Glen found the table in the Great Hall set for six with tableware that looked to be pure silver and gold.  The goblets were fine crystal – jewel embedded.  The food on serving platters and deep dishes looked steaming hot and smelled delicious.  There was fish, bird, meat of some kind, potatoes, rice and at least a half-dozen vegetables.  There were cheeses and fruits of all sorts so that Glen was not sure he could name them all.  The wine was decanted, both red and white, and there even appeared to be brandy and six glasses on a tray for after.

            Glen spun slowly all the way around.  There were no people to be seen, no cooking fires or stoves or so much as a cupboard for all the priceless dinnerware.  How that feast came to be there, Glen could not imagine; but then it did not seem to faze the residents of that cave community one bit.

            “Dinner.”  The leader came out into the Great hall and hollered, while Glen stared.  The Chief Officer and Treasurer quickly joined him beside the table, and Glen did not quite know what to do.  He felt he ought to be invited, but he needed to be invited first.

            “Citizen.”  The leader did invite him, but not to the table.  He clearly pointed to down below, off the ledge where the table was.  He waved Glen to stand in the inch-thick dust that had not been disturbed for years as no one came there and no one but these three lived there.

            Glen complied, but slowly, and imagined there might be some ceremony before he would be included at the table.  There was a ceremony, but not what he expected.

            While the Officer and Treasurer bowed their heads, the Leader tore off a small chunk of bread, picked up an ordinary cup of red wine and turned to face the gallery in the great hall, a gallery which consisted of Glen alone.

            “Citizens.  As we partake today of our noon dinner, let us remember the great sacrifice your officials are making on your behalf.  We work hard for you all, to see that your needs are met in every way.  We do our very best to take care of you all.  We spare no labor in our body.”  He held up the bread.  “Neither do we spare our very life’s blood for your sake.”  He held up the wine.  “Let us give thanks for those of us who are here to watch over you and provide this great and bountiful feast.”  He leaned down in Glen’s direction and held out the bread and cup.  “Here, citizen.  Share in our bounty.”

            Glen took the bread and cup and spoke softly.  “Thank you.”  Then he watched while the three up at the table took their seats and dug into the food with abandon.  They spoke some to each other, but never so much as looked again in Glen’s direction.  After a moment of disbelief, Glen found a place in the stones where he could sit.  The bread was very good and the wine warmed him, but it was not enough to sustain a bird.  And he decided while he ate that he had indeed fallen into a loony bin and wanted no more of it. 

            Glen stood when he was done and stepped to the cave entrance.  The sun was bright, but straight up overhead and it only took a moment for his eyes to adjust.  He was just about to step out when one of the three above noticed and shouted.

            “Wait!”

            Glen turned to listen.

            “I do not advise going out there,” the Leader spoke first.

            “Going into the outside is not allowed,” the Officer added.  “It is against the law.”

            “You can’t go.  There is work to do,” the Treasurer added.

            “Thank you, but I am going,” Glen responded.

            “But you’ve been paid,” the Treasurer shouted as Glen turned away and stepped out from the cave.

            It was desert outside.  Nothing much grew there and probably nothing much could grow there.  While that made Glen doubly curious as to where the feast might have come from, it did not stop his feet from walking.  He headed straight out from the cave and was only partially surprised when he heard the shuffle of three sets of feet not far behind.

            When Glen paused, the feet paused.  Glen looked to the ground and saw the remains of an old path.  It might have been cobblestones once upon a time, but it was hard to say.  The stones were too few and spewed from the earth at odd angles.

            “Where does this path lead?”  Glen wondered and shouted the words, though he did not turn his head.

            “To disrespect,” he heard the Leader.

            “To the end of choice,” the Officer said.

            “To poverty,” The Treasurer added, and Glen smiled.

            “I’ve been once to the Pit of Poverty.  This may be my way home.”  He walked at a good pace and the others did their best to keep up.

            The Great Hall was as empty as before, only this time Glen thought to lower himself off the raised platform and down to the floor below.  He saw it was covered with an inch of dust and undisturbed for ages.  He knew then that the men in the rooms never came down there.  He also knew there were no other people – no one as he imagined to come in and out of the Great Hall or go in and out from the outside.  There were no workers, no citizens, no people of any kind.

            Glen thought for a moment that he had come into a loony-bin, but again his curiosity rose up and he wanted to see what the treasurer had to say.  It was the last cave, and he imagined door number one, two or three.  According to the game this should have been door number one, but then he started at door number three.  This time he knocked on the stone archway before he spoke.

            “Excuse me, the chief officer said he would whip through the papers so I could receive assistance.”  It was a statement, but he made it sound like a question. 

            In this room a very round man sat in a very small chair in front of a tilted table.  This man had one book, a ledger, and he was going over it most carefully.  He looked up when Glen came in.

            “Be with you in a minute,” he said.  “It would not do to have these numbers add up wrong.”

            Glen stood quietly while the man worked, but after a while he grew tired of waiting.  “Excuse me,” Glen said again, but the man was not moved.  So Glen began to inch forward as if wanting to take a look at the book.  The man responded by picking up his quill, he put a period on the page and closed the book quickly.

            “Now, what can I do for you, citizen?”

            Glen had to repeat himself.  “The chief officer said he would whip through the paperwork so I could receive assistance.”

            “Hmmm.  Well, he would,” the fat man frowned.  “But I see no paperwork here.”  He looked at Glen and smiled a smile that said, sorry. Glen could not stop his tongue from asking.

            “But the chief officer decided, so that should be good enough, shouldn’t it?”

            The frown came back and deepened.  “Sadly, it does not work that way.” 

            “Why?”  Glen wondered.  “What is it you do here?”

            “Why, I’m the Treasurer, the Treasurer.  I oversee the accounts, the treasury.”  Glen shook his head and some red rose up in the man’s fat cheeks as he furrowed his brow to match his frown.  “Look, the Leader can recommend all he wants, and the Officer can decide things all day, but I have to determine what we can afford and not afford.”  The man got down from his little stool to stand on his stubby, fat legs.  He put one hand on the tilted table which Glen guessed was a desk of some kind, and he began a more thorough explanation.

            “It is really quite simple.”  The man cleared his throat.  “Public money cannot fairly be shared.  It is the one thing in life that must be vested.  Why, if we let the ordinary people have their own money there is no telling what they might spend it on.  It would be anarchy, I tell you, everyone for themselves.  Only one can rightly oversee the public trust.  It is a great and grave responsibility to have such control, I know.  But I believe my fairly large shoulders can bear it for a while longer.  It is good to hear your concern, but you can trust that I will bear the burden with honesty and spend only what is in the best interests for all.  Thank you.  Thank you.”  He waved, though there was no crowd to applaud. 

            “Of course,” Glen said, and though he still did not understand, he was not sure he wanted to.  He turned back toward the archway but the man waved at him and made a great show as he opened his desk.  The whole top of the table lifted and he pulled out a yellow, cardboard Banker’s Choice cigar box.  He was careful not to let Glen see the contents, though Glen caught a glimpse of a piece of string, a jack and a small piece of common quartz.  He also heard a few coins rattle and watched as the man carefully pulled out a copper.  He held it out.

            “Here, citizen.  The Leader has said we must be gracious to our citizens and since you say the Officer has decided, let this copper be for you.”

            Glen stepped up as the Treasurer closed the cigar box lid.  “Thank you,” he said.

            “Now the tax on earnings,” the Treasurer did not pause.  “Is two copper coins.”  He held out his hand.  Glen saw no reason to hold on to the one he had been given, so he handed it back, but then he shrugged.

            “I only have the one you just gave me,” he admitted.

            “I see, I see.”  The treasurer frowned again as he returned the coin to the box and the box to the desk.  “You will have to work off your tax then, I suppose.  Please see the Chief Officer next door and ask him for a work assignment.”  The Treasurer went back to his stool, his quill and his ledger and paid Glen no more attention.

            Glen stepped once more into the main cavern the others called the Great Hall.  He found a surprise.  The table was not empty.

            The Great Hall was the dusty inside of the main cavern.  Glen stood on a portion that was raised above the main floor and there was a table there with six chairs.  No other furniture adorned that whole cavern, but Glen imagined some stones and broken stalagmites could suffice for chairs and tables of a sort for the people. 

            Beyond the cavern – that Great Hall, there was a real opening to the outside.  The sunlight streamed in from there and it looked powerfully bright.  Glen wondered briefly if he had stumbled into a place that was too close to the sun.  He wondered if that was why these people lived inside a cave.  But he put that thought out of his mind when he came up to the table.

            It was scratched and dirty and like the leader’s throne, not well kept.  There was a thick-as-your-forearm candle in the middle of the table, stuck fast by candle drippings.  It looked nearly burned to the bottom but stubbornly ready to be relit.  One thing it told Glen was it would get dark, eventually.  The thing is, he saw no fire, pots, pans, food, plates, cups, knives or anything that might go on the table.  There was not so much as a cupboard in the corner, so he wondered what the table might be used for.

            “Hello.”  Glen thought to call out.  “Hello,” he called softly.  There was no one around.  He felt sure there had to be other citizens, but there was no one.  He found that curious.

            Just beyond the table there was another archway – another opening to a cave in the back of the cavern which was beside the leader’s cave and looked just like it.  This cave, though, had a desk and chair instead of a throne, and the man who sat behind the desk was so small he could barely reach his head and arms up and over the edge. 

            The little man shuffled papers with an air of authority and finality.  Some papers he put in one stack and some he put in another.  Some he signed with a great quill, and flourished the quill in a way that made Glen imagine a most flamboyant signature.  When Glen stepped into the room, the man looked up briefly and spoke as he returned to his papers and otherwise ignored his visitor

            “What is it, citizen?  Can’t you see I am very busy?”

            “Yes, I see your busyness.  The leader suggested I see you.”

            “Oh, he did?  He would.  But He knows I am too busy to bother with the common sort.  He should have known better.”

            Glen swallowed as his curiosity took hold.  “But what is it you are doing, exactly?”

            The man paused and looked up with surprise.  “Why, I am deciding,” he said.

            “You are the officer?”  Glen wanted to be sure.

            “Chief officer,” the man responded.  “It is my place to decide things.  I have to decide everything.  The leader can make recommendations all day long, but I am the one who has to decide what actually gets done.  Some things just aren’t practical.  Some are contradictory.  And not only that, I have to decide how things must be done.  So now I have work to do.  Good day.”

            “But the leader said there was something I might do and you would know what that is,” Glen said before he wrinkled his brow.  “I’m sorry, but what exactly are you deciding?”

            With that, the man put down his quill and got down from his chair.  That left only his tufts of gray hair sticking above the desk, and Glen watched it come around to the front.  He found this man dressed in a terribly worn three piece suit.  He had a gold watch and fob in his vest pocket and took it out to look at before speaking.  Once the watch was back in place he looked at Glen.

            “Briefly.”  The man cleared his throat.  “Power cannot fairly be shared.  It is the one thing in life that must be vested.  Why, if we let the ordinary people do whatever they wanted there is no telling what sort of things might happen.  It would be anarchy, I tell you, everyone for themselves.  Only one can rightly set the agenda for everyone to follow.  It is a great and grave responsibility to have such power, I know.  But I believe my small shoulders can bear it for a while longer.  It is good to hear your concern, but you can trust that I will bear the burden with dignity and decide only what is best for all.  Thank you.  Thank you.”  He waved, though there was no crowd to applaud. 

            “I see,” Glen said, though he still did not see.  He began to inch back toward the archway while the man went back to his high chair behind the desk.

            “Tell you what,” the man said once he was settled.  “I’ll whip you through the papers to approve you for assistance until we can find something permanent for you.  You go next door to the treasurer and he will help you out.”

            Glen guessed and raised his right hand.  The small man had to turn around and raise his own right hand before he could turn again and say, “Correct.  Turn right in the Great Hall and the treasurer’s office will be the first door on the right.”

            Glen nodded, tried to smile for the man and stepped back out into the Great Hall cavern.

            The light in the cave came in through several cracks in one wall.  Glen wondered if the light was from the outside.  He imagined it had to be and wondered further what that outside might look like.  It took considerable searching, but at last Glen found a crack that was big enough to squeeze through.  At thirty-something, he did not yet have the belly that so many men developed, so the squeeze was not too bad.  “Stress had its pluses,” he moaned as he tried not to rip the buttons on his shirt.

            It was not the outside, yet.  It was another room in the cave, and this one had an open archway for a door.  There was also a man dressed in a long, ermine lined robe, who sat on a high backed chair.  Glen might have imagined a throne if the chair paint was not peeling.  The man faced the open archway, so he had not seen Glen.  Glen stood for a moment and seriously debated returning the way he came; but then the man spoke.

            “Come in, citizen.  You have interrupted my thoughts already.  I might as well get a look at you.”

            “I’m sorry,” Glen said.  “I did not mean to interrupt.”  He walked around to the front where the man could see him and he could get a closer look at the man.  He avoided putting his back to the open archway, just to be safe.

            “A rather ordinary looking lout,” the man decided.

            Glen saw a man who was tall and gaunt.  He was way too thin, Glen thought.  “My name is Glen, and you are?”

            “I am the leader.”  The man appeared taken aback that Glen did not already know this. 

            “The Leader?”  Glen really did not know.  The man stood, and Glen thought he was too tall as well as being too thin.

            “Yes. The leader, the leader.”  The man gave a look of exasperation.  “Look, someone has to be the leader.  I am the only scholar here, the only one who is able to consider all the options and then recommend a course of action for the followers to take.  It is simple, really.  Someone has to be the leader, and by all rights it ought to be the intelligent one.  Don’t you think?”

            “Let me say this.”  The man straightened, grabbed his lapels and prepared to give a speech.  He cleared his throat.  “Authority cannot fairly be shared.  It is the one thing in life that must be vested.  Why, if we listened to the ordinary people there is no telling what sort of suggestions we might get.  It would be anarchy, I tell you, everyone for themselves.  Only one can rightly set the agenda for everyone to follow.  It is a great and grave responsibility to have such authority, I know.  But I believe my old shoulders can bear it for a while longer.  It is good to hear your concern, but you can trust that I will bear the burden with dignity and recommend only what is best for all.  Thank you.  Thank you.”  He waved, though there was no crowd to applaud. 

            “Oh, I see,” Glen said, though he really did not see.  He glanced at the archway opening and wondered if there might be a way out, and the leader spoke again.

            “Now please, if you don’t mind I have much to consider.”  He made a show of sweeping his ragged ermine robe aside and sat again on his throne.  “Why don’t you go down the hall to the officer in charge.  He will give you something to do.”  He pointed out the opening and waggled his finger like he was waving Glen off.  “And tell him I am not happy with him.  Part of his job is to see I am not interrupted by ordinary citizens such as yourself.”

            “Down the hall?”  Glen asked.

            The leader looked up and frowned.  “Do you know your right hand?”  Glen raised his right hand.  The leader almost scolded him for being wrong but at the last second turned his back, waved both of his hands and said, “Good.  Go out into the Great Hall and turn to your right.  The officer’s door is the first door on your right.”

            With that, Glen thought he had better go before the leader became seriously agitated.  He stepped through the archway and into the Great Hall.

            The fall went by rather quickly.  The family saw two newly released movies, The Alamo and El Cid, both in Spanish with subtitles.  Mom signed the boys up for Judo lessons.  It was probably the most exotic thing she could think of, though it might have been more appropriate in Japan.  Sister Carol got Flamenco lessons, which at least made sense.  Otherwise, it was regular business for Glen, going to school and coming home again. 

            Glen supposedly had school at home as well.  Mom brought the books they would have had back in the village.  She and Dad spent time with Tom who wrote some papers and the like.  For Glen they just said go read your book.  No surprise he was not motivated to do that.

            It was about mid-winter when Mom and Dad went off on a trip to Morocco and left the children home.  They had engaged a woman, Rosario, who cooked and cleaned for a very reasonable price, and by mid-winter they had little qualms about leaving the children with her for a week.

            Rosario was a wonder.  She spoke virtually no English, but by then Spanish school immersion had the boys well along on the Spanish basics.  Even so, communication was rough sometimes, especially when it came to traditions and customs that were so different from one side of the Atlantic to the other.  Keep in mind, there was no internet, no Google translations, no television to speak of.  Paco was the only kid in the neighborhood who had a little black and white TV, and the boys did get to see the Lone Ranger once or twice, in Spanish of course.

            When it came to things like Halloween, Rosario just incomprehensibly giggled the whole time.  Three children dressed in costumes went from door to door, covered all five doors in the house because, of course, none of their Spanish neighbors had any idea about the holiday.  Rosario ran around the inside of the house and got to the doors to open them and hear the children shout “Trick or treat.”  She gave little treats in each bag and giggled off to the next door.

            By the time Mom and Dad went away on their jaunt across the Mediterranean, brother Tom and Glen were once again anticipating boredom.  In truth, brother Tom was not inclined to sleep well that week, so he enlisted his little brother in a game.  When night came and the lights went out, the boys got their flashlights and went exploring.  The bed covers became the entrance to a cave and they each crawled under, in their own beds, to see what they could find. 

            Mostly, brother Tom read under the covers, at least for as long as he thought Glen was still awake.  Glen fell asleep head at the wrong end a couple of times, but one night, the night they went to bed early in anticipation of their parent’s return, Glen had a very different experience.

            He touched a pebble first, then a rock, and then he slid head first in the dark down a steep incline.  Fortunately, he held on to his flashlight and there was also some light that filtered into his cavern through cracks in the cave wall.  He had no idea where he was, except this was a cave, a real cave.  This was ages before Glen discovered Lewis’ classic Narnia books, but if you ever read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, you should have some idea of how he felt and how this happened.

            When he stood to look around, he felt taller and older than before.  It was not an illusion.  He was thirty-something, though he was not sure how that was possible unless it was some kind of college or seminary nightmare.  With that thought, he considered going back the way he came, but then the light got him.  He knew the inside of a cave should be utterly dark.  Where was the light coming from?  He wondered and began to search.

            This comes on the heels of the thought that people who haven’t the courage to pursue their own dreams will try and find ways to destroy yours.  This may be true about life in general, but it is certainly true of writers.

1.  Have you heard…?  Writing may be a nice hobby, but you really need to get a job, clean the house, do the yard, drive the kids, make the beds, make more money, and… 

2.  Have you heard…?  School first, family first, work first, shopping first, eat first, sleep first…  It seems everything else is first.

3.  Have you heard…?  Instead of staring at that computer (paper) all day you should be focused on your responsibilities.

4.  Have you heard…?  You are wasting your time.  There are so many more productive things you could be doing.

5.  Have you heard…?  You should wait until you retire.  If you want to write after you retire, that would be fine, no one would bother you.

            I try not to listen.

            I have not yet resorted to putting cotton in my ears, but I might.

1.  Writing is my job.  Work is my unfortunate necessity. 

2,  All of life is important and everything and everyone matters, but my writing is no less important.  It gets a fair and solid share of my time, not just whatever time is left over.

3.  Writing is also a responsibility equal to any other.  If everyone around me despises it, it nevertheless remains the primary responsibility to myself.

4.  Writing may not interest others, but for me it is the single most productive thing I can do with my life.  It is my calling, if you will.

5.  If I wait until I retire I will only be that much closer to death without having written a word.  At that point I might never get everything written I have boiling inside of me.

            But, while I understand this and others (apparently) do not, and while it is no more difficult to explain than I have just done here, nevertheless I do not explain it as I once did.  I do not defend it.  I do not try to persuade others.  There is no getting through to some people in any case.  And I certainly don’t argue about it.  I remember instead what Mark Twain once said:

            “Never Argue with stupid people.  They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”  Even so.

            There is not much to say about the trip over to Europe except that Glen was terribly bored.  In 1962 there were no cruise ships.  There were ships that still crossed the Atlantic because airplanes were still exotic and scary.  But those ships were not designed with children in mind, and at eight-years-old there was not much for Glen to do.

            “Maybe after supper tonight you can have some ice cream.  Would you like that?”  The woman was trying to be nice despite her plastic smile.  Glen made a face and the woman looked at Glen’s mother.

            “He doesn’t like ice cream.  He never has,” Glen’s mother explained what was a well known fact in the family.  Glen could eat coffee or chocolate ice cream if he had to, but that was the limit.

            “How?”  the poor woman was stymied.  “Why, I have never heard of a child who did not like ice cream.”

            You have now so get over it, Glen thought, or something very close to that, but he kept the thought to himself.  He was only eight.

            When they arrived in Gibraltar, all of their passports got the first of many stamps to follow, and they picked up their Hillman wagon, a little European four cylinder that Glen imagined they might have to get out and push if they ever got to a real mountain.  Mom drove.  Dad rode the bus with all of their trunks and everything that felt like home.  Mom was aware of this enough to stop at a roadside stand.  She saw a sign that said Coca-cola.

            This was the end of August, and with the tourist season winding down, as it turned out they only had one Coke.  Brother Tom got that.  Glen got to try a brand new product by the company.  It was an orange drink called Fanta, never seen (yet) across the ocean.  To be honest, this was one time Glen did not mind getting the leftovers.

            After a few nights in the Hotel Mirimar, the family moved into temporary quarters in a farm apartment in a sleepy little fishing village just up the road from the city.  The village was Torremolinos, and it was sleepy.  Glen and Brother Tom were quickly bored when one parent was off shopping or linked up with the local consulate to try and find a more permanent residence in time for the school year and the other parent was busy packing and unpacking.  Sister Carol was not yet five, and the boys were not sure exactly what she did with her time.  The boys at least had each other, and for the most part, and for most of their growing years, that was okay.

            They climbed the hill out back.  They killed spiders.  They looked at the tile-lined pool which was not more than four feet deep at the deep end.  The farm girl who had to be sixteen and liked to parade around in a bikini – not that the boys being eight and ten got much out of the view – she would swim in the pool.  The boys just looked because the water was so dirty.

            Fortunately, before the boredom became acute, the family moved into the city to a nice residential neighborhood on a back street, just across the street from a Catholic church and school.  The school was fairly typical of the day.  It had two rooms, one for boys and one for girls.  The church bell went off every morning at six.  Ding-ding-ding-dingo / ding-ding-ding-dingo / dinga-dinga-dinga-dinga / ding ding ding.  You had to be there.

            Glen and brother Tom tried the American school in town first; but there all the Americans (along with other English speakers) were lumped in a single classroom taught by a would-be artist.  If Glen’s fourth grade was supposed to be colors and pastoral scenes and art history, it would have been fine.  As it was, he ended up with brother Tom in the one room schoolhouse across the street and home schooled on the rest.

            Don Antonio, the teacher, made an agreement with dad.  He took the boys and dad helped the man with his English.  I’m not sure how the English lessons went, but the boys got taught math, history (of Spain), geography (Spanish), and the like.  In a given week there were between eight and twelve separate categories, and grades were weekly with 10 out of 10 being the top grade.

            Dad wanted to encourage his boys.  He and Mom talked it over and they decided that any week where either boy brought home all tens, they would be taken out for ice cream as a treat.  Glen balked.

            “So if Tom gets all tens, he gets ice cream, and if I get all tens, he gets ice cream.  But I don’t like ice cream.”

            “Well, we will do something else for you,” his mother said, though they never decided or specified what that something else might be.

            When Glen woke up this time, it seemed lighter than before.  It did not seem like day, but the black of the night had given way to a kind of gray pall.   The man in white was by the table and he invited Glen to come and partake of his feast.  There were eggs and bacon, toast and soft rolls, sweet rolls and danish, juice and cereal, and plenty of milk.  It seemed enough for a dozen people, and Glen enjoyed his share.

            The man in white ate little.  He mostly stared at Glen before he began a casual conversation.  “Not many people climb this high.  Most find a way around the mountain at a much lower elevation,” he began.

            Glen paused in mid-bite.  That thought never occurred to him.

            “Even those who try often fall and scatter their bones at the base of the cliff.”

            Glen swallowed.  He had tried very hard not to think of that alternative.

            “How is it that you came to climb so high?”                                               

            “The Lady,” Glen said.  “Your wife said my way home was over the mountain.”  To be sure, he never thought of anything but going over the mountain.

            The man in white frowned for a moment in thought.  “She should know,” he concluded.  “And there are less than few who climb this high and see my wife first.”

            Glen said nothing.

            “So tell me, what brought you to the Prophetic Peak in the first place, and alone I might add?”

            “Prophetic Peak?”

            The man raised his brows.  “Of course.  Didn’t you know?”

            Glen shook his head before he tried to explain.  “I saw the sign for the Prophetic Peak at the six points crossing, but I never went down that road.  I tried one road, but I wasn’t wanted or welcomed there, so I set out into the wilderness in the direction where there was no sign.”  Glen paused to swallow again.  “I fell into the Pit of Poverty.”

            “You fell?” the man asked and intensified his stare.

            Glen felt it.  “I slipped?  I was pushed by the preacher.”

            The man’s eyes softened as he nodded.  “The church that thinks poverty is a good thing.”

            “I can’t imagine how they could get it so wrong,” Glen said, casually.

            “You seem older than you look,” the man remarked.

            Glen paused to consider that statement.  He spoke at last as he went back to his breakfast.  “I’m fifty-seven and I’m eight.  I don’t understand it, but that feels right if you know what I mean.”  He looked up to see if the man understood, but the man in white could not be read and he made no comment on that subject.  He turned instead back to the story.

            “So how did you get out of the Poverty Pit?”

            Glen wiped his mouth with a napkin and went on.  “I grabbed a rope and climbed up.  It disintegrated when I got to the top, but I grabbed on to the edge of the pit and 1192 pulled me up.”

            “1192?”

            “Sir Duncan.  He rides a great horse.”

            The man in white nodded.  “I know the one.”

            “I tried to follow him and ended up on the mountainside where I met your wife.”

            “And she said climb over the mountain and here you are.”

            Glen nodded.  That seemed to sum things up, but the man was not finished staring.  Glen thought to fetch his bag and cloak, though he was dreading his climb down.  He paused when he was ready and the man rose to join him as he spoke once more.

            “Few climb to this height.  Fewer still first meet my wife.  Even fewer have also met the knight.  But I cannot think of anyone who has touched all these things without knowing that this is the Prophetic Peak.  Come.”  He turned and headed out of the cave.  Glen followed,  and again tried to keep his feet in the old man’s footprints in the snow.

            The outside was all full of fog and mist and Glen revised his thoughts.  It was probably morning, but between the sun being still behind the peak and the cloud that appeared to have settled on the saddle of the mountain, it did not seem like day yet.  The man in white took Glen once again to the edge that looked over the countryside, and he asked the same question he had already twice asked.  “Tell me.  What do you see?”

            Glen was seriously tempted to say fog, but he thought again that was not what the man was asking, so he concentrated and was surprised to find he could see something.  It looked like death.  It looked like the liar himself settled over the land below, and Glen screamed and closed his eyes.  The man said nothing, but Glen heard the sound of wings and opened his eyes again in time to see a half-dozen white birds land near them.  They looked like doves.  They looked like the same sort of birds that sang that wonderful, heavenly song on the tree of life.

            “Please sing.”  Glen heard himself say the words softly, but sadly, it was enough sound to startle the birds.  They took off back into the fog, but their wings stirred the cloud and Glen caught something unexpected through the swirls.  The image of the liar that had so frightened him became itself swirled and vanished, like it had no real substance, like it was honestly no more than a picture to be blown off by the least wind.

            Then he caught a glimpse of beauty, love, wonder, peace and holiness all stretched out for as far as his eyes could see.  It was glory on earth.  It was so wonderful even to see from a distance it made him weep for the joy of it.  The vision quickly passed as the cloud closed in again, but by then Glen was looking up at the man in white who was looking down at him.

            “Stand up tall,” the man said.  “It is time for you to go home.”  Glen wanted to object that trying to climb down the mountain through that fog would be suicide, but the man pushed him.  For one brief second, Glen felt nothing beneath his feet.  He felt like a person pushed off the side of a cliff.  He felt like one shoved off the edge of the world, and then he woke.

            He was in his bed at home, in the village.  It was early summer and third grade was over.  The whole house was packed, besides.  They were going over the endless sea.  They would spend the coming year in a foreign land, one overseas.  Everyone was excited, but Glen thought of what his father sometimes said.  “I can’t wait to see what will happen next.”

            Glen squinted as he leaned toward the edge of the mountain.  He could have said he saw the land down below, but he knew that was not what the man was asking.  The man was wonderfully patient, and Glen finally spoke.

            “I see the shadows, growing.  It is like a new dark ages coming.  People don’t read Jack London anymore.  People don’t read.  They don’t tell stories.  They watch them and are told the stories the few want them to watch.  People aren’t happy.  They are like spokes in a bicycle wheel.  They go round and round, but never go anywhere, or they only go where the driver makes them go.”

            “Oh!”  Glen drew in his breath as he saw something clear as day.  “Anger and hate are taking over, and the lies of the liar is driving them.  No one knows what to believe any longer, and the Crusaders for Christ have become few and scattered.  They cannot be lights in the darkness because people mock them and ridicule them and hate them and hurt them to shut them up.  There are too many who no longer believe anything.  No wonder they are no longer happy.”

            “Oh, look!”  Glen pointed.  “The shadow has swallowed the churches.  It has swallowed freedom.  It has swallowed common sense and made everyone ignorant of the truth.  There are too many who no longer believe anything.”  He repeated himself.  “A dark age, growing darker by the minute.  It isn’t fair, but they call it fair.  It isn’t right but they call it right.  It is like the world is turning upside-down and evil is called good and good is called evil.  But turning upside-down only puts the ocean in the sky, and everyone will drown.”

            The old man put his arm around Glen’s shoulder and helped him back into the cave.  Glen was weeping over what he saw and he wept himself to sleep.  Sadly, perhaps, the vision did not stop.

            In his dream, he saw people ruined and enslaved by the lies of the liar.  They fell into syncretism, a true relativism that destroyed value and reason together.  All things were called equal though the least bit of sense said they were not equal.  He watched the people practice a kind of tolerance that was intolerant and diversity that crushed all real diversity and inclusiveness that divided people.  They sought to destroy the cause of Christ as they destroyed the church with one departure from the word after another until the opposite was said to be true and the plain sense of the word was said to be false.  All are equal, they cried.  All are equal, they lied.

            Indeed, good came to be called evil and evil came to be called good.

            Life became anarchistic, full of chaos and crisis, and Glen found himself viewing the past where less but similar conditions gave rise to the worst sort of tyrants.  When life became so unstable, the people willingly gave themselves over to poverty and slavery for the sake of stability.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and yes, FDR filled the world with war, death and ideas of genocide and activities horror.  They punished prosperity and honesty and rewarded the fools.  People became slaves to government, to the ideologies of the fools, to prescriptions for salvation that dragged people into the pit.  Wide was the way to destruction, but destruction was the end.

            And he saw millions slaughtered in the name of a god that Glen did not know.  All he knew was he would never worship any god that slaughtered the innocent.

            Glen woke and saw the man still dressed or dressed again for the outside.  It seemed much darker than before, but the man said, come, and Glen decided anything would be better than his nightmares.  When he got outside, he decided it was also colder than before.  He pulled his cloak closer to his chest and slushed his way through the snow.  He tried to stay in the man’s footsteps.

            When they reached the edge that looked out over the land, the old man said the same words as before.  “Tell me what you see.”

            “It is all dark now,” Glen said.  “The lights are too few.  They are driven underground and into the darkness.  The lights are afraid for their lives and the people are charging up the hill with torches and pitchforks, determined to burn the castle and kill the monster.  But it isn’t a monster.”  Glen turned to look at the man.  “It is the only hope people have.”  The old man said nothing, he just turned Glen’s eyes back toward the land below.

            “No one listens.  No one can hear.  There are a few who decide what people must feel and what they must think and they punish anyone who strays.  Right is wrong and wrong is right.  The ones who work hard have nothing.  The ones who never work have everything.  The ones called unworthy are killed – they are allowed to die in their disease.  They are forced.  And not only the old.  The innocents are killed by the millions.  I can never live in a world that slaughters the innocents and turns away as if what they cannot see does not exist.”

            “It is all dark now,” Glen repeated.  “Faith, hope and love are taken away and the people are left being deaf, blind and dumb.  No one can hear.  No one can see.  And no one dares to speak.  They will be crucified.”  Glen looked away again and would not look back, and the old man lead him again into the cave and into bed where Glen settled back into a fitful sleep.  The night was not yet over.

            He dreamed of five giants, standing in a circle, surrounded by little men and women of all sizes and shapes. 

            The first was Asian, and he smiled like everything was wonderful, but he was on fire.  Glen could not tell if the ones around him were warming themselves by the fire or trying to set themselves ablaze as well.  He decided the latter when he saw one, a big man, standing back just a step.  That man kept shaking his head at the giant, but he appeared full or leprosy and appeared to be crumbling ever so slowly.  Soon enough, he would be nothing but dust, whereas the giant would burn for a while.  Glen had to move on.

            The second giant was below the first.  He was reaching for the sky and leaping for the heavens which he could never touch.  Curiously, the man’s head was gold, his trunk was silver, his loins were bronze and his arms and hands were iron.  Glen heard the clanking sound as those hands tried to grasp the sky, but then he saw the legs were mere copper and the feet were made of clay.  They would not hold up that bulk for very long.  Glen expected the feet and then legs to give way and the man to fall into little pieces at any moment.  Glen could not watch.

            The third giant was the biggest, but he was dressed in rags and kept in a cage.  It was a ratty, old cage with loose hinges and rickety wooden poles that could hold no one determined to break free, least of all a giant.  But this giant appeared content to watch as the other giants were being destroyed.  Now and then he would call on one of his small sons, one small enough to get through the cracks, and send that son to take a swing at one or more of the giants.  But otherwise, he simply waited, his wife and children behind him.  Glen caught sight of the wife, covered head to toe in a tent.  All Glen saw was the eyes, but they were enough.  The look was hardly human.  They were the eyes of one who was utterly broken, like a beast broken to the plow.  That was all she was good for.  That was all she was allowed.  Glen turned his eyes away.

            The fourth giant was seated on the ground with a cross around his neck, though the cross was hung upside-down.  He had no people to speak of around him.  He looked old and worn.  As Glen drew near, he got a shock.  It was not really a giant, but a composite being made up of many much smaller men and women.  That was enough, but the thing that really shocked him was what they were doing.  They were all eating themselves.  It was like they so despised themselves, they were self-destructing.  One had no fingers left.  One was without feet and already gnawing on his own leg.  Glen had to turn away again.

            The fifth giant, Glen saw was really two, one male and one female.  They also wore crosses though they were blackened, burnt, scarred crosses.  And they were fighting like they wanted to destroy each other.  The giant midget at their feet was no good as a referee.  It was egging them on and trying not to get stepped on at the same time.  The many men and women behind hardly paid attention to the fight.  They each had a blackbird on the shoulder that made horrific sounds and whispered in the ears.  Glen looked around for the doves to take those horrible sounds and turn them into heavenly song, but the doves were not present.  The people were listening to the blackbirds and hitting themselves and hitting each other even while the giant man and woman fought, bitterly.  Glen had to look elsewhere, but waking was not better than sleeping.

            Glen climbed all that day until he reached a point where the trees themselves were not as tall as they had been, and the air was not as thick.  He thought to stop a little before dark as he found a sheltering of boulders with trees overhead.  He wanted to thank the lady for his supper and thought to let his thanks blow off in the wind with the hope it would arrive at the right place, then he pulled out his cloth and curled up and slept.

            That night he saw people helping people.  He saw that woman in India starting that great work.  He dreamed of churches feeding the hungry, helping the poor and dropping lifelines into the pit of poverty.  He saw government types come along and cut those lines while they dumped pig slop into the pit for the people there to eat.  But still, he understood that there were those in the world trying to make a difference for good – trying to make things better, and the name of Jesus was not yet ignored or forgotten.  When he woke in the morning he felt a real sense of peace in his heart.  He never felt that feeling before and rarely felt it since.

            Then he noticed it had snowed in the night.  The air was crisp, but clean and fresh.  He packed hurriedly as the feeling of urgency returned to him, and he started right out to climb.  It got cold, and in time the trees fell away and rocks took over the landscape.  He was shivering when he took out his cloth and thought to drape it around his shoulders.  To his surprise, the cloth shaped itself to his little body.  It formed a long coat and built in sleeves with mittens attached.  It even formed a hood which he put up against the wind which had picked up and was blowing fresh snow in his face.

            Glen slipped any number of time, but he never slid down the mountain, always finding some stone he could grab or set his feet against.  He began to wonder how tall this mountain might be and he began to wonder if he would ever get to the top.  He began to question the Lady in White.  He began to question everything.  He thought again about 1192 and almost went back down to hunt for him, but the urgency he felt just doubled in his heart and so he struggled on.

            Finally he came to a small cliff.  Poor Glen did not like heights under the best of circumstances.  Here he felt sure the rocks would be slippery and that he would get half-way up and slip and fall.  But there was no other way if he was going to climb to the top.

            Not looking down was the easy part, except when he had to be sure of getting his foot in the right place.  Even then he tried only to look at his foot.  Sadly, that was not always possible.  Glen did not know the way of cliffs, but he was sure the cliff was getting higher as he climbed it rather than him getting closer to the top. 

            At one point, he saw no place for his hands and thought he might have to climb down or attempt a sideways scoot where he was sure he would lose his grip.  He wanted to cry.  His eyes were drawn down.  He felt dizzy.  “No.”  He said that out loud and looked up.  There was a little crack he was sure was too small, but he reached and pulled and as he rose, he saw a bigger rock above.  He grabbed on tight.

            Glen was exhausted when he grabbed hold of the lip of the cliff and pulled himself up to safety.  The snow just had to move out of the way because he was pushing through.  When his feet were all the way up so he was in no danger of falling. He turned to his back and stared at the sky.  He was in a saddle between peaks.  On his left, the rocks continued up another hundred yards before they touched the sky.  On his right, the mountain went up much further to where it was lost in the clouds.  The saddle itself was a hundred feet across and relatively flat and Glen thought, safe.

            “Welcome.”  Glen heard the voice and shrieked.  “Do not be afraid.”  All the same, Glen scooted away from the edge and ran smack into a pair of white boots.  They went with the white pants, white shirt covered by a great white beard, white bushy eyebrows and white hair which was mostly hidden by the white hood of the white cloak that fell all the way to the snow.  In fact, the only things that did not blend into the snow covered landscape were the man’s two rosy red cheeks and two lavender-blue eyes that sparkled with life and appeared to dance in the cold air.  That, and the warm golden glow that framed the man like a halo of some sort.

            As Glen looked up into that kindly face, he said the first thing that popped into his head.  “Santa?”

            The man laughed, very much like Santa, until he stopped suddenly and returned two words.  “Absolutely not.”  The man let those words linger in the air while he reached out a white mitten.  “But come.  You must be sweating after your climb, but soon enough the heat will wear off and you will get a chill out here.  Come inside where it is warm.”  He turned to the side, and Glen saw the source of halo light behind.  It was a cave, and there was a roaring fire inside.

            Glen took that hand and followed the man into the warmth.  After all, the man looked very much like Santa.  Once inside, the man took off his cloak, and without the fat Glen imagined out in the snow, he looked more like Father Time than Father Christmas.

            Glen sat by the fire and  realized how cold he was.  After a moment, he looked in his pack and pulled out the last bit of bread.  It was not much, but he broke it and held out half.

            “Would you like some?”

            The man suddenly gave Glen his attention and graciously took the piece.  He stared at it and put it once to his nose.  He said nothing for a moment and looked again at Glen.  Glen did not feel uncomfortable under the man’s gaze.

            “I sense my wife’s cooking in this.”

            And Glen understood.  “Dressed in white with her big white puppy,” Glen confirmed.  “She said she often wanted to climb higher but that is not her way.”

            The man nodded.  “Nor is it my way to climb down.  But I will see her again.  We will be together again.  It has been prophesied.”  Glen felt glad to hear that.  “But come,” The man motioned for Glen to follow him further into the cave, to the table.  “I have been remiss in my manners.  You must be hungry.”

            Glen was, and the table was covered in dishes.  There was tender, melt-in-your-mouth roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn, apples and pears, and plenty of bread and butter and milk to wash it all down.  Glen thought he was in heaven.  He ate too much.

            Glen wanted nothing more than to sleep, but the man was dressed again for the outside and insisted Glen follow.  He took Glen a hundred yards to the other side of the mountain saddle.  Glen looked down on a great checkerboard of land and all the way to a blue horizon which he felt sure was the endless sea.  The sun was preparing to set off to their right, though it was already more than dark enough where they stood.  Glen really wanted to sleep, but the man directed Glen’s eyes to the scene below and spoke.

            “Tell me what you see.  Tell me everything you see.”