The Silent Minority

by S. Poulos

head. "You must be hungry, so first we are going to eat something and then I will show you your room. I have booked a room for you where I'm staying. Then tomorrow we will go to see the Teacher. I can't still believe it; I just can't."

  Next day over the coffee after breakfast in their hotel the ex-chairman asked Michael, "Do you think the WCFET can it withstand another scandal of this proportion?"

  "I doubt and it has not finished yet."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The chairman is going to resign. Who is going to defend all this media bombardment? I think it is doomed."

  "And all this started because they wanted to prosecute someone who made them feel uncomfortable," said the ex-chairman. "The irony is that the name itself as WORLD COUNCIL of FREEDOM of EXPRESSION and TOLERANCE didn't carry it far away either. I gave years of my life for it to echo— to reflect as closely as possible—its name with its deeds ... all in vain."

  Next day they visited the Teacher and found him in good spirits.

  "How nice to see you again," he said to Michael. "I heard that you were on Patmos in a monastery. Did you bake them some bread while you were over there?"

  "As a matter of fact, Teacher, I baked lots of bread. I was the baker for the monastery."

  "Is that so? I was only joking, but that is really good for you did something you have always wanted to do. Are you over it yet?"

  "I think I am over it, Teacher, but you're right; it was something I always wanted to do."

  "Of course you did. Man learns only from experience. Man has to do in order to learn."

  "But Teacher," said the ex-chairman; "the process of reading is not part of learning?"

  "The process of reading is nothing more than adopting someone else's experiences as your own. It does not work like that. If that were the case this world would be in a much better state than it is.

  "Look around you. All the people that hold power on this Earth are educated and where do they lead their flock?"

  "Do you mean to say that we should be guided by uneducated people?"

  "No, I am saying that learning through books does not help man to build character for that is something that comes through experiences.

  "If this young man did not experience the process the procedure of making bread and he was simply reading about it in books, would that quench his thirst for it? Of course not. He had to experience it to live it in order to make it his own. Tell me; if we put someone in a library for say twenty years and throw the keys away do you think he would come out as a better man?

  "Of course not. The only thing this would do is for this man to miss twenty years of his life down in the drain. The only experience he would get out of it is that you cannot experience without actual experience."

  "I must say," said Michael, "that prior to the experience I had in Patmos I was in limbo. This experience helped me a lot to go on with my life. Up to then, I lived with the idea that I wanted to become a baker. You see when I was a kid I used to go to my grandfather's shop. All the beautiful smells from the freshly baked breads and sweets plus the presence of my grandfather, whom I loved, made me think I was in heaven and the idea stuck to me ever since that when I grew up I would become a baker.

  "I remember when the people asked us kids what we were going to be when we grow up and the kids answered the usual, you now doctors, nurses, lawyers etc... I would announce proudly, 'I am going to become a baker'. I still would like to do it but it has become of secondary importance to me, for now I can help my fellowman when he is in dire times. If I finish my studies and become a lawyer I will be more helpful, for a baker cannot defend a man when he is in need. Although it is a honorable profession I am sure someone up there will be happy to fill my position."

  "And I am sure you will become an excellent lawyer," said the Teacher.

  "I am already convinced about that," said the ex-chairman.

  When they were leaving the detention cells of Scheveningen, the new chairman of WCFET John Watson rang Michael and after apologizing for not being able to come to Holland, informed him that there was pandemonium and he couldn't hold on any more. He wanted to resign.

  Michael managed to persuade him to hold on for another two days in case he had to verify something as chairman.

  "I will ring you as soon as the verdict comes— straight away!" he said and they left at that.

  The day of the appeal hearing arrived and at the chambers of appeals everything ran smoothly as predicted by the ex-chairman. As soon as the appeal judge was convinced that the recommendation was authentic and the amendment made public, he found there were no grounds for the accused to be further detained and ordered his release.

  Immediately Michael rang the current chairman and informed him that the Teacher had been released and that he could resign if he so wished.

  "If I wish?" the chairman said to himself after he finished speaking to Michael. "I am desperate for it!"

  He emerged from hiding. He had imposed isolation on himself for the last few days, not being able to face his colleagues and the reporters' pressure. But now it was his chance. He was going to be through with it once and for all.

  He rang the press club and he announced he would hold a press conference in two hours concerning his resignation. After that he went to the WCFET headquarters where his colleagues demanding explanation immediately swamped him. He rushed to his office and locked himself in, sat down and finally wrote down his resignation. Leaning back on the chair he managed a deep sigh of relief, collected himself and began to pile his personal belongings into a plastic rubbish bag he brought in his pocket. Then he had a gulp of his fine whisky, settled in his chair again, put the key of the car that WCFET provided for him in a bottom drawer and waited.

  Outside his office was havoc. Shouts and abuse could be heard.

  He took one more gulp of his whisky. There were bangs on the door. The fear was overwhelming. Cold sweat was running on his forehead, as he was sure they were going to lynch him.

  More bangs came on the door— this time much harder and louder. He thought they were going to break the door down. He had another gulp of whisky.

  His phone rang. The reporters were outside banging the door for him to open up.

  He wiped his forehead with his bare hand and opened the door. The reporters rushed in.

  "Is it true that you are resigning?"

  "Yes it is. There is my resignation notice," and he showed them the paper.

  "What about if the SLIU will not accept your resignation?"

  "Aren't you going to comment about it?"

  "Yes. I had enough and I am going home." He grabbed the rubbish bag and rushed out with the reporters following him for more explanations and his colleagues abusing and cursing him. One of them, a close associate of the original five conspirators, even hit him as he ran for cover with the rubbish bag opening up and all his belongings spreading all over the floor.

  The incident started to be broadcast live and his wife saw it happening on the television at home. She sat at the coach and started crying.

  Finally he managed to stop a taxi, which took him home.

  His wife was still crying when he arrived, but luckily the little girl was next door playing with another little girl.

  His wife embraced and kissed him, telling that she saw everything on T.V.

  After a while, when things settled down, she filled the bath tub with hot water and when he slowly immersed his body into the tub his wife asked him if he would like a beer, a whisky or perhaps a glass of champagne.

  "Champagne darling, champagne... today is a day to celebrate for I got my family back!" he said, and then added, whispering to himself, "Who knows? I may even get my dignity back!"

  As soon as the news went out that after the recommendation amendment the chairman of the WCFET also resigned all hell broke loose. With television news coverage and panels in full swing they even brought out segments of the happenings with the previous administration, the ex-chairman and the Teacher again. They trie
d to associate that scandal as they said with the last few days' happenings. They claimed it was a sort of conspiracy going on in a big scale to be able to free the Teacher even from the international criminal court in The Hague.

  The newspapers again drew out the pictures of the two men 'giggling' as they headlined it. Every television talk show panel, every newspaper and radio commentator, had their hypothesis ready for public consumption with the most bizarre claims imaginable.

  Conspiracy theorists were up with unbelievable accusations and scenarios that touched the sphere of paranoia, but rational and skeptics stayed aloof from all this.

  The Secretary of State's office was forced to make a statement that it withdrew all its funds from the WCFET.

  "How come only few days back you called the chairman of this organization to congratulate him for the good job he is doing?" asked the reporters. "You are withholding the funds for it now!"

  The spokesman for the foreign office said that the chairman of the WCFET was not called here to be congratulated but to be reprimanded for the way he handled the WCFET matters.

  When the reporters insisted that they had photos showing the chairman of WCFET and the Secretary of State exchanging warm handshakes and smiles as he came in and out of the building the spokesman said that the Secretary of State was a friendly person and that it didn't mean he was personal with any visitor that attended his office.

  Besides how could you be sure what was discussed in the office? Were the reporters in there to listen?

  The SLIU was not able to absorb any more violent vibrations emanated from the WCFET. With the failure of making the charges stick in The Hague plus the fact that the Secretary of State withdrew the funds allotted for it (and as those funds were the lifeline of keeping the WCFET afloat) they made the unprecedented decision to ask the secretary of the UNO to terminate the operations of WCFET.

  After the Teacher's release the three boarded a bus and went to Amsterdam. There they booked a hotel. They also booked airline tickets; one for the Teacher, who was going to stay in his house in the mountains to write something before he started another world tour, and two for Michael and the ex-chairman to go back home.

  They went to their rooms for a shower and decided to meet down in the bar for a drink and for something to eat to calm down after such a hectic day.

  They met in the bar and ordered some drinks.

  "Let's sit down here," said the ex-chairman. "I don't understand how this people stand up for such long hours and what pleasure they are getting out of it."

  "That is a good idea," said the Teacher. "Let us sit down."

  "What happened to your butler-organizer-travel companion...and whatever else he can perform that I don't remember right now?" the ex-chairman said laughingly.

  "I sent him home to see his folks; we will meet again when I go back home anyway.

  "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the things you have done for me," said the Teacher to the ex-chairman. "Keep up the good work, for as I said, when you help someone else you are actually helping yourself."

  "In this case, Teacher, you must thank this young man, for if it was not for him you would be still inside. He single-handedly managed to do something that to me seemed inconceivable."

  "I am aware of the character and abilities of this young man so much so that there is something I am going to say. It has have never crossed my mind before, but now I am thinking of extending my entourage to three," he said, smiling. Turning back to the chairman, he asked, "Do you think if it ever happens it will start to look like an organization? Because this is what I am trying to avoid all this time."

  "Definitely not," said the ex-chairman. "Three people are just three people. Organizations consist of hundreds or even thousands of people with offices, cars, internet web-sites, accountants, lawyers—"

  "Now that you mention lawyers... that will be the provision." Turning to Michael the Teacher said, "If you ever finish your studies and became a lawyer, and if by then you still want to serve your fellow man, come and join the battle against ignorance. Come to serve the poor and deprived ones and all the destitute ones that I am coming across during my wanderings on Earth."

  As they drank coffee after the meal, Michael said to the Teacher, "So tomorrow we part our roads, Teacher."

  "Until we meet again."

  "Do you think we are going to meet again Teacher?"

  "It depends."

  "It depends on what?"

  "It depends on how well you are going to keep this candle of yours for serving your fellow man alive. Many a man senses this and is heartily ready, especially in his adolescent years, but with the passing of time this quench to serve evaporates to the point that it becomes just a reminiscence of the past. It becomes something of a vague idea that never materialized."

  "Teacher," said the ex-chairman, "what do you think about the world situation? Where is man heading?"

  "There is not a doubt that man has made a detour from the road he was once at the beginning of his incarnation on Earth, when he saw in this detour road lights glitter sensuality and material accumulations. This led him into propensities in an endless cycle of reincarnations and wasted valuable time allotted to him for his maturity.

  "Up to the last century the intellect of man has invented all these sophisticated ideas which eventually became ethereal movements with the characteristics and peculiarity that their names ended with the syllable ism. These include Nazism, communism, nihilism, fascism, and capitalism. The consequence is that we all know when these ideas started to be materialize here on Earth, and we know the rest that are following now.

  "But the last nail in the coffin is driven now in a very sinister way by this new sophistical idea that has not a name that finishes in ism as all the sophistries of the last century did. In fact it doesn't even have a name, but this time it hits at the roots of the tree, which is bound slowly, slowly to decay and perish into dust. It is sinister because it hits at the spirit of man; the only weapon that is left in him to fight back.

  "Under the pretence of the 'liberated man' he managed to demolish the last fortress left standing. It is happening now. Many people sense it but they cannot pinpoint it for it is beautifully camouflaged under the garment of modernism. People that are indolent in their spirit lost the ability to sense spiritual matters and as hungry fish charge into the colourful hooks that have being set up by the intellectuals with biblical consequences that will start to unravel much sooner than many think.

  "This new intellectual sophistry is the free-for-all intellectual fruit. It erodes the society from insight from its roots. It abolishes natural barriers that stood there for thousands of years. Just because man is incapable to sense its importance anymore, so they abolish the roles of the sexes, tearing down ethnical barriers, racial barriers, cultural barriers and more with the sole excuse that they found all this 'anachronistic'.

  "It is none other than the fruit I already talked about in various forums as the justification of the intellect. This is the last sophistry that can be invented by the intellect for it is in its zenith right now and this is the cherry in the intellectual torte before it dies, falls and perishes into dust."

  Next day, although the Teacher's flight was much earlier, they all went to the airport together. They said farewell, and after a while Michael and the ex-chairman took their flight back home.

  It was the day after his arrival at home that the ex-chairman Mr. Clarke was talking to his wife while they were drinking coffee in their lounge.

  "You know, dear," he said, "I feel so privileged to meet these two men. Because of the Teacher I feel that I got my self-respect back and because of the young man I respect man more, for he in a way brought me back from the clouds I was living in as one of the most accomplished international lawyers. I was barely an onlooker in a case I was supposed to have solved."

  "You were not an onlooker, honey. You took the initiative to free the Teacher, you remember?"

  "Yes, but
if it wasn't for the young man the Teacher would still be inside and I would go to and fro and at the end I don't think I would achieve anything."

  "You did your best, honey, and the Teacher is free. That is what matters most. Besides, you are the one who was determined for the young man to help you in this case. You made a good judgment about it and you should be proud of it."

  "I must say I did make a good judgment about it," he said. "By the way, there is one other thing; perhaps the last responsibility I have to attend to in this saga. I want to arrange a meeting with the donors of the Free the Teacher fund. Luckily there is a considerable amount left unused. I want to tell them that it is so because of the single handling of the whole thing by this young man. I'll tell them that if it was not for him the Teacher would be still inside so I will ask them for part of this money to go towards his studies until he becomes a lawyer. I am sure they will have a sympathetic ear towards it."

  "I am sure about that, honey, too."

  The day after his arrival home Michael decided to ring Aphrodite. The sun had already disappeared and he wondered if Aphrodite wanted to go for dinner.

  "Aphrodite," he said, "I am ringing you from a public phone, I forgot my cell phone at my hotel and I have no more coins so I cannot talk long. Would you like to go for dinner?"

  "No dinner with you anymore," she said. "It is a jinx."

  "But I want to see you and to talk about the deal," he said. "It is all about this. I think you will like it."

  "Okay," she said, "Grab a pizza and come to talk about it," and she gave him the address.

  He ordered a pizza from a nearby shop and in no time he was outside an impressive building which was very close to the building where he had made the phone call to her. The security guy opened the door and asked him, "To which apartment goes this pizza?"

  "I don't know the number of the apartment; it's for a nice-looking girl with hair down past her shoulders. I call her Aphrodite."

  "She is a goddess isn't she?"

  As he was talking to Michael he was writing on a Post-it note. "Well what are you waiting for?" he said. "You will not get any tips from me."

  "You don't understand. I must take it myself!"

  "Oh yeh? And to whom are you going to take it to?"

  "I don't know you tell me."

  "What is the name of the person?"

  "I don't now, the girl with the long black hair."

  "That is not good enough."

  "But I must take it by myself."

  "No way. Everything that comes in must be delivered by the security. These are the rules."

  "But—"

  "We don't but here, you see this red button here? If I press this red button..." and he showed the rookie an electronic device on his belt, "...if I press this button in no time this place is going to be swarmed by security people. I suggest you go now. Out! Out!" the security guy said with his hands flapping about and with a harsh raised voice.

  So Michael went out and tried to find a public phone to ring