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Way of an Epilogue The Noble Friend, as it has been decided to refer to Him by the First Council of the Disciples, died after five days spent in intensive care. He lapsed into unconsciousness only in the last day, however, that is, only after he had finished dictating His Gospel to me in its entirety. We - His friends, disciples, followers and family, - knew all along that He was going to die, that there was no hope whatever of recovery, not simply because His injuries were so severe, but also because we gradually began to grasp the true meaning of His messiah-ship. Still,
the Noble Friend’s funeral was only held a couple of days after His death, the police
having had to perform an autopsy, it being a hit-and-run situation and a criminal
investigation being underway. The driver of the speeding Mercedes was never caught or
identified, but it would be quite fair of us to assume that he was just another crazy SOGO
showing off, behaving in the manner expected of someone like him, in a country and a time like these. “So, one SOGO saved, one SOGO damned. Sounds fair to me.”
This was the Noble Friend’s own comment on the situation, when he finally became
aware of what had happened to Him. The funeral was attended by a very large crowd, containing people from all different sorts of backgrounds and nationalities, much of whom already being followers and disciples of the Noble Friend long before He Himself had become aware of His messianic potential and destiny. The event was truly enormous, the size of it seems to have gotten everybody by surprise. The streets were blocked for traffic, and scores of traffic police had to be rushed onto the scene to supervise and facilitate the funerary march. There were TV cameras everywhere too, though no one really knows who invited them. Indeed, there are many unknowns surrounding this whole event, but this is exactly what made it so special, so unforgettable. This is exactly why it seems so alive in our minds and souls today. No chapters of the Qur’an were read throughout the funerary march, as one would expect on such an occasion, the Noble Friend being of an Islamic background in a country that is not very accommodative of the needs and wishes of its Muslims citizens who had changed or rejected their faith. Still, many people did murmur some soul-comforting prayers as the procession went on. The Noble Friend’s body was carried all the way to the airport from where it was flown abroad to be cremated. This was, it became known, a desire of the Noble Friend’s which he had previously expressed to His sister, who had come from abroad to be with her Brother in His last few days, to attend the funeral and make sure everything went in accordance to His wishes. Indeed, none of the Noble friend’s family members, including His Mother, or early friends and disciples seemed at all shocked or surprised by his tragic end, except perhaps for His father who would soon follow in His son’s footsteps, at least as far as dying is concerned. Thus, everyone in the Noble Friend’s immediate circle was ready to do whatever needed to be done to ensure compliance with certain wishes of the Noble Friend’s which had been vouchsafed at some earlier point in His life. The ashes were later brought back and scattered all over the country by a military jet. The Noble Friend’s Mistress had to pull many strings to get this done. She was, and still is, well-connected, and she often uses her influence these days to help us, the Disciples, do our work as freely as possible in this repressive country. Over the next few days that followed the Noble Friend’s death, we, His followers and disciples, new and old, got to learn a great deal about Him. For much to our delight, He had left behind a journal full of reminiscences and thoughts concerning His childhood, and chronicling a very important period of His life, the very period in fact which, more or less, led to the eventual realization by Him of His messianic potential and destiny, and led to His day-long mission. It was an act of rare bravery indeed on the part of the Noble Friend’s Sister to hand this journal to us, and hence to the world, since it contains much intimate information regarding her relationship with her Brother. But then, she was, in effect, His first follower and disciple. The new knowledge, however, did test the faith of many of the followers and disciples of the Noble Friend. Still, none of the disciples chose to abandon the teachings, they simply looked at Him now with less reverence than they had done at a certain point. Indeed, had He still been alive, that would have suited Him well. For He was much more interested in getting respect, if not to His person, than to His basic human rights, than in reverence. Reverence is too often associated with beings that are considered super-human somehow, the Noble Friend, as we have seen, did emphatically insist on His full humanness. There was nothing divine about Him. The First Council of the Disciples was held less than a month after the death of the Noble Friend. It was arranged by none other than the Noble Friend’s Mistress, who had apparently kept a list of the names of the people she had identified, in the course of time, as being not simply followers of the Noble Friend, but people who were greatly and intimately affected by Him, people who had developed a deep affinity to, and a deep understanding of His ideas. In this list, she, thankfully, included the names of the people who were present with the Noble Friend at the time of His accident, after all we were really the only ones to be identified by Him as being His disciples (this is not, however a point of contention for the disciples, so far. The followers, on the other hand…). One of the most important decisions made by this First Council was the idea of producing this booklet on a mass scale so we can put the Noble Friend’s last testament in the hands of all interested people. Its format and content are rather self-explanatory, and were indeed dictated by the Noble Friend Himself. The headings, the choice of using the red and blue colors, with regards to the Noble Friend’s words and private thoughts respectively, are the only contributions we made to this booklet. As for the Noble Friend’s journal, we chose to publish it separately, because we believe that, due to its particular nature, it should be allowed to stand on its own. Would the Noble Friend have approved of this? We can never know. What I do know is that His final thought before He lapsed into unconsciousness, and then death, made me realize all of a sudden, for I have been too busy preparing His Gospel all the while to think of anything else, the sheer immensity of our loss. “A voice from beyond madness speaks and says that He will not come
back again, that He has indeed found a home, there, where very few ever did before, there,
in the not-so-unknown emptiness that is the mother of us all.” The Diplomat
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lust for salvation, Brother, as though it were a woman, and I - a man.
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