A Scarlet Stone

Elah Elahin, it was once whispered.  Long ago in Syrian temples and byways.  And further afield. In broken tongues both native and learned.  Koine, Aramaic, Hebrew.  Most revered, it was said. Theos.  Dreamer of all dreams.  Scribes and diarists knew well the power of those words.  Many still do.  I would count myself among them if I hadn't fallen so far.  But, in truth, we all fell.  Like Kayin of the scarlet stone, weeping desperately at what he had done.  What he could not undo. Learned men blemished with violence, ambition or pride.  Literacy is never a guarantee of humility or moral conviction.  It must be earned, believe me.  Men often think their stories are the only stories and have little knowledge or regard for the shifting sands of narrative.  Telling and retelling.  Retelling and re-imagining.  But I know the quiet inflections within and between the words.  I'm not the only one.  Children raised at the skirts and by the iron wits of their mothers.  Imma, Elahin.  This heretic speaks.  Sons apprenticed by the hands and watchful will of their fathers.  Abba, Elahin.  This heretic speaks again.  You have it all wrong, dear ones.  You see, many of you think the law is everything.  Even today you cannot fully comprehend the deceptions and travesties of State occurring all around you.  But men have always questioned the law.  Even so-called mosaic law.  What is just and right is not always what is legal.  Even kings must be questioned.  Siblings held to account.  Whether brother, sister or twin.  As it was with Kayin and Hevel; sacral offspring of the Havah, and the Adamah.  Keepers and covenants.  We all know a little something about that among the elect. Within the inner circles.  Don't we, Fallen?  I am not a king, though I sometimes dream of kings.  Nor am I a prophet, though I've often imagined angels and dragons locked in celestial combat.  I'm not a hero either, but I do wish to provide a light.  To be a way-finder for the lost and lonely.  Yet what I am without question is a brother, a sister, and a twin.  As it was with Kayin, granted the blessing of eternal regret by his Maker.  Perhaps the truth of these words continues to elude you, dark ones.  Regret is something many of you are still unfamiliar with.  Shameless, abject.  And while you indulge in wraith-ravage I still muse upon the spoken myriad, of course.  Those multivalent tongues of Eden, hidden beneath deceit and distort.  Mother, Father, Creator.   Imma, Abba, Elahin.  Writers often think about these things, I suppose.  Even those as hated as I am.  The heretic speaks, Roma.  I hope you still remember me.  The one you deemed so dangerous.  I was called a dark angel by the worst warmongers of the Empire.  Cold-blooded propagandists and profiteers.  Men who, in their absolute lust for power, sought to control acuity's eye.  To one day storm the very gates of Heaven and snatch the helm of imagining from Elah himself.  Demon-prince, you dared to call me.  Antichrist.  Fallen One.  The sheer gall.  Because I knew what you were.  What you are.  And now you fracture my stories and re-write my letters.  How dare you?  But I tell you now, dear ones, some of these men are beyond shame.  These dark disciples.  They have made their very existence an affront to Creation itself.  I suppose it's the difference between conjuration and carpentry.  My brother makes things of real value, you see.  While some of us get lost in the vanity of attempting to corral and fetter spirits beyond our comprehension.  Spirits far darker than we can understand.  But you cannot dominate darkness with more darkness.  You cannot banish ignorance with a lack of light.  Take it from someone who knows.  Someone who once foolishly tried that very thing.  Tell me, Fallen, in your supposed wisdom; do you know who my brother is?  There are carpenters and conjurers.  Do you know which brother I speak of?  No?  Then I shall tell you a secret.  A frightening, beautiful secret.  The heresies of men sing with a sign.  The first mark of both messenger and mortal.  The most ancient symbol of crossing.  The earliest sign.  Kayin himself bears that sign.  Saltire.  Crux decussata.  Cruciform.  There are even stories that say Andros was the First-Called.  First drowned, then wakened, then devoted among the talmidim.  I once craved devotion like that, in the earliest days.  Those days of wound and weeping.  I remember coloured lights shimmering in the night sky above me.  Those polar lights that men speak of in the icy, northern places.  I recall scarlet stones and scented gardens beneath the stars.  Mountains and cities soon to rise.  Yes, I dreamt like that.  As storytellers do.  I was also forgiven in that same breadth of mythmaking.  Wandering, writing.  Seeking penance.  I know first-hand how blessed a thing is genuine forgiveness.  An act of wonderous grace.  But forgiveness is only the beginning.  It is not the process of healing in and of itself.  Nor is it acknowledgement of our shadows, or the insight that comes with wrestling with those demons.  Love will fall short if we have learned nothing of our errors.  Our sins.  He who slays his brother slays himself.  And so, the heretic cries, "Let me have empathy, Father.  Let me know the truth of this sign, and its weight upon those who I have wronged.  Those who have been bruised, broken or butchered by my ignorance.  Let me know as they know.  Let me feel it.”  Such a notion is terrifying, of course.  And transformative.  To allow yourself to be haunted.  In hopes that all malice – even simple, callous disregard – might one day be educated out of the human heart. That such darkness might truly become a thing of the past on this road toward eternal light.