HE WAS A BAKER

            His journey was long. He had walked far from the street peddlers and thieves of the city by the well. He had climbed out from the crater that it lay in. Through rock and sand He kept on, until the rocks became only dunes, and He was surrounded by nothing but desert. At night sleep took Him, for He was a natural man, but during the day He never stopped, until He met his companion.

            His companion was a fellow baker. A man of the same city in the same crater. They met at a field of gravel. Tired and sun beaten, they shared bread and water.

            “I did not know when you would arrive,” said His companion.

            “Have I come in time?”

            “You’ve missed nothing,” replied the companion. “Only snakes and buzzards have passed this way.”

            They had come to witness something spectacular. This was all they knew.

            “I dreamt that this was the place. This is where I had to go,” He said.

            “This is the place. I have seen it too.”

            But still they waited for something they could not foresee. They watched the sun set and they became weary. As He fell into dreams, He saw the field again, as He had seen it before. Still and lifeless, but becoming. But He knew not what it was.

            He woke to the sound of many footsteps. The ground echoed and rumbled.

            “Others are coming!” called His companion.

            Across the gravel field appeared masses of people, a great pilgrimage. His own people. Then he saw His old friend, among the masses.

            “Old friend! Did you see the field too? Did you dream it as I did?”

            “Yes, I did. We have all had this vision. But what has brought us here? What has drawn us out of our homes in the crater?”

            To this He had no answer. All He could say was that they should wait. So they sat in waiting for three days, without consequence. But on the third night, He dreamt of a great massacre in the gravel field. Men on horseback came in the night. They brought with them fire. Their mounts were tall and fierce. They swung at the people in the field from above. They burned what they left behind.

            He woke with the sun in His eyes. Kicking up sand, He rushed to tell the others of His dream. He ran up from the dune he had slept behind, screaming. His people were mostly asleep. He saw His companion, wandering about, and called to him.

            “You and I,” said the companion, “were the only to have this vision. I have asked the others. Not even the priests saw what we have.” And it seemed that way from the beginning. That these two men had a closer bond with the Lord, or a sharper eye for the future than the rest. But they did not know what to make of it. These premonitions were all but clear. And still, they knew not what they were.

            “We should return home,” He said, “we are not safe here.”

            “But why would we be summoned here? What the Lord intends is for us to remain in the field.”

            So they decided that His companion and the people would remain, and that He would return to the city by the well, as he felt was the meaning of the dream. The journey was twice as long this time, and He collapsed after descending from the crater’s edge. The city that stood above His tired and crumpled body looked desolate. No thieves crept in its markets. No rich men lay in their harems. But as He entered the city, he heard the bleating of animals. He looked into his Bakery, and was greeted by the silent stare of a goat, gnawing on the tassels of a water pouch. It had broken the seal and water flowed freely down its beard. He stumbled outside, surprised, and saw more goats, roaming the alleys and chewing away at the city itself. They were in the hotels and shops. They were in the houses. He went to His own home, and saw one waiting for Him there. He dropped to his knees before the animal and asked,

            “My Lord! What has happened to my city?”

            And the goat spoke,

“I HAVE MADE THIS A CITY OF ANGELS. YOUR PEOPLE HAVE LOST THE RIGHT TO MY LAND.”

            “What will happen to them, Lord?”

“THEY ARE ALREADY GONE. MEN CAME TO THE FIELD THEY SLEPT IN WITH FIRE. YOUR PEOPLE WERE SINFUL. THEY CARED NOT FOR EACH OTHER. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WORTHY OF THE GIFT I HAVE GIVEN.”

            “Why am I worthy, Lord? Why me?”

            But the goat had no answer. It stood silently gnawing a loaf of moldy bread.

            He knew that He had spoken to God. And that He was truly the last of His kind. His wife and children were gone. His companion and old friends were gone. Even the priests were massacred by the men on horseback. Extinguished by the will of the Lord. As the last of a people, He suddenly felt a great burden settle upon Himself.

            He heard nothing more from the beasts in the city, so once again He headed out of the crater. This time North, in search for a new home. In search of those who would listen to His tales of ecstasy. For He was to become a prophet. This journey was through rock and ash, into mountainous regions and past boiling lakes. He set fires at night, often seeing, with sorrow, the faces of His wife and children, smiling at Him from the flame. Other faces of His lost people visited Him too, during nightfall. On many nights, they were the only thing that kept Him moving.

            Finally, He came to the Great Walled City, where men rode horses and wore long robes. These people were larger and stronger than His own had been. It must have been these men that came in the night with fire, for their mounts looked the same, and they wielded torches wherever they rode. They were rulers of the days to come, He could see. They were gathering an Empire.

            So He took refuge behind the Great Walls, as many wandering men have found easy to sneak into. He slept on its streets, calling to the citizens by day, “I have heard the voice of the Lord! The Almighty came to Me three times!”

            And on those streets he preached, to remain there for three hundred years.

            In the streets of the Great Walled City, He wrestled with His own mind. Many decades passed without a doubt of His purpose; to enlighten the people to the voice of God. He brought together a small number of followers over the years, but his words never reached outside the City. Many a wealthier merchant yelled at him for conducting sermons by their shops.

After one hundred years of preaching, He wondered if He had in fact heard the words of the Lord. It had been such a long time ago. He distrusted His worth as the only survivor of people. He was not righteous. He felt He was nothing to be saved. As His doubt grew with time, confusion overtook Him. His days became darker. For many years, he barely spoke. He lay in silence, without light, without sound, and questioned His own validity. He questioned His own existence.

            Finally, after two hundred years of His doubt, He had thought all there was to be thought. So He woke from his darkness. He brushed the dust from His idle body. He moved from the ground He lay on. He had to learn again how to walk, but then began a passage outside the City and up the mountain beside it. At the peak of the mountain, he dropped to his knees and called above to the Heavens, “My Lord! All I ask for is peace. Peace to an old man’s mind. Let Me know if I truly have touched You.”

            And He felt the ground below rumble and shake, for there was an earthquake that came from below, And the mountain He stood upon rose, toppling and destroying the Great Walled City in its wake.

            He saw it all from the peak. A giant crack ran through the town, and the Great Walls fell onto their own people. Dirt and rock covered much of the City. He hurried back down the mountain, and when he reached the ruins, He could see no one had survived. No more were the tall men with robes. And no more were their strong steeds or their long swords and torches. Their kingdom was finished and buried below the foot of the mountain.

            He knew now that His purpose was true. He had witnessed the Lord’s action two times. Surely, He thought, The Creator will explain to Me now why I have been saved twice! And on this thought He waited for what He believed would come about here.

            And sure enough, at the next dawn He could see nature return to the once Great Walled City. The animals returned to its ruins, as they had years ago made a home to the city by the well. Goats and sheep, serpents and jackrabbits. Lions and birds came with the locusts and reptiles. The land was done with men. Shrubbery and grass once again sprouted. Time paved over an Empire. This was the passage of divine progress, like the fate of His own city.

On this reassurance, He was at peace. And so He collapsed. His old bones quivered and rattled. His knees gave way and He fell finally, into the arms of the Lord. His life had been long, it had carried much burden and much doubt, but He had truly been touched by God. He was whispered this as He fell for the last time to the earth. He was granted understanding of all that is and why. For He had been told, as he looked up from His body, why He was worthy of such a life.

The Lord spoke in his ear,

“YOU ARE WORTHY BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTHY. YOU LIVE AS YOU DO BECAUSE I MEAN FOR YOU TO. YOUR WORLD’S PUPOPSE IS SIMPLY TO EXIST, BUT THE MEANING YOU SEARCH FOR WILL NEVER BE FOUND. THERE IS NO SUCH MEANING.”

            And with this knowledge He was departed.