To bake a bread...

Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

     – Matthew 5:42 (KJV)

 

She entered Senhor João’s garden and dropped the bucket full of acorns on the ground behind him, causing him to jump at the unexpected noise. He turned and said boa tarde, good afternoon.

“Will you teach me to make acorn bread?” she asked eagerly.

“No!” he replied sharply.

Shock. But… why? “Please!” she pleased, eyes filling wet.

He looked long at her, and it came, the rain, let it fall as it did from her and on her, on him, as it falls on us all. He saw the gentle rain, washing him, stripping slowly the mask of his reluctance, leaving the naked skin of his nakedly apprehensive face.

Well… I don’t know, he came again, the waters washing him with pure intent. I’m not supposed to.

What? said she, surprised. But you said, you told me, all the things, delicious to make from these…

… seeds of life he whispered quietly…

and you refuse but why not fair the cupboards bare and my mother oh so fears

… as do we all in these times, softly…

won’t you show me the way, I need the truth, light the fire and let us bake the bread and break the bread, oh please old father my father she screamed in flash and bang and blood in the night and flight so far away away away in a land far far from home

… and the rain fell, down on him, a torrent, crushing and carrying him in the flood across the dry lands of death, the waters deep in death the depth of suffering and silence of lambs where there should be laughter, be play in the free meadows of light…

and says who forbids your mother that’s rich the cakes the cookies the braided breads of holidays high on the altar of Light now dark and fading, despairing

… he watched her silently.

After a while, she sneezed. Not a pleasant thing in a mask, really. Softly, sobbing: “I’m sorry. I thought… well… my mother has no work, and…”

… still he said nothing. She picked up her bucket to leave. As she turned, he said, “Wait. There’s a way.”

What? a little spark, hope, struck her heart and rose, singing her throat a little as she struggled to form the words in her still rudimentary Portuguese. Como?

“Well,” he said quietly. “I could induct you into the guild.”

Guild? What’s that?

It can be a lot of things, he told her, depending on the context. In my garden, it is a community of complementary plants around a principal tree. That’s part of permaculture’s teaching. But in this case, the society.

Society? Of what? her small voice a puzzle of crystalline fracture.

The secret society. Of alchemists.

An interlude, the author wakes after a night of trampling mares
and a dawn, gentle and loving --->

The names of good people have been changed to protect their privacy. For some bad ones, I've changed the names when I am no longer as angry with them as I once was, or if I do not wish to embarrass them or those close to them or descended from them. Or, if I think that some fool might try to sue me, maim me, or even kill me!

I'm a writer, not a Warrior, for all my dabbling in the Arts. 

Sometimes, the names of Evil remain unchanged, as I have no fear to speak ill of the dead, especially if they are well buried. Or of some living, who hide in the shadows still and are dead to me. The dead cannot sue, they can but haunt me in my dreams, and the worst of them do that already. May I haunt them back.