Boaz and the Truth

Boaz stood just outside the door. Sound proofed and locked he had no idea what might be discussed in there. He knew if he played his cards write Shamuel would tell him eventually. He was breathing heavily and quickly, petrified that she somehow knew their secret. How could she have known?

It wasn’t as though priests had to submit to some antiquated ideal of purity. There were no standards of celibacy within the Papal Council any longer but to be physically intimate with a superior of the same sex was unacceptable. He knew it. Shamuel knew it. It occurred anyway. Only through mind exercises and consistent attention was he able to keep it from the Consciousness.

Homosexual relationships were not abnormal in normal society. A full third of marriages were now homosexual in nature but church leadership was expressly forbidden from these. It happened, of course but it was a well kept secret. Boaz had written a digital file during his priestly studies on the comparison of sexual scandal of the ancient church and sexual discrepancies now. It was quickly removed and he was told to put the thought away.

The young man sighed. She knew. He wondered what Shamuel would do to her or if he’d have the power to shut her up. Boaz leaned up against the wall. He was tall, just over six foot, and thin. He was not overtly muscular but his lean form demonstrated a strong build. He was not gangly. His dark hair and eyes gave him a serious look that fit her personality perfectly.

Fresh priestly tattoos shimmered down his right arm. They itched and were still fresh. They often took weeks of care to heal and he did not look forward to the process of doing his left arm. The silver inlays were merely microscopic connections laid into his skin with a tattoo gun over and over and over again. The skin would swell up around them to puffy proportions and pain reservers were prohibited. Training priests were taught meditation techniques to deal with pain and the process.

He subconsciously rubbed his right arm. The puffiness from the tattoos was mostly gone but he could still feel the connections slightly raised. The scar tissue would remain for a long time. He returned to his thoughts. He had kept it secret so long he stopped thinking about what it meant to keep a secret. But he thought about it now: it meant denying the Tri-Verse his true self. To keep it meant to break the very bonds of his Priestly duties. It meant to deny truth to those that sought Christ.

Shaking his head he pushed himself off the wall. He looked down at his feet and in that moment what he knew what his truth was. It was Priests like him that had allowed the breach to occur. The virus was a sign from the Creator. The Tri-Verse had been blasphemed because of those like him who had denied the followers truth. His realization devastated his spirit.

The Conversation.

She sat comfortably, she breathed evenly. She was not afraid; she had not lied about that. During her time of silence Tamar had realized many things. For one, she knew that what they called a virus was merely a message from her Uncle Asa. They had attempted to tell her again and again that it was a virus but she knew it was not intended to infect anything. She understood that what might be a virus for the Tri-Verse was merely a message to her. It was the first time in her life that what she was told by her superiors did not align with what she knew as her truth. It was the first time in her life that she had a truth separate from that of the Consciousness.

Her eyes blinked slowly and she looked at Shamuel from under long dark lashes.  At first, she had not been able to process it. The reason for her silence, at first, had been a mental break down. The pieces of reality had to be sorted through and understood. Like a puzzle, they were put back into place but now the picture had no edge pieces- there was no real beginning or end. She tilted her head to one side; much like a dog looking at a tv screen in wonder, and she stared at the man in front of her. He’d been close to Asa when she was young. She remembered now; she saw it clearly.

“Will you force me to ask the questions you know I must ask?” a long pause “Tamar?” She remained still but smiled slightly.

“Do you ever miss him Shamuel?”

Again, surprised at her lack of formality, he found himself off kilter.

“Tamar, my name is Father Shamuel and I am quite sure we did not come here to talk about myself.” He was firm, calm and resolute. He could not allow her to distract him from the goal. “Now tell me Tamar, what did you see when the virus attacked? What did it look like?”

She sighed and began playing with the rug under her feet. Pushing the pattern in the deep rug out of sync with the tip of her shoe. She looked up and stared into his eyes. “I really thought you’d be more intelligent than the others. Or, at least, I thought you’d have better questions. Aren’t you meant to be good at this sort of thing?” Her comments came off as petulant and rebellious. She was a child arguing with Asa all over again but now the argument would certainly mean the difference between life in the Tri-Verse and the life of the disconnected.

They stared each other down. Quickly he siad, “Did you see Asa, Tamar?” He asked it calmly with no hint of emotion and he did it as soon as the last syllable left her huffy comments. She was surprised and he knew he finally found a crack in her calm demeanor.

“Were you his lover Shamuel?”

The conversation had become a game of chess with quick important moves and long periods of silence waiting for the other to make a mistake. Answers were few, questions remained.

Into the Tunnels.

The old shelter offered ancient lights which ran on a modern generator that on the surface above.  The lights flickered as the bombs continued. Dust from the ceiling drifted down with each bomb that dropped from above. Children coughed and cried and Asa waited. How long they had been bombing he did not know. He prayed that they would stop.

It was no secret that Tri-Verse communities sent out drones to monitor the growth of the Disconnected. They must have known when the community was most vulnerable. They must have known when the children would be separated from their parents. They must have known when they could cause the most damage. Silent tears ran down Asa’s weathered and dusty cheeks. The dust and tears made mud that fell from his chin and onto Rachel’s head as she sat close to him in his lap.

She looked up at him. “Father Asa” she said gently, “Do not cry, God will give us a way.” He looked into her eyes and could barely still the swelling guilt that welled up inside of him. Would they ever forgive him if they knew he’d caused it? Just then, the lights flickered once more and then stayed on. The noises above quieted and the whining of the engines began to fade. The domed room with faint lights that had stood the test of time remained even still; these walls had been built for such an attack. He was impressed with the ancients- their foresight had saved the children.

Asa moved Rachel off his lap and stood. He motioned to the Father Reuben and they moved towards the stairway. As the children and the few adults watched they made their way up the steps to see if the door could be opened. Asa pushed up on the wooden door while the Reuben ensured the old abbot didn’t hurt himself. Anyone could see though that the door would not open; the town hall had crumbled all around it.

Reuben sat with Asa on the top step overlooking their dusty constituents below. Emergency foodstuffs were stored here for weather emergencies but it would only be enough for a few days. They spoke quietly to one another as they decided their next course of action.

“Abbot, perhaps it is time to seek out the tunnels.”

The Abbot was slow in responding but finally answered, “and what do we do Rueben? Starve in the belly of the earth with these children following us like blind mice?”

“Abbot, perhaps it is better that they starve in the belly of the earth then under the dead bodies of their families. We cannot give up yet.”

The tunnels were another testament to the ancients. They had built shelters that had dotted the landscape and connected them with tunnels. Many of the old shelters and most of the tunnels now stood below ruins of cities long abandoned by time and necessity. No one had mapped them or knew exactly where they went. They were dangerous and many of the tunnels had failed; still, one might offer an escape. It was their only hope.

Universal History 7.4

For as many millennia as is recorded the human race believed that it was their religion that gave them truth. Even in 2010 when the Networking Revolution began they still thought that religion was not determined by culture but by truth. 600 years later when Tamar and Asa entered the scene not much had changed.

You see, humanity does not learn from its mistakes very often. It is easier to believe that your truth will mean your success. However, reality dictates that your truth is little more than the culture you were raised with. It is rare then, that anyone within a culture dares to change it entirely. This not because many do not want to, they do, it is often because they do not even know the enemy they fight.

How can one fix a problem when they do not know what the problem is to begin with? You can try and kill a religion but another will pop up in its place. You can try and kill all religion but the same culture within the political sphere will remain or even grow further. Culture is the flow of life and religion and politics are merely the boats on that river. To destroy one does not change the path of others you put on its waters.

Interestingly enough it would be a young priestess who finally saw the river for what it was. She saw past the Tri-Verse, she saw past Asa’s extremism and she saw past all the other boats in her line of sight. For the first time, she saw the river. It was not the educated elite, the priests of religious renown or even those that asked the deeper questions who would finally see. Isn’t that the way though? Those that see are often perceived by their society as blind.

It wasn’t until Tamar’s death much later that the world understood. She knew better than to let them know too soon. It was in her writings and video images that the world was taught a gentler way. The Disconnected were not dumb but neither were the Connected disillusioned.  It was in their unwillingness to see the other as necessary to the greater whole that they failed. As though the hand was telling the stomach it should be a hand and trying to destroy it when it was not able to do so. The body of the church, for a while, attacked itself.

Many say we had to know true suffering in order to become what we are today. I am not so sure. Regardless, in her passing, new life began to arise but in the midst of her life great suffering occurred. Great loss. It was darker than Medieval Age. It was disease, warfare and struggle. Changing culture is much like changing the course of a river. Seemingly impossible and always difficult; when not done properly it may cause great destruction. So it was with the Networking Revolution. So it was within the Tri-Verse.