Meeting Justice

I met a man.

The Path led me to a small shelter.  Just a crude hut.  I entered and saw a man sitting on a bench, dressed in a dark, hooded cloak, a small scale sitting on the table near his right hand.  He looked up as I entered, and as the light penetrated his hood I saw a blindfold across his eyes.  The blindfold read, in capital letters, "JUSTICE."

He smiled faintly, cautiously.  "Oh.  So it's you."

I looked at the man.  Something about him seemed familiar.  A sort of deja vu.  Maybe I had met him before or maybe it was one of those times where I hadn't met him yet but I knew I would.  Time on the Path doesn't make much logical sense and isn't easy to explain.

"Who are you?" I asked him.

"I am Justice" is all he said.

"Are you...?"

He nodded.  "Blind?  I am.  But on the Path, things are a bit different.  My eyes are closed, but my mind can see, like a dream.  I wouldn't call it sight, exactly.  More like remembering an event that's happening right now."

And I did not understand, but still I spoke because I knew I was supposed to.  "And what is your nature?"

"I am an Oracle," he said.

"And are you a vision, or are you on the Path?"

He smiled sadly.  "I, like you, am on the Path."

"And," I asked him, "will I ever meet you?"

He replied, "We will never again meet face to face."

"Then when are you?  Are you Oracle before or after my time?"

And he simply smiled before telling me "Neither.  I am Oracle during your time.  And I'm afraid that now our time is up, and you must go.  I know that you do not understand.  Such is so often the nature of prophecy.  But you will remember this conversation.  Be sure to write it down, for you will need it again."

And the world around me began to fade and I woke up again.  I came here and I wrote down every last word exactly.  I remember it perfectly.  The conversation is still there, safe within my mind, a memory etched in stone that feels as if it is a part of me.