The Gap Year, Part III (end)

******

Douglas was only vaguely aware of the others at first. When he had first started the regimen of early morning walks, the park across the street from the building that housed his flat was deserted. At most there might be someone walking a dog or hurrying along the path toward the train station. When he thought about it later, it occurred to him that the gatherings had to have started with one person, but he was never sure. Perhaps there had always been a group since the beginning. One day as he left the building, he glanced across the street, and there on the two benches directly opposite sat four people. Behind them stood another half-dozen people. It was hard to tell in the half-light but all of them appeared to be watching him. Thereafter, they were always people waiting in the park when he emerged from the building. The number varied but grew slowly over time. Other than watching him, they did nothing. They were still there when he returned from his walk.

He took to pulling the curtain in the lounge aside and peeking out. His return seemed to be a signal for them to begin leaving. Within half an hour after his return, their numbers had noticeably dwindled, but two or three of them always remained. No matter when he checked, there was always someone sitting there quietly and watching his building.

Then there were the flowers. At first there had been only the occasional solitary flower on the pavement outside his building. Just a flower on the pavement close to the kerb. It might well have been dropped by a passerby. But they grew more frequent and more numerous as the days went by. Within a few weeks a pile of flowers greeted him every morning. Not just a flower or two, but bunches of them, some of them still wrapped in clear cellophane from the florist’s shop.

A young woman was the first to approach him. She was standing outside the entrance to his building. There was nothing to distinguish her from thousands of other people her age. She wore jeans and a short jacket. A small haversack dangled from one shoulder. When Douglas returned from his daily walk, she stepped forward and held out a rose to him. When he hesitated to take it, she pressed her palms together, with the rose held between them, in the South Asian gesture of greeting and then bowed slightly. She again presented the rose to Douglas, who took it. She smiled and then bowed again, backing away a step or two. Neither of them spoke.

A piece of paper had been folded around the stem of the rose. The young woman pointed to it to draw Douglas’s attention to it. He opened it, expecting to see a message. But the paper was blank. It held no words. Douglas smiled at the woman. He had been understood. He moved his right hand in an arc through the air. It simply felt the right thing for him to do, as if he were blessing the gift-giver.

That action set a precedent. The flower-givers multiplied. Soon he was greeted each morning by a dozen people bearing flowers. He took to gathering the flowers together and then placing them on the pavement before making the blessing gesture. One day a young man drew his attention to the crowd of people standing in the park, and Douglas crossed the street, followed by the group that had been waiting outside the entrance to his building. The crowd parted as he neared, forming a pathway to one of the park benches. Douglas walked through the crowd, closely observed by a hundred people.

He sat down and motioned to the others to join him. Slowly at first, those nearest him began to sit as they understood his meaning. Soon only a few people were standing. A woman walking her dog outside the circle looked at them with curiosity. The dog lifted its nose and sniffed at the unexpected crowd of people who had lowered themselves to its level. Douglas closed his eyes and emptied his mind of words and sounds. He formed a picture of the crowd in his mind and projected a wave of wordlessness outward from himself. He sensed all sound within the radius of his thought ceasing.

That first day, Douglas sat motionless and silent for close to an hour. When he opened his eyes, he found that the size of the crowd had increased. Many of them looked stunned and shaken. When Douglas stood, so did the others. They began to close in around him. The young man who had earlier indicated those waiting in the park was one of those seated nearest Douglas. He positioned himself in front of Douglas and motioned to others nearby to help him clear a path through the crowd. They formed a cordon around Douglas. When someone reached out a hand to touch Douglas, one of his protectors interposed himself between Douglas and the person. Anyone attempting to speak to Douglas was motioned to remain quiet. The crowd followed Douglas across the street. When the parade reaching the entrance to his building, the young man held the door open for Douglas. When Douglas was inside, he turned to the crowd and said, ‘He will return tomorrow. Please join us then. Please allow him to rest now. Please respect his silence.’

The next morning the young man and four other young men stood outside the entrance to the building waiting for Douglas. They wore identical outfits—a black jumper over a white shirt, black trousers, black trainers. The neck and cuffs of the shirt extended beyond the jumper, forming a white band at neck and wrist. As Douglas turned to the left to follow the usual route of his morning walk, they silently took up places behind him. At the end of the walk, they escorted him across the street to the park. He sat on the same bench as on the previous day and repeated the period of silence. That became the daily routine.

As Douglas became used to the routine, he paid less attention to it. He was aware that the throng of observers in the park was growing and spilling onto the street. He knew that some in the crowd took pictures of him or videotaped him with their phones. He was conscious that things happened around him, but awareness carried no necessity to act. Events had ceased to be of much importance to him. He emerged each morning, took a walk, and then sat in the park for a time. If it was raining, someone held an umbrella over his head. Then he spent the rest of the day sitting in his flat.

The young man followed him into the flat one day. A short time later, a cup of tea appeared on the table beside Douglas’s chair. He drank it. He hadn’t made tea for himself for several weeks. He had forgotten how much he liked it. Later he found food on the table. He ate that. He thought it might be the first food he had eaten for several days. The young man stayed until it became dark outside. He spent most of the day sitting quietly behind Douglas. That, too, quickly became part of the day’s routine.

No one spoke to Douglas. His silence was respected. Anyone who felt a need to communicate spoke to the young man, who answered in laconic whispers. His presence relieved Douglas of any necessity of speech or thought or willed action. The young man simply took care of the necessities, and Douglas no longer had to deal with them. Without thinking about it, he became dependent on the young man and let him make more and more decisions. It wasn’t so much that the young man learned to anticipate Douglas’s needs as that he gradually grew to determine them.

The crowds gathered in the park soon drew the attention of the media, the neighbours, and the police. The young man dealt with them all. He gave interviews to the media and arranged for them to interview the more articulate members of the daily gatherings. When the neighbours objected that the crowds were disrupting traffic and creating problems and complained to the police, he collected donations from Douglas’s followers and rented an old church and scheduled meetings to be held there. Douglas hardly noticed the change in surroundings. The young man and his inner circle of guards simply led Douglas to the church rather than to the park. There he sat on a chair on the raised dais at the front of the sanctuary.

The church could not accommodate as many people as the park, however. So the young man scheduled several ‘silent sittings’ each day. When each ended, he led Douglas to the room that had once served as the vestry. Douglas sat there until someone came again to lead him back to the sanctuary for the next sitting. He was not returned to his flat until after the last sitting ended around 10:00 pm.

The movement grew rapidly, and the young man soon found it necessary to hire other workers to deal with the finances and assist with the organisation. Douglas’s followers wanted to talk about their experience of silence, and he had to set up discussion groups. Others wanted assistance with their devotions. At first he counselled them himself, but these sessions proved so popular that he had to train other counsellors to help him deal with the increasing numbers of people wanting attention.

There was also the problem of the desire for more personal contact with Douglas. The devout wanted more direct access to Douglas than the sittings allowed. The young man instituted a system of allowing those who had proven their worth with constant attendance and generous donations to sit in the vestry with Douglas. They were, of course, schooled not to speak. They simply sat there for a few minutes and shared Douglas’s silence.

Soon, however, there wasn’t enough time for personal sittings for all those desiring them. Moreover, congregations had formed in other cities. There was even talk of overseas branches. All of them clamoured for Douglas. Unless Douglas could be cloned, the movement would be in danger of atrophying because of the sage’s limitations. An experiment with videotaping sittings for later viewing served only to whet the desire for personal contact. Pictures weren’t worth a thousand silences.

One morning when Douglas awoke, his first thought was, ‘It’s June 1st. It’s been a year since I took the vow of silence.’ He did not know how he knew the date, but he knew that he was right about it. His gap year was over. On the whole he felt it had been a successful experiment. He had harmed no one by being silent, and he had regained control over his own life. The question was what to do next. He needed to think about that. A glance in the mirror over the bathroom sink told him that he also needed a shave and a haircut. When had he grown a beard and let his hair get that untidy?

While he was shaving, he heard a key in the door to his flat, followed by the sound of the door opening and closing and then sandals flapping against the floor and a kettle being filled in the kitchen. He stopped in alarm, the razor poised to stroke upward under his chin. The filling of the kettle impressed him as an unusual act for an intruder. Surely no thief would stop to make tea, and in any case there was nothing left to steal in the flat. He had stored everything of value before beginning the year of silence. The refrigerator was opened and closed and there came the chink of a dishes being laid on the counter and items being taken from drawers and cupboards. The sequence of actions betokened a routine and familiarity with his flat. Obviously sometime during the year, someone had begun to help him. He wondered what other surprises awaited him.

Douglas walked quietly down the hall and looked into the kitchen. A young man was slicing a loaf of bread, the knife gliding quickly downward with little effort. Douglas vaguely recognised him as someone he had seen before and knew that for several months at least this young man had made his breakfast. He could not, however, recall why. The young man smiled at him, pointed to the teapot, and then pointed to his watch and held up five fingers, apparently indicating that it would take about five minutes for the tea to brew. Douglas could not understand why he was miming. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.’

The young man looked startled. He turned around and stammered, ‘My name’s Geoff, Geoff Harkness.’

Douglas realised suddenly that the young man had never heard him speak before. Other memories flooded his mind. The young man had been his caretaker for almost six months now, almost his manager. In a rush of embarrassment, his first thought was the amount of work he had caused Geoff. ‘I seem to have put you to a lot of bother. I do apologise. It was never my intent that others assist me in my efforts. I thank you for helping me, but I couldn’t accept more of your time.’

‘It hasn’t been a bother. It’s been a privilege. It’s my life now—to help others understand your message, I mean.’ The young man stared at Douglas with dismay. ‘You’ve shaved your beard off.’

‘Yes, I need to have my hair cut as well. I’ll do that this morning.’

‘But there’s no time. The first silent sitting is scheduled for eight o’clock. Then you have appointments all morning until the noon sitting. In any case, people expect you to have a beard and long hair. They won’t recognise you without them.’

‘I’ll talk to them and explain. I don’t like my hair this long. I’ve never worn it like this. It feels dirty.’

‘No, you mustn’t talk. That would ruin everything.’ The young man stepped closer to Douglas. ‘People don’t want you to talk. That’s where your power comes from. That you don’t talk.’

‘You don’t need to raise your voice. I can hear you perfectly. In any case, it is my decision. I decided to take a year’s break. The year is now up. I wish to resume my previous life. That includes getting a haircut. And I will put a stop to these ridiculous sittings or whatever they are. And do stop waving that knife about.’

‘But you can’t. What about all our hard work? What about all the people who believe in you and have benefitted from your example? We’re in the midst of a fund-raising drive. A new temple is opening in Manchester next week, and you’re to be there.’

‘I have no intention of participating further in this charade. Now I must ask you to leave.’

‘I won’t let you do this.’

‘I don’t see how you can stop me short of murdering me.’

******

At the first sitting that morning, the young man announced that Douglas had entered a period of prolonged silence, a retreat apart from others so that he could renew himself. He would return at a later time with even greater powers. The announcement was greeted with respectful disappointment. Two acolytes reverently placed a large portrait of Douglas on the altar. The young man led the congregation in the silent sitting and contemplation of the meaning of Douglas’s silence. Several participants later said that Douglas had been even more of a presence in his absence.

At the end of the sitting, the young man made a second announcement. Since Douglas recognised that others needed his help, he had prepared a book and a CD. The book would be available shortly in both cloth and paperback editions, and as an e-book. Both proved to be popular items. Most of the faithful bought at least one of each. Many bought several copies so that they would always have one available no matter where they were. The sales funded the expansion of the church.

The cover of the book consisted of a picture of David sitting with his eyes closed and his head bowed. The only other element on the cover was the barcode for the ISBN number and the price on the back. The interior consisted of 320 blank pages. A deluxe edition was available, featuring a faux leather cover and heavy cream-coloured paper. The CD contained 50 minutes of silence. Excerpts from it quickly joined the list of popular YouTube files.

(the end)