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
The Seven Days of Wander Page 25
