The Temple of the King

 The Temple of the King

Through the mist of antiquity, the picture of a village tucked away in the hills is getting sharper. There stands a man of youth and strength in the middle of a circle. It is dawn and people surround him inquisitive of what's going to be -- they know that with a twitch of his hand he is going to vanish into thin air, the mystery they have been witnessing time to time. And there, he trembles his hand and he's gone. They say he is gone to the Temple of the King -- a mystical place they know only through legends surrounding the circle and the bell.

And then the twilight shines, and the day has just begun. It was the year of the fox, according to customary practice of naming each year after an animal. They say the bell trolls by its own time to time. It means the time has come for the one to go to the Temple of the King, a lapse of which is believed to bring harsh calamities to the village. They choose one among them by lots, and the one is destined to go when the bell trolls next. Usually only one from the aged among them are selected for the lot, who are willing to give themselves to the fate. They give themselves up, saving the younger among the clan.

The mystical world connecting human souls has a clockwork of Interconnected gears -- interconnecting each human through these gears of fate. Someone somewhere holding resentment towards someone, and it resonates with his gear in the clockwork: It turns and turns, turning the connected gears in a train until the turning reaches the gear of the one grievanced against. The gear this time turns and seals bad times for him. Well, that's another story of how curses of poor wounded souls influences.

Back to the story, by some mysterious oversights, or taking on the chance of someone else for himself as a sacrifice this time, a brave young man walks towards the circle beside the steeple, the circle to the Temple of the King. With a gentle wave of his strong right hand, he's gone. In the world they were in was as it was understood in antiquity – flat, and circular. He now finds himself far from the circle of the edge of the world, in deep space. He now remembers what all he imagined of what those who went earlier to the Temple of the King for good might have seen – some magnificent palatial temple somewhere in the clouds, floating in space. He is floating, wandering and wondering far from the circle of the edge of the world, he sees many things. 

Unprecedented, it may seem, he has found himself returned to where he disappeared from, lying unconscious in the circle near beside the steeple. Waking up, he sees all around him, eager to hear what he had seen. We too wonder what it was.

Rahul Leslie

April 2025

RAHUL LESLIE'S BLOG POSTS:-

List of blogs