The Keeper

A weary young traveler came upon an old cabin in the woods. He noticed smoke from the chimney, and since he was tired and deeply chilled from his journey, thought it wise to inquire about stopping to rest, should this stranger take kindly to passersby.

The traveler lifted his hand to knock on the cabin door, but before his hand made contact, an old man, dressed in patched and tattered linens, opened the door. He smiled wide at the sight of the young traveler, his eyes glowing with warmth.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my friend,” he said gently, gesturing for the traveler to enter.

There were two bowls of hot soup laid out on a small table in the middle of the room. The old man bid the young traveler to join him.

“How did you know I was coming?” asked the traveler.

The old man smiled wide. “Oh I know many things. Tomorrow, after a good night’s rest, I will give you what you’ve come for.”

“But I haven’t come for anything, save a full belly and a place to rest,” the traveler replied.

The old man simply smiled. 

The traveler studied the old man, and noticed that there was a peculiar way about him. He observed the way the man ate, the way he held his spoon, the way he moved, the way he smiled. His manner seemed, all at once, strangely foreign and also more beautiful and natural than anything he had seen in all his life.

“What is your name?” the traveler inquired of the old man.

“I am the Keeper,” he said simply, smiling a gentle smile. He sensed the traveler’s next question, and answered before it was spoken, “of what, you’ll discover tomorrow, when I give you what you’ve come for.”

The traveler was confused by the old man’s strange answers, but he was grateful for the food and the place to stay, so he made no further inquiry. 

The evening came and went. The traveler slept deeply, and just before dawn, he had a dream. In his dream, the old man led him deep into the forest, and stopped suddenly. After a moment, the old man pointed to the ground, urging him closer. He obeyed, and saw something on the ground rising up out of the earth. He couldn’t make out what it was, save for the glowing red color. The traveler looked to the old man, who suddenly vanished into thin air before his very eyes. 

He awoke suddenly to the smell of porridge fragrancing the small cabin. The traveler joined the old man for breakfast, and noticed the old man looking at him curiously.

“Well?” the old man inquired.

“Well what?” he replied, a bit confused.

“Do you know now why you’ve come?” the old man urged.

The traveler thought for a moment, “Well, no. Frankly, sir, I have no idea what it is you’re getting on about.”

“What about your dream? Didn’t you see them, there on the forest floor?”

The traveler’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “How did you know about my dream?” he managed to whisper.

The old man laughed. “For now, we eat. Then, I will give you what you’ve come for.”

They finished their meal in silence. A short while later, the old man called to the traveler from the front of the cabin.

“My friend, it is time to go and find them.” 

They walked together into the woods without speaking. The traveler felt trepidation; he still wasn’t sure what all this was about, but something about it felt beyond him, as though an unspoken universal force was at play.

They walked for some time, and then the traveler noticed something familiar. He looked around and realized that he had dreamed of this very place the night before…he was certain of it. And, just as in his dream, he looked to the old man, who simply pointed to the ground. The traveler swallowed his nerves and moved towards the spot where the old man pointed. There, peering out from between the decaying leaves, were bright red mushroom caps freckled with white spots.

He looked up at the old man, as if to ask what to do now.

As if reading his mind, the old man said, “Now, you pick them.”

The traveler did as he was told, and then the two walked back to the cabin in silence. When they returned, the old man took the mushrooms from him, and began rustling around the cabin, clanging pots and pans. The traveler inquired about his actions, but the old man offered only short, vague responses to his questions.

The traveler eventually dozed off, and woke nearly an hour later. The old man was sitting next to him, holding two cups of liquid. He handed one to the traveler.

“The time has come to give you what you’ve come for,” said the old man, who drank his cup of liquid and motioned to the young traveler to do the same. 

The traveler hesitated for a moment, and then found himself obeying, as if a cosmic force were bringing the cup to his lips, and he merely a witness to it. The old man then got up, walked over to the stove where a fire was burning, and then sat down on the floor. He then patted the floor next to him to invite the traveler to join him.

“We must go now,” the old man said.

“Go where?” asked the traveler. Before he could anticipate a response from the old man, the cabin around them fell away and all turned to blackness. The two men sat next to one another, surrounded by an infinite black expanse. The black void vibrated with every sound that has ever been and could ever be, all echoing together to create a silence that was so full it was deafening.

“Where are we?” the traveler asked frantically, soon realizing that he was not speaking with words but only with his thoughts, and even those were drawn out into the silence of the expansive black void and disappeared before they ever manifested.

“We are,” answered the old man without words.

Then, with the blink of his eyes, the traveler found himself completely alone, and he watched as his body began to dissolve into the blackness. He tried to panic but found himself unable to do so. Finally, his mind, and all he had thought he was, leached into the great expanse where it melded and merged with the potentiality and timeless isness of the great void. 

He was nothing. He was the All.  

After an eternal, ageless moment, the traveler’s body reappeared around his all-encompassing awareness, and he saw a bright light. It seemed at first to be beaming towards him from a great distance, but then he realized that it simultaneously glinted out as if from a speck of dust right in front of his eyes, as though it held within it both potentialities, as well as every potential in between.

Then the old man reappeared before him, smiling a wide, sweet smile. The traveler smiled back, surprised by his effortless tranquility. The two men watched as the cosmos, and all that they knew as reality, was birthed forth out of the immortal silence, and then they were whisked away into the stars, where they spent the next few eternities playing within an infinite playground of possibilities.

Hours later, the traveler opened his heavy eyes, as if waking from a deep sleep, and there he laid, back within the comfort of the cabin in the woods, next to the crackling fire. The old man sat silently, smiling, with a flicker of eternity shining behind his knowing eyes.

“Now will you tell me your name?” asked the traveler earnestly as he sat himself upright.

“I am the Keeper,” began the old man, “...the guardian of gnosis, of knowledge. You, my friend, may call me Gnome.”

The traveler simply smiled, for now he understood what it was he had come for.