The Answers

            I looked down at the thick, leather bound tome and smiled at the fruits of my labor. After sprinkling sand on the final page of the work, I looked up to my Father, who sat smiling at me and waiting. I had spent the past year transcribing his words verbatim, and I was finally finished with my contribution.

            I gently closed the lid of the thick book to look once more upon the golden name that adorned the cover. “The Answers” the shining letters proclaimed, and I knew it to be the truth.

            “Now you are finished, my son,” the rich voice of my father announced. “All that is left for you as an apprentice is to make a few deliveries. After that you must choose your path. I have work for you here, if you desire, making candles for me, my son.”

            I looked to the ceiling as I pondered my Father’s offer. Perhaps choosing that as my path would please me. I was not sure of what other paths existed though.

            “I am not sure yet Father,” I replied. “May I choose later?”

            My Father frowned at my response. “Yes, my son. For now, there are crates with candles and copies of “The Answers” in the corner by the door. Take those to the appropriate rooms, marked by the numbers on their lids.” He turned back to the half finished candle he had laid aside one year ago, and continued his work.

            The first crate I picked up was marked 217. I left my Father’s room and walked down the hall outside the door. Every twenty feet was a door, illuminated by a candle of my Father’s making, and labeled with a number. The numbers were the sole difference between each door. The doors started at 1, which was on my immediate left and mirrored by 2 on my right, and continued endlessly down the hall.

            I began walking down the hall until 217 was on my left. I approached the door, which opened for me as I neared it.

            “Hello,” the man greeted me. He was dressed in simple brown robes, as I was, and wore no decorum. “You can place that over there.” He motioned to a spot against the wall on one side of the room and returned to his desk. I set the crate down to sit alone against the wall in the spot he had indicated. I then looked up and around, at the dozens of identically clad men scribbling away at desks throughout the room, their work lit by my Father’s candles.

            “What are you doing?” I asked the man who’d opened the door for me.

            He looked up at me and frowned in confusion. “We’re discovering the answers of course.”

            I frowned back at the man. “But you already have “The Answers”,” I replied, pointing to the crate I’d just set against the wall. “My Father provides them for you.”

            “Well yes,” the man replied, “and then we take what he gives us and edits them so that they are perfect.” He lifted the victim of his own scribbling’s, and I saw that it was indeed, a copy of “The Answers”.

            “Why?”

            He looked at me with utter bewilderment. “Well, to fix it. Obviously!”

            “But is it not already correct?” I asked.

            “Well, overall it’s got the correct idea, however there are quite a few discrepancies and errors. We spend our time fixing these, to discover the answers.”

            “But, how do you know what the answers truly are? Or what the problems with the texts from my Father are?”

            “Our own souls discern what the truth of it is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must return to my work.”