Josiah the Reformer

by Jared Wallace Carter

CHAPTER 9

  A week. A full week. That’s how long Josiah had to wait until he could see the Historian again. That is how long he had to wait to get any answer. It did not take him long to decipher the message, but Josiah was frustrated and impatient with what it had said. He had not forgotten about the sun, but since he had been at an impasse with it, he simply grew weary and discouraged. He had pushed it to the back of his mind, but after the Historian it then held his constant attention. He was not crazy. His Aunt Junia was not crazy. The Historian knew about the sun, and if he was telling the truth others before him knew about the sun. What is it? That question gnawed at his mind. What is the sun? And why does no one know about it?

  There was no doubt in his mind that he would go back to the old man. The Historian also was confident in the boy’s return. He felt that the sun was then engraved in the boy’s heart, just as it was in his own and was beginning to haunt Josiah as it had haunted him ever since he first read the word. He knew from experience that it was a curse and would remain so until the sun was either discovered or found to be a lie. If it was a lie, then the man was to be pitied. He would exhaust himself to the very end.

  The week passed by slowly, but it did pass. And Josiah returned.

  The old man opened the steel door to reveal his prison cell. To the boy’s amazement, since he had expected either barrenness or brokenness similar to what he had seen in this new world, the room opened up to something so extraordinary that the word ‘cell’ had completely vanished from his thoughts. It was the last word he would have imagined to use to describe such a fantastic and bizarre looking place. Every wall was lined with shelves from the floor to the ceiling and not a single inch was misused. The walls seemed to have been made of the many books which the shelves held. However, not even the four walls could contain the vast amount and therefore stacks of books lay on the floor several feet high in a roughly organized manner. A small cot lay in the back left corner snugly against the bookshelves. A great trunk sat at its foot. Josiah only guessed that it held his clothes because he saw no evidence of any other articles than what the man was wearing. In the center of the room sat a large wooden desk made of the same strange material that he had seen in the previous rooms. More books and journals were stacked on and by the desk, the ones which the wise man happened to be studying and examining for answers at the time. What area was not covered by the books was covered by scattered papers, some written with precise penmanship and others with furious scribbling. Pens and pencils were scattered about, most hidden among the piles of papers. The desk top left just enough room for a man to sit and contemplate what was in front of him. Josiah noticed that it must have been there in that chair at that desk that the Historian spent the majority of his waking hours. Beneath the desk, the carpeted floor had been worn to threads, littered with broken pens and pencils, and stained with ink. To the right of the desk was a large pile of crumpled and balled paper, the evidence of the Historian’s attempts and frustrations at finding meaning in the books. The edges of the desk were noticeably worn and there centered on the edge across from the seat of the studier, in a space made by pushing the stack of books back a few inches, was a wooden plaque with just one engraved word. Historian.

  Josiah tried to take it all in, but everything was so strange and so new. Nothing of all that he was seeing seemed to be real. It was the age that made everything so surreal. The books showed age. The desk showed age. The man showed age. Something so downplayed throughout his whole life and so forgotten was so prevalent in this one room. It was as if everything that didn’t belong in his world above was sent to this single room and in this room they grew old. He turned in circles, wandering dizzyingly, looking at all that the room contained. His eyes were as wide as they had been when he had witnessed his first miracle of his Aunt’s dying words. His hands felt the leather bindings of the shelved books. He read the titles of the ones who had them, picked up the top of the stacks in his curiosity. He then felt the pages and knew from the first touch that the paper from that first note was as ancient as those he then held. He thought it improper and rude to read from something that seemed so sacred, so he withheld his fingers from turning the first page.

  “Historian, are all of these books written by civilians?”

  The Historian sat at his desk, reclined in his chair, and was reading from one of the many books, with a pen in hand and another stuck through his thick beard for easy access.

  “That is one thing- of many, I’m afraid - that I don’t quite understand. Let me introduce you properly. This corner I have devoted to the books that have been written by civilians about everyday life. Day one, day two, day three kind of stuff. Those I call civilities. I never said I was creative.” He said so because Josiah just gave a look of disdain. It was a quality he had of being honest by his facial expressions. He then continued. “At first I thought they were meaningless with all the pettiness to them, but now I view them as the most important. Well, perhaps not the most. That is a tough conclusion to come to. Upon reading them and rereading them quite a few times, I found words, thoughts, and descriptions that they share but do not exist any longer. It is in their comparisons that they find their great importance. There is such talk in these that I cannot understand, and yet apparently at some time many understood.” The Historian had become silently lost in thought. Josiah just stood, searching the books and gleaning what information he could, though everything seemed to escape him.

  “Historian?”

  “But there are other kinds of books as well.” It was as if he was completely unaware that he had stopped his speech. “And I have managed to organize this place in a manner that I can understand. You know, though, it is quite difficult to categorize when the content of what you are categorizing doesn’t make a bit of sense. There are books that are about daily life, about one person’s life, about events, about places. Some seem to concentrate in on a small amount of time, while others seem to talk about entire lifespans and longer. Some seem to be written for a tremendously important reason, of which I cannot grasp, and others seem utterly pointless. They are all here, and they are all strange. These books talk about places that I do not know about. They talk about people and names that I have never heard before. They even talk about different kinds of people, very different, that I have never seen in my long life.”

  “What do you mean different kinds of people?”

  “People that are shaped very differently than you and I, or anybody else here. People with four legs and no arms. People completely covered in hair. People that are very small and people that are much, much bigger than we are. Some of these people speak like we do, but some of them do not speak at all, but simply make strange noises. All of it is strange, very strange. And after twenty-seven years, and after reading and re-reading everything in here, I think I understand only a little.

  “Well, where are these people? I’ve never seen one before.”

  “That I do not know. I have a strange idea but I don’t think you’ll understand it right now. Eventually I think you just might.”

  It was Josiah’s turn to become quiet, but it was not because he was pondering the different people. He was once again reminded why he had returned.

  “Does this have anything to do with the sun, Historian?”

  “My, boy, it has everything to do with the sun.”

  “You mean it’s real?”

  “I do believe it’s a real thing. It’s mentioned in so many of these books that I cannot get it out of my mind. It is the constant in everything.” The excitement the boy felt seemed so unreal. It was true. There was a sun. He wasn’t crazy. His Aunt Junia wasn’t crazy. “However, I simply do not know what it is or where it is.”

  “So we can’t find the sun.” Disappointment had crept into his voice once again.

  “Oh, but I think we can. I know some things and have some ideas that no one is supposed to know or supposed to have. I believe that we can find the sun, but it’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot t
hat you don’t understand and a lot that I can’t teach you. But what I can teach you I will, if you want it.”

  “Of course, I do. I want it.” His hope was strengthened, his excitement was beyond what he ever felt, and his want of learning was stronger than ever. “So where is it?”

  “That will have to wait for another day. There’s too much that goes along with the answer. So much more than you can even imagine with your clever mind. So much more.”

  The Historian sat at his desk, the boy lay on the cot, and there they read and studied together. Josiah was given a fairly small book with what the Historian thought to be fairly easy language to understand. It was his first book to ever read. He had read books throughout his schooling on multiple and various subjects, but this was his first book he ever truly read. The Historian was reading a leather-bound book with two golden words on the cover, neither of which Josiah recognized. Although the old man had read this book several times before, he continued to study it for yet another time as he did with all the others. Some were more difficult than others, and this particular one seemed near impossible to understand without some kind of special insight. He sat the book down yet again and buried his head into his ink-stained hands.

  “What’s a cat?”

  The Historian raised his head. It was such a simple question, he thought, but it required so much diligent thinking to understand.

  “It’s another type of person like I was telling you about before. Now, from what you understand, what does this cat look like?”

  “Well, it’s yellow, it has four legs, and it’s really small. I think it’s no bigger than your shoe.”

  “Very good. Does this particular cat have the ability to talk?”

  “Nope.”

  “Strange. I have yet to figure out why some can and some can’t. Now, do you think you can draw it for me?”

  “Draw it? I guess I can try, but why?”

  “It’s because you’ll remember the cat more vividly if you concentrate on its actuality. That is what you need to remember. The cat does exist. Or at least it did exist at some time else or in some place else. But for some reason we don’t know about them. So, let’s see what you see.”

  The boy started drawing what he imagined this person to look like. He had never exercised his mind in this kind of way. He had never drawn something he did not know. He had never drawn based on thin ideas and thick imagination.

  The drawing came out as a perfect cat, at least perfectly in the eyes of the boy. The Historian only knew it was a cat because he told the boy to draw a cat.

  “That’s very interesting.”

  “Is it bad? I can try to draw it again.”

  “That’s the very point. At this stage, the drawing can’t be bad. I have read numerous books that mention cats but none detailed enough to be able to say that this drawing is off. Your idea of a cat may be more correct than my idea of a cat.”

  “Your idea? Did you draw it too?” The boy’s eyes grew big.

  “I have drawn it many times and many different ways. None of them are alike, and none of them are like yours.”

  “Can I see one?”

  “Why, yes you can.”

  The Historian reached in the lower right bottom drawer of his desk. The drawer inched open and required a good bit of effort and tugging to extend out entirely, mostly due to the over packing of papers but partly due to age and wear. He sifted through a handful of papers and found a decent drawing, or what he thought was a decent drawing, of a cat.

  “Whoa, is that what one looks like?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen one to affirm it. But at least we have an idea of what it is. Let’s compare, shall we?”

  The two drawings were placed side by side. The Historian’s drawing was more precise and detailed as he had years of practice and knowledge of those details. Josiah’s drawing was a simple childhood sketch but greatly contrasted all other children’s drawings if they ever did draw. The two cats were basic in elements but differed in everything else.

  “That’s the beauty of it, and also the frustration of it. Unless we can come across this person ourselves then we will never know whose drawing is more correct. And your drawing evokes me to think differently. I hope mine does the same for you. Shall we continue in our reading?”

  “Okay. Can I keep drawing, too?”

  “Always keep drawing. It helps more than you can imagine, or perhaps you may imagine more than you can help now. Keep reading. Understand that first sentence.”

  “Well, there are so many words I don’t know.”

  “Okay, then. Read the first sentence, and we’ll see what we can come up with.”

  “It all started with a cat who was a master of a house in the middle of a farm town, but now he was the only cat for miles around.”

  “And the words that you don’t know?”

  “Cat, house, farm, town, and miles. Historian, I don’t know how far I can get if I don’t even understand the first sentence.”

  “I know how you feel, Josiah. Believe me, I know how you feel. But the more you read and the more you ask, then you will start to understand. However, perhaps this may serve as some relief or perhaps not, but there are still words that I do not understand, and one of them is in that very sentence. For now I will tell you what I think these words mean, though eventually I want you to try to figure them out for yourself. So cat we have already gone over. A house is sort of like one of our family rooms, but they seem to be more separated from each other than our rooms are-”

  “You mean there’s more space between them?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Then what is in that space? Is it just empty?”

  “It is just empty.”

  “Well, that seems kind of like a waste to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

  “I’m not sure, but from what I can gather they are a bit larger too and made up of several rooms-”

  “Several family rooms?”

  “Well, not necessarily. The house was for one family and each room served a different purpose. One room for cooking, one room for eating, one room for sleeping, one room for sitting, one room for reading, one room for washing, and of the sort.”

  “And they’re all like that?”

  “I think so.”

  “But I’ve never seen a multi-roomed family room. How come I’ve never seen a house?”

  “That’s a good question. Perhaps they used to be a part of this place and have been changed into what we have now. Or perhaps they are someplace else.”

  “What do you mean someplace else?”

  “Ah, I’m getting ahead of myself again. It’s a little too early to explain, but remember that question and ask it again in the future. But the next word was farm, am I right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Well, you know the vegetables you eat for your meals?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Farm is just another name for a place where those vegetables are made.”

  “You mean the food lab?”

  “Like the food lab, but not quite. It’s hard to explain since I believe farms to have been somewhere else which involves a concept that you are not quite familiar with. And that will have to wait till later as well.”

  “I still don’t think I really understand any of this.”

  “Oh, but I think you’re getting it more than I did at the start, Josiah. I think you are understanding.”

  “I sure hope so. What about town?”

  “A town is simply a collection of houses. It is sort of like calling the residence a town. So a farm town would then be a town with a farm. Now for miles. I don’t fully understand it. It seems to be a measurement, but I am not sure the length of it. I’ve never had enough context to fully understand it, but I think it’s larger than anything we have.”

  “You mean it’s longer than a meter.”

  “Much. When I say it’s larger than anything we have, I don’t mean larger than any measuring units
we use, but larger than any length that we have.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “That makes two of us, Josiah. That makes two of us. Write that sentence down and take it with you. Write it in the same code. Learn it. Understand it as much as you can. That’s enough for today.”

  He was reminded of every new word as he spent the next days in the middle levels. As he ate, farm. As he slept, house. As he walked, miles. To live the words is the only way to understand the words, he thought. He was living them the only way he knew how, by comparison. However, it proved to be inefficient as the meanings still eluded him. It was as if he only ever caught a blurred glimpse or a vague scent. In the world he knew, he would never understand the things for which he hoped.

  ---

  “Are we going to talk about the sun?”

  “No, my boy. I need you reading today. And take some notes. Try to understand what you can without knowing what you don’t.”

  So Josiah began to read, and as he read he began to realize just how many words he did not know. It could have been because he was young and did not have such an extensive vocabulary, but that was doubtful. His vocabulary very often outdid the older students and even the adults. The words in the books he had never even heard, not one mention, but they seemed to share the same qualities of the old woman’s words. They were real. They were strange, but they were real. They should have belonged, but they did not.

  He began to examine the first passages of a variety of books. He would then copy the passage down to paper and mark through the words that he did not recognize. What he found was that he knew most of the words. However, most was not good enough. Upon doing the math, he found that about twenty-five percent of the passages were absolutely unrecognizable and unknowable. From what he could tell, the majority of the unknown words were nouns, some adjectives, but few verbs. There was simply no hope in identifying proper nouns since, just as the Historian said, they all represented different people and different places. But who were these different people? And what did it even mean for there to be different places? These questions he had to set aside. Despite being able to understand the verbs, most of the adjectives, and all of the prepositions and articles, there was still no reconciling the meaning. The context seemed to be utterly useless. The only thing that kept Josiah motivated to continue his studies through the passages was the same thing that periodically startled the Historian out of his own studies.

  “It says the sun, it says the sun! Historian, it says the sun!”

  “Did you doubt it?”

  “No, but it really says it!”

  “Now that you believe, keep reading.”

  So he did, more fervently.

  The next two times Josiah had visited the Historian he opened with the same question and received the same response. “I need you reading today.” So he did, less fervently. He had his moments of excitement upon reading words that had been whispered by his deathly aunt, but those moments fleeted under the weight of confusion and frustration. Therefore, his mind began to wonder, and his fingers slowly stopped their copying.

  “Why Historian?”

  “What’s that, Josiah?”

  “Why do you go by Historian?”

  “Well, along with all the books I have found and kept, I also found that plaque that reads ‘Historian.’ I adopted this for myself because I was the only one who really knew anything about any history of this place, or at least any of its true history. I even started calling myself Historian. It’s my purpose or perhaps it’s just only what I find purpose in, but nonetheless it’s my name.”

  “There must be something else. You must have a real name.”

  “Why cannot Historian be my real name?”

  “No mother names her child Historian, plus your mother never would’ve known you would’ve become a historian. What’s your real name?”

  “It’s been a long time, Josiah, since I’ve mentioned my birth name, even to myself. I’ve been Historian for so long. As it is, the name my mother has given me is John.”

  “So why not go by John?”

  “Well, what meaning is there in that? There’s no definition in that, nothing that tells you who I really am. Who I really am is a historian.”

  “So why call me Josiah if there’s nothing to my name?”

  “That’s a little different, my boy. That’s all I know you by. That’s the only name you have, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s my only name. Most people don’t have a lot of names or give themselves names. You just are who you are. I am Josiah”

  “And I am the Historian.”

  “But you are also John. I would say that you’re identified by this name when no one knows that you are a historian.”

  “Well, Josiah, what are you really saying?”

  “What if you were to call yourself John the Historian?”

  “A compromise?”

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t call it a compromise at all. I would say that it’s more of a true name than anything else. Now you are known by your birth name and your purpose. No matter who gave it to you, I think this tells everyone who you really are.”

  “Very well, Josiah. My name is John the Historian. What is your real name?”

  “I guess I don’t really know what it is. I guess for now I’m just Josiah.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find out your real name sometime soon. Just for simplicity’s sake, let’s call me Historian. It’s just that it’s a bit shorter than John the Historian.”

  “Okay. As long as you introduce yourself as John the Historian to others.”

  “If I ever get the chance.”