A Lesser God: Reason Else Demise

By Don Hackett

As a young man, Dion Athamas was spiritually summoned to rapture then tenured god status. He had been endowed with all the benedictions to achieve sacredness: a devout flock, the power to heal and a covet for control. He also held a deep desire and ability to influence justice and universal liberty. The setting: the fictional town of Forgedmont, Mississippi, in the 1950s. Against great opposition he strived to become a new-age god; the earth was his oracle. He found faith-based conviction to be lacking in reason and truth. He chose to maintain an instinctive path to holiness. Regrettably for him and his followers, there were a great many roadblocks. He was forced to face off against the church, community, prejudice, family and scheming dreams influenced by fallacious spirits, all set forth to hamper his ascension to divinity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228895763

Don Hackett

I love to write. I have been writing short stories and poems as a pastime for most of my life. It was not until I retired from my government position working with people with special needs that I was able to focus on writing full time. I have no doubt that working with special needs individuals served to make me a better person. This work helped foster in me a quest to search for a deeper understanding of just what it takes to be truly altruistic. Moreover, it instilled in me an obligation to become an advocate for those less fortunate. Hopefully this book will help demonstrate that the pursuit of spiritual truth is very important to an advancing mankind. I have degrees in psychology and sociology from the University of Calgary.

Book preview

A Lesser God

Reason Else Demise

Don Hackett

A Lesser God

Copyright © 2023 by Don Hackett

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-9575-6 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-9574-9 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-9576-3 (eBook)

What is the most nourished,

yet arbitrary paradox

that both shackles

and liberates existence?

Even with a path well chosen, arrival is never a guarantee.

Don Hackett

Table of Contents

Pilgrimage Vision

End’s Genesis

Slayers Debut

Blame Eve, Not Adam

Revelations

Too Human; Too Loyal

Redemption or Revenge

Metamorphoses Quest

Revelations II

Pilgrimage Vision

My name is Dion Athamas, and I’m from the little the town of Forgedmont, Mississippi, U.S.A. Population 2,874. Should you be interested, I have a story to share with you. It’s my story, though tragic, I am quite willing to share it. I think it best you understand that this tale all began with a telling dream.

One night as I slept, I awoke to hear my name being softly spoken by a masculine voice I didn’t recognize. I sat up in bed and scanned the dark void, trying to establish the source of the voice. Without question, I felt an unnatural presence looming somewhere within the walls of my bedroom. I gradually began to recognize that the manifestation was speaking to me as if I were an acquaintance. His manner was quite affable as he appealed to me to stay calm and listen attentively to his message. He requested that I focus my vision straight ahead into the darkness and then close my eyes. When he gave the signal, I needed to slowly reopen my eyes to witness him visually. The signal was perceptually vague, but I received it. When I opened my eyes, I knew someone was sharing my room with me, but I had no idea who. I couldn’t identify the barely-perceptible image of a human form floating buoyantly at the foot of my bed. Then suddenly he was gone as quickly and enigmatically as he’d arrived.

One would have thought that a boy of my tender passions would have been overcome with fear, but I was not. I’ll be honest, though—I can’t tell you with any certainty if the above apparition was indeed present in my room or merely an illusory presence in a dream. Nevertheless, the spirit made it known that he had a mystical message for me and that the message was an invaluable gift from him. Believe me when I tell you, the gift he was offering would have been revered by any and all children of mysticism.

The initial offering consisted of free passage through the congested celestial gateway, subsequently entry into divinity, and then finally god status. For some unexplained reason, I began to believe that the apparition was the embodiment of my father. Even though I knew little about my dad, there was a hint of correlation between my nature and the manner of the apparition. Whoever’s spirit the spectre represented, they had a message for me, and the message profoundly detoured both the course of my life’s philosophy and my spiritual motivation. You might not want to hear what I have to say, but I have a powerful yen to share my story with anyone willing to listen.

This is what the spirit communicated to me before he left. As I sat bewildered in my bed, the genial spirit mind-bogglingly informed me that I possessed the capacity to become an authentic god. That if I chose to focus on becoming a god, I had all the blessings within me to do so. The spirit spoke of my pure grace and the assured potential for me to grow mercy within my heart and the hearts of others to boundless dimensions. He assured me that becoming a god was entirely within the art of the possible. He promised that I would receive obscured assistance as I braved my mission, and he besought me to always question the morality of the modern world and snub those without deep, benevolent ideals. His message to me was obviously based on the premise that morality depends solely on the responsible management of liberty. I think the last thing I remember the spirit telling me was that I must begin preparing for my spiritual ascension. He also made the point that everlasting life specifically means never being forgotten by your god. The next morning when I awoke, I declared that I would eventually start my journey to divinity. If you please, here’s my story …

Several years later, I felt I was ready to make a concerted commitment to my endeavour to achieve holiness. Meditating while walking in the rain, pacing barefoot on the pebbles in the stream, and hanging upside down from trees as the wind blew through my hair helped to prepare my spirit. These were but a few exercises to aid with the expansion of my mind. Now I needed to wait for a signal. Sunday June 2, 1952—I had just awoken form a very deep sleep and owned a clear recollection of another haunting dream, one in which I became a functional god. The dream was so tangible I vowed to eventually make it a reality, no matter the struggle or cost.

I distinctly remember that when I awoke that day, I had both a headache and an erection, but no intention of addressing either. I believed the hour to be approximately 6:00 a.m. I had full intention of going to church, but no plan on going there to pray. Instead, I wanted to show up and rightly confess to my lack of understanding of the church’s confounding teachings. There was also one other significant reason for my attendance, which will be broached later.

I decided that this day was to be the onset of my pilgrimage to becoming a god. Right or wrong, a great many people believe that we all need to ask God for spiritual guidance, as he has all of the answers to all of our questions. This may be so, but my instincts moved me to focus on two essential and specific theoretical questions of my own: Do loving, healing gods truly exist, and most imperative, can I become one?

My main goal was to become capable of somehow evolving into a god worthy of a devout following. I would put all of my spiritual energy into teaching adherence to moral directives and lead my flock to peace on earth. My efforts to realize such a monumental aspiration would necessitate the combination of belief in both spirituality and nature’s loving grace. By blissfully utilizing the omnipresent nuance of nature’s prodigy, and the acumen of nature’s grace, I felt I might just be able to elevate humanity’s moral awareness. I would let the spiritual aspect of my blessings blossom at their leisure. Ultimately, the hope was that this process might lead me to answering many of the perplexing questions concerning human existence. Moreover, passé calculating mythology would finally be placed in the correct genre on the library shelf: fiction. The more prevalent religions declare that we can only achieve a sanctified relationship with God through faith, whereas I believed we’re all born with all the innate gifts required to reach spiritual fulfillment. Such spirituality could easily richly sustain us till death. Sorry to disappoint many of the devoted, but no matter how I looked at it, it appeared to me that most forms of religion were designed to vaguely answer questions that had no verifiable answers. Well anyhow, my friends, that was my take on it. My goal was to work on the questions that actually had answers.

As I reflected upon my upcoming ethically dishonourable occupation of a pew, a spiritual conflict bounced around in my head. Earlier in life I truly wanted to be an adherent to Christianity but couldn’t get my soul to move in that direction. I honestly wanted to make my robustly God-fearing mother happy about my spirituality, but sadly, I realized that would never happen. For years I wished that I could somehow share her faith; I even considered self-deception. I reflected on creating some kind of mental manoeuvre to allow me to subvert my reason and ignore my instincts. The hope was that such duplicity might enable me to ethically surrender reason to blind faith. A scheme of this complexion, deployed correctly, could have possibly deceived us both and duly afforded Mom a son with artificial, unsighted faith. To Mom, the lack of truth behind this deceptive act would have been inconsequential compared to the coveted presumption of my faith.

Honestly, though, I often found myself in an ongoing battle with my conscience over what I should believe. My instincts forbade me going to church, but in order to pacify my mom, I opted to force myself to attend some services. Out of respect to her, I often wished I was an honest to goodness Christian with faith strong enough to carry me through the darkest, stormiest night. That I could peer into the abyss and have nary a fear, blithely allowing me to feel safe from any and all harm. It would have been so comforting to sense divine shelter from any and all harm due to her God’s love for me. Nevertheless, reason overruled all such folly.

Following breakfast, I ran a comb through my hair and dressed in a quasi fashion befitting a rationally detached pew sitter. Clean jeans, ironed shirt, and a happy smile made me totally prepared to accept the negative judgements of others less jovial. I said my obligatory goodbye to my loving mother before exiting the door. My mom was a very intelligent, attractive lady with a kind and nurturing nature. She very much loved the lord and shared her belief with me whenever I allowed for it. I would be remiss to neglect to tell you that I was incredibly lucky to be her son.

When I was twelve, Mom told me, with seemingly indifference, that she’d married my dad three months after she jubilantly realized she was with child. Unfortunately, the union didn’t last, and he left when I was quite young. We heard that he eventually became a professor of philosophy at some university in Europe. Regrettably, according to many in the Forgedmont community, my dad had no honour, so he had no problem abandoning his wife and son. They concluded, for their own reasons, that the role of a family-oriented man was not for him. Due to this familial misfortune, I never received the necessary wisdoms from a loving father.

I walked to church on this day. Mom had to work, so she couldn’t give me a lift. I would have loved to drive, but I had no car and no money to buy a car. My mom was a hardworking employee at the Forgedmont Central Library. When she could get the extra hours, she worked on weekends too. She didn’t like having to work weekends; furthermore, she hated having to miss church because of work.

I made the decision not to take my usual route to church. I rarely took Shady Lane but loved the fact that it was lined with soft, red, silty sand. It must have rained the night before because the sand was a deep red. Moisture made the sand an even deeper red than usual. As I walked along, I left perfectly-shaped footprints in the sand, and for some odd reason this was amusing to me. For most of my youth, I spent a lot of time alone. I always presumed self amusement was the byproduct of loneliness. As I walked along the lane, I could hear the soft tones of tiny birds in the trees. They were singing, but it was hard to tell if their song was happy or sad. Everything in the forest preys on the smaller, vulnerable birds, without remorse. All instinctive hunters operate on the same principle as humans: hunger of any order subjugates emotion.

At the end of the lane was an old railway crossing. The track hadn’t been used for decades for anything other than an avenue for recreational nature walks. The rusty steel tracks were the only remaining indicator of its past function. I did this nature trail walk on numerous occasions and enjoyed novel experiences most every time. As I strode along on this day, I listened to the rapidly-beating wings of grasshoppers as they fled from underfoot. I watched butterflies dipping and dodging as they went about their duty as insects with survival objectives. I was in no rush, so I decided to stop and sit on the rail awhile. The steel felt warm to the touch but was just starting to heat up from the intense morning sun. I noticed some ants working industriously as they moved building materials back and forth. Caterpillars of assorted colours went about their business doing what they do, although what they do had never been obvious to me.

As I took in some of the more subtle features of my surroundings, I noticed something that really piqued my interest. I knelt forward and rested my knees on the ground and then lowered my head to get a better view of a single blade of grass. There were four dewdrops on the blade, perfectly aligned in a row from the top downward; each drop was slightly smaller than the one above it. Every dewdrop, starting from the top and moving to the bottom, was absorbing and then in turn transferring light waves down the line. The colours manifested by the waves were mutating into a kaleidoscope of tints, and this metamorphosis was giving birth to what I saw as brilliantly-hued liquid diamonds. I uncharacteristically became emotionally overwhelmed by this supposedly commonplace phenomenon. The sheer beauty and brilliance of the piercing refraction captured my imagination and filled my heart with immeasurable appreciation for life.

As I studied the dewdrops, I felt like I was experiencing a spiritual vision. I was overcome by their perfect contour and subtle elegance, but then woefully the breath-taking drops forced me into recognizing the immensity of my psychological limitations. I became dolefully aware of my inability to construct any sort of insightful description of my true emotions. I realized that I had little more than a pedestrian ability to verbally express my abstract sensations. It pained me to discover that my faculty to communicate my concrete feelings was seriously lacking too. Although I greatly appreciated the natural world, I began to internally recognize that I needed to gain more knowledge in this sphere. I needed to put greater effort into growing my ability to better absorb nature and illuminate beauty. I needed to embrace all the nuances of the natural world, then be able to communicate its essence to others. Only then could I call myself a god.

I realized that to become an effectual god, I needed to understand the organic world and all that has evolved from it. More and more, I began to understand that I had to find a way to counter many of the pseudo-spiritual philosophies that refute many of the natural human drives. The spiritualization of sexuality and the dependence on prayer at the expense of self-reliance are but a couple of tenets requiring revision. I began to remember times when I would feel so insignificant when I was out exploring in the natural world. I felt that most of nature’s most enlightening communication was totally lost on me. Shit! I was an adult, and I had just discovered diamond dewdrops. I wanted to be able to express my feelings on nature in an appreciably lucid manner, but I was nowhere near that point. If I were asked at that time What is love? I would have described love as the dewdrops on a blade of grass. So pure, innocent, and able to quell your saddest thoughts. So capable of massaging your soul while caressing your every emotion.

When I reached the end of my nature walk, I had to leave the trail and take the main road to the old, timeworn church. Along with being one of the oldest churches in Mississippi, it’s one of the most tainted. The first thing you see from the main road as you round the bend is the big oak tree. It has stood over the little church since its inception and affords parishioners much-needed shade from the sweltering midday sun. Rumour has it that some inhabitants of the graveyard were hanged for blasphemy from the grand old oak. I’m not sure if this lore is anywhere factual or just a clerical scare tactic. What I do know for sure is that a lot of Black people were lynched at the prodigious oak. Ironically, shameful history abounds in our cute little ethically-subjective church yard.

As I approached the church’s front steps, I took notice of the degree of economic diversity in the all-White congregation. Some were dressed in their Sunday best, while others looked like they’d raced in directly after finishing their barn work. Children prattled about the feet of their parents as old farmers in worn straw hats smoked pipes and discussed how bad weather was plaguing their crops. Women walked about choosing those whom they wished to speak with while blatantly avoiding those they did not. Sadly, all of the racialized people had to go to their own shanty churches, but over the years some did make a trip here—to be hanged. The majority of the people my age, were gloomily walking about like they were being led to the gallows, their hair unkept and eyes still full of sleep. This gave me the impression that there were other places they would much rather be—not at church.

My mom pretended that she had no religious expectations attached to our relationship. The reality was that she would have loved for me to be a devout Christian. However, she didn’t want to push me toward her God for fear of creating a spiritual rebellion within my soul. She deliberately forced herself to believe that my religious observance was optional. As far as she was concerned, I was at church totally of my own free will. To be honest, I’ve never had a problem with religion—just with all the imposters claiming to be religious.

Going to church wasn’t all bad. One of the reasons I liked church was because I was a people watcher. Watching how people interact, and even better, how they avoided interaction, quite entertained me. I found people-watching in church a bit more stimulating than sitting at home in my room doing homework or reading. Mom was an advocate for home schooling, and this was another reason I sought human interaction outside the family home. I didn’t get to socialize with people my age as much as I would have liked. We lived on the outskirts of town, so there was no public school for this hick. Mom believed that I’d be better for it in the long run, and so did I. She really wanted me to attend law school like she had. I wasn’t so sure that law school was a good direction for me. My high school senior year test scores were some of the highest in the state. To appease Mom, I wrote the law school entrance exam and scored quite high.

My mom was known to be a very smart lady. She’d attended law school in her youth, but just before graduation, she dropped out. She told me she’d become disillusioned with the legal system and humanity. Mom was a very self-assured woman, and she followed her heart. I admired her for her moral posture. For the longest time I felt that Mom and I were a lot alike. We shared a great many interests, and even if we weren’t particularly interested in what the other had to share, we pretended we were. I’ll give you an example: Mom loved nice dresses and shoes but couldn’t afford to buy the items she loved. She would bring home Vogue magazines and show me the clothes she yearned for. For years I pretended to show great interest in this diversion of hers, even though I had no interest in clothes at all. She responded with years of dutiful interest in fish, frogs, and bugs.

I ascended the cement steps at the entrance of the church and stood at the top. I might make mention that I found it hard to find character in older architecture that wasn’t adorned with gargoyles. This church had no gargoyles, thus less exterior character, as far as I was concerned. Albeit I always liked to scrutinize the wide variety of nicely hued gravel stones and seashells mixed within the carved rock steps. The wooden handrailing, warped in some areas and rotted in others, dearly needed fixing. I entered through the main door and proceeded down the narrow aisle to the middle of the church and turned right. I liked to sit in the centre of the congregation because the acoustics were better there. I would never have tried to sit in the pews at the front of the church. Those seats were reserved for the true believers.

I would see James Praetors, his wife, daughter, and two sons sitting in the front row, as usual. He was a lawyer and had his own law firm. His brother was the mayor of Forgedmont; they both attended church regularly and were well-known for their strong religious beliefs.

There was an old lady who always sat up front next to the Praetors, and her name was Bessie Myers. This woman believed that she was more essential to the church than a pin is to a grenade. She always wore a blue hat with a red rose attached to the right-hand side, just above the brim. Word was, she gave a lot of money to the church. People seemed to treat her with a lot of respect; they would go out of their way to make her feel welcome. She seemed to be a very elegant lady, someone raised in a prim and proper family.

No coloured people attended our church–ever. Some people believed they weren’t allowed because they sang too loud. I knew different, but that’s a topic for another day. I felt that the stained-glass windows were beautiful, one of the few trappings that injected some character. They were made in Scotland and shipped here by sea. Adorned with angels, saints, and characterizations of Christ, they were designed to tell a story, and that story was why most parishioners attended services. Yet as my mom would say, All art is propaganda. Various paintings hung on the walls depicting religious scenes, and there were several small murals painted on the walls. Please, don’t get me wrong—we’re not talking Rococo. Not sure who painted them, but be assured, whoever painted them were less than artistically talented.

I’ll be upfront: I did not attend church every Sunday, and that’s for many personal reasons. Yet on this specific Sunday, I had to be there to hear this particular sermon. Earlier that week, Pastor MacDonald and his wife were leaving the parsonage in their little car and were struck by a speeding truck. Both he and his wife were killed instantly. For those two lovely people, I don’t know where the love of God went. It was a tremendous loss for the whole community. They were much beloved and then greatly missed. I didn’t attend the funeral, but I heard that it was a very emotional affair. Frankly, I didn’t deal well with other people’s personal trauma, so I tended to avoid interments. Sometimes I would stay away because others were so sad, and I felt nothing. I was afraid my callousness would show.

I prioritized this specific sermon because I was extremely curious how the new pastor would explain why these people were taken so soon and so violently. Personally, I didn’t believe there needed to be an explanation for their death based on spiritual omniscience. Yet I would have been disappointed had I not heard one. Such deficient pretext enhanced my rationale for dismissal of their misguided faithful appreciations.

Pastor MacDonald wasn’t from these parts; he was from somewhere in the British Isles, not sure where. He was far from an eloquent man; nevertheless, he was a delight to listen to for many reasons. I liked him because he was spiritually uncomplicated and possessed a charming sense of humour. I also liked the fact that he never overdid the you’re going to hell for your sins thing. He was more of a lecturer of love than a preacher of vengeance. He was completely devoid of the usual scare tactics employed by most hard-core religious apologists. He was a tall, slim man who looked good in his clothes and had a full head of hair, which was meticulously kept. Some sort of oil or grease kept every hair in place for that smart, clean look. Some parishioners believed it was whale oil. No matter.

His loss set our church back decades. I missed him owing to the fact that he was kind, funny, and, in my estimation, classically righteous. That accent of his … oh my, it made even the most mundane sermon entertaining. This man could even make the obligatory request for tithing something worth paying strict attention to. Midway through most every sermon he would wander off topic to some tale of adventure from past fishing trips where the big one got away. Even better, hunting trips where his gun malfunctioned, and he rights the problem just as the bear was ready to pounce. He was a spiritual entertainer without ever being lordly. Here in Forgedmont, this may have been his downfall as a man of God. Some even declared this pious liability to be the reason he was taken. A shameful declaration as far as I was concerned.

The Bible-belt types felt that as a pastor, Mr. MacDonald had a product to sell, and that product was religion and all that goes with it. His job was to fill the pews and the coffers. Problem was, he was an advocate for believe what you will and you will eventually find your paradise. The congregation held this to be an unappreciated practice. He was hired to nurture Christians using the traditional strategies born out of centuries of development and practise. Seemed to be that the rank and file believed it was too difficult to indoctrinate people if you didn’t propagandize Christianity. Nevertheless, he was deeply appreciated by me because he cared about people. He gave me a vivid view of the need to care about all people. Due to his grace, I felt that if I wanted to become a god, I needed to model my character after his and love all people equally. I would have to make my relationship with spirituality much more organic than the prevailing philosophies. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, he loved Eisenhower and hated communists. What a man!

After seating myself and scanning the crowd, I spotted several friends. Ordinarily I would have said hello to them, but their parents would never allow any interaction till after the service. The older folk were consumed with stern enforcement of proper behaviour during church services. I was sure that very mentality had been beaten into them by their parents. They didn’t want their kids mingling with others and getting all amped up. It was to the point where we dared not even make eye contact.

As I looked around the congregation, I noticed many of the older people checking me out. Oddly, it reminded me of when strange dogs come into contact. The first thing they do to identify each other is sniff each other’s ass. These people were sniffing my ass with their eyes. Suddenly, I remembered that I had forgotten to bring my money for the tithing plate. I noticed that I was beginning to sweat profusely. Then I recognized that I had been unconsciously conditioned to feel shame for having no money for the plate. They tell you that the only reason they want you to show up to church is to receive the Word of the Lord. This tends to be true only if you can pay admission.

The new pastor arrived a half hour late. He cited traffic as the reason but was apologetic in what I would describe as a lofty air. He seemed tense as he stood in front of the congregation getting himself settled. He took an inordinate amount of time to adjust his tie and tuck in his shirt. Physically, he was nothing like Pastor MacDonald. He was short, chubby, and balding—the trifecta of undesirable male physical characteristics. His name was Dwayne Jones, and he was from Lower Stafford, which is thirty miles from Forgedmont. After fully collecting himself, he began to deliver his sermon.

Hello, my name is Pastor Dwayne Jones. It is with a great sense of honour that I assume the leadership of your beautiful church. Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’d like to speak to the untimely demise of Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald. I had met the pastor and his wife on quite a few occasions in the past few years. I’d like to take the liberty to call both of them good friends. He was endowed with the most acute sense of humour, as she was the perfect mixture of intelligence and elegance. Together they made the perfect couple—he with his entertaining spirit, and she with her wonderfully natural allurement. Both were beyond generous with their time and sacrifice for their fellow man. I am without capacity to communicate to you the pain I felt upon hearing of this tragedy. I know we all felt great reverence for these wonderful people, and we are still processing our pain. With God’s benevolent assistance, both have departed this world and entered another. They are now with their Lord and reaping the joyousness of his love. I know he took them because he desired to give them permanent residence in his kingdom. I know we all believe that they earned the right to be with him in heaven. They have greatly benefited from the Lord’s love and will continue to benefit for eternity. Amen.

The congregation shouted, Amen!

I popped up from my seat and excused myself as I walked past fellow parishioners toward the aisle. As I walked toward the door, I looked about at the faces of those in the congregation. I was searching for signs of disdain in their eyes, and it wasn’t there. I wanted to stop, turn around, and announce my reprehension to all present. I heard everything Pastor Jones said with goaded ears. Personally, I would want my flock to deem being randomly slaughtered as an unjust end to a pious existence. To become a god and abate this type of dictum, I’d have to launch a new approach to understanding the true value of life and the torment surrounding its loss. I’d have to make clear the difference between psychological pain and spiritual pain. I’d need to teach my flock that one can easily cause or negate either. I kept on walking and indignantly exited the door, all the while silently praying that I would never be back to witness such spiritual absurdity.

Lucky thing, I’d brought fishing line, hooks, and a bobber in my pocket. I just needed to find a long, skinny piece of alder and I’d be set for fishing. I had to find worms, bait my hook, and catch me a fish. I craved this activity because there’s a lot to be said for objective reality’s ability to put waste to subjective bullshit. I needed to clear my mind, and a really effective way to achieve such was to search for worms.

I trudged down the hill from the church toward the woods to a seldom-used path that guided me down to a stream. I liked to fish in this stream, as it had fish in it with the pinkest bellies. Worms tend to inhabit moist soil, so I knew searching near the stream should yield ample bait. I found plenty, but I didn’t fish. I decided that I was going to walk downstream to my friend’s house. Callender Ajax was a good friend of mine with whom I went fishing a lot. He was a tall, skinny guy with long, silky, brown hair. Most girls found him attractive but weird. He was smart in all the ways I was not. He could attract a crowd without even trying, and people liked to be around him even if he was being a pain in the backside. He was a vastly different kind of guy who could be quite a nuisance without ever trying. He could carry on with his annoying behaviour for hours and never tire of it. An acquired taste is how I would describe his overall nature. When it was just he and I together, he tended to be much less annoying; he preferred to have an audience for his epic aggravating performances. I’m really not sure why I enjoyed his company so much, but I did. My mom thought he was jealous of my intellectual abilities. She believed he strove to dominate me in an attempt to elevate his low self-esteem. I didn’t agree with her. I thought he was just an innately annoying person. The way I looked at it was that you could take him or leave him, and for the most part I accepted the guy for who he was. Thing is, I might add, I could give as well as I got. As payback, I enjoyed some episodes in which my behaviour was real annoying for him too.

There was an old shack near his house where we used to play as children. His father moved it there and fixed it up for him; it was our sanctuary. As I reached the shack, I heard a familiar cluster of popping noises. I was sure it was an air rifle being fired repeatedly. I approached with stealth, using the trees and other foliage as camouflage. I knelt down by a large bush and then poked my head out to the side to see what was going on. I could see Callender aiming his air rifle up into an old oak tree that stood at the back of the shack. There was a domestic cat in the tree, and for some reason he was shooting at it. The poor thing wasn’t moving, just sitting there getting shot repeatedly.

Fortunately for the poor cat, Callender’s rifle eventually ran out of pellets. I watched as he began searching the empty boxes for more ammunition, but evidently there was none left. He sat his gun down and started looking up into the branches and then began to climb up the oak tree toward the cat. As he neared the critically wounded feline, he slowed his climb. He began picking something off the cat’s rear hip. If the cat even slightly moved he would immediately pull his hand back. He appeared to be afraid that there might be a violent response from the severely wounded animal. He repeated these same cautious movements over and over again. As I watched, his advance reminded me of the slow, deliberate movements of the praying mantis.

Eventually, I figured out what he was doing. He was picking the spent pellets out of the cat’s hide. I watched him slowly reach and retrieve numerous pellets. This behaviour made me feel a profound sense of shame for him. I judged this level of cruelty to be evil and cowardly, and even worse, I thought I recognized the tom. The injured critter was jet black with two white ears and two white rings on his tail; it was Count Paris. The cat belonged to a friend of ours, a young girl named Hero, the daughter of the mayor of Forgedmont.

Ammunition in hand, Callender descended from the tree, reloaded his rifle with the collected pellets, and started shooting at the poor, suffering cat again. Mournfully, the cat had to be dead at that point, or soon would be. I got up and walked down the path to the stream. I sat on a downed tree to ponder the potential consequence of the ugliness I had just witnessed. This trespass was performed by a person I hold dear, against another person I also hold dear. Appreciating that the past can’t be reformed, I needed to focus on the future. How would I go about finding the secret formula to purifying another man’s soul? I knew I would have to dig deep into the universe of empathic know-how to unearth a method to strengthen the morally weak. To elevate them to a position where they would yearn to bestow grace upon others and to enhance their ability to respect the liberty of others and do it in a natural, loving manner. As I