I Saw Love Conquer Hate

This short story is one of many in a series of short stories I published as Requiem For A Dying Earth, By Donald Bambrick, through Amazon.

Annak

He would become a legend! Gentle and loving, born out of a nightmare, an unknown child.

As a defenceless, near naked child, he was found in the arms of a headless aid worker. The refugee camp he was in was part of one of many compassionate international efforts to ease the suffering of wars in the Middle East.

A resupply column was shocked to find the post destroyed with countless bodies strewn about. It looked like intensive shelling had killed everyone.

The baby was found, still in the arms of the aid worker. It looked like she had picked the child up and had been running with him when she was thrown by a nearby explosion. She was only identified as an aid worker by scraps of clothing still on her maimed body. But the boy, an infant of months old, survived.

Of course, in the confusion, all sides blamed all other sides for the killing. Various factions of insurgents blamed the European nations, and the government they were trying to overthrow.

The Europeans blamed the insurgents, and the government they also wanted overthrown. His picture was published in many forms of media. Everyone clamoured for peace, but on their own terms.

The insurgents wanted the government to resign. The Europeans wanted the government to resign. And the government blamed everyone else for arming the insurgents to destabilise it so they could get at the mineral wealth that did not have international companies controlling it.

In short, in spite of all the words of sorrow, war raged on. The boy simply became yet another war orphan. At least, for a time.

The boy was removed to another, more secure camp. At this camp, an old woman whom some thought mad, had been saying a child was coming. He would be of no name, or family, but would speak all languages and another language yet unknown, forgotten by man.

He would become someone who would scare the world.

Naturally, no one listened.

When the child arrived, this old woman came. No one had told her he had come. She was waiting at the gates. She spoke to any who would listen. Strident and shrill. “The boy comes! The great ones say he comes!” over and over.

It was another hour before the trucks were heard. Someone remembered her when the boy was carried in, and her ramblings remembered.

An aid worker asked her story. She replied, weeping. “The great mother speaks to me. The boy was foretold to me. A child who will never know who his family, tribe or religion was. He will learn all languages, and the great ones will speak to him, and through him. He will bring a message that will shake the world. He will be called ‘Annak’. The child!”

The aid worker remembered enough of it to write it down in her diary. She thought it odd. As the boy child was examined, again the old woman came.

“Please, May I bathe him?” she asked. He was grubby, and apart from superficial wounds, he seemed miraculously unharmed. They marvelled that it was so, for the people in the convoy had told of finding him crying, in the arms of a woman who had been killed by an explosion. So close to the blast that her head was missing and her clothes blown from her body.

The aid worker remembered the story, and helped the old woman to the primitive facilities that were available. The old one washed his frail body, and spoke in a language the aid worker did not know, with her hand on his head as if blessing the child. The aid worker knew a few words of local dialects, but did not recognise any from this quiet spoken woman.

“What is it you say?” she asked. “I am telling him, in the language of the mother creator, that his name is ‘Annak’, and that he must be patient.” The old one said. “He must learn all the languages he hears. He must listen to the ancient language forgotten by man that he will hear all around him. And that he must, one day, speak the great truths that will frighten the powerful of this world.” The old one’s eyes were burning. Burning with a joyous passion. “The great mother told me that one day, I would tell him this. I am so very happy.”

The aid worker remembered to write this down as well. She had planned to possibly write of her experiences in this horrible part of the world. This place where death and misery stalked every living being. In a way, she had become inured to it all. The constant battle to save lives, feed people and stay sane in an insane world.

The old woman died that night. Again, just another displaced person, in an ocean of displaced people, except that as she lay herself down to sleep, she had told others goodbye. Also, that she had lived to pass on the message to ‘Annak’, the child who was foretold to her. When it came time to report and remove the body, they told what she had said, and the aid worker heard of it. This too, she wrote down.

He became known as Annak. The child of no tribe, and all tribes, the orphan of war. He was photographed, of course, for propaganda, to try and raise funds internationally. He and others. War orphans. He was also a stand-alone case, because of the unusual story of his survival. It was another of those 30 second news spots that go around. A boy found in the arms of a woman who had been blown to pieces. He was famous for a day. Until the next 30 second news grab, yet another disaster.

The aid worker did her stint in the camp and went home. But something called to her. Something she did not understand. She volunteered again, and returned. Annak was nearly a year old, by general estimations, and starting to walk. There were quite a few nationalities working in the refugee camps, and the aid worker spoke her own French, some German, fluent English, and was picking up on some of the local dialects.

Annak was just a boy among many other scantily clad children, but one look at his eyes told you something was very different about him. He seemed to be watching. Not just looking about. Many others had the ‘closed eyes’ of those in shock. Annak seemed to be studying what he saw. And he often seemed to give comfort to those who cried. Holding them, stroking them, as if giving the emotions of someone who cared.

As he grew up, in that hubbub of dialects, Annak seemed to learn them all. Even, to the surprise of the international aid workers, the languages they also spoke. Broken, at first, just words. But as time wore on, Annak was more and more fluent.

Chantelle Briand, the aid worker who had made plans to write a story, began to write about him more and more often. She began to feel a strong attachment to him. What startled her was him beginning to talk. Haltingly, at first, but also, words from many tongues. Her French, some Spanish, English of course, the common language of the international workers, but also, words of the different tribes.

He seemed to understand who would understand which language he chose. The old woman’s words came back to her. ‘A boy who would never know who his family or tribe was, and who would speak all languages. And the great ones would speak to and through him.’

Someone also told her one day, that Annak, or something similar in the Indonesian archipelago also meant child. The volcano Krakatoa had exploded about a century ago, but a new small island had begun to grow in that spot. It was called Annak Krakatoa, the child of Krakatoa.

And then Annak began to speak of the great parents. The mother and father of creation. He was 3 years old, and began to speak in terms far beyond the capacity that a three-year-old should have had. He worried many. The things he spoke of would be considered heresy by many, and in those troubled places, many believed he would be sought out by extremists and murdered.

About 6 months after he started talking, a man, actually, a boy of about 15 years, came to the camp. He claimed to be running from the fighting, and apparently carried nothing but the clothes on his back. Like so many others. Entering the camp, he wandered about. He was heard to ask about the boy who spoke the lies, the heresies. He found Annak one day. And produced a handgun.

He yelled at Annak. “Die liar, blasphemer, and teller of the devil’s tales.” People screamed and ran away in panic. All but Annak. Annak stood and faced this young man. “My mother spoke to me of you. I have been waiting for you.” For a boy of about 4, he was amazing. Calm. Upright. Relaxed. Totally unafraid.

“What mother, Liar? You have none.” The boy with the gun called out. “I have the earth mother, and my father, the earth father. They watch over me, for what will come.” Annak replied.

“I have come to kill you for these demon tales.” Cried out the armed boy. “Will you witness my parents?” asked Annak. “Behold, they smile on you also.” And he pointed skywards. Annak looked skywards, and pure bliss crossed his face. The armed boy looked.

The clouds were changing, roiling, and taking shape. The face of a beautiful woman, and a forceful man appeared, in the clouds. Both smiled.

And from somewhere, white doves fluttered over the camp and settled on Annaks’ shoulders.

He looked at the older boy. “Men of war and hate took my identity from me.” Annak said. “I do not know my tribe, my family name, or my religion. I study them all.” He looked about. People were staring. He raised his voice, so all could hear. “When I was brought here, after being found in the arms of a headless dead woman, an old woman washed me. She held my head and told me that the great mother and father had told her I was coming. She blessed me as she bathed me, and told me I would tell the world a great truth that would frighten the powerful. She died after that blessing. From that day, I began to hear the great earth mother and father. In the wind, in the rains that come sometimes, and in the mumble of the masses assembled here.” He pointed skywards, at the great faces that looked down. “Who did not see?”

The boy with the gun was shaking. “What devilry is this?” he demanded, but the gun was pointing at the ground now. He was no longer the focussed boy bent on murder.

“In all the unconscious memories of all the tribes known, even those who come here from afar, there is an earth mother being. Men, being men, chose only to write about the male, the father, known by different names according to religion. That is the lie that is being cast down. Men created religion to control those underneath them. Power. And it is the thirst for that control and power that brainwashes you against the love that the great parents, like all good parents have, for their children.”

He looked about. He was a small boy in the midst of a circle of scared and stunned people, totally unafraid of the bigger boy with a gun come to kill him. He looked back at the older boy. “This is the frightening truth. Love is powerful. People who love grow. Hate is the evil in this world. Evil begets evil, and hate eats the person who preaches it.”

And then he says, quite simply. “I have sent the message. My parents have seen me do so. You may kill me now. It will spread the message, like a desert storm, to all the world. I will be remembered as the boy of the message. My killer will never be thought of.”

The older boy looked horrified. He looked at the faces in the sky, and began to cry. The gun dropped from his hand, and he kneeled as if in prayer. “Forgive me. I want no more part of this madness. I have no parents also, anymore.”

All around, people began to kneel. And so it was, when Chantelle made her way to the centre of the disturbance. She also had heard his speech. It seemed to carry to the entire camp. It would stick in her memory for life. She saw the hand gun and took it. Unsure as to what to do, she pointed it uncertainly at the older boy.

“It is unnecessary, Chantelle.” Annak said. “My brother has come and seen the message.” Pointing to the sky, he said. “My parents told me he would come, and love would win over hate. He knows love now. He will never harm again.” He walked to the older boy, looked about and said, “Rise, please. All rise.” in a firm fatherly tone. “MY brothers and sisters, none of you need bow to me. I am no god or king or chieftain. I am just one of you.” The older boy rose, tears streaking his face. Annak hugged the bigger boy, who had to lean to hug him back. “You are my brother.”

Chantelle did not dare speak. She believed herself to be hallucinating. The faces in the sky seemed to smile even more intensely.

She began to cry herself. “If only the world could see these faces, and feel this love.” She whispered. She remembered her phone, which could take photographs. And took photos of the boys hugging, the people around still kneeling, and of the cloud faces.

And it became the story she knew had been calling her. No one could dispute the photo of the assembled people kneeling, but everyone called the cloud faces a computer-generated image. But the word started to spread.

And Chantelle met a man, a detective, who had seen those faces in trees in England, and love became their crusade. The detective had heard of the boy, and had travelled to meet him. Annak merely nodded at the tale of the dance amongst the trees. He said, “In time, I will be shown the sacred places, the sacred circles of stone, and I will dance too.”

Annak wonders freely around the camps. The boy of no tribe, but of all tribes, who has only the religion of love, and who speaks all languages.

He reminds everyone that love is pure, and hate is a disease. And that creation is of two parts, like the birth of humans, of a loving mother and father. And that it is the arrogance of men to pretend that creation came from a male only.

He urges them to observe their religions, and practice the love written within, and practice that love as tolerance of other beliefs, and avoidance of hate.

Chantelle wrote a book, which was her diary entries, and called it “I Witnessed Love Conquer Hate”

In it are the many photos she took, but one stands out. A ring of people in rags bowing in prayer to a pair of boys. One is very small. The older is obviously crying. The smaller has the most beautiful smile.

Another is of two faces in clouds. It has been decried as computer imagery, but a very few people around the world have seen those faces, and the word is spreading.

Love can displace hate. Hate begets hate.