The Traveller

He stood on the hill, back turned to the sun, and watched two opposing armies face off with each other. The Traveller knew that to attempt, in any way, however beneficial it may be, to interfere with this battle would turn the tide of history and ultimately create a paradox of his existence.

However, he knew also that he couldn't just stand idly by and watch the slaughter that the history books described clearly, the mass genocide that would follow by the victor and the loss of great and important relics to the dust of time. The invading army would not leave any trace of the former occupants of this small, but fiercely proud nation. Instead, they would raze their communities to the ground, destroy all signs of religious imagery and supplant it with their own. They would run roughshod over the women and make slaves of those who seemed the most capable.

The Traveller made his way carefully down the side of the hill, following a rather rocky path, and made his way into the village that had only, until recently, been a resting place for many followers of the man they called Jesus. Here he found stone tablets and many scrolls, most in clay jars, dusty but undamaged, which he collected and carefully placed into a large hessian sack he had carried with him. As quickly as he had come, he was gone again, heading for the hills on the other side of the Dead Sea, with the hope that someday, down through the centuries, that someone would find these tablets and scrolls, and the true story of these times could be told.