Postmodern Parables and Fables

There was once an alchemist living with his two sons,

Edward and Eric.

The alchemist was old in days and content in his ways. He had attained to human perfection, in mind body and soul. He had worked centuries, traveling the Globe, (oh, yes, the world is indeed a globe) and and learned all human learning. His elixir of life had extended his life so that he had read all that had ever been written, seen all that there is to see and done all that one could do. He had counted every star and every grain of sand. Once his spent millennia contemplating a particular line in a poem written during a civilization long past in a tongue nobody could physically pronounce anymore.

One day, Ea, as he was named, or as he called himself, thought of giving that most precious gift he could to his two sons, Truth. Now, the truth was hard-won and not easy to come by. Ea had long since understood that if he had only found the Truth earlier in his travels then he would have found true happiness sooner as well.

Now, Edward and Eric were not too bright, the lacked the love of knowledge Ea had. They were boys. Ea tried in vain, several times to engage them in discussion to guide their minds out of the darkness and into the light, in vain. He travelled with them and showed them the stars in their motion, yet this too was futile. In the end Ea decided on a drastic measure.

"Erik, Edward!" he called, "Come here I want to share the most valuable thing I have with you."

Edward and Eric, covered in dust and sweat ran to their father.

"Now, boys, can you tell me which metal that is the most precious in this day and age and place?"

Ea asked.

"Gold!" The boys replied.

"And why is that?" Ea asked, smiling at his sons.

"Because ... it is the only metal whose shining never fades away" Eric answered, bashfull.

"Gold is never destroyed by nature or man, simply transmited and changed, it in itself it remains unchanged."

"Would you agree then, that Gold is a good symbol for all that is good? For God the Father, and for perfection?"

"It most be so." Eric said

"Agreed!" Edward replied.

Ea knew he had his sons attention now.

Together, they built a house where Ea was going to show the boys, not just how to make Gold, which they had all agreed upon as a symbol for The highest, he was also going to show them theTruth.

This was the first time Ea was going to perform a Miracle involving transmuting lead into gold, it was also the first time he had tied up someone's entire being with base material, (lead) so that whatever happened to the material would also happen to his sons.

Together they kindled the flame, found the ore and ground it down, subjected it to the different stages of alchemy and watched it transform. As the lead was going through transformations so too the boys did. Hours they spent, the three of them together, watching the alembic, and the newfound perspective the boys had upon the world. Gradually, the Truth was unveiling itself for them.

Towards the end of the process, during a very critical stage, they ran out of firewood. The boys quickly ran into the nearby village to buy some. Erik went to the Down Street and Edward went to Upper Street. In Upper street, next to the supply store, Edward saw a charlatan, subjecting silver to heat without it tarnishing, dipping it into acid, without it dissolving. The charlatan, after a severe beating told Edward his secret. It was not silver, it was Platinum. A metal recently found that was even more unchangeable then Gold according to a mystical tome called the Periodic Table of the Elements.

When they boys returned, the process was almost done. The final stage required enormous amounts of heat. At the end, they each had a piece of Gold. Eric had himself been transformed and his father and him saw eachother with new eyes.

"Now," Ea thought, "Now they will see it."

Then, Edward looked up, with a half smile, "father, shall we start all over again and turn this worthless gold into Platinum, then?"

Silence then, silence, just the sound of 4 tear drops, almost simultaneously falling.

Oh, Ea and Eric tried to reach Edward, but after every operation, there was a new Metal, a new alloy Erik cavoted.