Oslo Forest

He took a cup of tea, and poured in the honey. He opened the back door, stepped outside and sat on a bench, watching the snow fall along the tops of the trees and into the yard and across the countryside in the distance.

It reminded him of the time twenty five years back when they had been hit with a similar blizzard. He had been approached by a middle aged man and his wife. They had with them a child of perhaps five or six. Well, five years and seven months, and he knew that upon laying eyes on the young one.

“Our child is sick, and our doctor says he will die,” said the father.

“And, have you asked around, of other practitioners and workers?” he asked them.

“Yes, and they all agree. He is losing all sensation and control of his body. It was his fingers at first…, ” the wife began.

“Yes, he spoke of tingling. And it has gotten worse, and now, well, you see. We pull him around now in that wagon, and must do everything for him. He is not long with us, they say,” continued the boy’s father.

“You come to me for what then?”

“Because you are known as the great healer and one of the greatest of all monks in such arts.”

“It is true that I can remove sickness, and that would be the sum of my virtue. However, it is not always my place to do so. My power is from the gods, as you must be aware.”

“Yes, yes, but we have been told that you can heal anyway. Look, look at our boy. He sits there now a stuffed rag, spitting at the mouth. That is our son. You cannot turn us down,” said the wife with tears, pulling at the hem of the monk’s garment.

“We have come far. Many miles. You would say no to doing a good deed, and make a child suffer pain and death? Sir, would you be a handmaiden of Satan himself, by doing nothing?”

The monk looked at them, and then stooped down and gazed upon the child propped up in his little cart. The child’s eyes were fixed on some far away point, but with such a look of fear that the distant point must have been evil itself, and closer than it appeared. The healer picked up the child’s arm and let go. It dropped to his side lifeless.

“It would not, in this case, serve the child, nor you, for me to make him better,” said the monk.

There was silence, then…

“You hideous prideful beast. You waste the powers that the gods have granted.”

“Vile, vile. Filth, you are. We have heard of how you live, and how you are disgusting to look upon, and hide in those robes. We have heard that you pick favorites and say yea to this one, and nay to that one, for your own benefit.”

“This is my son! Why not take that sword and kill him now, oh healer,” said the father, picking up the child and laying him at the feat of the monk.

Having not the spirit nor the life to fight, and serving his own will, the monk raised up the boy to health and upon parting the family again heaped blessings, reversing themselves and begging forgiveness for the previous moment’s rash thoughts.

“That is what we had heard some say, but we knew that it was not true, which is why we came to you,” said the father, leading his walking son to the door.

“Thou sayest,” said the monk, quoting the words of another, and bidding them safe journey.

That night was a cold one, with the wind seeping through the cracks into his very skin. The room was bathed in the light of the moon, which reflected off the snow. He dreamed a dream, where his God came to him (for while many believed in the many- with Gods for every mood and task- he believed in the one, though he kept that to himself).

The dream was a vision, and the vision was brutal. He saw first a child on earth, dead, with family grieving, and then that very same child up in what seemed like the heavens, running and laughing.

He then saw the scene from earlier in the evening, as he healed the child of his sickness. As he did so, a huge shadow stood behind him, and in feeling this, he grew afraid.

Then time jumped forward, and he saw the boy as a young man leaving home; the boy-man spat on the grounds as he left and did not turn back to wave at the old couple standing at the door.

Next the monk saw the young man in the upper rooms of an establishment, fist pounding the torso of a woman, who cried out in pain, begging for mercy. “Ha, you are a lying wonder, and tart,” said the man, blackening, blackening.

Time and life marched on.

“Oh but for such a sum, you have my every skill,” said the man, a bit older now. He stood before what appeared to be a merchant of some wealth and standing. This part of the dream brought tears to the monk’s eyes. The scene switched; in a city, a plague broke out, wiping out the industry and commerce there. Many died, but alas, there were some in neighboring regions who prospered greatly because of this. The plagued city was quarantined. Food soon went lacking and people turned one upon another for sustenance and support (limb to mouth).

All the while the man who had been a dying boy sat at the table of wealth, and laughed at how business was good, and how easy it was for a person of some knowledge to manufacture plague and mayhem. “It is amazing what can be done, when the blood of the beasts is brought into the house of man, and what sicknesses can be created, and for our benefit” said Marburg. He and his merchant lord ate and drank well, and marveled at the profits that could be had when disaster was rampant, and ignorance rife.

The monk tried to awaken here, but paralysis was upon him, holding him down, making him watch.

The stricken boy was middle aged now, and of fair means. His home was large and his servants many. He was proud that he had risen from humble beginnings all on his own and without any help. He liked to say that one must be willing to seize one’s own life and create your own fortune. You could not rely on the mercy of others. How he squared this with the fact of his own miraculous childhood healing was the question in the mind of the monk as he watched and listened.

But to the man now, all was science and education, and he knew that miracles did not occur. “The monks like to keep the people dreaming of God or magic, and keep the true science at work hidden,” he oft said. He spent his early years educating himself and studying at the feet of many learned men. He knew better than to believe that as a boy he had been brought to health by a rotting old hooded man who lived in the woods and ate dandelions. (He suspected that the monk ate no such thing, but it was always a high point in his talks to others when he referred to “that dandelion eater”.)

The monk awoke from the dream stricken with despair, for even before he had healed the child, he had known that he should not. And now this dream was just confirmation, the writing on the wall of his mind.

That was then, so many, many years back. Today he sat and sipped his tea and honey, and felt the snow on his skin, which soothed. A rider appeared in the distance. He appeared to struggle in the weather, and eventually arrived at the feet of the monk.

“Oh sir, you must come. The leaders are calling out for you, for a plague has hit the city on the plain, and many have already died. The food is short, and some have taken up the children for food. It is hell. Have mercy upon us, and come.”

The monk nodded his head, grabbed his staff, and whistled for his horse. “I will do what I can, and what is right,” he said, heart in mourning.

Tomas was one of the greatest of the Oslo Monks, for he had the ability to heal, and his abilities were far beyond the others. However, he was a sight for sore eyes in talents only. His body was bent. His skin was worn beyond years: bloated, burned and scarred. He rarely took his hooded cape off, save for to bathe himself. Now he worked only at night, if he could.

He was beautiful when he was younger, and he was younger but moments ago, months maybe, a year, three years last. He did not know that he had the gift to heal, and when he found it at the age of twenty-seven, he made up for lost time.
He was indiscriminate. He would walk through the crowds as though he were Christ, touching people inside and out. At first his gift made him proud. He never lacked for a place to lay his head, bosom as much as bed. In every town he was welcomed and praised, and he walked tall with a wide stride.

This continued, but a change began to occur. The more he listened to the sorrows, and soothed the shattered minds, and rescued the bodies, the heavier his step grew, and the darker his brow. His skin, once bright and clear, grew black in spots, and began to bring him pain. With every new lamentation, his ears would ring till the pain was nearly unbearable. Sometimes, when alone, and at home, he would release himself and let the blood flow out of his ears, down his neck, and onto his shoulders and garment; it was difficult to contain.

In three years he aged a lifetime.

He became the last true resort, instead of the welcomed and admired miracle worker. The women did not run to his side to dance in his eyes. The promises and diversions were no more. You went to him now when all other remedies failed, and when something absolutely had to be done. For as they said, “He is quite hideous to observe, no?” Where before the children flocked at his feet, now they fled, or pelted him with rocks from a distance.

Only the babies remained true. He could hold a sick child in his arms, and the little one would reach out its hand to pull his ear, or try to place its fingers in the two holes that stood where his nose used to be. Laughter. There was always laughter. He would speak in tongues to them, and they would look at him with furrowed brow, and speak back to him, and smile.

Tomas would hold the child and water its soul with his tears, and all sickness would depart. These moments brought him joy and he knew that this was the way it should be, until he could heal no more.

The children followed along like little birds and he took them to the center plaza. Today was to be a different sort of lesson. “There will be no French this morning,” he told them, and they all- all seven- exclaimed with a glee he did not anticipate.
Do you know why seven monks were killed in Savilly? That is the question he asked his pupils. They stared back at him wide eyed, and he realized they were hungry, despite having eaten before school began. He sent one with some money to the baker and he came back with a sack full of red muffins instead of the fruit he was told to bring.

“My father says they were killed because they were fools,” said Thomaso, one of the smartest pupils.

“Why were they fools?”

“Because they went and brought a fight, and took many lives, in a place that was not their own, and… killing is stupid.”

“Well, what if the man they fought was a killer of many, a torturer, a thief, an evil man by all accounts? Is there not some justice in fighting him?”

“The Mainline Minister says no; my mother told me that. If people loved each other, or talked more, then fighting would not be necessary.”

“Perhaps children. I have much to learn on these things,” said the monk teacher.
He took one large red muffin out of the sack.

“Here is but one muffin, and I shall keep the rest and take a nap under this tree. Take eat, this is yours.”

He gave the muffin to Thomaso, who had made the purchase, then closed his eyes to sleep. It was not too long before he could feel tugs at his robes, and complaints that Thomaso was not sharing the sole muffin.

“Work it out amongst yourselves,” he told them, shutting his eyes to them. He could hear Thomaso yelling as he ran, and the other voices following behind. The voices caught their prey, and pried the muffin away.

Appetites not at all sated, the children returned to the feet of their tutor where the remaining muffins rested. Thomaso came last, angry and dirty, and kicked at his master’s feet.

“Teacher, they stole my muffin and you just sit there sleeping,” he said.

“I was not asleep. I lay here pretending to sleep and watched them take your muffin,” he said.

“Why did you do that?” Thomaso asked.

“Because it was not my muffin anymore to interfere”.

Of course this caused many problems. Thomaso’s father later came by to protest this outrage. The monk insisted he was teaching the virtues of peace.