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.”
At that the man turned back to his work. When I lost his attention I left the room and went back to my Father’s.
“Hello son,” he greeted me as I came for the next crate, “have you made your choice yet?”
“Not yet Father. May I think on it a while longer?”
“You may,” He replied in a sorrowful voice.
The next crate indicated that room 426 was its intended recipient. The man who received me wore robes of the same fabric, but they were black in color. The case belonged beside stacks of “The Answers”, discarded after serving their purpose.
Here, the books were rewritten as they were read, due to so much of the text being labeled false. After they were translated, the spare copies of “The Answers” were cast aside, and the new editions of the text were collected separately.
I returned to my Father’s room where he asked me again: “Have you chosen yet, son?”
“No. May I have more time?”
“Yes.”
Next, I visited room 633, where copies of “The Answers” were not even consulted. Instead, the workers in fine, while plain, robes were writing texts explaining their own decision of what the answers were. Room 978 held workers who neither read nor wrote any form of answers. Instead the men there, who wore plain tunics and breeches, spent their time discussing what the answers were with their peers, never deciding upon a definite series of answers. The men in this room were not limited to one set working space, and so carried their own personal candle, illuminating their discussions with the light my Father provided them.
In room 1231, there was no discussion of the answers. The copies of “The Answers” my Father gave to them were put to the torch with the flame preserved on the wicks of their candles. The men stood speechless in their fancy clothes, designed of silk fabrics, as the watched the words of my Father go up in flames. They were uninterested in discerning the answers by reading or speaking. The destruction of my Father’s answers seemed to be the answers they sought.
I returned to my Father’s room after this discovery to get the last of the crates. Upon my return my Father turned to me, his eyes solemnly gazing into mine, seeming to plead with me.
“Have you made your choice now my son?
“No.”
“Are you any closer to making your decision?”
“No.”
His eyes gazed into mine for a long while, portraying the pain and suffering he felt.
“Very well. Take the last of the crates my son, and your duties will be completed. Then you must make your choice.”
I took the last of the crates down the hall to the room marked 1674. No one here greeted me, or took any notice of me in the slightest. I set the box down against the wall amidst a pile of its siblings, relieved only of the candles. The candles in this room did not illuminate the path of any specific man of the ornately dressed group, rather they were placed throughout the room, giving off light to see by, but not to find.
The men that occupied this room seemed to have no purpose, the simply walked this way or that, not appearing to have any destination or reason for their chosen paths. They always ended up in the vicinity of one of the candles before turning and walking another away, apparently not finding what they had hoped for.
Finally, I asked one of the expressionless men what it was they were doing. How they were discovering the answers.
“We found them,” the man responded to my inquiry in a neutral tone.
“What is it you’ve found?” I asked eagerly.
“The answer is that there are no answers,” he responded simply, and made off in a different direction.
I took my time returning to my Father’s room this time. I pondered my choices as I dragged my feet, deciding on what path I would choose to take. Eventually, I arrived back at my Father’s door, and slowly made my way inside. There I waited until he had finished making the candle he’d set aside a year ago. He looked up at me.
“So,” he asked slowly, “have you made your decision?”
“I have.”
“What is it you wish to do?”
“I wish to seek my own answers,” I replied.
“Are you sure you do not wish to stay here with me?” he asked, as his eyes brimmed with tears.
“I am sure.”
He sighed. “Very well then.”
He took up the candle he’d just finished and led me out of the door. We walked down the hall for hours, passing door after door until finally we reached 8304. He pushed open the door and held his hand out to guide me inside.
I entered the room to find it completely bare, no more than four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. There were neither decorations, nor any others to help me discover the answers I had so longed to find for myself just moments ago. I turned back to my Father standing just outside the door with the candle in his hand, eyes swimming with tears of pain and betrayal.
“Would you come in for a little while?” I asked, suddenly missing the time I’d spent with him.
“I cannot. You’ve left no place for me in this room.”
I suddenly realized the room was devoid of any light source.
“Would you leave the candle for me, Father?”
“I cannot. You’ve chosen to live without my light.”
“Well, perhaps you could leave a copy of “The Answers”. Maybe I will find the truth in that after all.”
“I cannot. You’ve discarded the truth. You abandoned the answers to ask the questions. Goodbye.”
He closed the door and was gone. Now I spend forever in a pitch back room, blindly searching for the answers to my questions in a room that is completely empty.