17 February 2013
As the door to the great hall opened, Joe noticed the worn seams and groaning wooden struts which seemed to echo around the hall and back on itself like it had done 1000 times before.
Ahead, in the candle lit darkness and velvet covered walkway which felt like cotton wool below his feet - the sound of which ran through Joe with a sharp horrid pain - was Bill dressed in same the ceremonial visage of the order to which Joe was dressed.
Next to Bill was three other order interns that made up the 5 which would be entered into the sacred order this year - Joe being the fifth and it was time to take his place along side the others.
Other than the 5 people in the great hall, and the eerie but tranquil surroundings which sat with the presence and calmness of a Buddhist temple, there were no other persons present, or so it appeared.
As Joe walked along the velvet path towards the others, his mind - half focussed on the unsettling feeling of velvet underneath - turned to the last two years. Two years of aliveness that he had never experienced before. Two years of ever increasing happiness, success and health - all of the things that Joe dreamed of in his younger years but had given up upon as the weight of the world entered his life in his twenties and thirties.
Now 46, Joe felt if he only knew what he knwe now in his younger years, the possibilities would have been endleess! still, Joe knew in his inner soul that they still were and perhaps all that had gone before had been so to bring him to this point.
This final step would secure this future of endless possibilities and happiness. then, as the velvet path scraped and shot through him like nails on a chalk board, Joe felt a sudden jarring which brought him back to the present with a sudden jolt - Joe realised that the last two years had been as uncertain, and he didn't know why or how he had got this 'gift'.
Perhaps he was about to find out with this final stage of the order, perhaps he would enter back into the old Joe with this power of now and stillness, Perhaps he and Bill would be re-united with their loves to share this gift.
The Order Of Stillness. • Opuss № I