The Silence Must be Countered

Almost anything will do.

Out here, near the very edges of the settled areas, the wind makes all the sound. The voices have been stilled. Whether willingly, or because of response to some outside force, no one knows. And they can not know, because there are no voices to break the silence.

If no one speaks, how are we to know the truth? And when they do speak, how will we know it is they who say the words? And how will we judge the truth of those words?

Only by the witness of our lives.

And our lives are a dream, a dream of a memory of a story, told long ago, by peoples who spoke different languages than ours today, in these latter days. And thus, at best, what we know of ourselves is but a translation, a reconstruction of our own pasts taken from fragmentary evidence, dubious at best.

Once, I found a poor traveler, who in his wanderings, found a small cache of pots, old, old vessels, each containing a scroll, written I strange glyphs, in an unknown tongue. He showed these scrolls to me, telling me that they were the tongues of daemons and djin. I studied them for the afternoon, and tried to tell the old man that, no, these were in the language of men, but of ancient times. I asked him if he would perhaps barter with me, to trade one or two of his pots full of scrolls.

Of course, he refused, as I would have done in his place.

“How can I let you have them?” He asked me, “When they are the story of my life? If I don’t take them with me, how shall I know how to live?”

“Tell me, Father,” I asked him, “And can you read this, the story of your life?”

“No, but then, neither can any other man,” He replied. “For who can read the story of his own life?”

Who indeed?