Zealots

Kosta sat at a kafenion table in the heart of the ancient Soma district. For centuries, it was believed that it housed a vast complex of buildings, surrounding the tomb of the city’s founder. Now, it used the name and fame of the renowned conqueror as barter for tourists and currency. Kosta loved its open swagger and bold ambition to take as much money as possible from the visitors that sought enlightenment from its ancient ruins. It was a contrast from Kostadinoupoli, because it held no longed-for history. Nobody Kosta even knew, or read about, wished for the times of Alexander, mostly because nobody remembered them. There was no monaxia for Alexandria. It wasn’t even in Europe.

In the noonday sun, Kosta sat in the shade of a Cinzano umbrella and read a codex, wrapped up in the newspaper of the day. If someone had been watching him closely, it would’ve been obvious to them that he wasn’t reading the paper, but in Alexandria, Kosta knew that nobody took any notice. He was part of the furniture. He was a middle-aged, medium, Mediterranean man who wiled away his days at an outdoor tavern, kafenion. He was only one of thousands, but the only one who read the Idammah-Gan Codex.

He read it there, because it was the only safe place to do so. It had to be by the light of the sun, in daylight. No candle, electric or fire could keep the shadows inherent within the stygian ink of the book, sentenced there. In the day, the black things that made the letters and words were contained and seen, understood, without observation bringing them to life. Out of the sun’s light they could take hold of imagination and not let go until it turned to madness. Kosta knew the dangers but the didn’t know that any reading modified the final incarnation of the main character. His observation, maybe even the light of day, had brought it out of the darkness in which it had been intended to grow.

Mesmerized, Kosta read of lives that touched him and tugged at his consciousness. There was no doubt about the authenticity of the record. His emotions and attention were enough to confirm its veracity. Through the author’s visceral rendering, his thoughts and passions were exposed and defused. In them, Kosta saw a longing. A need to stop the unending battles – battles where the foe never mattered, for it was never the same. The fight went on and on. The author wished to be able to stop, to not only live a life, but to also enjoy living it.

With the account of each subsequent life, the author’s wishes are deeper, yet unnoticed. Beneath the continued battle, the story of his lives floats on a layer of colossal regret. The regret goes unnoticed, because he thinks he can triumph over the obstacles he faces. He believes he can reach the light, which is his destination. Every time he thinks that he’s almost captured it, the distance is halved, yet he never succeeds. The light is always just out of his reach.

Kosta knew that he would never be able to reach it. He used the wrong vehicle. His perceptions would always keep him at a distance; his thoughts would hold him at bay. He finally saw, understood, the connection he felt to the author’s longing. It was the hope for peace. They shared a revulsion against the turmoil and chaos into which they were forced. The monumental, historic struggles for souls, world influence and control, were no longer appealing. The struggle Kosta now sought was more personal and, in the end, was merely that for which anyone ever really fought.

My mind is in a complete fog. People are crying. I can’t tell how many and for whom. There is nothing of which I’m sure, except for the pain in my wrists and ankles. I try to look to my left and to my right, but I cannot see past my extremities. I only wish that I couldn’t even see that far. Try as I might, my glance keeps returning to the nails that hold my arms and ankles to this cross. This is the only way I know they’re still attached. Hours ago, they went numb. Hanging this way, I struggle to breathe. I only think about pushing my weight back up. There is no way in creation I will go through this again.

When they first hammered me to the wood, the pain nearly drove me mad. My mind threw screams out of my mouth – screams which continued well past when they turned me over to hammer the nails back, ensuring that I would stay on the cross. My mind gibbered disbelief at the fact that I was in this position. I think these words came out of my mouth, but of this I am not certain. “Oh, no. This is not possible. No, no, no, no.” These three phrases repeatedly chased each other out of someone’s head, through their mouth, and out past their lips, though I don’t know if it was me, or one of the other two.

The crying continues and I hope to die. Now, this pain is everything to me. It has taken over both my vision and hearing. I no longer know what is happening around me. I could be the one crying, but I’m very confused.

Someone screams, startled by the thunder and lightning around the hill on which they chose to plant these trees of pain. Rain comes down like fat tears and gives me a small relief, but does not restore my grasp of sight and sound. Time crawls by and I’m still breathing, living this misery.

“King of Jews. Why don’t you call upon your God and save us?” One of us says. Is it me? At such a time, could I be so cruel to another who shared my pain?

“He does not deserve to be here. We have done things in our lives to deserve this place. He has done nothing.” The response is instant and I instantly feel humiliated and exulted.

It must be days that we’ve been up here; still, I don’t know how to interpret my own senses. The rain continues and my tears join it. I’m sure that I sob with relief, because I feel my strength and life finally ebbing. Endurance is overrated. I wish I were weaker and able to endure far less.

“Father, why have you forsaken me?” The voice is filled with sobbing and comes from everywhere. It brings further darkness and depression. The sky has come closer to my face and reflects the bruises and blood that now describe my body. The tears and sobs leave me, unheard amid the rain and thunder.

“Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” Who does? Why does the voice seek this God, this treacherous Father, who allows this to be done to His son? For a few breaths, I am angry at the criminal violation, which this begged-for parent shows to all his children. Why do we look to Him for this withheld comfort and support?

My outrage continues and, in my death, it follows me to the void. In the nothing I now face, I am alone with my belief that no help shall ever be given, though it be earned a thousand times. I am on my own, to grow strong or be annihilated.

I also think that this seems oddly familiar. In my thoughts, this strange skewing of priorities is nothing new. A silent revelation envelops me and pushes all else aside. In violent death, this always happens. I remember past lives. I remember the death in the arena, as well as when I stood proud at Thermopylae. Not much else, apart from this, is important. Not my life then, nor any lives before, or since.

Long ago, Uncle George and Malone had told Kosta that the search for truth was that for which everyone fought. Many imposed their truth so that they can justify it, believing that their irrefutable errors were the truth. Kosta wanted to show the AntiX that there was only one who needed no homage. This truth wasn’t confined to any single interpretation – not Xian, Buddhist, Pagan, Muslim, Hindi. All were true for those who believed. The struggle was to remember, rather than to get distracted by historic, cultural and familial beliefs, which were bolstered by numbers. Few faiths stood alone.

The three most popular religions taught that the AntiX would initiate a reign of darkness. Their belief was making it true. Kosta read this and saw it reflected in books and many prophesies. For millennia, the struggle between good and evil had been center-stage in our awareness. Some attributed the highest attainments of mortals to divine inspiration, while the basest and lowest crimes and behavior were defined as evil. This somehow cheapened or excused those achievements and failures. This explanation was too simplistic. There should be accountability for actions, both collectively and individually. People were capable of both good and evil. Nobody pushed them to do one or the other. No singular, outside force existed. It did become real because we don’t want to accept our power for our actions when we sin we assign blame to others. We can’t even take credit for success. We thank God and never blame him for failures.

Kosta was glad that he had taken the time to find the Codex. Glad that wily, old Plethon hadn’t told him where to look. Had it been an accident that he hadn’t asked him where it could be located before granting him his peace? Or had Kosta needed to search through these other books, which had led him to this moment of epiphany? In the intervening months, he had gone to library after library, yet he wasn’t perturbed by the setback. He enjoyed the time he had spent searching. Through the mundane toil of the process, he had learned more from his mistakes than he could’ve guessed.

For a second, he looked away from the Idammah-Gan and stared wistfully at the gathering twilight and the setting sun. He reminded himself that he would have to stop for the day. His reading could not continue without the sun, which allowed the book’s custodians to protect the contents. As he closed it, he glanced down at the passage he just finished and was struck motionless, awed. The passage was reassembling itself into another version, which he hadn’t already read. With a start, he snapped the book shut and shuddered. If he had waited a few more seconds, who knows with what he would’ve had to contend. Ordering a bottle of Metaxa cognac, he wondered what he would see the next time he opened the Codex.