A light shone and time stopped. A warm silence filled the air and all cries of torment ceased.
The Darkness was defeated by the Light and the spirits fled in despair.
And Diogenes kept falling.
He felt water on his face and all around his body, cold, refreshing water.
He rose up and looked around himself to find that he stood at the edge of a small lake
surrounded by a forest of trees. Where then was that Light? He could still feel its presence
in the air.
Then he was compelled to look into the water.
There he saw an old man, with a long grey beard staring back at him. He was dressed in
rusted armour and an old sword hung at his side. His face covered in wrinkles was many
years old and he had the time of ages in his eyes. Diogenes wondered where this man had
come from. Was he a water spirit, or a nymph come to tell him in what strange place he now
was? Diogenes reached down into the water and broke the surface. The image was gone.
Gradually the water settled again after lapping against the bank, and there the old man
appeared again. Diogenes thought he saw something familiar in the eyes, or perhaps the
overall structure of the face. Some chord resounded in his memory, as if music that he had
once loved but had now forgotten had suddenly come again to his mind.
And then he knew.
The aged man was himself.
He looked down at his hand. They carried the wrinkles of a man of many years. He looked
at his garments to find them only in rags. How much time had passed in what had seemed
only instants?
Suddenly he felt old. He lay down on the bank of the lake and closed his eyes. He thought
on his life and what he had done. And he knew that he had merited the worst torments
of the Underworld and more. He shuddered at the thought. And then there came a face
to his mind. The young man who had offered him his life by his sword. The face gazed at
him lovingly and Diogenes felt comforted. He now wished he could have known this man,
knowing that he would have been as a brother to him. Only in the presence of him had
Diogenes known truth, and he now wanted to know more. He wished to be once again in the
presence of this young man who had seemed to contain the world in his eyes.
Then a veil seemed to fall on Diogenes and a voice spoke from the lake.
“Were it not for me you would have perished in the flames for eternity. But now come to
be with me and know peace for the Sword of Anguish has pierced your heart and you have
known repentance. Come and know life, forget death and listen to the beauty of the Silence
of Ages.”
Diogenes closed his eyes and his spirit wandered free. He gazed down at his old body and
felt the years fall away from his soul, and he felt ageless. And lo! There stood the young
man in a garment of white, no longer a soldier but a King with a golden diadem adorning
his head. He held out his arms in welcome as he stood by the lake, gesturing to Diogenes
to follow him as he walked into the lake and under the surface.
Without hesitation, Diogenes followed and walked into the lake, yet he remained dry. And
the water was in and out and all around him, he drank of it deeply and it filled him with life.
This is where he wished to remain. For eternity.
6
Children of the Rosary