Bit of a short story just for fun… sort of sci-fi, sort of historical fiction… could maybe turn it into something longer, but don’t know if I will…

When the sleepers arise from their petronic state, then the power of the day shall shine brightly again. All the men of the common realm have forgotten, the day is long, the dust is dry, but the day has lost his power.

Tempus awoke from the sleep, well unaware of the time he’d been. The shroud of light which cacooned him had faded, and he was once again visible to those drifting in the common river-like flow of time. He surveyed the area about him, and found that the place he’d taken rest in – then an out of the way wood – had remained, apparently more or less untampered with. About him were tall oaks, patchy with gold and brown leaves clinging to the skeletal spires which pricked at the sky. Like waking from the nightly sleep of mortals, a drowsiness lulled itself upon him. Fierce sluggish haze looming about his pate, and drawing him, that he yearned for greater rest. But no, it had been too long… or had it? Grasping at his bearings he strove to connect with the era, how had time elapsed? How aged seemed the earth beneath him? He had no device to discern the progress of the celestial bodies… only if he could percieve the breadth of the universe as a whole could he really know what the season was. Had he awoken at a momment of harvest? What work was to be done? For such a great span the earth had been desolate, there was naught for him to do – and so he slept. Yet how many centuries had now passed him? How bizzare a state to be left in! How had the Master done it? Ah, but He had flowed with the river of time as one of them, hadn’t He?

Tempus began to hear the crunch and rustle of dry leaves, and set his humanoid torsoe upright to behold a man with a large wide-brimmed hat walking tentatively toward him. “Ho, there, stranger.” Said the man; Tempus considered him to determine what manner of man he was, and discovered immediately that he had awoken in an age of harvest, for he could percieve a light from the man’s soul.

As to the raiment of the stranger’s externals, the man was clad all in dark wool; he wore trousers with stockings, and a black coat. “Art thou injured?” The man asked him.

Tempus had never before heard English spoken, but had been enowed from the days of Nimrod’s tower the peculiar ability to understand any human language: a necessary gift for the ages to follow. Yet within the man before him, he could see the fountain of the pure and final language of Jerusalem to come. “You have a light within you.” Tempus said to the man.

A broad smile spread accross the man’s face, “Well met, Friend! But art thou injured?”

“No.” Tempus responded.

“Fugitive, then?” The man asked, settling down on one knee before Tempus.

“In a sense, I am.” Tempus answered.

“Forgive my inquiry; I’ll not turn thee in. Nor shall I inquire after thy name, and shall not presently burden you with mine.” Tempus looked at him quizzically. “Lest we either be captured, and compelled by means of cruel devices to name one another.” The man explained. “As you percieved, I am a Friend of the Light, and as I ascertain by thy prophetical gifting: thou art as well. There is a society close by, thou may be safe with us… well… as safe as a fugitive may be among fugitives.” He said with a smile. “But what peculiar garments are these?” Tempus looked down on himself, his clothes were of Roman make. “Should the King’s men glimpse thee, thou shalt only raise suspicions… and the men of the Parlament are no better; thou should likely be killed for a spy by either side thus garbed. But, surely, I have two coats.” The man then immediately began to unbutton his coat, exposing a simple white cotton tunic beneath it. “Put this on.” He said, thrusting it toward Tempus.

Tempus rose to his feet, by which motion the man percieved that he also wore no shoes. Immediately he sat to the ground and unbuckled his own shoes, protesting to Tempus, “Neither hast thou shoes! But it is autumn, thou must also take these.”

“I don’t have need of shoes.” Tempus said, though the man ignored him.

“Is it not written, ‘Let him who has two coats give unto him that hath none’? How much more, also with shoes! For I have four of them!” This last he said with a broad smile. “But if thou object for care of me, then come to my house, and I shall be clad once more.”

Tempus pulled the jacket on over his loose toga, and buckled the man’s shoes to his feet. Truth be told, he looked the more conspicuous with the combination of period garments than he may have wearing only his Roman toga as though he wore a light dress under a jacket. The man then stood and began leading Tempus to the south-west. “Were you not afraid to come upon me?” Tempus asked him as they walked.

The man laughed, “Well, it is not our usual custom to greet any man by the way. Yet, when a Freind is in need, surely charity ought guide us.”

“What if I had been an robber, setting an ambush?” Tempus probed.

“Ha!” The man said, “Then would I likely have been robbed of my coat and shoes! I surely thank the Lord that had happened, I might then stub my toe on some stone or tree root, and hurt it terribly!”

Tempus couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, that is so much the more common in these days. To be true I did haply think you were.” He said more seriously. “But should we not risk harm to ourselves for charity – even as the light of our time ever grows dimmer? Yea, I expect the darkness settled upon this nation to the degree it has so that brother taketh up the sword against brother, and father against child is but the rotten fruit of her labors, for the soil is filled with the blood of the righteous. Besides,” he turned to Tempus with a wry smile, “it is said that some have even etertained angels unawares.”