Image credit: Yupa Watchanakit/Shutterstock.com

His father told him of the Templar god.

“Many men died for this idol,” he said. “Dignified, heroic, in torture and pain.”

“And why would men die for an idol?” he asked, his eyes wide as he gazed at the animal skull, tracing its form in the photo in the book in his lap.

“Men always die for some idol or other,” his father said. “It is in the way of the soul and of belief. And the idols that some men die for are demonised by others, who then die for their idols in their turn. Everyone seeks.”

“Seeks what father?”

“Truth, power, meaning. And for some reason they feel this comes best through the blood of others, and when that fails, through their own blood. Their sacrifice to an idea, and concept, or something more. Who can say?”

“How did they die father?”

“Some in torture chambers, some on the stake, burning. Terrible, terrible.”

“Do we believe in anything worth that father?” the young boy asked. He couldn’t think of anything. He loved his toys, his mobile phone, his television. Would he die for any of those? None looked as old, as mysterious, as this photo.

“We believe what we are told to believe,” his father said. “Through our new ministries. The media, politics, all of that. Soulless some may say, and yet they still stir the soul. And if you watch closely in your tv shows, your movies, you will see the Templar god, over and over. He endures, a symbol beyond time. Perhaps the Templars did not die in vain in the end. Perhaps they knew something we do not.”

“So should we believe in the Templar god father?”

His father took the book from him and shut it. He pondered the question for a long time.

“Perhaps,” he said finally. “Perhaps we already do.”

(c ) Helen M Valentina 2018