The End - Episode 1: The Beginning

Chapter 1: Eckfar

You always think you want to go on an adventure until you're actually on one. It sounds so fun in those stories that they tell in their roving troupes. The troubadours sing such wondrous ballads. They show the path to true freedom, the path to almighty God. But nobody goes. Why don't they go? It's all out there. It's what they regale themselves with by the fireside. And yet they stand still. They go back to the farm and pick wheat. I didn't want to be one of them, even though I was one. I guess I was too afraid to leave. But I was also too afraid to stay. Because they terrified me with their cruel indifference.

And yet when my comfort ended, I was surprised to find that the comfort had left, and that all I was left with was the cold reality. But I choose well. I drank deep that draught of cold reality. It was bitter but in the end I found such sweetness.

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Eckfar rose with the sun. His routine passed without comment, and soon he was in his father's shop. Three customers came in, and the third he sold a rug. She was a lady from a few towns over. She seemed so grateful for that rug, with its fine colors and complex patterns. His father had made it, and when his father had finished he said, "Eck, this is a rug to be proud of. I made this rug with my hands. It is the fruit of my labor. And it will go out into the world, and God will bless me every time someone enjoys it." And Eckfar had given thanks to God.

That had been three months before. Eckfar had forgotten the conversation, but he remembered it then. As her servants carried it to her carriage, he remembered the utterance. It seemed to be pregnant with meaning then. The woman, a great lady he could see by her dress, would be the source of his father's blessings. And he dared to think that, perhaps, those blessings would descend to him. He didn't know how blessings worked. Were his father's blessings his own inheritance? He hoped so. Because if a man like his father could be the source of his blessings, he thought he would never be short of the grace of God.

His father died days after, a smile of contentment on his face. And Eckfar inherited the shop. But Eckfar did not yet possess his father's skill with patterning cloth. He hadn't yet even gone on his journey to learn from another clothmaker, as was the custom for men of his merchant class. He cursed the stars for his fortune, but he dare not curse God. Confused about his fate, he consulted the priest. But the priest was a man of indifference. He only cared for his morning breakfast and evening super. Eckfar found no consolation there. So he toiled away with rugs and drapes, striving to make his dead father proud.

His mother complimented the things he made, but she knew nothing about it. He knew she cared more about making him feel good, feel loved, than she did about the excellence his father had achieved. She was a simple, good natured woman who was as happy with a plain rug as one with the finest intricacies. And he loved her for that, for she was pious and loved the Lord God. But he wanted more than simply to have her praise. He wanted the delight of those he sold to. He wanted to make his dead father proud. He hoped his father was in Heaven, looking down on him and interceding on his behalf.

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There was a boy in town who gave him most un-Christian thoughts. He knew the boy, who had come from afar. Ajax practiced some ungodly cult. He worshiped the sun and cursed the true God. There was something dark in his eyes that gave Eckfar the creeps, and yet there was something his smile that reassured him. Because underneath the darkness there was a confused light that shone brighter than anything Eckfar had ever seen. The priests he had known in life were not bad men per se, but they cared nothing for the true God. Indeed, the only thing Eckfar really knew of God for sure was the blessed Sacrament and the things that his pious father and mother told him. Rugs where his path to God. The confessional, in which he told his sins routinely, was a source of confusion because of the indifference of the priests. He felt as if they were eating him in there, dining on the drama of his sins.