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The Voyage
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Enthralled as he was, Jason could not shut out a sense that the beauty was not alone -- that there was also something dark and perverse as well. With such beauty, Jason thought in his most enthralled moments that this surely must be the best of all possible worlds. But they he was shocked by ugly realities that forced themselves upon his consciousness: robberies and rapes, children being treated cruelly, and children treating others cruelly. The beauty made him feel as if, somehow, if he opened his eyes wide enough to see all the beauty there was, everything would be perfect -- but, try as he might, it didn't work. It was like smelling the softest lilac fragrance on the breeze -- and then being punched in the stomach.
It was sinking into a darker mood that he again met Senex, this time on a street littered with garbage. He greeted the old man harshly: "Wave your magic wand, old man, and make this refuse turn into flowers. Open my eyes, so that I may see that all suffering is an illusion, that we live in the best of all possible worlds."
"Suffering is not an illusion, and we do not live in the best of all possible worlds."
"What of the world you said I had begun preparing to enter? Is it not an escape from suffering?"
"Do you not remember the very first question you asked me? Do you not remember the answer?" Tears began to gather in Senex's eyes.
Jason savored a thrill of pleasure at watching the old man suffer, and knowing that the same darkness tormented them both. Then he realized what he was doing, and felt a sense of shame and revulsion at himself. He hated himself and the old man for what he felt.
"If you were going to attack a dragon," the old man finally began, "would you rush at it with neither weapon nor armor nor training? Or would you take at least a little preparation before setting out to attack a leviathan that has slain many heroes far greater than yourself?"
Jason said nothing.
"The questions you ask are big questions, and they must be faced. I wrestle with them, too. And I fear. I do not blame you at all for asking them, though your attitude in asking pierces me." A tear trickled down Senex's cheek.
Jason felt a black hole of shame inside his heart. The darkness he saw, and hated in the world around him -- Jason now realized that it was inside him, too. It was like a worm, attacking from outside, and gnawing from within.
He wanted to die.
"Jason," the old man's voice said. "Jason, look at me."
Jason stared at the ground.
"Please."
Jason looked up and cringed, expecting a storm of fury. He looked up, waiting for his punishment. But his gaze was met by teary eyes -- and compassion.
"I forgive you."
It was with a certain heaviness that Jason awaited the coming lessons. Not that they doubted that they were good -- he was sure of that. But up ahead loomed a fierce battle. The worst part of it was that he knew that the enemy, the worm, was not only lurking at large. It was also inside his heart.
Yet dark as the darkness was, it could never put the light out. And Senex was showing him new things at each meeting.
Senex had with him a book. He said, "Close your eyes and imagine." He opened its dusty leaves, and began to read:
"You pull your arms to your side and glide through the water. On your left is a fountain of bubbles, upside down, beneath a waterfall; the bubbles shoot down and then cascade out and to the surface. To your right swims a school of colorful fish, red and blue with thin black stripes. The water is cool, and you can feel the currents gently pushing and pulling on your body. Ahead of you, seaweed above and long, bright green leaves below wave back and forth, flowing and bending. You pull your arms, again, with a powerful stroke which shoots you forward under the seaweed; your back feels cool in the shade. You kick, and you feel the warmth of the sun again, soaking in and through your skin and muscles. Bands of light dance on the sand beneath you, as the light is bent and turned by the waves."
Senex began to lead Jason through mathematics, history, philosophy, literature -- and Jason began to behind a new and different beauty, a beauty that cannot be seen with the eye, nor touched with the hand, but only grasped with the mind. He began to explore imagination, and ideas, and metaphors. He saw light dance in the poetry Senex read; he saw the beauty of order and reason in the philosophers Senex cited. The connections, the play, the dance of ideas was wonderful. Together they explored ideas, and it was an awesome beauty. Jason had a razor sharp mind, and he began to make connections that surprised even Senex.
"I still wish that I were a fairy," Jason said, "or that I could become one."
"What do you think you are?"
A searing pain, a pain of dark memory, flashed through Jason's soul. "I don't know," he said. "I hate myself."
"Do you believe that there are some things for everyone to enjoy?"
"Of course. You have shown me what I was blind to -- that, outside of us, there are rocks, and stars, and the sky, and trees, and blades of grass, and snails, and stags, and chipmunks, and fish, and eagles, and logs, and mountains, and clouds, and wind, and rain, and the moon, and silence, and music, and beauty, and artwork, and poetry, and stories, and theorems, and arguments, and logic, and intuition, and laughter, and happiness, and books, and subtlety, and metaphors, and words, and st--"
Senex cut him off. "Do you believe that any of it has been given specifically to you?"
Jason looked down at his feet.
"What are you looking at, Jason?"
Jason mumbled, "My feet."
"What are your feet?"
"I don't know," he said, pausing for a moment. Then he continued, "I don't know where they are from, but they move about at my command, like two strange servants, carrying me wherever I want to go."
"What do they carry?"
"A house that has eyes to see, and hands to let me touch and move things, and innards that support and let me live." He paused for a second, and then said, "It is a clockwork masterpiece."
"What lives in this house."
"Well, there is at least a mind that can learn, and think, and explore, and feel."
"Is that rubbish?"
Jason begrudgingly admitted, "No."
"Jason, why are you so downcast?"?
"Because that is not all. Because there is a worm. It roams the world, and it lives deep inside of me."
"I know."
Jason drew back in fear. "What are you going to do to me?"
"What do you think?"
"You must hate me."
"I hate the worm inside of you with all my heart. But I do not hate you."
"You don't?"
"Jason, I love you."
Jason looked up. His face quivered, and tears began to slide down his cheeks. "You do?"
"Jason, may I give you a hug?"
Jason nodded his head.
The tears flowed from deep within. They were tears of sorrow, but yet they were different from the bitter tears he had fought before. They were painful, yet also tears of cleansing and healing.
"In the stories I read, I believe that there are people like us, and also strange and wonderful people like fairies, and elves, and dwarves, and gnomes. I wish I could know them."
"I believe that there are people like us, and also strange and wonderful people like blacks and Hispanics and Asians and Native Americans. And I count myself the richer for the friendships I have shared with such people."
Senex paused, and then continued. "I believe that you have seen much of the beauty that can be perceived with the body and with the mind, and also that you are beginning to appreciate your body and mind -- yes, I know that you still wonder why they were given you. You are close to being ready to enter the other world now.
Jason suddenly looked up. "There's more?"
"There is much more, my friend. I think that you are ready for the last trial before entering. The challenge is this: that you must make a friend."
"So I can enter after I make a friend?"
"Yes, but you can't make a friend in order to get in. You must make a friend for the sake of making a friend.
"Does it matter which race?"
"It matters a great deal, but not in the way that you are thinking. You will be blessed by a friend of any race; the difference is not the amount of blessing, but what kind."
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The Voyage
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