I have no recollection of how long I stood there staring blankly into
the void, for the sun was hidden behind the darkened sky. I have no
memory of that period until I saw two short forms coming towards me in
the distance. They walked slowly and methodically, as if they were not
hurried on by any physical concerns. As they drew near, I saw them to be
Onan and Zimri, the Lords of Past and Future. When they arrived I was
awakened from the trance that I had fallen into, and I gave them a
slight bow, for I was still standing upright. The look on their faces
was one of sorrow, for no matter how many times they had seen the
destruction of humanity, each time it brought only fresh, poignant
sorrow.
Onan was the first to speak, breaking the silence with a long, hopeless
sigh, "My dear Jehu," he said, "This age has come to a close."
I could say nothing, for Bernibus' face was still gazing at me in my
memory.
"Do not be saddened by grief or guilt, Jehu, for it is what has always
happened. It is not your fault, for the events that you have witnessed
do not have their roots in your time or in this one, but in the very
foundation of the world. It is not your actions that caused this, but
rather the accumulated momentum of all the ages of humanity, for they
are history, and history reigns by influence. There were no right
choices and no wrong choices for you, for the power of the kinsman
redeemer is not in himself, but in the way that those around him react
to what he signifies. In every age before this you have done the same,
as you will in every age after this as well. You were humanity's last
chance, yet it is not up to you to change their course: it is up to them
to change their own."
Here I raised my head from its dull droop and looked questioningly into
his eyes. "What do you mean," I asked, "That I did not prevent it in any
of the other ages? How could I exist in any other age but this?"
"Then you do not understand?"
"Why else would I ask?" I faintly smiled.
"These are the Ice Ages, the end of an age of history. Every time that
the temporal continuum revolves around eternity, it has a new age, much
like the years of the earth as it revolves around the sun. When the
atomic anionizers went off, they did on a large scale what they were
designed to do on a small scale: reverse the poles through an extreme
electric charge, by injecting countless solitary electrons into the
atoms. But with so many of them exploded at once, they did this to the
earth itself, reversing its poles. It was a theory at your time that the
poles reversed about every 170,000 years, this is because that is how
long an age is.
"When the earth's poles were reversed, it brought all to desolation,
excepting you, for you were protected by the suit. But while this is the
ending of all life on earth, in a way it is also the beginning, for you
see, Jehu, you have just witnessed the Big Bang. In a few days, at the
longest, you will die yourself, for there is no food or water for you
here, but inside of your anti-electron suit, your remains will be
protected. Slowly the earth will regenerate, and when conditions
suitable for life have been once more returned, your suit will be blown
against a rock somewhere and broken open. From that little hole, the
atoms of life, your life, will escape into the atmosphere and grow and
evolve until they become like what things were before you were born.
Then the process will be repeated. You are not only the one who
symbolizes the destruction of humanity, but also the one who symbolizes
the rebirth of humanity. You are the beginning and the end, in a sense,
a descendant of yourself, simultaneously the father and the son. You
will be born again through your own descendants, and will once again
become the kinsman redeemer. It is your destiny, there is no other way.
You are the White Eagle."
"You only confuse me more, what is this White Eagle?"
"Do you remember when we first met, in the Chambers of History? On the
dome of the ceiling there was a sculpture mural, and in it was a White
Eagle, holding many lords and ladies in its talons while it soared far
above the lands, and those on the land were worshiping it. You are the
White Eagle. You hold all of humanity in your hands, for you are the
father of all men, they all descend from you, including you, yourself.
You were the White Eagle, for the altar had no power, the power was only
in you.
"Those who worshiped you were those who worship time, in either of its
forms, past or future. Those who worship the past recognize the
influence of history, and they understand that there are taboos and
traditions created through mutual experience. These traditions reign in
humanity by keeping men from actions that lead to pain and suffering.
But they do not understand that while it influences mankind, the past
does not control them, for it is gone, and it will never come again. In
their strict keeping of traditions, they focus on the physical act of
the tradition, while neglecting the spiritual principle behind the
tradition. If you keep only the physical form of the principle, you have
nothing.
"On the other hand, those who worship the future neglect the past and
the valuable lessons that it teaches. They believe that there is some
moral advancement that places them above those that have come before,
they believe that the people of the past were blinded to the truth, and
that the revelation of the truth in the present supersedes the
traditions of the past. But they are wrong as well, for humanity is
humanity, and those of the past were no more ignorant than those at
present. The people of the past fell into the same traps as the those in
the present, and both suffer the same consequences.
"While one group remembers only the physical display of the spiritual
truth, the other rejects the spiritual truth because of its physical
display. Those who worship the future break taboos because they
recognize that the mere physical manifestation of the truths is not
their entire essence, but they reject the spiritual truth as well. When
taboos are broken, there is nothing gained, but everything lost, for the
physical traditions at least lead to the knowledge of the spiritual laws
to those who seek such wisdom. One taboo is broken, but as there is no
satisfaction in the breaking of taboos, every one of them is broken in
succession. Then there is no limit to the immorality that is left to
freely roam the hearts of men, and when immorality, the breaking of the
spiritual laws, is widely propagated, there is spiritual suffering. When
this spiritual suffering begins to accumulate and is translated into
physical suffering, the people see what is happening, how their very
society is crumbling to ruin around them. Yet instead of recognizing the
truth of what is happening, they see the traditions of the past as the
cause of their problems, and continue to make their plight worse. This
downward spiral continues until at last we find ourselves where we are
now, at the end of an age."
"But what else is there to do?" I asked Onan, 'If both the past and the
future lead to ruin?"
"The answer is in the present, my dear Jehu, for if one focuses on the
spiritual laws that bring good or evil, and acts according to them,
instead of their physical counterparts and manifestations, then things
will thrive and become prosperous. What is evil brings evil
consequences, and what is good brings good consequences, over time. The
ends define the means, just as the fruit shows the tree to be either
good or bad. These spiritual laws become known and remembered, not why
they are so, but simply that they are so. No one can question why, for
morality is observed through its effects, just as science is. When
people observe that one thing brings good and another bad, they remember
to stay away from the bad things and cling to the good. Over time these
evolve into taboos and social restrictions, not meaningless laws
enforced by tyrants for their own reasons, but rules that are observed
by all because the are the laws of the spiritual realm and govern
physical life. But when the people forget what the traditions represent,
then all is lost, and either of the two paths that present themselves
lead to ruin."
"But why do not men see?"
"Because they are rooted too strongly in the physical realm, and cannot,
or will not, see the spiritual. What they see as happiness is not the
spiritual matter that is happiness, but the physical actions the
represent happiness. What they see as love is not love in the spiritual
sense, only its manifestation in the physical realm. When they see the
happiness that comes from a spiritual connection, they seek after it.
But they do not seek after the actual essence of the spiritual
connection, yet after its physical counterpart, marriage. This they take
and defile, and when they go through the physical actions of the
spiritual marriage but forsake the very thing that makes it bring
happiness, they are left without any real sense of satisfaction, without
any real happiness.
"You must understand that the physical manifestation of the spiritual
force is not the spiritual force at all, only a bland deception. If you
only focus on what you can see directly, than you chase after only the
representation and not the object desired. If a bird is flying through
the sky at noontime, casting a shadow on the ground below him, and a man
comes along, and in the hope of catching the bird chases after its
shadow, it is evident that he will never catch it, for when he does
reach it, he will find that there is nothing there at all, only the
shadow of what it was he desired. So it is with the spiritual!"
"Yes, I think that I am beginning to understand."
"Excellent. If only I could tell you more, but I must go, my dear Jehu,
for Father Temis is in mourning for his children, and I must go to
comfort him."
"I thought that you and Zimri were his children?" I asked.
"You are all his children. He is patient, ever so patient, but still
they fall by the wayside, too caught up in their false perception to
rest in him. Fare thee well, Jehu, may you be blessed ere you must die."
And with that, Onan and Zimri turned and walked away in the other
direction, never to be seen by me again, in this age. I took a look
around me, and could not bear to remain any longer in a place of such
ill remembrance. Turning slowly and despondently to the westward, I
began to walk over the lifeless mass of what had been the ocean not too
long ago. For how long I walked, I could not tell, but in due time I
reached Daem, though it was no more hospitable than the mainlands, for
all was laid to ruin by the Big Bang, all was equally devoid of life.
When I came to what had been the center of the savanna, I came across
something that had survived the blast, being unearthed from its previous
burial hole by the force of the anionizer's explosion. It was a two foot
by two foot box, made of a strange metallic substance with an intricate
etching along its top. Written there in its center were these words:
"Temporal Anomaly Box, Number 12, Location: Central Savanna"
I took the lid off carefully, though it was in perfect condition and I
did not need to treat it so, and looked inside of it. There was a
notebook and a pen there, both capable of producing a large of amount of
enduring text. This was one of the boxes that had been taken back
through time in the experiments of the Zards and Canitaurs, designed to
withstand any conditions, and to hold its contents for countless ages,
until they should be retrieved and studied. I sat down on the ground and
began to write my story down, in order to assist whoever takes the job
of kinsman redeemer in the next age. I knew that it would have all been
forgotten, so I made sure to carefully record it, for it could mean the
difference between the life and death of humanity.
This was only hours ago, and now I have reached the end my tale. If by
any chance you come upon this in some subsequent age, I beg you to take
heed, for what I have written will surely come to pass once more if
something is not done to prevent it. There is nothing else for me to
say, for this is the end of my story, and within the next day I will
also pass over to the spiritual realm. What, then, can I say to bring
this to a close, for this is neither the end nor the beginning. I
suppose all that can be said is this:
DEJA VU (THE END)
End of Project Gutenberg's The Revolutions of Time, by Jonathan Dunn