The Seven Days of Wander
Page 4
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