The gospel of Issa

In another land, the knowledge ran deep, through generations of teachers. The society was divided, but not equally, between the Monastery, the Tower and the Inn.

In another land, the land was gray and brown and red and the land birds roamed violently and without mercy, seeking out nourishment from a parched land. The Family eked out a living in this land, in poverty, like everyone.

I am telling you this story from this distance, from deep in my library. I am looking out my tower window and see all the cities and the town beneath me.

Of course these times are long gone and now we live in the midst of the Kava, the dark times. People have lost their way and they imagine they are living at the height of human existence. Not many wish to hear the old stories any more, and those that have heard them can no longer divine the wisdom within.

Issa existed as an infant. As a man. As a god. His father and his father and his father all existed in these forms, Sphinx-like, infant, man and god. You have heard these myths before, they seem stupid, like children’s fairy tales. You say you have put these silly stories away and you exist only in the realm of the practical, the realm of the micro and the macro.

What do you want? To fly? Issa will show you how to fly.

I love that you said you wish to fly, it’s so specific, so practical, so literal.

What do you want? Alia says she wishes for happiness. Bramh wishes for wisdom. Even the Judge says something cloying like treacle: peace on earth, good will to men.

You wish to fly? That Issa can do.

These myths start with a magical child. These magic stories start with a mythos. Let us start according to the formula. It is well known that story follows structure, so we shall need a structure. This is the story of the One.

One child who sees through the hypocrisy and death-gasps of the society. Through God, the child leads his people into a new world.

Abraham was a child who loved God but his father was an idol-maker. As the story goes, he is alone with the idols and tries to talk to one of these gods. The god is a stupid stone and Abraham wonders why men bow down to stone. With that realization striking him down, he takes a staff (or something) and destroys all the idols (and his father’s livelihood.)

They came for him one night, in the middle of the night, when the sky was dark and cloudless. The father admitted them and there was no sound as they entered. The mother shook with the cold.

“You have travelled far,” the father said. The mother offered hot soup or tea, which the men gladly accepted. They bounded into the house in heavy leather boots and shook the snow off their coats. The mother bowed her eyes in front of the men and withdrew. Of course she listened to everything through a crack in the door. That should be obvious to you.

“Are you slavers?” my father asked straight out. The main man — his coat was blacker, his hat more worn than the others — smiled sadly but shook his head no.

“Teachers,” he said.

“What is that they teach these days?”

“History,” the man said, “and science. But mostly history.”

The man introduced himself and his friends, and my father introduced himself.

“History is written by the victors,” my father said.

My mother sobbed behind the door.

That got the teachers’ attention. They bolted up, their guns appeared from nowhere, they cocked into place. The big teacher motioned for her to come out. She did, sobbing. The teacher looked at my father. His eyes were cold. Then he laughed but I did not relax.

“Don’t be so sad, pretty lady,” Teacher said. He took her chin and she looked at him and he wiped her tears. But his eyes were on my father the whole time.

“History is not allowed,” was all my father said. “We live in the present now.”

“Bring us food,” Teacher said to my mother. The other men laughed and grabbed at her. One pulled her onto his lap, wrapped an arm around her belly, took one big hand and squeezed her breast through her flower-print dress.

She was no simpering idiot, though. My mother twisted the fingers of the hand on her belly until he bellowed in pain. She jumped up and slapped the bastard’s face. She got free and sat at my father’s feet, by his chair. The man cocked his gun at both of them.

“Enough,” my father said. And closed his eyes.

“Food!” the teacher bellowed, my father nodded at my mother —