The Time Surgeons

Glittering eyes in the night. Hot breath panting, steaming, melding in the rolling mist of a still winter’s night. A chill howl rises lonely to the sky, soft with menace. Times have been hard, and killers of the night course through a dark forest, driven by hunger and bloodlust, as wolves are.

Pale embers glow dimly in the grass by an icy stream, trailing thin tendrils of smoke into the night sky, a small ward of warmth against the chill of evening. Nearby lies a man, huddled in rough furs by his woman and child. Times have been hard, and they travel to find new lands where their lives may prosper, as men are wont to do.

It is not to be, this time.

The pack strikes, too quick, too silent, too many. Pitiable tools of stone and steel are no match for such as these. But the man fights, as men will, for what he values. And somehow, at the end of it all, he lives.

But those he loves are lost. Now nothing remains to him but memories, and their blood on the grass. Memories, of the warmth of their touch. The smell of her hair as they lay together in the dawn of a sunlit spring morning. The laughter of his child in the delight of discovery. Smiles lighting their faces, for no reason, no reason needed, but the joy of the living in life. And in his pain and in his anguish he screams to the stars and the sky, but there is no answer. And all he can do is ask his gods the question: Why?

To the east lies a Holy Place, a place of fear and reverence in the embrace of the ancient forest. There he journeys, heedless of the biting snow riming his hair and frosting his furs, thoughtless of all but his goal, step after step after bitter step, his world empty of all but the dark forms of sleeping trees and the howling icy winds of winter. He enters the Holy Place, as a man who needs to know but knows not what or how. And there in his grief and in the pain of his soul, he kneels and prays, and cries his frozen tears, as men may. Then in the weariness of his body, he sleeps.

And with sleep come dreams.

And in his dreams come visions.

Fields of grain ripple white in the gentle breeze of a warm summer day. Here the wolf and the lamb lie at peace together, both tamed by the mind of man for his use and pleasure. Children, growing strong and fed and fearless in their mastery of the world, splash in the cool of the river. And in the midst of the grief in the dreamer’s heart, faint hope stirs. But where some men create, and wrest value from the world by the power of their mind and the strength of their will, others take by force: for no excuse but their need, no reason but their want and their envy. Then the man dreams of fields aflame, of glittering eyes in the night. And he dreams of blood on the grass.

Then in his vision a prophet rises, a man who speaks for God:

Men must not cheat and kill each other.

Live not for yourself, but for your brother!

Value not this world, it is merely shadow:

Have faith in God, who rewards you in another.

The vision shifts, as visions do, and so it comes to pass: by chance and time the prophet’s men now hold the seats of power. They live by faith and care not for reason: for they are so sure though they cannot show, so right though they cannot prove; too stern to let others be. And so the heretic and unbeliever die, for no better reason than a different faith or a mind that questions. And the eyes of the faithful glitter in the shadows, as they reflect the pain of ten thousand witches burning; and their ears are deaf to the pleas of the innocent, for faith is right and needs no reasons; and their feet tramp without a care through a river of blood on the grass.

Yet men live on, as men do, and a new ideal arises. That a man’s life and freedom to seek happiness are his by right: by no lord’s permission, by no virtue other than he is a man, a thinking being. So men begin to grasp a truth, a truth to live and die for. That each can live of and for himself, sacrificing himself to no one and no one to himself, but trading value for value. Humanity blossoms in the light of this, that men can deal with one another not by force, but by choice; not by arms, but by reason.

And hope rises as a sun in the dreamer’s soul.

“But stop,” they say, “this is not good, for some gain more than others. He who creates, he has not earned: he who needs must needs be given. To rise from the mud into a hut is not a gain when another has a palace: you have no right to the fruits of your work, if another man has less! Keep you some, for we need you so, yes sore we need your power: but our right it is to take what we will, for the sake of lesser men. Their want, their need, their noble need, is our lien on your soul.”

Yet men work on, as men must. Now shining towers pierce the sky and fill the night with light, while golden arches glow afire, and ships of flame rise to the stars: and earth to sky and sky to sea, man’s glory fills the world. Riches beyond imagining pour forth from just one fount: the minds of men who think and by thinking, create. And in his dream the man smiles at last, at the wonder that was man.

But some still live by force, and more still live by envy. Now mighty powers bestride the Earth: some standing for freedom, others seeking to rule; some to defend, others to take. And so they glare, their glittering eyes, burning in lust and fear; gathered and glittering in the night behind shields of iron and fire.

And so they risk it all, and risking all they fall. And the glittering eyes they whirl and burn and hate and howl, in night and fear and blood, until the towers rise now broken and dark from an ocean of blood on the grass. And in his dream, the man screams; and screaming, dreaming shatters into shards on the newborn snow.

The man wakes to a cold white sun on a cold white dawn. Snowflakes drift swirling around him in the chill still breeze of morning. Then he lifts his eyes to the Holy Place, to the dead dark towers piercing the sky, to the crumbling rusting hulks of a long forgotten past. And the wind sighs through the skeleton of the city, moaning, mourning, a million ghosts of a million dead, who almost reached the sky then faltered, then fell, then died.

There are no answers here. Nothing but the ghosts of the past, wailing as they have done for untold centuries past, and perhaps will continue for as long as the Earth itself bears witness to their loss. Nor are there answers in the forest beyond, only his own loss and pain. Perhaps he should find his own peace. So easy to lie down and let the snow draw him into its cold embrace, until finally his soul and his voice join in the chorus of the past.

Then slowly the man stands, as men will. In the light and cold and shadow, in the wind and the sun and the snow, he stands a man alone, a man bowed, but a man, proud. And he lifts his face to the sun.

And he cries, for the gods who are gone.

And for their blood on the grass.

And for glittering eyes in the night.