What follows beneath is an allegorical & evangelistic novel I wrote over the course of a year a few years back, before I had kids and promotions and life got very busy. It never got published, but I've shared it with a few friends and they've found it enjoyable and sometimes quite illuminating. If you find it to be so, you're welcome to hit me up for the complete version and I'll email it to you as a free gift. Otherwise, I'll try to remember to post at least once a week - for as long as people keep reading.
As always, I am Australian, and so make no apology to any American readers for my traditional English spelling and grammar etc.
THE GREAT BASIN
PART 1:
‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’ (Genesis 2:16-17).
Chapter 1 – A place of rest
The township was named the Great Basin, for the deep and tranquil pool it had grown around. Broad and circular, with evenly sloping shorelines on either side, it resembled a sink that a giant could shave or wash his face in.
The Basin was forever fed by a waterfall, the river plummeting on the easternmost side from sheer, slate-grey cliffs that were fifty metres tall at their lowest point. These cliffs encircled the town on both the northern and southern shorelines, creating a valley about two miles across at the broadest point.
Stores and workshops and cottages dotted both shorelines, rustic, humble structures both inside and out. Everything seemed to be made of stone or wood or straw, the earthy materials the valley gave abundantly to its inhabitants. It wasn’t that more modern technology was unavailable – motorboats and microwaves had reached the Basin – but the people here had just never had much need for these devices. There wasn’t even a town-wide electricity grid. Some had bought or built generators and furnaces, to run the machines and appliances they desired to; but their lives weren’t noticeably richer or more sophisticated than those who did without. The Great Basin was so sheltered and self-sufficient, people seemed satisfied with who and what they were, rather than always chasing the new innovation or fashion that would make them something more.
To the west, the Basin narrowed again into a swift-flowing river, and entered a tall fir forest that marked the boundary of the town. The river quickly disappeared behind a shadowy wall of trees, each straining upwards against each other to catch their share of sunlight within the valley. Beyond that forest were believed to be towns and cities and perhaps even other countries – but the people of Great Basin hardly knew for sure. The river was rumoured to be wild below them, and the forest on either side of it thick and impassable. And if they did brave the perilous journey downstream, and the even longer and more gruelling journey home against the current, would they really find anything they didn’t already have here?
What made the Basin folk so reclusive, or aloof, or secure? The location was one factor. It was no easy place to visit, let alone to threaten people with harm. The uniform severity of the cliffs and the forest around the river made rowing or motoring upstream the only practical way to visit.
And Great Basin was the last stop for those boats. Therefore few people went to all the effort of visiting the township without a specific reason to – mostly merchants and traders, trying to unload the last of the spices or leather or wines or dresses that they couldn’t sell elsewhere. They would stay a night, maybe two, in the dockside inns, mostly sharing the company of fellow outsiders rather than locals. The days were spent hawking their wares in the local marketplace, and then they were swiftly carried downstream again.
Nor was the valley accessible from above – there was no way to scale the cliffs around the waterfall except by use of the king’s private tower, and no one from the uplands had ever ventured to travel down below. There had to be someone living above the waterfall, because it was that sun-drenched land that fed the whole of Basin Town below, a mosaic of pastures and plantations and abundant flocks. But everything above was the property of the King, and he had never required the Basin-ites to assist in any way. He must have his own farmers and drovers and harvesters who lived ‘up-land’, as the Basin-ites called it. The ‘down-landers’ never met them, and heard little more than rumour about them; some thought they were aliens, or slaves, or a different race of people altogether.
Whoever these farmers were, they worked steadily and effectively every month of the year. And to every resident of the Great Basin, the King delivered more produce every day, free of charge – wheat and corn and root vegetables, beef and chicken, mushrooms and honey and cabbage and grapes and pears. Even salmon and trout were more readily available from the stores of the Palace than from fishing in their own river. Many commodities were available there too – copper and iron and gold ore, cotton, silk and leather and fine woods. So like children with the most doting and hovering of parents, the people of the Basin had everything they could imagine there for the asking, and little desire to wander.
One might think that the poorer or greedier inhabitants of other towns would flood into the Great Basin like a tidal wave, refugees seeking a better life. Certainly all the stories said that life was harder downriver, crueller and cut-throat. And the Palace never rejected anyone who sought to join the Basin. But among the outsiders who had not grown up there, few ever adjusted to its quaint and quieter way of life. The town was still mainly firewood-powered – there were no television or radio stations broadcasting. No one needed cars to get around – the community was still small, barely three miles east to west and two miles north to south. To the locals, all this seemed pleasant and natural. But many visitors had tried to visualise a life with no automatic heating or light or entertainment, and just couldn’t see the point of living that way. A few had gone mad trying, and fled once more.
All this begged the question – what manner of man was this king, who created and sustained this egalitarian society? A benevolent ruler who provided so much to his citizens free of charge? A gentle custodian of a gentle people who did not seek to expand his realm or his wealth or his military might? That question seemed inadequate as one walked through the township and approached the Palace – for this stone monolith so defied nature as to make one terrified to imagine the might of whoever could have built it.
Its main feature was a single, round tower, scaling almost the whole height of the waterfall, with its rooftop platform branching out into walkways that curled around the water’s flow to connect to the dry land above. The effect was a like a pair of cupped hands, through which the water poured out to feed the town. The tower stood at the centre of a long, thin building, a uniform four stories high with tall, ornate, tinted double-windows along its length. And in front was a spacious concrete-and-cobblestone plaza, enclosed by gates and fences, that stretched out over the water and linked by footbridges to the shore on both sides of the Basin.
Behind the palace the waterfall was swallowed up into submission by a series of concealed pipes and aqueducts, funnelled away from the tower and down to the very bottom of the Basin. Rushing out there, its force was spent against the bottom of a deep lake, and few bubbles appeared on the surface. The roar of the falling water constantly echoed from the length of the pipes, making it seem like the castle itself was bellowing – yet the lake beneath the castle was silent and peaceful enough for swimming.
And that was the real marvel – that the whole castle stood in midair above the lake, on foundations and pillars that plunged deep into what had previously been thunderous, destructive waters. How anyone could have built a palace of such tranquillity and stability in the midst of such a deluge baffled the mind. All one could say, when confronted by this wonder of design and scale, was that whichever ancient hero or deity had made the Great Basin their dwelling-place, no one could ever have bested or challenged their claim.
Today the king was to address the people. Trumpets had been playing and bunting decorated many of the balconies of the great Palace, and even before noon the whole town of Great Basin was assembled in the great stone courtyard of the Palace, standing still above the rushing waters below.
As the sun moved a little further west, suddenly the shadows fled and the whole face of the Palace lit up with sunlight, reflected brilliantly off the intricate carvings of its towering façade. Like a curtain lifting to start the show, it was at this moment that two gold-rimmed black doors on the lowest balcony opened outwards, and His Majesty Xavier the First, King of Riverhead, the Plains of Plenty, and the surrounding Angel Mountains, stepped forwards.
Xavier’s hair was long and straight and white, hanging like a cloak down the centre of his back, held away from his face by a gleaming, slender gold crown. The fading memories of the longest living Basin inhabitants said he must be at least eighty, yet he was still able to walk unaided, stand close to six feet tall and glow with zeal and passion. His clothes were also fitting for an energetic ruler who might ride a horse or lead a march at a moment’s notice; black knee-length boots over grey military trousers, a pale blue silk shirt with priest’s collar hugging his neck, and grey waistcoat and greatcoat to match. Over all of this hung a cloak of the deepest maroon, embroidered in gold with his name and his crest (a shield with quadrants of a river, a lion, a sheaf of wheat, and the sun).
King Xavier was using a microphone, with small speakers lining the bridge to the courtyard so that even those at the back of the crowd could hear him above the roaring falls. But he carried no notes, awaited no introduction, and quickly hushed the warm applause of his audience with his hands.
‘My beloved subjects, people of the Great Basin, I ask you with one accord to raise your voices and acclaim your Crown Prince, my son Xavier, who today has turned 30 years old!’
From the shadows behind the doors walked a young man with the look of an obedient schoolboy, his chocolate-brown hair parted conservatively, his face clean-shaven. He was slim and soft of feature, as you would expect a sheltered and spoilt child of royalty to be. He was very shy, too, preferring to stand a pace or two behind his majestic father, showing how reluctant he was to accept the crowd’s acclaim and adulation of them both. ‘Long live the King, and long live the Crown Prince! Hail to the prince! Hurrah!’ His own shirt was white, with navy blue trousers and coat, but no cloak or insignia. If he had not come forward and accepted his father’s handshake, he might have been mistaken for a butler.
‘I declare’, King Xavier continued, beaming, ‘that my son is the finest, fairest and most noble man in the realm. He is your future and your treasure, and I pray that you will all have great pride and confidence in him. For he is today a man come of age, and not just any man but one worthy of a kingdom of his own!
‘And that kingdom even now takes shape, my people! Above us now on the Plains of Plenty, my servants and I are building a new palace and a new town, no, an entire city to be the inheritance of my beloved son. Its walls are so imposing that none will ever enter it without the leave of the king and the love of the people. Its palace will be a glorious jewel on that sun-kissed plain, and will again span the river as this one has, but above the waterfall, not below. It will have housing and farms and shops and schools for all of you, new and larger and richer, though the character and soul of this place will be the same as you have grown up with. Most of all, my people, that will be the seat of my son’s throne, a throne which will feed and sustain and delight all who call the kingdom of Riverhead their home.
‘One month from now, this vision will be made real, my children. My son will inherit this new kingdom, and those who follow him will inherit the overflow of our love and delight in each other and in you. And so I declare today a feast to the future, to the majority of my son and to the commencement of his glorious reign!’
With that, the old king threw up both hands in acclaim, and the hands and voices of the crowd rose as one too. A brass band played a long fanfare from the wings of the palace courtyard, His Majesty’s personal anthem. Other doors opened at the base of the palace, and stewards rushed out bearing platters and trolleys full of sweets and wines to toast the proclamation and commence the impromptu feast. Meanwhile the prince, Xavier the Second, bent almost to the ground and knelt before his father’s side, until his father turned, gave his hand, and let the prince kiss it in devotion.
Then the father gently prompted the son to rise to his feet. They embraced before the adoring crowd, and then turned and faced the townspeople and held up their hands in a kind of salute-wave. Finally, with a nod of the head, both retreated into the castle again, and the doors were shut by unseen helpers.
Two hours later, the band was packing up, and the cleaners had begun to outnumber the servers still bearing food and drink. People were reaching their fill of expressing the same joy and amazement to a hundred barely-known neighbours. ‘Isn’t it amazing? A new and bigger home for every one of us? How generous is our king? How lucky are we?’ In dribs and drabs, they were turning for home, often carrying champagne flutes and a few more canapés for the road.
Among these were Aidan and Eloise Firth, a middle-aged, stocky boat-builder whose hairline was starting to retreat, and his wife, a slim and elegant lady with curly red hair. They had been as proud and excited as anyone when they heard the news. What could we ever have done to deserve such blessing! They couldn’t imagine having more than they already enjoyed now, and yet here it was being showered upon them.
But the further they walked back along the shoreline towards home, the more Aidan was struck by just how different life was about to become. He looked ahead to where the Basin narrowed, seeing his own little cottage and the ramp that led to his workshop, and suddenly he wondered: Will anyone want boats up there? He’d never seen the uplands river – would it be navigable? Would there be any customers from the people who already lived above the waterfall? What if there was nothing for him to do?
‘Do you think anyone will choose to stay behind?’ Aidan finally asked his wife, who sighed with relief to hear that her husband shared her own uncertainty. Eloise didn’t have a trade to lose, but she had put years of love and effort into making their house and garden beautiful, and connecting with all the friends and neighbours in their street. And now it would be a completely new house, new garden, maybe new neighbours. What’s wrong here that they could possibly want to change anyway?
‘Will they have a choice, honey? I don’t think the king actually said’, she finally asked as they neared home. Aidan cleared his throat and was about to reply when a hand reached out from the shadows and roughly grabbed his left shoulder.
The hand belonged to a rangy, bedraggled man standing under the awning of one of the dockside inns, a desperate stranger in torn and soiled clothes. There was virtually no crime in Basin-town – when everything is free, who needs to steal? Still, they were shocked by the interruption and on edge when the stranger said, ‘Please, you’re locals, aren’t you? I need some help.
‘I really need to speak to your King. Now’.
As always, I am Australian, and so make no apology to any American readers for my traditional English spelling and grammar etc.
THE GREAT BASIN
PART 1:
‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die’ (Genesis 2:16-17).
Chapter 1 – A place of rest
The township was named the Great Basin, for the deep and tranquil pool it had grown around. Broad and circular, with evenly sloping shorelines on either side, it resembled a sink that a giant could shave or wash his face in.
The Basin was forever fed by a waterfall, the river plummeting on the easternmost side from sheer, slate-grey cliffs that were fifty metres tall at their lowest point. These cliffs encircled the town on both the northern and southern shorelines, creating a valley about two miles across at the broadest point.
Stores and workshops and cottages dotted both shorelines, rustic, humble structures both inside and out. Everything seemed to be made of stone or wood or straw, the earthy materials the valley gave abundantly to its inhabitants. It wasn’t that more modern technology was unavailable – motorboats and microwaves had reached the Basin – but the people here had just never had much need for these devices. There wasn’t even a town-wide electricity grid. Some had bought or built generators and furnaces, to run the machines and appliances they desired to; but their lives weren’t noticeably richer or more sophisticated than those who did without. The Great Basin was so sheltered and self-sufficient, people seemed satisfied with who and what they were, rather than always chasing the new innovation or fashion that would make them something more.
To the west, the Basin narrowed again into a swift-flowing river, and entered a tall fir forest that marked the boundary of the town. The river quickly disappeared behind a shadowy wall of trees, each straining upwards against each other to catch their share of sunlight within the valley. Beyond that forest were believed to be towns and cities and perhaps even other countries – but the people of Great Basin hardly knew for sure. The river was rumoured to be wild below them, and the forest on either side of it thick and impassable. And if they did brave the perilous journey downstream, and the even longer and more gruelling journey home against the current, would they really find anything they didn’t already have here?
What made the Basin folk so reclusive, or aloof, or secure? The location was one factor. It was no easy place to visit, let alone to threaten people with harm. The uniform severity of the cliffs and the forest around the river made rowing or motoring upstream the only practical way to visit.
And Great Basin was the last stop for those boats. Therefore few people went to all the effort of visiting the township without a specific reason to – mostly merchants and traders, trying to unload the last of the spices or leather or wines or dresses that they couldn’t sell elsewhere. They would stay a night, maybe two, in the dockside inns, mostly sharing the company of fellow outsiders rather than locals. The days were spent hawking their wares in the local marketplace, and then they were swiftly carried downstream again.
Nor was the valley accessible from above – there was no way to scale the cliffs around the waterfall except by use of the king’s private tower, and no one from the uplands had ever ventured to travel down below. There had to be someone living above the waterfall, because it was that sun-drenched land that fed the whole of Basin Town below, a mosaic of pastures and plantations and abundant flocks. But everything above was the property of the King, and he had never required the Basin-ites to assist in any way. He must have his own farmers and drovers and harvesters who lived ‘up-land’, as the Basin-ites called it. The ‘down-landers’ never met them, and heard little more than rumour about them; some thought they were aliens, or slaves, or a different race of people altogether.
Whoever these farmers were, they worked steadily and effectively every month of the year. And to every resident of the Great Basin, the King delivered more produce every day, free of charge – wheat and corn and root vegetables, beef and chicken, mushrooms and honey and cabbage and grapes and pears. Even salmon and trout were more readily available from the stores of the Palace than from fishing in their own river. Many commodities were available there too – copper and iron and gold ore, cotton, silk and leather and fine woods. So like children with the most doting and hovering of parents, the people of the Basin had everything they could imagine there for the asking, and little desire to wander.
One might think that the poorer or greedier inhabitants of other towns would flood into the Great Basin like a tidal wave, refugees seeking a better life. Certainly all the stories said that life was harder downriver, crueller and cut-throat. And the Palace never rejected anyone who sought to join the Basin. But among the outsiders who had not grown up there, few ever adjusted to its quaint and quieter way of life. The town was still mainly firewood-powered – there were no television or radio stations broadcasting. No one needed cars to get around – the community was still small, barely three miles east to west and two miles north to south. To the locals, all this seemed pleasant and natural. But many visitors had tried to visualise a life with no automatic heating or light or entertainment, and just couldn’t see the point of living that way. A few had gone mad trying, and fled once more.
All this begged the question – what manner of man was this king, who created and sustained this egalitarian society? A benevolent ruler who provided so much to his citizens free of charge? A gentle custodian of a gentle people who did not seek to expand his realm or his wealth or his military might? That question seemed inadequate as one walked through the township and approached the Palace – for this stone monolith so defied nature as to make one terrified to imagine the might of whoever could have built it.
Its main feature was a single, round tower, scaling almost the whole height of the waterfall, with its rooftop platform branching out into walkways that curled around the water’s flow to connect to the dry land above. The effect was a like a pair of cupped hands, through which the water poured out to feed the town. The tower stood at the centre of a long, thin building, a uniform four stories high with tall, ornate, tinted double-windows along its length. And in front was a spacious concrete-and-cobblestone plaza, enclosed by gates and fences, that stretched out over the water and linked by footbridges to the shore on both sides of the Basin.
Behind the palace the waterfall was swallowed up into submission by a series of concealed pipes and aqueducts, funnelled away from the tower and down to the very bottom of the Basin. Rushing out there, its force was spent against the bottom of a deep lake, and few bubbles appeared on the surface. The roar of the falling water constantly echoed from the length of the pipes, making it seem like the castle itself was bellowing – yet the lake beneath the castle was silent and peaceful enough for swimming.
And that was the real marvel – that the whole castle stood in midair above the lake, on foundations and pillars that plunged deep into what had previously been thunderous, destructive waters. How anyone could have built a palace of such tranquillity and stability in the midst of such a deluge baffled the mind. All one could say, when confronted by this wonder of design and scale, was that whichever ancient hero or deity had made the Great Basin their dwelling-place, no one could ever have bested or challenged their claim.
Today the king was to address the people. Trumpets had been playing and bunting decorated many of the balconies of the great Palace, and even before noon the whole town of Great Basin was assembled in the great stone courtyard of the Palace, standing still above the rushing waters below.
As the sun moved a little further west, suddenly the shadows fled and the whole face of the Palace lit up with sunlight, reflected brilliantly off the intricate carvings of its towering façade. Like a curtain lifting to start the show, it was at this moment that two gold-rimmed black doors on the lowest balcony opened outwards, and His Majesty Xavier the First, King of Riverhead, the Plains of Plenty, and the surrounding Angel Mountains, stepped forwards.
Xavier’s hair was long and straight and white, hanging like a cloak down the centre of his back, held away from his face by a gleaming, slender gold crown. The fading memories of the longest living Basin inhabitants said he must be at least eighty, yet he was still able to walk unaided, stand close to six feet tall and glow with zeal and passion. His clothes were also fitting for an energetic ruler who might ride a horse or lead a march at a moment’s notice; black knee-length boots over grey military trousers, a pale blue silk shirt with priest’s collar hugging his neck, and grey waistcoat and greatcoat to match. Over all of this hung a cloak of the deepest maroon, embroidered in gold with his name and his crest (a shield with quadrants of a river, a lion, a sheaf of wheat, and the sun).
King Xavier was using a microphone, with small speakers lining the bridge to the courtyard so that even those at the back of the crowd could hear him above the roaring falls. But he carried no notes, awaited no introduction, and quickly hushed the warm applause of his audience with his hands.
‘My beloved subjects, people of the Great Basin, I ask you with one accord to raise your voices and acclaim your Crown Prince, my son Xavier, who today has turned 30 years old!’
From the shadows behind the doors walked a young man with the look of an obedient schoolboy, his chocolate-brown hair parted conservatively, his face clean-shaven. He was slim and soft of feature, as you would expect a sheltered and spoilt child of royalty to be. He was very shy, too, preferring to stand a pace or two behind his majestic father, showing how reluctant he was to accept the crowd’s acclaim and adulation of them both. ‘Long live the King, and long live the Crown Prince! Hail to the prince! Hurrah!’ His own shirt was white, with navy blue trousers and coat, but no cloak or insignia. If he had not come forward and accepted his father’s handshake, he might have been mistaken for a butler.
‘I declare’, King Xavier continued, beaming, ‘that my son is the finest, fairest and most noble man in the realm. He is your future and your treasure, and I pray that you will all have great pride and confidence in him. For he is today a man come of age, and not just any man but one worthy of a kingdom of his own!
‘And that kingdom even now takes shape, my people! Above us now on the Plains of Plenty, my servants and I are building a new palace and a new town, no, an entire city to be the inheritance of my beloved son. Its walls are so imposing that none will ever enter it without the leave of the king and the love of the people. Its palace will be a glorious jewel on that sun-kissed plain, and will again span the river as this one has, but above the waterfall, not below. It will have housing and farms and shops and schools for all of you, new and larger and richer, though the character and soul of this place will be the same as you have grown up with. Most of all, my people, that will be the seat of my son’s throne, a throne which will feed and sustain and delight all who call the kingdom of Riverhead their home.
‘One month from now, this vision will be made real, my children. My son will inherit this new kingdom, and those who follow him will inherit the overflow of our love and delight in each other and in you. And so I declare today a feast to the future, to the majority of my son and to the commencement of his glorious reign!’
With that, the old king threw up both hands in acclaim, and the hands and voices of the crowd rose as one too. A brass band played a long fanfare from the wings of the palace courtyard, His Majesty’s personal anthem. Other doors opened at the base of the palace, and stewards rushed out bearing platters and trolleys full of sweets and wines to toast the proclamation and commence the impromptu feast. Meanwhile the prince, Xavier the Second, bent almost to the ground and knelt before his father’s side, until his father turned, gave his hand, and let the prince kiss it in devotion.
Then the father gently prompted the son to rise to his feet. They embraced before the adoring crowd, and then turned and faced the townspeople and held up their hands in a kind of salute-wave. Finally, with a nod of the head, both retreated into the castle again, and the doors were shut by unseen helpers.
Two hours later, the band was packing up, and the cleaners had begun to outnumber the servers still bearing food and drink. People were reaching their fill of expressing the same joy and amazement to a hundred barely-known neighbours. ‘Isn’t it amazing? A new and bigger home for every one of us? How generous is our king? How lucky are we?’ In dribs and drabs, they were turning for home, often carrying champagne flutes and a few more canapés for the road.
Among these were Aidan and Eloise Firth, a middle-aged, stocky boat-builder whose hairline was starting to retreat, and his wife, a slim and elegant lady with curly red hair. They had been as proud and excited as anyone when they heard the news. What could we ever have done to deserve such blessing! They couldn’t imagine having more than they already enjoyed now, and yet here it was being showered upon them.
But the further they walked back along the shoreline towards home, the more Aidan was struck by just how different life was about to become. He looked ahead to where the Basin narrowed, seeing his own little cottage and the ramp that led to his workshop, and suddenly he wondered: Will anyone want boats up there? He’d never seen the uplands river – would it be navigable? Would there be any customers from the people who already lived above the waterfall? What if there was nothing for him to do?
‘Do you think anyone will choose to stay behind?’ Aidan finally asked his wife, who sighed with relief to hear that her husband shared her own uncertainty. Eloise didn’t have a trade to lose, but she had put years of love and effort into making their house and garden beautiful, and connecting with all the friends and neighbours in their street. And now it would be a completely new house, new garden, maybe new neighbours. What’s wrong here that they could possibly want to change anyway?
‘Will they have a choice, honey? I don’t think the king actually said’, she finally asked as they neared home. Aidan cleared his throat and was about to reply when a hand reached out from the shadows and roughly grabbed his left shoulder.
The hand belonged to a rangy, bedraggled man standing under the awning of one of the dockside inns, a desperate stranger in torn and soiled clothes. There was virtually no crime in Basin-town – when everything is free, who needs to steal? Still, they were shocked by the interruption and on edge when the stranger said, ‘Please, you’re locals, aren’t you? I need some help.
‘I really need to speak to your King. Now’.
