Hidden Realities
Like many stories, this one begins with an image.
It begins with a sunset over an abandoned road in New Curtansia no one would have any reason to cross, in a forgotten area that is disregarded by those who have been disregarded by the world. By accident one evening, you come across a little shack that seems to be part of no reality you have dared to dream. A place that seems to embody all of the chaos you have suspected is missing from your everyday routine. Sitting outside the door is a woman reading whose eyes do not speak the same language of anyone else you know. The sigh of her silhouette against the sunset strikes a sharp contrast to anything you have seen.
And this is how ten-year-old Tordan came to find the Old Woman. He had meant to meet his brothers at the well to get holy water for the temple service the next day. His work in the fields had blistered his entire body and he wanted nothing more than to cleanse his body in the well. He was whimpering a bit because his oldest brother teased him for being too small to play in their game of ball. In defiance Tordan stole their ball and was now bouncing it as he walked. For some reason young Tordan strayed. He threw a ball and followed its path.
“Do you enjoy trespassing on other peoples’ property?” the sharp voice said.
Tordan was speechless. All he could see was the incredibly large book in the Old Woman’s weathered hands, bigger than any book he had ever conceived.
“Well?” She said, with a look that suggested she longed to fling the giant volume at Tordan’s head.
“Excuse me, but I was wondering—what is it you are reading? Can I have a look?”
The Old Woman laughed and flashed a toothy grin.
“Its words will destroy your soul,” she said. “You seem like a nice boy…it would be wrong of me to share them with you. Haven’t you heard stories about the Walrus eating up little boys like you who were too curious?”
But Tordan shook his head.
“I can’t read, Ma’am. But it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen. All I want to do is see it.”
She laughed again.
“Even if you can’t understand the meaning, the book’s presence in your world will still be fatal to you. Suddenly you will be aware of a world beyond your reach and you will be sad and angry with me for showing it to you. You will want to return to the world you used to know without it.”
Tordan considered all of this.
“I still want to see it,” he said. “Just once. And then I promise I will go away.”
So the Old Woman turned the volume to him and set up on her lap. Tentatively, Tordan ran his fingers across its binding made of a material he had never felt.
“What does this symbol mean?” He said, pointing to one of the curved lines on the page.
“That is an ‘s,’” the Old Woman said.
“What does it mean?”
“That, my young friend, will take a lot longer to explain than one day.”
“I could come back tomorrow!”
“Careful. Knowledge is a powerful drug. You might get hooked.”
And the Old Woman was right.
Twice a week Tordan found himself wandering to her little shack. Not only did she teach him letters but allowed him to view history books and religious texts. And not just his own religion,but strange ones that contained customs of which he had never heard. And though the Old Woman gave Tordan access to all of the books in her shack—and there were many—rarely did she ever comment on them. Sometimes he would make a remark and she grunted a bit over her bitter smelling tea, but never tried to influence him one way or the other.
On his visits, Tordan exposed himself to all of Rondek’s teachings, which were in stark contrast to those he learned in temple. There was nothing about paying taxes so priests could live in luxury! Rather than poverty, Tordan discovered what Rondek and the Redeeming Light Princes were all about: promoting fairness and equality. It was not the religion itself that was misleading his people, but the country priests who were keeping them from the truth.
Surely things would be different in the city. Tordan was sure of it. No longer was his world—his life—sufficient for the person he was to become. He could no longer be content to spend his days with people whose lives consisted of farm work. He wanted to raise them up from this existence!
“We should go to the city,” Tordan said one day. “We’re run away—it will be great!”
The Old Woman patted his fifteen-year-old head.
“You’re so young. So hopeful,” she said. “But you don’t want to do that,”
“Don’t you think it would be fun?”
“No.” She got up and took the boiling water off the stove.
“But I’m getting married tomorrow. I start working full-time at the farm tomorrow. Isn’t there something bigger for me to do? Why would you teach me all of this if you did not want me to claim a destiny?”
The Old Woman put down her teapot and looked Tordan straight in the eye.
“I never taught you anything,” she said. “Name me one instance in which I ever gave you the slightest bit of encouragement. Tell me one.”
Tordan was silent.
“Whatever you try will be pointless. Did I not tell you from the beginning this knowledge would make you miserable? I warned you it would make you angry and you didn’t listen. And now you are even more powerless than before.”
“That’s not true. One person can make a difference. You’re mocking me! Don’t laugh at me! The Walrus may have gotten to your spirit but he will not destroy mine. I’ll show you…”
But the Old Woman had stopped listening. She was now sipping her tea, humming to herself as she read a leather-volume on her lap.
“I’ll show you.”
After five years of visiting the Old Woman, Tordan thought he knew the truth. What he actually had a problem with was those who misinterpreted the truth. The truth was buried under layers of falsehoods, fortified by fearful men afraid to lose their power and influence. And maybe the truth itself was flawed—if it was so logical, why didn’t everyone simply comply? Would there always be disharmony? The Old Woman seemed to believe so.
How could anyone possibly force others to go along with a plan they might not even benefit from, even if it was for their own good? For people rarely know what is good for them and when they do they turn to the opposite.
There was a difference between being right and correct. Correctness can be cold. Correctness disregards humanity.
The Old Woman’s books suggested that things were different in the city—the priests did not exploit peasants there. There were no peasants! This concept was incredible to him! Maybe if he went to the city and told of his troubles, the people would see the injustice of the priests’ abuses! Then everyone would learn to love again. The cities, once they learned the truth, would stop at nothing to make things right.
When he got to the city, he found it to be the socialist paradise of his dreams. People seemed satisfied, content. For weeks he drank up the luxuries—the sports complexes, the art studios. Tordan felt like the main character from a book he had read at the Old Woman’s house—Great Expectations—who was rising to reclaim his destiny. His art revealed him to posses the makings of a future priest and he found himself reveling in the idea of power it would bring.
After three months Tordan convinced himself perhaps he had imagined the inequalities he experienced at home. Surely these people were good and kind!
But one day he was painting in the park with his friends when he saw a bird with a crippled wing. The other birds flew over and around it, oblivious to its suffering.
“The poor creature,” Tordan said.
His friends put down their brushes and looked at him strangely.
“What are you talking about?” said a boy who was painting clouds. “He’s just resting.”
“But the other birds are just ignoring him!”
“They probably just don’t see him,” said another. “I’m sure if they did they would try and do something. He must not be trying hard enough to get their attention.”
“Don’t you see him trying to fly?” Tordan said as he bent over to pick the bird up.
Just then Father Gourmand entered.
“How are the paintings coming?” he asked. “Tordan, your flowers have such depth. You have the makings of a priest.”
Tordan dropped the bird.
. After class was
over, Tordan went to the city’s
“You know? You’ve known this whole time? But it’s a corruption of Finbar Rondek’s teachings. If you simply sit back and allow such abuses to occur, then a society based on his teachings is flawed!”
“The teachings themselves are flawed,” the Gourmand said. “We found that early on. No matter how we tried to control peoples’ behavior, there were always those who resisted. And because we did not lower ourselves to the use of force, there was no way to fight them. So the only option was banishment. We cut them off from the community and they formed their own. We would provide minimal funding and they supplied us with labor so we could maintain stability. They received status in return for isolation. Tordan, no man can force another into accepting his beliefs.”
“But it’s all right to exploit their ignorance with physical labor. Oh I see!”
“You’re beginning to.”
“Why bother then? Why bother to destroy the Walrus? I mean, people are still abusing each other. What has been accomplished? What do we gain by letting people slave in ignorance?”
“Peace. We get peace.
Right now there is no enemy—all are serving the same god. So there’s no one to fight. It may not be right, but that’s the way it
is. We all pray for a time when Man does
not need an incentive, a reward for hard work.
We would love to have faith in
“But what is the Walrus exactly? That still I do not understand.”
“I am the Walrus,” the Gourmand said.
Tordan was now even more confused than before.
“But how can this be? The Walrus conquered the original Curtansia over three hundred years ago. Is that the secret then? Are the priests immortal?”
The High Priest shook his head and put a hand on Tordan’s shoulder.
“The Walrus is not a person. It is a quality that is inside everyone. It is the loss of faith—it is self-centeredness. It occurs when a person begins to question the realities given him. The Walrus is what happens when one person allows his selfishness to spread to a group and thus it deteriorates. Man must never know the truth because He would have nothing to believe in and no motivation to care. It’s a disease that spreads like wildfire if not contained. Only those psychologically fit to deal with the truth are able to deal with it. We have determined that.”
Tordan stared at the Father Gourmand for a few minutes, grappling with his words. He wanted to shout, wanted to strike him. But the man kept staring at him, a serene expression on his face. This was the look of a man with nothing to fear, who knew his every thought before he spoke. The man gazed at him not in anger but amusement.
The young man stormed out. Confused, he wandered about the city looking for something true, something that was not built on a foundation of lies. But the very buildings seemed to mock his plight.
To run? Perchance to hide! Tordan belonged nowhere now. Not in the city—a place full of empty luxury—but could he return home?
At first the return to his village was like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly his faith felt renewed. Perhaps the high priest was wrong: maybe he could stir up the people to action!
But when he tried to inform his friends and family of what he saw—how the priests had been denying them rights and if they all banded together they could overcome this abuse—they greeted him with the same indifference as the city folk. All seemed too afraid to leave the familiar, the secure.
So that is how he found himself at the Old Woman’s shack once again, bitter and defeated. She was right—had been the entire time. He wanted to tell her that.
But there was no woman leaning over a book on the porch. The smell of bitter tea did not permeate the air. The Old Woman’s things were still exactly as they were when she left them. Apparently the priests there were cunning enough to realize how little anyone would care about some crazy old woman who knew things others didn’t.
Apparently the truth was never important enough to make a fuss about.
Tordan spent days in the only place that ever felt like home to him, and soon he became one with the dusty pages, the cobwebs. Until one day he was sitting on his porch reading and a little girl who had strayed from the path stopped to stare at him.
“Can I see what you’re reading?” she asked.
The old man who was actually rather young leaned over his bitter tea and flashed a mad grin.
“You can. But if I show you the Walrus will forever mar your soul with grief. You will constantly see brokenness in the world but lack the fixative to mend it. In empowering you it will further impress upon you the futility of you passions. Now, do you still want to read this book?”
The little girl paused for a second and gazed into the weathered eyes that fended her away.
The girl nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes I do.”
And so it continues…