It had become hard to notice when night started in the eternally dark forest. Only by the sight of people leaving the streets and the sound of charms dying down, Ja'far knew that the day was getting to an end. An annoying god had given him a mission, but if everyone was going to sleep, there was no one to listen to Ja'far's stories. So instead, Ja'far found himself in the bar again. He could get a small room in the back, as a 'thank you' for wanting to save the town from its current situation. Ja'far had wanted to reject it, but he wasn't been able to. He had no place to stay to in the village and if he wanted to help anyone, he needed his rest.
…
By the time Ja'far woke up again, the town square was already filled with people. It seemed that without a running trade, the only hobby the town could find was to pray to god. Ja'far sighed as he looked at them. Their efforts were useless, that much Ja'far could tell. After all, they were calling the wrong god for help.
He couldn't let them stay there, stuck in an illusion that Solomon would come to help them. That Solomon was still in the temple somewhere and not…
"I met your god yesterday," Ja'far said after he had pushed himself through the crowd and stood before the small altar. He rolled his sleeve down, showing the mark of the god's hand that had been burned into his skin. "he spoke to me and gave me a mission to help you."
"That's a lie!" One woman yelled, "Why would god show himself to a stranger and not to his own people!" Others joined in, "If Solomon was still in these woods, then he can stop this weather!" There was no end in accusations and the cries for Solomon only grew louder.
"Listen to me!" Ja'far almost screamed, raising his voice in an attempt to make the people listen to him, "The god I met was not Solomon. There is a new god in the woods who wishes for the people to call him by his name. If you do, then the thunder will stop and you can have trade again. We only need to know what this god is called."
There was a short moment of silence before the voice came back worse than before. One woman, an elderly lady who Ja'far had seen in charge of the rituals, stepped closer, her eyes almost peering through Ja'far's soul. "The only god this place needs is Solomon. We will not accept a different god even if that means that we will have to live with thunderstorms forever." The people cheered at her statement and Ja'far knew there was no winning from her. He couldn't even remember why he had decided to save this town when it clearly didn't want to be saved from its curse. The old lady had her own authority in the town, but the sudden impact of thunder on the altar showed the true dominance in the town. With the sound ringing in their ears and the black spots forming in their vision from the bright light, the people were once again reminded of their situation. Their god was waiting for their worship and he wouldn't be leaving without it.
…
One hit of thunder hadn't been enough to make his presence clear. Within seconds a downpour hit the town again, making people run back to their homes to find shelter. Ja'far too had gone back to the bar, where sat down with a cold drink as the sound of rain surrounded him.
"I don't even know my I'm trying anymore." Ja'far groaned, looking at the barman.
"Because you are a kind person who wants to help the town and our god." The man replied.
"Trust me, I'm not a kind man. I've done a lot of bad things before I came here."
"But you're still here, trying to help us. You could have left already."
"Can't really leave with weather like this. I doubt your god would let me go before I finish his little mission." He took another sip from his drink, "Do you have an information on Solomon? Or the other gods of this region? Maybe the man I met in the temple is mentioned somewhere."
"I have some" the man stepped from behind the bar, "there's one place where I keep some things." He motioned Ja'far to follow him into a smaller hallway. There the man opened a hatch in the floor.
"I saved some books down there. The others don't know about it, but you should be able to find any information you want down there."
Ja'far laughed softly at the man. "Why do you want to help so much with this?" He asked as he looked down the stairs.
"Let's say I'm trying to make up for things I've done before as well." The man smiled softly before he left to go back to the front of the bar.
Ja'far decided to leave the man's hospitality for what it was. He walked down the stairs, looking for the nearest source of light to find his way around the room. At the bottom of the stairs, he found a box of lighters and a candle holder. As soon as he had a small light going on, he could see the basement clearly. There wasn't a lot in it, two bookcases stood across the wall, along with a small table and a chair. The light of the candles lit up the titles of the books. There were travel reports, indexes of goods and a few children books. One caught Ja'far's attention 'the gods of regions' , what seemed to be an index of the gods of nearby villages.
Sure the book was interesting, giving information about the worship of Solomon in different places. The rituals, the temples, the signs of god's presence. Sometimes a different god would show its face in the book, but the towns were unknown to Ja'far, located in a darker part of the world than the forest he was in now. Still the book didn't tell him why Solomon would be gone or which god had taken his place. None of the gods described were said to make thunderstorm and clouds in their presence.
As he put the book away, a different, smaller book caught his attention. It was a notebook, newer than most books although it had already started to fall apart in certain areas. As he quickly browsed through the pages he noticed dates written above the pages: a diary. Personal writing could hold more information about the situation in the town. Especially when the writing was still so new. He started to read the first page of the book.
Today is the first day I picked up this notebook. It has been laying around on the shelfs for months because I didn't know what I wanted to write in here. But now I have decided to write about this town, about what happens here on a daily base. There isn't much going on here though, we stay away from other regions and spend our days praying and finding resources in the woods. Some people called me crazy for wanting to start a bar here, but I'm sure someone would like a place to get drunk at. Business may not be the best one, but it's fun. We'll see how it goes.
There seemed be a long gap in time between that small piece of writing on the first page and the next section, which dated at least six months later.
I forgot I wanted to start this journal, but here I am again. Nothing interesting happened for a long time. Last week, someone new came into town. A woman came to live here with her son. Apparently her husband died in war and she has been looking a place to settle and start over. The village doesn't seem to like her, but she is a kind woman who wishes to help out whenever she wants. The boy is a sweetheart, only five years old and so full of life. The other kids like to play with him, although their parents are less enthusiastic. The family has done nothing wrong, it must be the feeling of new people that scares them. I will try to help them settle here, I'm probably the only one who is willing to do so.
As Ja'far looked through the writing, he saw the new family being mentioned a few more times. Most of the writing was still about the town itself. There was descriptions of the temple fires, burning bright red every day the author visited. The sacrifices and gifts to the god were written down, along with the festivals and parades through the forest danced across the pages, almost making Ja'far feel worse that the people had to go without such things now. The new family was only mentioned between the lines. Mom and child visited the festivals, the boy got lost in the forest and the woman would often volunteer to clean the temple. Years seemed to fly by in the notes as soon the boy was becoming a teenager. The family appeared more often again by then, but not for reasons Ja'far wanted to see.
She's dying. Everyone could see that she wasn't doing well, but they all wanted to ignore it. I think she wanted to do so as well. She didn't want to make her son worry about her, but it was obvious when she showed up in town less and less. Some mornings I could see her walk into the forest, probably to pray and ask for help. No one came to help her though. Now I don't see her anymore. Her son still walks around town. He prays to Solomon more than anyone in this town by now, other days he'll be walking around the forest to find herbs for his mother. It means she's still alive, but the town doesn't have enough medicine to help them. I spoke to the doctor a few days ago to see if he knew what was going on with her. He only visited her once, months ago. After the nine years those two have been living here, there is still a stigma placed on them. They don't belong here and thus it is their own problem that god has abandoned them. It's sad. If anything, they have tried their best to belong here and they should have been accepted. Maybe I should try visiting her before her time is over.
…
She passed away this week. I decided to visit her but there wasn't anything I could do. Her son was only sitting there, helping her any time she got a coughing fit and trying to feed her when he could. None of it seemed to help. She didn't look like the woman I had seen walking around the temple anymore. Her face was fallen in, that vibrant brown hair lost its shine. I don't think she knew I was there at that moment. I couldn't stay very long, the pressure in the room was making me sick. I wish I could have done more for her. Her son came by to ask for a favor yesterday. He wanted to help with a funeral. He feared that if the town knows of his mother's death, they will only mutilate her body more to show what happens to those that don't belong here. The people will probably find out about her death soon enough, but before that, we want to make sure she gets an end she deserves. Her reputation as 'abandoned by god' won't be defining her forever. The boy had the request to burn her in the temple, making sure that she was one with the god we were sure was still at her side. It was a stupid idea but we still did it. The flames were gone when we lay her body down on the altar, but they engulfed her at ease moments later. We spread her ash around the temple. By the time people realize she's gone, they can do nothing to her.
…
The boy is lonely without his mother. I tried to help him out by offering him to stay at my place. But even if he accepted that, he seems worried. Part of that worry must come from his mother's fate. Not just her loss, but the fact that there was no way to save her. He always keeps talking about what we could do if we started a trade with other villages or regions. Surely the forest has great resources that only its inhabitants can find, but will trade really do us any good? The town thinks it's only bad and unnatural. I think there's a future in it that others don't want to see. I think he can try and help the closed minds of the people here. He will have my support for it, no matter where it brings him.
The writing about the child stopped there. The boy seemed to have left town in order to start a trade with nearby villages. He only returned in the notes as thoughts wandered off to what he could be doing. One year went by and another one. The writing became less in that time, as if the only thing that had motived the man to write had been the boy. There was a gap of at least a year by the time a new part had been written down.
He came back. Perhaps people had started to forget he existed, but he came back. The boy I had told to set out to travel with a dream for establishing trade came back successfully. This time, he wasn't alone. He came with a group of people of an origin I hadn't seen before. They were his friends, he told me. People he had met on his journey who had come with him to help out. Most of them were around his age and of different backgrounds. Some claimed to be the sons of village chiefs, others were poor and hoped to find a better life.
He stepped by at the bar and introduced his new friends to me. A boy from the mountains was outgoing and friendly. A giant man was there was well, coming from a northern country. Two children from the south, both very different and two men who had no place they belonged to. He had gone so far in those years. He showed me the items he had gotten from those towns, the things we could gain with the trade of our own resources. Iron, medical herbs, fish, fur, knives… all of it for our wood and plants. It sounded like a good plan. Too bad the idea couldn't be accepted.
We got the trade, the town grew famous with travelers coming in and out of the forest. But none of the villagers started a business. Only that group of friends that wanted to change this place was helping out. We became rich, the bar got more customers as well. The only thing the villagers did with the new wealth was to restore bits of the temple, make a shrine in town and pray more. They never prayed so much before. They acted as if trade was the worst thing that could have happened to the place, in reality it only helped us. We could get medicine when we needed it, the herbs from the south being stronger than the ones we owned.
The plan was meant to fail. He would have never gotten the support he had wished for. After all… he had been abandoned by god the moment he entered the village and his mother had fallen ill. What a stupid lie that had been. He was a good kid, even now as a young adult, he was better than any of the people that would live in the town. I pitied him for all his efforts that were thrown away like this. He came back to me one evening. He wanted a good drink to forget everything that was happening. He was clearly being sabotaged by the town, his friends got yelled at wherever they went. It hurts, you know? To see the child you watched growing up fall like that. I should have told him this town couldn't be saved anymore, that everyone was too stubborn to accept something new. All the town needed, all it wanted, was the support of Solomon to continue daily life. They had been able to break his spirit even if his friends still tried to see the best in everything. He told me that night that he would go to Solomon to ask for help. The people listened to their god so god could guide hem to a path that would secure their future. He left that same night to go to the temple. It was the last thing I heard of him. When I went to his business that next day, his friends hadn't seen him return. They had lost the hope for trade as well, saying their villages would find the same resources in a different village that would gladly trade with them. Without one man to unite them, they eventually left. I visited the temple later in the hope to find him again, but he was gone. He only left a note, the rest of him was never seen again.
In the end it didn't matter. Our land is cursed anyways. We have angered Solomon enough with our own, selfish actions. Every day I can see dark clouds coming closer to the this forest and praying doesn't seem to work anymore. We could have had help for this so perhaps we really deserve this.
The next page was blank and so were the pages after that. Ja'far sighed as he lowered the notebook in his hands. So the town wasn't just cursed with thunderstorms. If anything, the people themselves were the curse. To have them praise the name of a different god, of a change, it seemed impossible. As Ja'far wanted to put the notebook back and leave the basement again a small piece of paper fell out of the notebook. Ja'far was sure it hadn't been there before when he was reading, but the wrinkled note made him curious. Picking the paper up from the ground, his eyes widened and he ran out of the basement, back to the temple, notebook under his arm, note clenched in his palm.