Nighttime in the desert was cold silence, but for sounds of crackling fire. An infinite display of stars in the sky illuminated all, without hint of shadow. Welcome relief from the day’s scorching sun and frenetic mayhem in the villages the travelers had left behind. The men and women sitting by the campfire had important topics to discuss amongst themselves. The unspoken truths they’d grasped intuitively now had to be wrestled with verbally, with an eye to the future of man.
A greybearded elder started the discussion by stating, “The various languages in use by the masses of people living in these lands are inadequate to the task before us. We must somehow formulate new ways of expressing the truths we have come to recognize as of divine origin. Let us now define that intuitively sensed truth as ‘God’. The word has a nice ring to it. Guttural, quick, to the point.”
“You have such a sense of humor my friend,” laughed a middle-aged woman raised on the shores of the big water just visible in the distance. “That’s simply a reversed version of ‘Dog’, our favorite companions in this desertscape. I’m sure the generations populating the coming millenia will appreciate the humor of it all.”
A clean-shaven participant chuckled, “There’s not enough humor these days. The people seem exhausted from their labors building temples, pyramids, and the like. Still, procreating and manual labor have been working well to keep them compliant and placated.”
“The important thing is to moderate their destructive tendencies,” the middle-aged woman replied. “Shiny baubles and sparkly trinkets I see at the bazaar in my town sell like hotcakes, and never fail to elicit smiles and good feelings. On the other hand, languages haven’t been working well to express those intuitive truths we’re here to discuss. Wet clay and stick renderings, along with rolled up papyrus expressions of truth are too fragile to hope will survive the eons before us.”
A man with a flowing white beard responded, “It used to be that the oral tradition sufficed in storytelling. But we all know how corrupted the stories become when being retold again and again. Our job is to define the terms, and to put together the collection of words which most accurately tell the stories that need be told. I propose that ‘The Word’ be used as the title of our work. We know the words- they exist on the tips of our tongues. We shall now immortalize them in a work we’ll call ‘The Word’. The Chinese and Indians have something similar, and of course the Arab camel riders are bound to follow suit someday with their own screed. What we’re doing feels historic.”
The young gypsy girl tending the fire offered, “The right mix of the supernatural and the day to day mundane would make for good reading. Our main character should be that fellow who wandered town to town claiming to be God. What a dramatic end he met nailed to a cross! If he’d kept his mouth shut and just enjoyed his status he might be sitting with us now.”
“He was a hell of a carpenter. Built my father’s fishing boat” the greybearded elder remarked. “We warned him to go easy on his rhetoric, but he wouldn’t listen and just kept talking in riddles and provocations. I’ll say this though, the women sure liked him. He had a twinkle in his eye and a smooth tongue with the maidens! Works for me to make him our main character in this work we’re gonna write.”
“We need an outline of mission, plot, and outcome if we’re to put this story in words,” the woman from Hebron said. “And we all know that our words will be interpreted differently by different people. The core truths contained in the work must be disguised and obscured within the simple entertainment contained within the work. More refined intellects will understand the need for that strategy. Words matter! We were all taught as much, and millenia down the road children will still hear those words. Words matter!”
The man with flowing white beard asserted, “Our words must ring forward through the ages as art which informs and entertains. We’ve seen the cave paintings in yonder hills. They were created in a different era, yet move us with the clarity and essense of that bygone time.
We know The Word will be corrupted by men henceforth, but our faith is that it will still be a beacon in the darkest desert night.”
“And we know,” the woman from the shores of the big water said, “that our art will inform and inspire through the ages. We know our task. Let us choose our words carefully.”
CP Butchvarov 2024