‘Different’ is a word that should not be used to describe her. Rather, even the most illiterate would call her an amusing challenge. At first, I hated her and had the simple aim of shutting her off. But now I hate her for winning. In her own games. In her own ideologies. In her own visions.
For some time after that night, I deeply thought about the possible fact that maybe I am interested or fascinated by her. Which led to the conclusion of yes. I was fascinated by her. And I was interested in the thrill of winning over her. I had sensed in her words and gaze that she thinks of me as some mechanical soul and equational mind. And I don’t have a habit of disagreeing with truth. But there was one more thing she failed to notice. And that was my hunger for ‘victory only belonging to me’.
Now, the most enticing intel was that I had learned how to battle with her. It was not possible by the terror of sheer fury or the humiliation of brutal consequences. It was to make her question her own visions, which were the very base of her personality.
“Solus superstes fabulam narrare potest.” Sterling asked me.
“Only the survivor can narrate the story.” I translated.
“Do you agree with it?”
“No.”
“State your reasoning.”
“A viewer can do it too. A survivor will deeply portrait the emotions, the cruelty done upon him, and the marking of his loss. A viewer can simply tell what was done wrong. Who won and who lost. How and why.”
Sterling’s gaze turned nostalgic.“In the final days of the burning of the Great Library, legend holds that nine scholars refused to flee. They believed that within the library’s deepest vault lay the 'Codex of Eternity,' a book said to contain the precise date and cause of every human death. They sealed themselves inside the vault to protect it, taking a vow: ‘We shall witness the truth together, or we shall perish with it.’
For three days, the fires raged outside. Inside the sealed vault, there was silence. When the embers finally cooled and the rescuers broke the seal, they found a gruesome sight. Eight of the scholars were dead, not by fire or smoke, but by the jagged edges of their own quills, their throats slit in a frenzy of madness. Only one scholar remained alive. He sat atop the pile of his brothers’ bodies, the Codex open on his lap, his hands stained with ink and blood.
When the rescuers asked what had happened, what horror had driven eight wise men to madness, the survivor closed the book. He looked them in the eye and spoke calmly. He told them that the Codex had revealed a truth so beautiful that his brothers could not bear the weight of their mortal lives and had chosen to depart. He claimed he alone possessed the mental fortitude to endure the revelation. Because he was the only one left to speak, his words became history. He was hailed as a sage, a man of iron will. The deaths of the eight were recorded as a ‘tragedy of divine ecstasy.’
Sterling’s smile thinned. “But years later, on his deathbed, the survivor burned the Codex. As the pages turned to ash, he whispered the truth to the empty room: The Codex was blank. The eight didn't die from a revelation. They died because they began to starve and panic in the dark. They turned on one another like wolves. The survivor didn't endure a divine truth; he simply had the sharpest quill and the quickest hand. He killed them to survive the hunger, or perhaps simply to be the one who owned the ‘truth’.”
“Then survivors can tell lies too. They cannot be fully trusted. We have to find a viewer for a true testimony of the incident.” Vane suggested with a questioning tone.
“What do you think Ms. Graves?” Sterling turned his gaze to her.
“I think no one is more cruel than a viewer.” Zephyr said softly. “And no one is more wretched than a viewer.”
“Just stating the two opposite facts side by side does not count as a justifiable and sometimes legendary answer, Graves.” I interjected from her side.
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Everyone got hushed at my first active participation in one of my peer’s answers. Even a sparkle of thrill flashed in Sterling’s eyes.
“Opposites are the two extremes of one thing.” Zephyr replied, her expression remotely calm. “As the Emerald Tablet dictates.”
We both were facing Sterling. And the excitement of his was trying to annoy me, but still I was too busy to be annoyed.
“Then what is a Viewer?” I challenged.
“Peace.” She replied.
“So peace can be cruel or wretched, Ms. Graves?” Sterling asked.
“Yes.” she nodded.
“Will that not be silence?” I asked, pressing her.
“Silence is not a living thing. Peace breathes. And sometimes gasps. Its opposite will be war.”
“And what will be these two opposites of?”
“Love.” that blonde answered my question.
Annoyance finally succeeded in seeping into my veins. Zephyr did not look back at her, but her smile on her answer was again like before. Like she had tasted caramel.
“A remarkable answer Ms. Beauregard!” Sterling cried with excitement.
I remained silent at Beauregard being praised and wanted to spit out the caramel of her words, which Graves was enjoying rather with heed.
“I was more interested in the ‘Codex of Eternity’ which happened to be found empty.” I announced clinically. “What does it being blank implement?”
“Aah!” Sterling cried with a subtle craze of some hidden but still burning passion. “It being empty means nothing. And it being empty means everything!”
My eyelids dropped in sameness and I remained silent as to give him a chance to articulate himself.
“You did not like the answer, Mr. Markwood?” he asked me softly with a tender smile and teasing eyes.
“I shall wait for you to elaborate on those statements.” I answered while looking up at him.
Sterling deepened his smile.
“How could a mortal look upon the secrets of eternity? The Codex was never blank. But it could just be read by the pair of eyes which could outlive the deaths in it. A human can never taste eternity. No passion. No law. No compulsion. Nothing can make a human capable of pulling out the moons orbiting around the eternity. A wise man is not always wise. He is only wise till he is spoken of or accorded of. But if he is immortal and wise, then the whole world will call him wise till the time ends.”
“Just because a logic is forgotten or not known does not mean it is not correct or logical.” I argued.
“It was acknowledgement that gave life to that logic,” Sterling countered.
“Acknowledgement by people?” disdain took over my tone.
“Acknowledgement by the Creator.”
“Who made a wise man wise?” this time Graves was the one to ask.
“People who are in need of wisdom.” Sterling answered.
“Will that not be acceptance?” I again questioned.
“Acceptance is another name of Creation.” Sterling gave the answer like a proud secret.
A cold breeze of silence blew in the class.
Sterling, clearly savoring the lingering weight of his words, turned back to his desk. His movements were slow, almost ritualistic, as he began organizing his leather-bound volumes. In a voice so low it seemed he was whispering to the very air of the cavernous room, he spoke “Maybe the scholars accepted that the Codex was empty and accepted that no truth was there to survive in the dark vault.”
“You see,” He looked up then, his gaze sweeping over us like a cold wind.“A bird trapped within a gilded cage is only truly 'caged' once he accepts the iron bars as the final horizon of his freedom. Should he struggle until his heart ceases to beat, he dies a creature of the sky. Broken, yet brave. But if he ceases to fight? And accepts it? Then, and only then, is he forever known as the caged bird. He becomes his own prison.”
Again silence engulfed the room.
‘Is the codex of our lives blank? And if so, what am I creating in the dark vault by accepting?’ were the questions Sterling successfully made the silence whisper in the ears of every student.
“Rather a protean answer to be assumed for Codex of Eternity’s validity.” I proposed, my gaze fixed on Sterling.
“The number of minds, experiences, perspectives and viewers in the world, the number of answers for a question Mr. Markwood.” Sterling answered me softly.
A pause. And then suddenly the sharp ring of the bell pierced the air.
“Have a good day, young scholars.” Sterling said before leaving with his books.
As the classroom emptied, I remained anchored to my seat, my fingers tracing the cold leather of the mathematics book Graves had given me. The caramel sweetness of her smile for Beauregard still sat like ash in my throat, a lingering irritation that demanded a cure. I watched her back disappear through the doorway, her movements fluid and unbothered, as if she hadn't just stood at the center of a burning library and claimed peace was a wretched thing. She thought she was the viewer, safe in her ivory tower of aesthetics and 'glances of beauty,' but she had forgotten the scholar with the sharpest quill. My hunger was no longer just for victory; it was to see her in the dark vault of my own making, to see what she would create when the Codex was finally revealed to be blank. I was no longer merely solving an equation. I was preparing to be the creator of her ruin, and the first stroke of my pen would be the one that finally made her gasp.
