The child who is now an adolescent wanders south through clearing roads patched with earthy snow. He sees the thick of winter recede behind him and a forest of rounded-leave tall trees and sea-foam green shrubs advance towards him as if a world he couldn’t dream was being created anew for his eyes. He pauses at a fork puddled by melting snow and flanked by dark-green thickets rolling down sloped hills. He observes the two oblique paths leading south diverging right and left and attempts to divine which path his dream ought to shepherd him to. No memories aid him and the voice of his dream remains distant behind a veil of recent memories. He senses the shrubs on both sides parting and before he has time to discern or understand he’s surrounded by a ragged band of five or six brigands.
A hefty hirsute man draws near and snatches his satchel and hands it over to a stray-eyed old man who shakes it and empties its meager contents onto the muddy ground. Two young twins, smelling of onions and piss and mules, kneel and paw the objects and appraise them and shake their heads. They look at the man who seems to lead them.
“Only stale bread and tough jerky, boss,” says one twin, and the man nods and the other twin rises and grabs the adolescent’s tunic and slaps him at every word he repeats in rhythmic violence.
“Bread and jerky. Bread and jerky. Nothing else.”
The twin withdraws and the leader approaches and crowds him so, that the child can see and smell the rot of the teeth.
“What brings you to our road?”
The adolescent stares at the enemy eyes and divines a soul accustomed to savagery and violation. He blurts out the answer affixed in his mind by twenty-six moons of beatings.
“I’ve left home to pursue God.”
Laughter explodes all around him and the brigands look at each other in amusement. The leader turns and observes the brigands and judges their appetite for mischief.
“He left home to pursue God,” the leader says, pointing at the adolescent. “He left to pursue God, and here we are, keeping this one from his appointment.”
Another burst of laughter follows and the twins laugh harder than anyone, in a manner more aimed to please their leader than to enjoy the joke. The old man speaks.
“And where do you plan to find Him?”
The adolescent turns his head towards the voice and the leader grabs his hair and jerks his head and turns it and splutters the next words onto his face.
“You look only at me when you speak. Now, answer grandpa. Where are you going to find this God of yours?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he cries.
“We know where he can go,” says one of the young men.
“Beggars or buggers, boss?” asks the other. “Beggars or buggers?”
As if prompted by a known ritual, all the brigands join to chant in a sinister chorus, “Beggars or buggers? Beggars or buggers? Beggars or buggers? Beggars or buggers?”
The leader looks around at the audience, smiling, then looks back at the uncomprehending adolescent, who now looks back with wide-opened eyes. The leader raises the right hand, index finger pointing at the gray sky, and the chorus ceases. The leader stares at the adolescent, now whimpering like a child again, pauses in mock solemnity and then proffers a sentence.
“Take the southwestward path. Within two days, you should see signs for the Abbey of Melk,” he says, and the brigands laugh at a joke the adolescent cannot understand. The leader waits for them to cease. “Follow the signs. A young lad like you should reach it in one or two days of brisk walking. You can’t miss it. You’ll see a hexagonal edifice surrounded by a mossy outer wall made out of stones. They’ll show you God’s ways in there.”
The brigands burst out again and the twins shriek, putting their hands on their bellies, until they tear up.
“Go on. Make haste along the road before our minds are changed and we gut you and leave your carcass on the mud to feed the wolves.”
Before the adolescent takes even one step he feels a brutal shove propelling him with full force forward and he falls headfirst onto the mud. He lifts his head and wipes the mud off and sees the brute who took his satchel walking towards him. He gets up and his first instinct is to take the left path, but the others herd him towards the right one and he has no choice but to run on without looking back, run until his legs burn and his lungs ache and his vision falters and until a river flowing over stones polished by the streams of time runs along with him, and then still running he allows himself to cry.
✵ ✵ ✵
Coming soon — Episode 3: The Abbey
After a four-day walk he sees the hexagonal edifice rising from a humid layer of ceaseless brume…