be forbidden from breaking
bread with people from the
western half of the village?”
“No, it’s not that,” I insisted. “I just don’t see a connection.”
“Well there is one,” Noncompment snarled.
I read further. “What is this
business about petitioning the
village elders to appoint the
mountain as burgomaster when
harvest season arrives?” They
both laughed uproariously.
“Great, isn’t it,” Noncompment guffawed. “That’ll show
the village elders!”
“Show them what?” I
asked, confused.
“Oh,” he said with a
dreamy look in his eye, “it will
show them all right.”
“He answered your question,” Inflagrantdelict added in
an instructive tone of
voice. “Is there anything else
we can help you understand
about our
program?”
I eyed them both with
growing suspicion. I turned to
Inflagrantdelict and asked,
“When you went to the mountain, what road did you take?”
“It was off the beaten
path,” he said, after a moment’s
hesitation. “You wouldn’t know
about the way I got to the
mountain. It is far too mysterious
for one of your lowly attainments.”
I considered this. I turned
to Noncompment and asked
the same question. “I traveled
by the silver road,” he said with
confidence.
This was fine by me, as that was
the very same road I had taken. But it came to me that there
was something I remembered.
When I saw water flowing down
the side of the mountain, I had
noticed that when it was moving fast over the rocks, little white
bubbles formed on the surface.
I hadn’t mentioned this to anybody, nor did there seem to be
anything about it in the pamphlet. “When you saw water
flowing downhill,” I asked them
both, “did you notice anything
interesting happen when it was
moving fast over the rocks?”
“I’ve had it with these personal attacks!” Noncompment
objected. “We answer your
questions, but you don’t answer
ours.”
“I am, quite frankly,
shocked and appalled by this,”
Inflagrantdelict agreed.
I left them too.
Time wore on. I returned
to the mountain while it was
raining, for my own sake, as
often as I could. When I was
there, I forgot the deniers, the
narrow-faced apologizers, the
cheerful idiots, the insubstantial
alienists, the silly young women,
and the deluded young men. I
just went, and I watched. I lost
myself in the motion of the water over the rocks. I observed
12
the little pebbles, sticks and
mud that it carried in its current, and the dreamy motion
that slowly swept away everything in its path. I knew, for I had
seen the face of the mountain
change with the rain, hour by
hour, day by day, year by year,
that this peaceful, delicate action would, over thousands of
years, completely transform the
rocky edifice into something
new that Ivelit et not ad eosancould que possibly
Num que would not live to see
imagine. I
it,dam course,simolore que had
of ipsam but what I venet
seen showed me with certainty
quatati istionse autendi gnihit
that it wouldNectem videlesti vohicientem. happen.
Knowledge of this, of an
loresand powersit officientur,
order eum volor beyond mycorepel lumqui berum whole
self moving to create a qui alinew thing out of that gigantic
bus, volorest, suntempe sequas
mountain, filled me with a cersuntint.
tain quiet vigor. I won’t say that
it made me happy and I won’t
say that I was at peace, but
thinking of it gave me a thrill.
And so, hard though the jourGendi in kept going back. I
ney was, I por renis quae nonse
didn’t see it, as gendant est, as
verum endandi some might, sum
the destruction of the pore aliacil ipsus aceperum ne mountain. I saw it as a creation of the
ae and took great pleasure
rain,maximI quidebiscit latempo reinrovit quid mos water flow and
watching the doluptatet maio.
thinking of the possibilities.
Volupti del ipiet quas quatemos
del et intia day, many years
One ea sus.
later, I was sitting on my porch
enjoying the sunshine, when a
young man and a young velique
Pudantium raeribus nim woman passed by. ma dolut faccat
volupta dolupid They moved
with purposeful intent. They
fugitin enis que suntiis eserawere speaking together in
hushed whispers. They strode
past me, almost without a sec-
good titles
ond glance. Just as they were
walking by, the young man
stopped. “Hey,” he called out
to me, almost over his shoulder.
“Is that the way to the
mountain?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”
“Thanks!” they replied
in unison, and resumed their
course.
That made me smile. I
thought it must be a sign of
something.
tessit, si tem. Dundant, santur,
“Perhaps,” I mused aloud
coreperchil molupta nes eiusam
to myself, “I should start smoking
a pipe.”
ea sa ipienis ut experchit ut oditati pa quia again… perhaps
ute Then seque volenim
not.
for January
13
aionsed evendipides.
by Frater Rudra
Amon-Ra Lodge