Caino's Alphabet, B

Black clouds covered the moon 
and the rain began to fall, 
but Caino knew of a ruin nearby with a solid 
and unbroken roof.  
He led his new friends 
and they managed to reach it 
before they all got very wet.
    Lightning crackled across the sky 
and rain spattered their shelter,
but beneath it, 
the three of them remained warm and dry 
as the heavens emptied themselves onto the forest.            

“We did well to meet,” 
said Bartholomew with a laugh, 
“a shower is not such a bad thing 
for road-soiled monks such as ourselves, 
but I fear for the manuscripts I hold in this bag
—it could very well spell a disaster!” 
he patted the satchel that hung from his shoulder and, clearly delighted by his play on words, 
sat contentedly down onto the ruin’s dry floor.
    Aaron grimaced, rolled his eyes and, 
turning to Caino said, 
“since it seems we have some time to pass, 
allow us to introduce ourselves properly.  
    “We are Monks of the First Science 
and we are making our way to the North.  
You seem very much at home in this forest 
and we are in need of a guide.  
Would you be willing to lead us through the wild?  
In return for this service, 
I will teach you the ways of civilised men: 
language, letters, numbers and, 
if you have what it takes, 
a bit of our science as well.  
So then?  What will it be?” 
    “Rain fall wet!” 
replied Caino with excitement.
    
    It took patience, 
but by the time the rain stopped, 
the monks had simplified their offer 
into a form that the boy understood.
    “You come?” asked Aaron.
    “Yes, come,” agreed Caino.
    So Caino entered the company of the monks.  
He used what he knew of the land 
and the stars to guide them,
and his friend’s invisible eyes and ears 
helped to feed them.  
Never before had there been such a guide, 
and the monks blessed their luck 
that they’d found him.  
    In the mornings, 
Caino would rise early with his friend 
and catch rabbits to break their fast.  
Bartholomew would cook them with the roots, 
herbs and berries that he gathered along the trail,
while Aaron taught Caino first to speak 
and then later to read and write.

    One day, while they were hunting, 
Caino decided to give his friend a name.
    “I will call you Darius,” said Caino.  
Darius looked up at him curiously, 
walked in a circle, and with a smile 
told Caino he was glad 
in a language all their own.
    Weeks passed and 
as Caino’s language improved, 
Aaron’s teachings turned 
towards the First Science—
to which he had devoted his life.  
    Aaron told Caino that from its beginnings, mankind had always sought knowledge 
and answers, 
both to the many mysteries of life 
as well as the enigma of death.
At first, they made myths and told stories; 
later they explored and studied, 
mapping the world and even flying to the moon.  They built machines that could talk, 
think and care for them; 
changing the whole of the world to suit their whim,
but despite all of their power and knowledge, 
life remained a mystery and 
death a cold, unchanging fact. 
    People could not imagine 
an end to their thoughts and dreams.  
Some clung to old stories and ritual, 
while others sought to extend life through technology and medicine.  
The one path was an illusion, the other a delusion.
    At last, at a time when the world had 
grown fat with riches 
and the days become easy and long, 
an order was formed that set for itself
the task of putting an end to the end of life.
    They well knew the difficulty 
of the path they had chosen.  
It would take many lifetimes 
to learn to distill Mind from body.  
Many generations to conceive a vessel 
to replace body as Mind’s home. 
Time beyond reckoning 
and technology undreamt of 
to find and to gather the myriad Minds 
of all those who had, 
throughout all the ages, passed on.
    However, with unfaltering hands 
over unending time 
it was hoped that this task could be done.  
So it was the First Science was begun:
a monastic order sworn 
to make real in a machine 
the afterlife in which humanity no longer believed.
    Much time had passed 
since the founding of the First Science.  
The world had collapsed, 
revived, and collapsed again, 
yet still the First Science endured.

    Caino proved a model student.  
He excelled at figures 
and absorbed theory like a sponge, 
yet in many ways, 
he remained a thing of the wild.  
    One morning while hunting for rabbits, 
Darius bounded out from the undergrowth 
to tell Caino, 
in a language that was just theirs alone, 
“we are not all alone in the forest.  
Another man hunts here as well.”