Book Two, Letter Eight

Early Spring 2018 CE

Dear Herodotus, Father of Lies.

I have another story for you...

There was this girl, sixteen, I was twelve, we were friends in the way only lonely kids can be, when they live on the same street in the same dusty town. Awkward, secretive, honest, weird...

She said one day

I wanna' show you something, but I've only been practicing for a while, so...

We went out to the edge of town, where old cars and farm machinery had over the years been dumped, and together they rusted at the bottom of a little ravine. It was a wild place, an abandoned place. We felt safe there, hidden from the prying eyes of grown ups.

She showed me her hand, and, taking a deep breath, she closed and opened her fingers, only when they opened, there was a glowing orb there, floating a few centimeters above her palm. A green-blue-black light-ball of energy.

What is it? I asked

It's a door.

Huh?

She poked her finger into the orb, and pulling it out again, a small flower was stuck to her skin. Its tiny yellow petals were streaked with white veins and it smelled faintly of honey.

Oh...a door. I get it.

I didn't get it.

Then she put her whole hand into the doorway and pulled out a crumpled piece of yellow paper, thin and ragged with age. She offered it to me, and smoothing it out I read aloud.

A-door A-wall A-window

A-fold A-crease A-wrinkle

A-secret-secret-

Another way Another day

A-door A-wall A-window

A-fold A-crease A-wrinkle

She moved away pretty soon after that, and I haven't seen or spoken to her since, but I kept the yellow paper. And though I do not know if my memories are real, that paper and its poem, are in themselves, A-door A-wall A-window.

*

Herodotus, there are events in my life, sometimes important things, of which I have no memory at all. I can be told stories about these events, but I do not have even the glimmer of recollection. If real things might be missing from my memories, might I not imagine new truths to fill those gaps?

If these fictions I create for myself are of benefit, can they really be called lies?

There was a girl, but not really, and she showed me a door, but not really.

In truth, I imagined her, and I imagined the door and I imagined the flower and the poem, but now they are in the world, drawn forth from the Pandora's box in my mind, and their impact upon my character will be as much or as little as I allow them to be. If useful truths can be found in these lies, what is the overriding value of facts?

Do facts really matter, when what we build our lives around are stories?

Neither true nor untrue.

There are things that I do remember though. There was a boy.

I was that boy...

...and you, Herodotus, were a boy once, growing up in a city on the coast, Halicarnassus, dreaming dreams and writing stories.

Thank you Herodotus. I'm re-reading your Histories, and finding more and more stories you didn't include. In my next letter I will tell you the story of the Secret Scythian Wedding, which I'm sure you'll love. It's got adventure, and conflict and...well, you know.

'til next time.

Morgan.

*

PS. I discovered a funny coincidence to do with a building in your home city. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was built just a little while after you lived Herodotus. This picture is, amusingly, a miniature scale model of the building, located at Miniaturk in Istanbul.

In the city of Melbourne, in my home country of Australia, stands The Shrine of Remembrance, a war memorial, the design of which was inspired by the design of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.

On the Stone of Remembrance inside the shrine, are engraved the words, “Greater love hath no man.” At 11am on the 11^th of December each year, a shaft of light shines though an aperture in the roof to illuminate the word, “love.”

Shrine of Remembrance

Herodotus, with two and a half thousand years between us, somehow you've never been so close.