist waving from the rear.

"Nay to the rope for a witch can dance forever at death but they say fire spreads the ashes beyond any lizard's growth. Singe his tail and tongue too, flames do more than a choke. BURN THE SON for our mother's blood!" foamed some darting teeth.

"Are your hands not yet sick of their thirst?" Stood the woman back. "Let all this blood cool in the night. "She pointed at the lower sun. "For the day is near done, yet still there is one to bury and one to heal. Let your justice blink in tomorrow's light, such as its shadows maybe. Bind him ourselves if you wish, but let our teeth sit idle from his neck.

He may be craft, he may be not. Justice can remain swift over the space of hours but remorse stands too long over an innocent corpse."

"BIND HIM THEN" and a whip from a haired hand coiled his legs, jerking the Beggar flat back in the dust.

The man with the chin and rope pondered a loud. "But where shall we hold this adder's flush? Not in the village! I'll not have its tongue's magic slither amongst my family's throats!"

"Bind him here then" replied the haired whip and let the hyenas decide his flesh as like ours or theirs!"

"More like them to be spelled for teeth on his rope than ruled by their natural bellies!"

The beard grease flared in the spark of an illumination and pointing at the Stone and decreed like a bad architect's hunch "ON THE STONE, HAUL HIM THERE! on the back of it, he'll not travel far!"

"Good. Good. He'll mirror his Moon and is safe away." and the thin fist chortled "if he is a Prince of black, he will be safe from a flood of his toadish hordes!"

A laughter, carnival in its explode, roused the crowd to moving feet.

A few grabbed the beggar and tied a wrist to each end, a long length of the thick rope.

Another called for a ladder; two went to retrieve one laying by the cliff but another villager blustered even more the taunt around by shouting "Hold!

Let the Prince drag forth his own throning stair," and then with a sweeping bow to the Beggar" like the steps milled from his victims' necks."

To the Stone then the Beggar dragged the long clumsy rungs while one man stood upon the digging end holding both ropes in his hands like leads and pleasing the crowd with his names and jokes of "Mule" and "Half-assed man". There the Beggar collapsed, his legs bound to stall any human flight.

Four of the men then took the ladder and sweated it up. Another two grappled each an end of the Beggar's rope and began ascend. "About half way as the ropes drew taut, the Beggar was 'teased' with a whip to follow suit.

What a roar for the crowd, the Beggar hopping his height as one foot with jerks on his arms to repeat the rung.

The two men reached the Stones less curving plane and left the ladder. They crossed so the Beggar was forced to face out away from the Ball and circled to the back. They tied the ropes so that it held as a drape of secure.

At a wave to below, the ladder was jerked away.

The Beggar slid the height of a man down the Stone till the ropes held tight. Blood streaked the last foot above him where the skin had split upon rock.

He inclined his head and looked among them but said no words.

Only the woman trembled. The rest of the village too enthraled as one of the men on the stone urinated above the Beggar. There was a hush as the long trickle snaked its way downward, twitching and turning in the imperfections of stone.

Then their throats chorused wild as the stream did indeed kiss upon his bended neck, following after below the Beggar's legs.

The two descended when the ladder was thrust to them again.

Standing below, a few of the village taunted at the beggar. But he did not reply.

The woman looked upon him again. The Beggar and his shadow, half overlapping him. Her bowel cringed.

Yet for the life in her, she did not know why. It was just a man hanging on a stone' she thought. 'Nothing has changed in this world.' She looked away at the purple limbed sun, ringed in darker cloud. "Then why do I feel as if a terrible thing has been done. Not just done but ever repeated."She shook her head "Too much blood of a day is in my nose. Tomorrow will make cleaner these doings. For sleep turns a wrong right like the tossing of fitful dreams."

She moved as the evenings air rose; the wind already brushing sand over old blood.

The Beggar watched as the processions moved away. One group carrying the old woman's body. The other bearing Exas on a makeshift stretcher of the ladder.

These moved down the gully towards the path away to the village.

The last one was a dog having picked up the arm of Exas. It made up into the hill with two of its follows in hot pursuit.

His eye weaved into the sun.

'So much like hers 'he thought'. Borne then the red womb, then a white flare, then bleeding into a hue of death.'

A few flies itched at the blood of his back. He attempted to flinch them away by a lift of the ropes but his skin could not bear the fresh taste of stone. He slackened his grip and unnoticed the large knot slipped a little in its hasty tie.

'What was she then but the pores of my scent. That through her, a man could sweat life. She the roar, I the whisper. Sea and wind.

But always the rigid of land consumes all. The great bowl swilling like a cup laughed in the hand of a drunken God.'

Suddenly, on that image, of the dark fluid sloshing over same barren chipped lip, he felt again as if a pit rose growling to his feet; a rimless thing with only a swirl for its centre. His body acted in sobs, like a child, the physical defence of tears to erode the jagged teeth of this approaching thing.

"What gods are there to starve from a man's throat his why's and shove into such a hollow the fatal eye of merely: when?"

His head sagged on the roll of his chin, drips falling clear from his cheek's to the outward belly's curve.

"But what was 'why' but the ball sticked in the streets by a half starved childish hand, a toy of toys undernourished, though the dust sees endless reap." He looked again to the sun. Aloud came his thoughts.

"Your faith of me was to believe in this believe. But they are blind and thus all I see is a blindman's vision. A noise of living, where no thing breathes well apart, like the things of a man bound in long string and dragged clattering down the street.

That is the music of believe."

He jerked taut on the ropes "AND I! I SHOULD BE SUCH GRATEFUL TO MY GODS. For I have such a silent world tied behind. For in its voice, I heard the ever slow cracking of my own heart." He slackened his pull; the knot again had gathered a little shorter end.

He visioned the short crouch of the beggar boy, a bowl set square in his jaw.

'I would have been. Been willing to be the mule of that love. Perhaps as simple as the use of love to stay the moonless season of alone. But instead was I not the mule of my own fate, like all things, fate astride like a jabbing spur who tells the way by tugging in a man's eye sockets with its sharpened claws?And the mules hold 'why' amongst bitted teeth; hoping yet dreading only 'when' at each cavernous turn of the hill path.

What binds them not gallop but that fear of the fate yet fate is their waiting knife.

Two men travel this stone. One of the body who fears death and thus crouches low in his living. The other of the mind who does not fear death, yet has a terror of the short grip of his living. One to fall in the pit wailing: 'too soon'; the other tipped backwards in grave moaning: 'too late!.

If to know 'when', would not one cease his delay of falling and rise far from his bed?

Would not the other haste in his sowing, giving up his hesitation licking about dry lands.

But all men do nothing but war upon themselves, using the world and its fellow limbs as blooded both by their own bludgeon and opposing left handed shield.

Such a mindless drumming across their brows. Without victory a surrender; flee into their own shadows and there gnaw upon their own rat eyes with the rubbings of stumped reach.

Indeed, the Beggar's own vision itched in the lifting dust of eve's wind. Nor could his wrists woven into captivity assist their gathering pains. The tears had ceased a past cleansing but as, yet, not a taking from the future.

He closed his eyes.

But sleep, laid on an iron touch of his back, was not a thing coming.

His thoughts, even in such a short thing as a seven day history, could

come to no reason, no processing in a strand of series. Rather all seemed a torned web, he could only stumble in it the way the stunned grope in the ruins of a charred dwelling.

Recognizing only what was, what should be, the singular reality had no meaning. Collectively as an asked heap one identified destruction but each image itself brought its own intense pain of denial. It could not be summed by the human mind.

In a time, his eyes opened again.

The dark sun nearly lost. The shadows long, near the height of their creep. Dusk would soon liberate each from their adherence to shape; loosen the footholds from each creator.

Looking down, the Beggar saw close to the stone foot. From his height the appearance was that of a circular bowl slightly off colour of the sand; roughened at edges, wisps catching on the wind. As if a hole swam gently in the dust.

By its shadow cast, he saw the reality of what it was. A desert owl, scruffing its talons where the blood was scented on the sand. Cream coloured as a dove, its camouflage of a crusted purity, both blinded a predator or prey.

Strangely, he spoke aloud the fullness of his father's name.

The bird, now aware from the speaking, looked up in the black falling of its eyes.

The Beggar answered "The dream fulfilled, father. Have you come to unleash your son? Strange that from above you are known only by the cast of shadows. I wonder was it thus of these from your heights?

And from their eyes? or their eyes? What were you, the shadow of cross or alone and a cross for shadow?

Where was the Mother drinking purple vein: a front or behind? She lies crumbling before us all, Father. The stone is my shadow, then. Round and circulus must be the man and the world is a shadow of stone.

What world crossed as shadow of cross, then? What lines met behind my Father and grieved with pricks of blood, brow beaten?

Blood, Father, lies in the shadow of stone. Like a two handed fist tight in prayer binding the bloody palms from two horizons.

Mother of sun was right, Father. Blood flow is the mind of stone."

He looked for a moment at the sun. Then back into the owl's single tooth. "What then father is the sign from the set of sun? For which hunt has thou arrived?

Does not all shadow bleed from the stone as the sun lays gentle upon horizon?

Yes, Father, weak you were. As weak as I. Weak from the furthest journey.

For your shadow points in all directions as mine turns back upon itself over and over again.

Blood and stone are the same, when the flow of time is of no meaning. Time brings the shadow of separation.

Time for the setting of suns.

Yet I struggle on stone to believe in the necessity of your crossing, my Father, or my stoning. zbn

For your cross, it looks still too much as the tool of a puppeteer. Alas, whose hand had fallen away in a stupor of disregarding.

As is my Stone.

Better the witness of many tiny fools at hand then one solitaire sweep without even the mercy of misunderstanding.

I cannot believe in your God, Father, I cannot."

A deep sigh gathered a few tears as the Beggar looked out again into the graying air.

"Yet, truly, for all our love, I believe in my heart, the existence in your death, Father.

For time giving shadow from blood to stone; stone to blood what is that but the shadow then of death, of change, of movement, of the times itself.

The man emerges out of Cross.

The outer skin is the living shadow of the inner death.

The skin is the rim of bowl. The rim is only as real as it appears as a shadow of the empty soul.

They spoke of thy resurrection, Father. But misunderstood in their religion of hope of a life after death.

Thy resurrection is not life coming out of death but rather death coming out of life.

The bowl taken away, the emptiness has an image of the bowl's form but is no longer contained in the bowl. Thou, Father, are now free to reform in a more unique eternity.

For what was the form of body but the internal artist painting. A pause in destiny with the bloody flare of offered flesh.

The set sculpture of that destiny.

Inside the stone, fate has a flow. The weather of history leaches it to surface and gives later vision a historic worldly view.

You knew your destiny, father as now I see mine. Yet fate is a daily thing found in the elusiveness of moments.

Destiny is the calling, fate is what men turn and turn again to without even understanding, to grapple to that final encampment. And await the fickle dawn of history or not.

And they cross, they crossed roads as death moved out of thy skin; history perhaps was ready and moved two worlds to follow thy death.

As I feel this stone pressing for release. Is there as like a world pressing behind it?

Like the cross, the stone moving becomes death moving out of the world. Does such transform the world into life?

When the Beginning and Ending reform, when the shadow separates from stone and fills the night air with its wings; when it refolds and hides under Dawn's bright Hand, where is Death living? Where do the living carry their bowls?

What is a Round but a cross whose four limbs bend upon its hollow and join behind. Declaring then no Beginning or End, without time's shadow for contrast.

Does not the thing bend around the soul of myself?

Perhaps then it was your godliness of Death, father, which showed two worlds intersect at the Man.

Using a fated climb, we have both offered a destined moment for the oracle of history. Yours has begun.

I doubt mine.

You could forgive them, father. For you saw the eyes all around you rung of your own fates, your own destiny which bid their limbs as cruel to the cross as your own.

By the ferocity of your will to love and to die.

I have only loved one that well.

Can that burn away all the shadows of humanity passed by?

Perhaps thou being the mirror of all arms flung full, shows the God of species.

Perhaps I, the mirror of encircled worlds, shows a God of single Man. For that Man only one hammer can empty the blood vessel.

For the rest, I can no more forgive then a hare forgives the flea that disturbs its silence tunnelled below the waiting jackal.

I see only the nails of fools shattering under the heavy purpose of some larger hammer."

Jerking hard on the ropes in an old attempt to clasp his hands for prayer he shouted "In thy name, Father, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS MOMENT!"

The knot gave, slipped from its capture, the Beggar slid down the face of the rock: his two legs shattered as they drove into the sand. He sprawled forward, outstretched before the Stone at his tangled step.

The ends of the rope fell behind the Stone, their weight snapping away the rock bridge which bound the stone to the mountain.

At the crack, the white owl rose and gave flight towards the city.

The stone hesitated in its ancient inertia, giving the Beggar a moment to look up towards the winged bird. They opened again and again like sharpened hands, bearing a faint crown of sun dusk in the horizons.

He sensed the tremble of earth below him and knew its purpose; history gathering from its slumber.

Without fear, he whispered to the fading owl "Blessed are the sons, for their eyes will mirror their fathers' footsteps."

The stone embraced him, gently exhaling his Death.

A moment later, the villagers trembled and rose in fright, as the stone churned and rumbled its charge down the gorge past their blackend huts. Exas screamed, torn from the severance of his sleep.

The stone maintained its deliverance across the flat desert, its stain of red going slow revolution like a continuous blink.

A distance and then it struck the flat rock where she had imbedded the knife. The shudder of its collision and stop cracked the flat in two and drove a vibration deep inward along a flaw of compacted earth.

A minute crevasse opened; a hair thin as a dogs; yet travelling miles downward; webbing, connecting with other flows till a reservoir of molten crust was tapped.

The pressure boiled; inching towards surface.

It would take a thousand years to fount and spread a thousand, thousand arm lengths of winged flame and ash, "Exploding over the City."

But that moment was now destined to come.

THE END
EPILOGUE

Unusual for an author to endnote his novel. Few indeed are the writers who do.

But I am here to ask something again of the reader.

The readers who staggered through the endless wander to get this far I thank. I apologize as well.

No novel can be or end more than its creator.

Fate, History, Destiny, God, Man.

These still puzzle me.

My brain remains an unfolded flower that can only grasp a little of the bee's hummings.

The Beggar changed history. Like Christ.

The Mad Poet was wrong. Men do not rob from their individual history to alter the history of the species.

A Man is first historic unto his own self. Against fate.

His destiny is the choosing of the species' history. Using fate.

It hints of explaining much and hints of the terrors of such.

In order to remain unending, History must continually turn from its direction and circle...and spiral.

A Good Man must be found for Evil times.

An Evil Man must be found for Good times.

It has been said: 'The Times make the Man'. Yet, too, the Man makes the times.'

Both then are Gods dwelling at the edge of shadows.

As are all Men and Women worshipped in their greatest moment.

Their Death grants them eternal. Unfolding beyond the mirrors of fate. It is History which writes the illusion of their living.

They themselves may or may not have been that fiction.

A Man, a Woman is a great unified holy thing...men, women become...in their numbers...lesser and lesser so...

Destiny for the Species is about destiny of one...the one leads...by walking away...

Fate must kill him...or her...and thus save the Species...both by the leading and the dying...

History moves in great leaps to nowhere...evolution is found in the footstep, in the creation, of one tiny defiant...

....the gods than give us only history...

....Man gives us Destiny.....

Suffering

a man: to understand suffering, one must suffera god: yet to see suffering,

is to suffer. a soul: yet to know suffering, even to suffer, is not...in itself...to end suffering.

.One sees that the god and the man are really only concerned with the degree of suffering that each has compared to the other. The god suffers watching the man suffer. The man suffers because he does not know there is a god caring or even a god exists to watch his suffering. Neither one can reach out of their ignorance or impotence and end the suffering of the other...and thereby, end the suffering of themselves.

The soul exists, is even created by, the angst, the anguish that this suffering itself is not ended. It does not exist in god or man...it exists only between them...the Messenger not yet put to death...

Thus the Soul cries out " Man killed the Son of God; God killed the Son of Man; will they ever forgive each other?"

A LOOK AT THEPHYSIOGNOMIST ..fate is always present; destiny is only exchanged between future and past...passing through present in only brief moments.

fate is but the wheels of the universe ever turning, the seas of time and trial ever churning; fate has the appearance of chaos to one eye, purposefulness to the other.

fate drives men mad...or asleep

destiny is a horn which awakens them...or frightens them away...

History will record your destiny...fate has no memory

Destiny becomes then each human being's mountain...fate is all the elements of the climb

Come then, Gambler...

Come thou then to the board of gods...

and roll thy dice.

