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Stories from the Verse
Con Version
Chapter 27: Cooper 9
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Brown 290
Brian wandered the narrow streets, some of them packed dirt, some stone paved, marveling at the architecture, the houses crowded together, the shops, a few public buildings. Then as he emerged into what he took to be the town square something caught his eye. There was a pole in the center of the square, and atop the pole a hat. He walked over to get a closer look.
He thought the pole was about the same height as a basketball hoop, which as he recalled was ten feet. The hat puzzled him. He knew that sometimes bullies would take shoes from their victims, tie the laces together, and throw them over utility wires, and he knew that sometimes to tease a kid others would snatch his hat and play keep-away with it. Thus he could imagine that someone might grab the hat off someone he wanted to torment and toss it on top of a pole where it would be out of reach. This, he thought, probably was out of reach for most of those present. A professional basketball player could easily grab it, but here he--a modestly tall twenty-first century male--towered over the local citizenry. A ladder would be required. He wondered if he could reach it on a jump, but decided not to try.
One reason he decided not to try was that the pole itself was curious. It obviously was placed here intentionally, but seemed to serve no purpose other than to support this hat. He at first thought it might be a flagpole, but there were no ropes or pulleys, nor any hooks or other fasteners. Also, it wasn’t well supported--were he to crash into it on a jump, he might knock it over.
As he was pondering, he heard a voice shouting; he didn’t understand the words, and assumed that since he didn’t know anyone who would address him in a language other than German or English, it must not be addressing him. However, the voice repeated, rather insistently, and it sounded like the speaker was getting closer. He turned toward the noise, and saw someone in a period military uniform walking toward him. He listened. That must be French, he thought, but he didn’t speak French. By reflex he answered in English, “I’m sorry, what?”
The speaker shifted to another language, not French but some related language, maybe Spanish or Italian. He stared blankly, and the soldier seemed to be getting more frustrated as he seemed to shift to yet another language. Finally finding his sense, Cooper said, “Sprichst du Deutsch?”
The guard stopped walking and said, “Ja.” Brain wanted to say something like, what seems to be the problem, officer?, but his limited German didn’t quite go as far as that. He did manage to communicate something, though, because the soldier answered.
The answer seemed to be that the law required him to do some kind of homage to this hat on a stick. It seemed so ridiculous, Brian was sure he got it wrong, and so there was an exchange of clarifications until it was clear that this was a correct understanding, that he was supposed to bow or something to this hat on a pole.
Looking up at the hat, he gave his best shot at saying in German that he did not know that, but it would not have mattered because the Bible says we are to worship the Lord our God and serve only him, and doing homage to a hat would clearly be a form of idol worship.
The soldier insisted that he bow before the hat, and he simply ignored the demand and stared at the strange idol, wondering that they had such an odd form of idolatry here in Switzerland in--in whatever year this was. Then abruptly he was grabbed by two other soldiers, and his protestations were met with what must have been the statement that he was being arrested for something-or-other.
As the cell door closed behind him and he looked at the bare stone walls, he was reminded of Daniel, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, all arrested for refusing to worship other gods. I’m in good company, he thought.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #502: Character Setbacks. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
