The man set down his pack on the cracked walkway and loosened the latches binding it together. He opened the top of the pack and pulled out a large wooden hairbrush. He sat down; leaning against a moss-covered building, and proceeded to rake his thick beard furiously with the brush. After a minute of concentrated effort the man put the brush back into the pack and took out a plaid blanket. He spread the blanket smoothly against the jagged sidewalk and began to unload the contents of his pack upon it.
Four plastic water bottles. Eight small spoons. Two sticks with the leaves still attached. Four rusty cans. Three flat, square objects wrapped neatly in rusty red cloth rags.
The man took extreme care in placing each object in the pack carefully onto the blanket, giving each a specific place in relation to the others. After the man had unpacked all of the objects onto the blanket he began to count them. He counted all of the items once and then counted each set five times, leaving the rusty red cloth-covered objects for last. After finishing this process he removed the brush from his pack and continued to pull it through his tangled beard.
* ~~ *
Edward sat in rapt attention on the uneven steps in front of his building as he observed the bearded man’s ritual. The man came every afternoon at three o’clock and would stay for two hours. He repeated his ritual every fifteen minutes, only taking a moment to brush his beard between each sequence. The man first appeared over a month ago and Edward had initially observed him out of a paranoid inquisitiveness, trying to identify the man’s intentions, his origins, or simply how he had come out so far into the city. However, as time passed the man seemed to represent very little threat and Edward became increasingly intrigued by the bizarre ritual. He would sit and watch the man everyday, no longer out of nervous fear, but of mild curiosity.
This particular afternoon Edward had brought an old abacus down with him, curious to see if there was any meaning behind Bernie’s pattern of counting. He pulled out the wooden calculator and began to run through the numbers, marking his progress on the steps with a small piece of chalk.
* ~~ *
After another hour had passed Bernie began to pack up his belongings as Edward continued to scratch out calculations on the stairs. The steps were covered in chalk dust, the result of several hypotheses that ultimately led nowhere.
There seemed to be no pattern or sequence in the counting, and yet Edward felt that there was something there; something that Bernie was trying to communicate. As Bernie folded up the plaid blanket Edward hung his head in frustration. Suddenly a crackled voice echoed across the street.
“You know, but you don’t want to know that you know as knowing is for knowledge and knowledge is what turns the world towards the sun in the darkness of the daytime.”
Edward, startled, looked up and saw that Bernie was now staring at him, his eyes open wide with surprising intensity. He had finished packing and was mumbling in Edward’s direction as he vacantly brushed his beard.
“The totality of knowledge lies within the record of the world near the curve of the lion which crosses the line of the sequence to the tree of God in this time and place.”
In any normal circumstance Edward would have written the man off as an eccentric; however, having devoted so much time to understanding his motivations, he felt obligated to, at the very least, question him. The product of those questions possibly yielding a small scrap of logic in the man’s mutterings.
“Okay, sure. Curve of the lion. Sounds great. Hey, would you mind telling me what you’ve been doing for the past two hours?”
The bearded man’s eyes grew even wider and he quickly opened his pack and shook its’ contents onto the ground. He dropped to his knees and started spreading out the plaid blanket again; making sure it was as smooth against the ground as it could be. He then separated all the items as before, pointed towards the water bottles, and looked up eagerly at Edward.
“The bottle and can are eight and one at once containing the life of the world against the brightness of the purity of God in the line.”
He looked up at Edward with wide eyes and grinned, revealing a ragged smile. His teeth had suffered several losses and the remnants were brown with decay.
“Two branches are the two faces of God which find comfort in the eight silver cradles bound together with the final three. The final three. The final three.”
His voice trailed off as he repeated this last phrase and his wide eyes glazed over as he stared over Edward’s shoulder into nothing.
“The whole set dwells over the collection of God and this is equal to God’s authority over the containers of the purest light of beauty in the brightness of the world.”
Edward sighed and shook his head.
“The brightness of God. That clears it up.”
“But don’t you see it?” shrieked the man, “It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful!”
Edward stood and started to walk up the steps.
“Yeah,” he said, unimpressed, “it’s beautiful. Have a good one.”
The bearded man nodded enthusiastically and packed up his belongings as before. As Edward reached the top of the steps he turned to look out across the abandoned city streets. In the distance Bernie the bearded man could be seen skipping down the street with his pack strapped securely to his shoulder. His crackly voice echoed through the empty space in the forgotten buildings and side-streets as he screamed over and over, “It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful!”
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