The Scroll

They do not want me to write about it. In fact my life is in danger from doing so. But I must. It is likely the last thing I will ever do, but you need to know. They are lying to you. 

They are lying to us all.

There is a scroll more ancient than any other. No one has ever read it, although many have tried. It has been found in the burnt out ruins of the great library in Alexandria, its parchment untouched by the flames that took the rest. It has been found in the deepest chamber of the greatest pyramid in Giza, a chamber sealed off from the rest. It has been found in the seventh cave in Qumran, amid a cluster of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this scroll was different from the rest.

The parchment is made of something undefinable. In the hands of some it weighs as much as a bull, in the hands of others it has no weight at all. To some the surface is as rough as thorns, to others as silky as dewy moss on a spring morning. To some it is an ashen black, to others a white so pure that it has no equal in the natural world.

It is sealed by a small circle of something that appears to be wax. But it is not wax. It is impossibly hard, and glistens under the light of the moon with speckles of light so bright, that the human eye cannot gaze upon them. Stamped in the centre of the seal is a roughly etched symbol. The symbol has never chipped, changed or aged. Countless scholars have argued over what the symbol resembles. Some say the sun, or the moon, or Mars. Others; an eye, a mouth, a heart. But for my money I always thought it looked most like an apple. Not a freshly picked, sumptuous apple, but a foul, decaying, rotten apple. And I was right.

For centuries the scroll remained unread. Heroes, kings, and scientists alike could not pry the scroll apart. Many tried and many died. Not directly, but swiftly after their attempts, madness and illness would descend upon them, and soon enough if disease did not take their life, then they would surely take their own.

When technology allowed, some brave soul attempted to carbon-date it. A futile exercise as, to the bewilderment of minds far sharper than my own, it seems the scroll was not made of carbon at all. If this was the case then it would mean that the scroll is not of this world, and is impossibly ancient. Older than creation itself. Perhaps even older than the being you call God.

So for reasons obvious to even the dullest mind, a decision was made to bury it away in the deepest vaults of the Vatican Archive, and there it was left undisturbed, a mystery historians daren’t study, and theologians daren’t consider. A half forgotten secret that they hoped would be buried under the weight of time.

Until the day that I found it. The day that I opened it. The day that I saw what was hidden inside.

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The Valley

It would be foolish of me to divulge my name here. But I will try and tell you a little about myself for purposes of context. I am no one really. Well, that is not true, I am someone to those who know me. I am loved and I love in my small corner of the world. But in the grand scheme, the great quake of history I am indeed no one. I was a Cameleer. I along with my faithful camels, Musafir and Murtah, would drive goods or people across a nameless desert: an honest living. I would spend months away from my family but did it for them and others in my community. We were fed, we were watered, we were content. I could not read nor write and had no reason to learn, but I was not an unintelligent man. The travellers I would escort came from every walk of life you could imagine. Around lonely fires in the chill of the desert night I heard countless stories. I have heard stories of brave knights and cowardly Kings, stories of sea voyages, of lands discovered, and civilisations lost. Stories of failing crops, and bountiful harvests. I’ve heard stories of godly men and false Prophets, of love found and hearts broken. All the world has crossed my corner of the desert without a name, and it was Musafir, Murtah and I that led them. I tell you this not to boast but so it might help you understand why it was I who was chosen. You see, I transport people. I transport things. I transport stories. I am in my very nature a vessel.

You are probably wondering at this point how a meagre man such as myself found himself in the Vatican Archives. I have never set foot in Europe let alone the once holy city. This is not where I stumbled across the scroll. I found it in the desert.

I was six sunrises into a journey across the desert with no name. I was escorting an old man. He too travelled without a name. His face would have been pale if not for the relentless sun reddening the deep crags in his cheeks and around the corners of his eyes. This journey was an unusual journey. Every journey is marked with a beginning and an end. A journey must have a destination. But for the first time the man seemed to have no destination. Or at least none he would speak of. I said to him, even as he paid me double my rate, that I must know the destination to calculate the length and what supplies we might need, but he just smiled calmly and told me to take what we could bear. The coin he had given me was enough to make me not ask any more questions and I simply accepted the peculiar nature of the man and the job. There was something in his eyes, or perhaps it was just that smile. He seemed to possess so much purpose, such a force of intention, that I trusted him — and of course he had paid me double in full rather than saving half for when the journey with no destination was complete, which for a man such as myself was an offer impossible to turn down. It took me half a day to prepare the supplies and load and feed Musafir and Murtah. During that time the man remained where I met him, sat silently in the marketplace staring at some unseen horizon, that smile always resting faintly on his lips. I returned to him holding Musafir and Murtah’s reins and asked him if he was ready. Without a word he stood, took Murtah’s reins and we set out on the journey without a destination. In fact, from the moment I accepted this strange man’s strange offer we did not speak again. I would occasionally speak to him but got nothing in return other than that smile.

It did not take me long to establish that this was a holy man. On the hottest hour of the first day I was hiding from the sun under my cloak —which had seen better days — draped over four sticks. After a brief but necessary slumber I braved the scorching sand outside of my square of shade to relieve myself. I climbed the slope of the nearest dune but as I approached the brow I heard a low voice carried by the wind. I slowed not wanting to pry but the words reached my ears nonetheless. It was a prayer. A prayer in a language that I felt I had heard before but could not understand or place. I returned to the makeshift camp and, using poor old Musafir to block the wind, I performed my business. I returned to my shade and made myself comfy but after several minutes the man returned. He smiled that smile and without a word, took the reins of Murtah, who lowered herself loyally to the ground to allow him to mount. I hastily packed up camp and the four of us set off again.

From then on we got into the rhythm of the desert. Every day at the hottest hour the man would take himself off, out of sight, over one dune or another, to say his prayers. Musafir and I quickly got used to this strange man, braving the sun even as it continued to ravish his skin. Murtah on the other hand did not. Every time he left she would shift anxiously, stomping her hoof into the sand. She would not settle until he returned, by which time, it was time to continue. I was worried for them both. They needed their rest as much as Musafir and I.

My job that usually involved using the stars and shadows to guide us across the desert with no name had been reduced to setting up and taking down camp and cooking. I am not complaining as the coin I received was more than enough to compensate the faint feeling of inadequacy I was starting to suffer. I’m not entirely sure the man knew exactly where we were going, in fact the longer we travelled the more I felt like Murtah was the one leading the way. Musafir and I simply followed on in their wake. I was vaguely conscious that our supplies would not last much longer, as we would need enough to return if we did not soon reach where, or whatever it was that the strange man was looking for.

It was about an hour before the sun climbed to its highest point on the sixth day that we finally found it. If you can call what happened ‘finding it’. Murtah grunted and, whipping back his long neck, set off at a gallop. The old man did not look back as the two of them disappeared over the lip of a dune. Poor old Musafir wasn’t capable of those speeds even when he was in his prime. I half heartedly tugged on his reins to encourage him onwards but, he glanced back at me and let out a disgruntled snort, and carried on with his usual, casual, but somewhat elegant, lope. I sighed but it was no matter. The hoof prints were firmly imprinted in the sand and we would catch them soon enough.

As we reached the top of the nearest dune they were nowhere to be seen, but the tracks led off in a nearly perfectly straight line. I slowed Musafir and peered into the haze. Over the top of a distant dune two worn stone peaks leered back at us. I knew the desert with no name as well as I knew the cracks in Musafir’s hooves but these peaks were utterly alien to me. I thought for a moment they must be a mirage, but that was where Murtah had taken the man, so mirage or not that is where we were heading. I gave Musafir a gentle kick with my heel and we set off in not so hot pursuit.

We went up dunes, down dunes and around dunes, and slowly but surely the peaks grew in size. On the brow of the final dune we stopped. Musafir and I stared in awe. There they were. Two, well, I don’t know if you would call them mountains, but two huge stone hills stood side by side and down the centre of them stretched a valley. The sun had no place there and the shadows were thicker than any I had seen in any desert. The hoof prints led straight down the middle of them. I kicked Musafir again but he only moaned, a deep guttural moan, and would not take another step. I kicked him harder and this time he stepped forward, slowly, as if he knew he was stepping into a lake of quicksand. I kicked him one more time and with a low groan he set off again.

As we passed into the shadow of the valley an unnatural chill rippled through my body. I suddenly felt colder than I had on even the coldest desert night. The sun was at this point directly over head and the valley should have been bathed in its scorching light, but it was not. Musafir clearly felt it too as he stopped again, but this time, try as I might, I could not make him take another step. After a short while I gave up and clambered to the ground. He turned quickly in an attempt to leave the valley but I held his reins tightly. I calmed him with a hand on his frothing nose and then gently tugged him forward. Murtah’s tracks kept going, vanishing up ahead into the shroud of shadow. Step by wary step Musafir and I followed on.

The valley snaked between the towering cliffs flanking us. After a long while — it was impossible to say how long with the absence of the sun — we rounded a sharp bend. There he was stood completely still in the centre of the path. Murtah was alone. The old man was nowhere to be seen. We approached as fast as Musafir would allow. Murtah turned as he heard us approach. His flanks were drenched in sweat. His eyes were wide. I have never seen a camel look frightened before but his fear was unmistakable. I reached out to him and took his reins, he shifted his weight toward me. As he did so a mound came into view behind him. I peered into the darkness. The mound was the old man, he was not moving. He was on his knees, as if he had been at prayer. I bent and saw his eyes, as wide as Murtah’s, but his were unseeing. He was dead. A line of blood was the only thing that moved as it dripped from the corners of his glazed eyes.

I bowed my head and sank to my knees beside him, to offer him a prayer, but as I did so Murtah let out a deep bellow and, using his head, knocked me to the side. I looked up at him. His eyes were locked on to mine. I got back to my knees and opened my mouth to recite my prayer, but again, Murtah knocked me to the ground. I reached out a hand and pushed myself upright, and then gently I lowered the man from his knees, to find him a more peaceful position to rest. A sudden, strange rustle of parchment came from the man, the sound echoed up and down the valley, a cacophony of sound that made my skin crawl. Clutched in the man’s rigid fingers was a scroll — a brilliantly white scroll — it almost seemed to glow. With some difficulty I peeled it from the old man’s grip and examined it. My fingers found what felt like a wax seal. I lifted it to my eyes. It was hard to make out the shape etched into but I thought it might resemble an apple; not a freshly picked, sumptuous apple, but a foul, decaying, rotten apple. Murtah and Musafir both took a step back away from the scroll. As they did so their hooves crunched against the ground. I looked down and saw a pile of bones, complete with two skulls looking back at me. Suddenly, I could not move, I was frozen by an unknown terror, hitting me like a physical force, a greater force than anything I had ever known, but my hands, no longer my own to control, did not tremble at all as I saw them slowly break the wax seal, and finger by finger, gradually open the scroll.

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The Tree

I suppose you are no doubt curious as to what the scroll contained and as to why it was I who could open it. As for the latter. I am sorry to say, dear reader, that this I do not know. I have thought about it over the centuries since and my only theory is that I was a man without sin. All men must sin you might say, but I did not, or at least as far as I knew. My thoughts were pure, my life simple, I loved my family and they loved me. You might ask why it is that the old man died on the valley floor that day. This too I cannot be sure of, but I believe saying a prayer, or perhaps saying the wrong prayer, around such an object as that scroll is like taunting a saw-scaled viper while it feeds. Perhaps the same fate awaited me if it were not for Murtah.

As to what the scroll contained, this I can tell you. Despite its age, the scroll’s ink, as black as a demon’s soul, had not faded. It still looked wet to the touch, although, as I ran my finger over the markings, I could not feel anything at all. Not the slightest bump or imperfection. It was as if no hand, or quill, or pen had ever touched the surface, as if the ink was part of the scroll, imbued in its very fabric. The ink depicted a crude yet exquisite map. There too were what looked like words etched around the map, but they were not in a language I had ever laid eyes on at the time, and to gaze upon the words filled my stomach with burning nausea. I have of course since encountered that tongue many times. It is a language I now speak as though it is the tongue of my mother. As for the map itself; it showed a desert — a desert that I once believed had no name — and in that desert two stone hills with a valley that snaked between them. In the centre of this valley there was a marking. The lines of black ink flowed downwards, entwining into the black mass of a trunk and spreading outwards to show the black roots of a tree. The roots of the tree.

I will not write the name of the desert here in that other language, as I do not wish for you to gaze upon the serpent’s tongue, but I will refer to it by a name you can recognise, perhaps even comprehend: 

It was the Desert of Eden.

Adam and Eve, were not the first of us, but they were the first to set foot in this place.They too found the scroll. They too followed the map. They too lay dead on that valley floor. Their skulls stared up at me that day and all I could do was stare back. Murtah jolted me from my reverie as he stepped forward. Musafir hesitated then followed. I took their reins and they led me, not back out of the valley, but forward. My faithful camels and I walked deeper into the valley than any living being has ever walked. 

I knew where we were going — I had the map.

After seconds or hours — perhaps even years — the tree came into view. To my surprise it was indeed just a tree. An apple tree, unremarkable at first glance, but its fruit and bark were blackened, as if ash had rained down upon it for all eternity. We approached with care. Murtah was the first to reach it, but he paused, and let out a moan, he took half a step backwards and shook his head from side to side. Musafir stepped forward, briefly rested his neck against his old friend, calming him, and then slowly, purposefully, raised his head to the low hanging bough of the tree. He carefully took one of the black rotten apples in his mouth and plucked it from its branch. He closed his eyes and then turned to me, placing it softly in my hand, which, to my surprise, was already reaching out to take it. My hand lifted the apple to my lips. I stared at the blackened skin, and after taking one last rattling breath, I sank my teeth into the corrupted flesh, and took a bite of the rotten apple.

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The Genesis

You have been told that Eden is the paradise from whence you came. But this is not true. We never came from here. Eden was for all intents and purposes a prison. An area built by the being you know as God to keep the tree hidden. You may have been told that the tree of knowledge is not a bad thing. That the being you know as God created the tree as to tempt us away from righteousness. That sin comes not from the fruit but the eating of the fruit. You have been lied to. The fruit itself and the tree that bore it contained more than just knowledge. It contained the sin itself. In the serpent’s tongue it’s known by a different name. It is hard to translate into the languages of man, but if I was to try it would be something like — apple rot.

The roots of that tree in that valley spread deep — deeper than the roots of mountains, deeper than the great plates of the world, deeper even than time. The roots spread out across the whole of Earth, further, out into the stars themselves. They are woven into every leaf, and every tree, every worm, every bird. They flow into every atom that makes up every living being. We, and every thread in the tapestry of life, are made of sin, pumped relentlessly into us all by the roots of the tree. The apples that grow there are rotten to the core. The tree was not planted by the being you know as God. The universe around it, every particle was built to contain it. To imprison it. To stop the festering juices of apple rot from saturating the other realms. The realms beyond our small universe. We are the barbed fence that hold the rot in place — flowing through us, so as not to flow any further — so as to keep the realms of God pure. We must suffer, not for our sins, but as the bearers of all sin. The mortal guardians of an immortal evil.

I have travelled through the desert of time to tell you this. What you do with this knowledge is up to you. If we mortal men were to perish then the apple rot would seep into the corners of existence that you may not even be aware exist. But I ask you, why should beings as lowly as us endure this suffering? To protect the purity of a distant being that has no love for us? That created us merely to protect themselves from the suffering they themselves created.

The great enlightened thinkers of mankind spout ideas of the self, ideas of freedom, yet our very existence is not free. I write this to implore you to find those roots and sever them. The tree itself cannot be felled but I believe it is possible for us through collective force of will — of free will — to unharness ourselves from the rot. To allow the sin to flow out of our universe and into the realm of the being that you know as God. To imprison them with the same suffering that has been inflicted on us from the time of creation, and set ourselves on a new course — a course where we, the living, are truly free.

I hope this finds the right person — a person who is willing to at least try. Of course, this will take you, the reader, every ounce of strength you possess — to find an inner goodness that is stronger than the rot itself. To find that goodness in every living thing you encounter from this day hence. A collective goodness so powerful that the apple rot is forced back into the realm that it first grew. All I ask is that you try. Try and find that goodness in yourself — try to find that goodness in others. 

Look as far and wide as you can, gather every drop of it.

I have not got much time. I can hear them at the door. I left the map buried in the place that you hold most dear. Find it and follow it with every drop of goodness you can gather and hold, and when you reach the valley, when you reach the foot of the tree, water its roots with all the goodness you hold. I die with the faith that if enough of us find the tree, if enough of us pour our goodness onto its roots, we can make it grow sumptuous apples, ready to be picked, and send the rot back whence it came — back to those who created it…

One last thing… if you do find the scroll, if you can open it and read the map, if you enter the valley and find the tree, whatever you do… remember not to pray.

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