local settlement date 36,006
Make everyone responsible, not guilty.
King Namor Zujahrah
33 corruption in havatara
Estan sat with Barbaralba and Namor on the front deck of the ship and asked his parents about their scars.
"And this one."
"I ventured to share some subtle sarcasm while your mom and I, with five who traveled with us, stood trial before the high priests. One of the priest police pushed his blade into my arm."
"And Priest Myast put you all in prison."
"He did. But he already knew he wasn't going to burn us for heresy. He knew we were telling the truth. Which won't usually save your life but this time it did."
Estan knew the story. Listened closely, however, as his father told him how his mother had trained them to ambush the priest police until the high priest popped up out of the floor.
Estan laughed at his father's animation of the event.
His favorite story, the one he saved for last, was his mother's scars from the game. She remembered the day well. The elite playing with the poor slaves. Like a little boy with bugs when he is bored. Barbaralba did not like to think about it and talk at the same time. It made her want to cut the throat of every royal family member. But for the love of her children, she refrained from her lust for bloody revenge.
Namor did not mind telling Estan the story. History should not be forgotten. And since most of it was bloody, he told the bloody story of the games the royal family so loved to play with the Draves. He told Estan how his mother fought fights she did not want to fight to entertain the royal family. How she danced even in the face of comical horror.
Namor also mentioned shortly how Barbaralba had captured his love with her first glance only days before he saw her in the murder game.
Estan did not want the love details. His hormones had not yet taken full control. He wanted to know war. Fighting was for boys a very attractive topic. It made it obvious for his father that peace would be highly volatile. There had to be something to fight for if there was no one to fight against. It was simply in their blood.
Havatara City had responded well to trade and new technologies but had trouble with cult mania. People persisted in locking their minds in structured lies and were proud to flaunt their arrogant ignorance around looking for recruits and mocking those opposed to their grand cult.
Many of the new cults were based on the news that God made the world and everything on it in 6 thousand years. 30 thousand years in their history and soon God would take the righteous in the star ship to eternal bliss up in the new paradise in the sky.
Namor and the Old King spent most of their time in schools teaching the basics of evolution. A knowledge of life heritage that had been void on Barbancor and ignored on Angel Island.
"The tree of life has its roots deep in the past. Several billion years ago. All of our universe was one point of energy. Energy from another universe. This energy burst out like an explosion of light at light speed. In all directions.
The moving out from the point created space. With space came the first atoms. Then came the first stars and with the death of the first stars came the birth of more stars. And the next stars had more elements. More types of atoms."
Namor showed diagrams of basic atoms on a large black board.
"And atoms are the basis of all matter. They are much like a solar system. In the middle is the sun, and around the sun fly the planets. An atom is space and energy. In all practical sense, there is nothing other than various combinations of space and energy.
The rock under our feet and our moons. It is all the dance of energy and space.
And ultimately, it is a play ground for life. And life can start anywhere conditions allow it.
Life may exists in vary simple forms throughout the cooler parts of the universe.
On our home planet, the tree of life took its roots in the oceans. It stayed there a long time as creatures we wouldn't consider creatures. Living and dying. And combining information on a genetic level until the environment allowed for a one celled creature.
A bold and giant leap from mineral and water. Ultimately. It was us.
And we mated and mutated. Slowly becoming many different simple creatures that traded and consumed genetic information.
The nature of evolution is mutation. The mating of two to get one that mates with another one that was the result of two. Over and over in an endless cycle. Living, mating of two to make one, dying. Countless cycles of living and dying.
And on our planet, this, what seems for us a slow process, life thing kept mutating until we, the thinking, making, creating animal became conscious of its presence in the universe. A most momentous event. The universe had a creature that could perceive from its basic presence to the expanses of the growing universe.
The birth of the gods.
And this is where we are now, with the knowledge that if we obey the laws of survival, given to us by our physical environment, we can do and create all the we chose.
Our stories and religions tell of a place beyond that is more beautiful. A paradise for the winner of the death games we have chosen to play.
Religious belief. Faith. Is a sickness. It negates the physical reality of the billions of years of the tree of life that made us and the creatures that are part of us, from the bugs to the fish, to the big black cats in the jungles. It is all one made many.
We can see it and know it. So do not believe. Do not have faith. Allow yourself days of sorrow and doubt.
And when you have a god day. A good day. See yourself as part of the tree of life, the child god. Not one but a point of perception of the many. See yourself in the reflection of other parts of the one that is many."
Namor looked at the faces watching him. Janyah had tears in her eyes and the Old King was writing every word.
"It is here. It is everywhere. We are the part of it that knows some of it. And the only heaven more beautiful than here and now is the heaven that we, the gods, create with our grand minds and hands.
Working and playing together. Love it. It loves you back."
There were many questions. The Old King answered many. And every school they went to they were asked to stay. They consented to return each year but encourage those who wanted to teach to attend the Teacher's College in Salt Lake 36 City.
Namor's talk about dinosaurs was a big hit with the children. He told how they reigned their home planet for millions of years and no one knows if they understood that there was a universe beyond their kingdom before a big rock hit the planet and blotted out the sun with dust and gases and ashes for so long that almost all of them died and disappeared from the rest of history.
And the end of their reign made space for the warm blooded creatures. They quickly took over the upper branches of the tree of life.
Namor explained how instinct was a big part of what motivated every creature.
"Instinct is the forever in us. Making us an extension from the roots to the branches. It is the what of the matter that survives death. In us like our ancestors and our descendants."
And Namor talked about language and how it was an extension of instinct to exchange more information. He explained that it carried a life of its own.
"It is the part of us that is in us and beyond us. It is the part of us that makes us the angel beasts. The creature becoming. Always becoming. The Gods.
Our forefathers said it way the holy spirit in us. Language is a big part of what is holy about us. It had the power to make us slaves to the whims of the insane. And it has the power to take us from sleeping creatures of reaction to environment to the gods that create environments."
When Namor was not revealing the knowledge he and thousands of others had unearthed in the vaults of the lost libraries, he talked on street corners or in cafés. In the evenings, the family attended Barbaralba's theater.
"Before us, Old King, there was no meaning. That is one of the things we are creating. We are making our own story. And we must be careful to make it flexible so that it can grow with us. We must allow that our children will want to change it. And that their children's children will also be us. And they, we will want to see it differently again."
"You are a beautiful creature, King Namor."
"I am a good mirror. I can see the angel in us. I know most of us can't see what I see and it is the I in I that is the problem. We must understand that one life is not relevant. It has taken billions of years to make my mind and it is a thing that is a collection of information. And like your quantum mechanics. It is simple. A swinging back and forth between what is and what might be. What is true what is backwards to true."
"I can see Barbaralba in you."
"That is a nice compliment."
"You two aren't made for one another. I can see that you were made from one another."
"That's the instinct and the evolution. Rebirth. Going away and coming back."
"I see it, Namor."
"What do you think we will find on the Star Ship."
"Everything we left our planet with. A backup system. All the knowledge and information that could be recorded. In a system we don't yet have here."
"Maybe an answer to the question why we reverted to love of lies and the enslaving of most of the people."
"It is certainly a serious sickness that holds us back."
"It's the backwards to push us."
"It is the backwards that forces out someone like you."
"Old King, it isn't the holy books that are holy. It is the language. Religion is almost worth the danger of not finding the key to the prison to assure that the books are held holy so that the words in the books will not be lost. The castle buried the words and the patents to keep our language. Two time safes."
Namor and the Old King made it to their seats moments before the performance started.
The stage that had for a few years been the place for Barbaralba's last professional fight was now her stage for her theater. With help of local as extras, her crew performed the end of the end of the world royal family play.
This performance was the well known snake in the garden paradise. The garden paradise was Castle City, the Kings were the Lords, Barbaralba was the mother goddess of life. And Namor, played by someone else, was the snake.
And the play made it clear that the snake was wisdom. The Lords cursed the snake, called it evil, abandoned its symbol of rebirth and constructed a grand lie to make slaves obedient to their laws.
The snake was continually nailed on a cross as public execution to show the slaves that wisdom and rebirth were symbols for pain and suffering.
But the snake kept coming back. One life after another. Because the snake loved the goddess of life. And ultimately, the goddess of life could not live without the snake.
For without wisdom and rebirth there was only a rigid construct that was a closed box. A beautiful box to bury life. So that death would rule the universe.
"That, Old King, is the story."
"King Namor, my snake brother, I do not miss the Castle."
The crowd cheered for Barbaralba and her crew. And when she looked up to smile at Namor, he could see that they had both won a very major battle.
While Namor and the Old King and Janyah spent the day in schools delivering books and presenting teachings of instinct, evolution and the arrival of the first conscious gods, Zauqir, Orthia and Lexus spent their time arranging trade.
They left Havatara with open invitation to return any and every time they could and journeyed to Asstars. Though not the same as for a few short years, the tendency to want to lead with lies and follow with blind obedience remained the major mind parasite.
There were noticeable improvements in the water and the various methods of cultivation and industry. A good number of people from Angel Island had set up residence in all the cities. To teach or make business.
Or play and coach soccer.
Barbaralba and Estan sat at a public stadium and watched girls kick a ball or bounce it off their heads with the objective to get it in a big net.
A father of one of the girls was explaining the rules to Estan.
"Is it just for girls."
"Not at all. Grown men play the game and get paid to play."
Barbaralba watched Estan listen to the man explain about soccer becoming a major event all over eastern Barbancor since a man from Angel Island started promoting it shortly after the end of the war.
"Why didn't that last goal count."
"It was an off side pass. She can only go ahead of the last man of the defending team if she has the ball."
The man talking to Estan was having great fun telling all the rules and when the game was over, he took Estan and Barbaralba to meet his daughter. She explained to Estan about shoes and why everyone wore them when playing. After she showed him a few tricks, Estan thanked her and her father. And gave them tickets to the theater.
"I've never been to a theater before."
"It is also like a sport. My mother is my trainer. She's the biggest reason people come to see us."
"Unbelievable. Are you Barbaralba. The Barbaralba."
Barbaralba laughed.
"And I am Estan mother, like your mother is your mother. And I enjoy watching children play at a sport where no one dies. Tonight you can watch how we play at pretending to make people die."
Before Barbaralba could bid good-bye, the girl made them wait while she ran to her coach and ask for a soccer ball for the son of Barbaralba. She ran back and gave it to Estan. Estan thanked her and Barbaralba waved at the other girls who were all now watching Barbaralba and Estan leave the field. And they looked just like any other people leaving a field.
______ . . ______
When they finally got to the Sacred City after Dargadon and two other fish villages, the city council had invitations and reservations for the visitors from Salt Lake 36 for a major soccer final championship.
And they all went to watched, the fans and the players. The fans sang and screamed, laughed and cried. They stood and waved coloured flags. They waved their hands in the air. No one on the field died.
Namor could barely control himself from laughing all the time. He and the Old King cheered for every pretty move.
"You're not watching the game, Barbaralba."
"Namor, I don't want to miss watching you."
"It's crazy. They kick a ball around the field and make it an art form. A dance theater."
"And emotions are pushed and pulled like reading a good book, or listening to Namor talk about instinct to a large audience."
"Yes, Old King. I see it. But I believe it better to play than to watch. The children should be playing."
"I'm going to play."
"Good for you Estan. I love it. A battle without blood. It is a very good thing. Who thought of this crazy game. It is simply brilliant. Kicking a ball through the gate."
Namor laughed.
"It's an old world patent. Another gem from the lost library."
"The planet is looking better every day."
The game was timed. When the time had run its course, the team with the green and white shirts had kicked or redirected with their heads, three air bags through the gate. The team with the red shirts had managed only one ball through the gate.
The fans who also dressed with red, had long sad faces and sat somewhat dejected. The fans dressed with green and white stood wearing wide faces while they sang and screamed and waved their flags.
"What an amazing thing. Event."
Barbaralba was asked to present the winners a pagan soccer idol. She smiled her angelic smile and took Estan down to the field with her. Many knew who she was and cheered her arrival to the field. Estan took the cup and presented it to the captain of the green and white team.
The crowd cheered and threw streamers.
"You have won our hearts. It is a beautiful dance that you have in your war without weapons and blood. We will take the sport back to Angel Island with us."
"And I am going to be on the Salt Lake 36 team. And when I am, we will take this trophy from you."
The captain applauded Estan. He took off his shirt and gave it to the new soccer fan.
"I hope you do, young man. And when you do, I hope I'm there to see it."
chapter 34
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