VI: The Bearer of the Torch

Long ago, people spoke of many strange creatures.

They spoke of kingdoms without bodies.

Of shapeshifting gods of trade.

Of giants built by human hands.

Of invisible roads beneath the world.

Of oracles without eyes.

And scholars travelled far to hunt these mysteries.

Many descended into caves beneath mountains where, it was said, the hidden workings of reality could be found.

Among them was a traveller who had followed every path and listened to every lesson.

He had learned that many monsters were not monsters at all.

He had learned that hidden things often turned out not to be hidden.

He had learned that much of the strangeness belonged not to the world, but to the expectations carried into it.

Yet one creature remained.

The oldest one.

The deepest one.

For people said:

"Kingdoms may be questioned."

"The gods of trade may be questioned."

"The giants and spirits and oracles may be questioned."

"But there is one thing that cannot be escaped."

For colours appeared.

Sounds appeared.

Thoughts appeared.

Memories appeared.

Joy appeared.

Sorrow appeared.

Something was happening.

No one doubted this.

So the traveller asked:

"Where exactly is consciousness?"

The question seemed simple.

People pointed immediately.

"There—the creature lives within the brain."

Others pointed toward hidden patterns.

Toward thoughts.

Toward memories.

Toward an inner self watching from somewhere behind the eyes.

Yet the old difficulty returned.

For thoughts could be observed.

Memories changed.

Patterns shifted.

The workings of the brain could be traced and measured.

Still the thing itself remained strangely elusive.

Again the creature slipped away.

Rumours spread among the scholars.

People whispered that perhaps this final creature was unlike all the others.

For it seemed capable of impossible things.

It contained worlds.

It remained somehow continuous while everything within it changed.

It looked upon itself.

It thought about itself.

It turned back and examined its own nature.

And then the traveller discovered something unsettling.

Every previous monster had stood somewhere ahead of him.

But this one did not.

For whenever he lifted his torch to search for it, the creature moved with the light.

Whenever he turned to face it, it turned also.

Whenever he looked for the observer, he found only more observing.

The traveller grew afraid.

Because he realised something impossible.

The monster was no longer somewhere in the cave.

The monster was holding the torch.

So he searched desperately.

Some searched the brain.

Some searched memory.

Some searched mathematics.

Some searched hidden chambers of thought.

But no one found the creature itself.

At last, exhausted, the traveller descended to the deepest chamber beneath the mountain.

There sat an old keeper beside a still black pool.

The keeper listened quietly.

Then he smiled.

"You are still searching for a face," he said.

"That is why you cannot find it."

The traveller stared.

"Then where is the creature?"

The keeper pointed toward the pool.

The traveller looked.

And he saw movement.

Biology.

Memory.

Perception.

Action.

Language.

Relations with others.

Endless patterns of experience flowing into one another like rivers joining rivers.

None alone was the creature.

Yet together they formed something that continually emerged.

Not beneath the waters.

Within their movement.

Slowly the traveller understood.

The creature had never been hidden somewhere behind experience.

Nor had it lived within a secret chamber behind his eyes.

The mystery had always lain elsewhere.

For he had carried a very old belief into the cave:

That if experience exists, there must exist somewhere a little observer watching it.

A tiny king seated behind the eyes.

A hidden witness looking out through a window.

And suddenly the belief shattered.

The little king vanished.

The hidden witness vanished.

And with them something else disappeared.

The cave itself began changing.

The shadows became softer.

The monsters became less frightening.

The walls themselves seemed less solid than before.

And then the traveller laughed.

For he finally understood.

There had never been monsters in the cave.

Not really.

There had only been creatures refusing to wear the shapes he expected of them.

And perhaps the strangest thing in the cave had been there from the beginning.

The torch he had carried in his own hand.