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Chapter 2
Y314 was getting rid of old memories and stumbled upon the last entry in one of his journals, dated Dec 23, 2013.
Y314 was getting rid of old memories and stumbled upon the last entry in one of his journals, dated Dec 23, 2013.
"As before, it is time again to evolve.
The nomads speak of people from the west who spoke differently from the people who were here before. I do not know how we spoke before they came. Today, there is no difference between those who came and us. I don't even know if I am not one of them.
I wonder if the people from the west taught us about the gods. If I tell anyone that there was a time when we did not know about gods, it will not make sense to them. As far as we know, the gods created us. So there can't be such a time when according to our people, we did not know about gods. I had no such thought either until one day I saw a boy....
It was at a temple. The boy's mother was asking him to pray. Children imitate those who are around them even before they speak coherently. I think the meanings behind their own actions gets revealed to them gradually, in a series of epiphanies. I remember a few of my own. I do not remember what the boy actually did but I wondered if the boy knew about the gods. Did I know when I was born? No. Didn't my parents teach me? What if this boy never understood the idea of a god and never taught his children? Will god disappear?
Another day, another temple. A story from the scriptures was being enacted by some children. I wondered why a child posing as a God was instilling such feelings in the gathering. It was just like any other story otherwise. That's when it dawned on me. It was simultaneously a device,"
That is where the entry abruptly ended. One would expect to remember the last part of almost anything but that was a period when he was easily distracted. Journals were a chore. If he had completed that sentence, he thought, it would not have been anything exceptional but now he was a little curious. "... simultaneously a device," and what else? Can that sentence end meaningfully?
He had to put that thought aside. He was not the same person anymore. He had indeed evolved. A different thread of memories took over. That year end was also the time he had first heard about the scrivener. The anonymous writer who seemed to have written for a reader in the distant future, all the while sensing that the world might not look as it did in his time. As if he knew how tantalizing the missing details of the past will be. Only parts of his palmyrah notes have been found. Back then Y314 couldn't afford to wonder about the missing pieces. It didn't matter to him. He told himself that people were people always and they lived a variation of the same themes and left it at that. He wasn't always like this. History had soured in his mouth the more he consumed it.
Now he was feeling a little bored. Maybe he can afford to obsess over the scrivener a little bit. To an extent where it does not turn unhealthy. Set some limits perhaps. Strictly a hobby.
"No", he said aloud and threw the journal into the fire.
That is where the entry abruptly ended. One would expect to remember the last part of almost anything but that was a period when he was easily distracted. Journals were a chore. If he had completed that sentence, he thought, it would not have been anything exceptional but now he was a little curious. "... simultaneously a device," and what else? Can that sentence end meaningfully?
He had to put that thought aside. He was not the same person anymore. He had indeed evolved. A different thread of memories took over. That year end was also the time he had first heard about the scrivener. The anonymous writer who seemed to have written for a reader in the distant future, all the while sensing that the world might not look as it did in his time. As if he knew how tantalizing the missing details of the past will be. Only parts of his palmyrah notes have been found. Back then Y314 couldn't afford to wonder about the missing pieces. It didn't matter to him. He told himself that people were people always and they lived a variation of the same themes and left it at that. He wasn't always like this. History had soured in his mouth the more he consumed it.
Now he was feeling a little bored. Maybe he can afford to obsess over the scrivener a little bit. To an extent where it does not turn unhealthy. Set some limits perhaps. Strictly a hobby.
"No", he said aloud and threw the journal into the fire.
