The Forgotten Father

I found myself in a foreign land, standing before a temple. The edifice was obviously very ancient, but looked like the handiwork of a culture unknown to me. Whatever hands had fabricated this structure belonged to a race that had lived here long before recorded history. Inside services were starting, and the monks and attendes intoned a strange, guttural, inhuman drone.

The temple stood at the center of a deep concave pit, and pilgrims were descending towards it along steep ramps, as though symbolically entering the underworld. The pilgrims were attired in military camouflage and had their faces painted to match. They gazed out from beneath hoods, and as their eyes met mine, they glanced quickly away.

What was this strange religion, and why were its devotees thusly attired?

Not far away I heard a man speaking in English. He stood chatting and sipping wine. He too was sporting camouflage from head to toe, and I went up to ask him about the rites and beliefs of this sect.

As I approached I thought I recognised his voice. It was Douglas. I asked what he was doing there, and replied that he quite liked this unusual temple, and stopped to see it whenever he was in this part of the world.

I soon noticed that Doug was not, in fact, dressed in camouflage. He was naked and was simply painted camo from head to toe. I began to wonder aloud if this wasn't all some strange dream.

Doug assured me that it wasn't, that this constituted the most ancient doctrine known to man, and the unknown tradition from which all known to the West had derived. These people worship the Hidden God, a god so old in antiquity that even at the dawn of recorded history he was known only as the Forgotten Father.

They dress in camouflage to honour him, and to be like unto him. Hidden, unseen, invisible. And, that's why they'd turned their faces from me and refused to meet my gaze. According to legend, the Forgotten Father had come seemingly from nowhere, and had taught men his secrets. He took many wives from amongst the daughters of men and then vanished mysteriously back to where he had come from.

Some of his descendants still walk amongst us, and his understanding lives on--albeit semi-consciously--in their ancestral memory.

This place is his temple and is said to have once been his palace. But this is just a building. His true temple is in the blood where his memory lives, though his name is long forgotten.