An Accident of Nature

In the rush of the tele-transportation Tu had slipped off his chair into the lap of a finely attired lady, and onto a soft bed of floor cushions and striped woollen mats. All fourteen of the table setting had travelled back, including Goober, whose bony face was stretched wide with a beaming smile.

“You’re going to spasm if you keep grinning like that” Tu said, trying to get Goober to see how serious this situation was. Goober was savouring the moment. The twelve perplexed guests were literally stunned into silence and he couldn’t have been more pleased with himself, or the outcome.

“Well I guess that is one way to win an argument”, Tu conceded.

“It could be termed the full ‘out of body’ experience my boy,” Goober laughed.

The party around them started straightening themselves on their mats and a few stood up looking for the exit. Curiously their silence persisted.

“Waiter!” a short woman in a garish moo-moo called to Parish, a secular brother. He ignored her, not recognising the reference. “Rude” she huffed, “where is the exit out of here?”

All twelve had followed each other through the door and to the gates of the monastery - none appeared to have realized they were actually in a totally different time, not place.

“Shouldn’t we go after them?” Tu asked Goober, who was still finding the humour of it happening.

“Nup” said the senior Elf shaking his head.

“But what about the space-time-continuum thingo - you know, doesn’t it change the world terribly to have people misplaced like this? Won’t events unravel dangerously if we don’t put them back into their own time again? You know, if a butterfly coughs the Amazon shudders?”

“Life always allows latitude. We could not breathe without it. The Space-time-continuum is much more flexible than people think - and besides, it weren’t us that brought them here in the first place. Call it an accident of nature.” He laughed again - not an evil laugh, just a modest chuckle.

Tu felt awake with this pondering. He had somehow been given to believe that the universe he travelled was inflexible: a tangle of Karma and progressive evolution. That one law rested upon another, and it would be too fragile to change.

Goober’s smile softened, and he looked appreciatively at this companion.

“Every atom moves with purpose, and every particle, amongst a confetti of stars, is of living light. The rarefied airs a soul breathes is of kindness, and the substance of Goodness, is itself, Life. Everything else is detail around this: the higher law of Being. Time, Space and its continuum is more - much more - than people think.”

Tu glimpsed the Master in Goober as he said this. He saw clearly that this tall weather-worn melancholic Elf was all that he himself wanted to become …

Fragmented memories hurled their way before his inner eye again, insisting they be acknowledged.

“This nonsense of a tall rabbit, of white fur and blood keeps repeating,” he said closing his eyes tightly, annoyed at himself for losing the sense of peace that had come to him just a minute or so ago.

“It's OK my boy”, Goober said, pushing a bowl of grains towards him, reading his thoughts. “I have a deep apology to make to you … kind-of why I have stuck this close to you. I should have been watching you on that day you were struck down, I should have looked out for you this time too. I am so very sorry.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series