0
43 views
The night after the council’s vote, the greenhouse glowed faintly under the south lamp. Emil sat at the table with the ledger open, though his pen hovered without moving. The basil leaf in his pocket felt heavier than ever, like a verdict pressed against his chest.
The door creaked, and Grandfather Tomas stepped inside, his walking stick tapping the floor in its steady rhythm. He watched Emil for a moment, then lowered himself onto a bench.
“You look as though you’ve been given a gift and a burden in the same box,” he said softly.
Emil sighed. “They approved us, Grandfather. But not fully. Conditions, oversight, monthly reports. It feels like they gave us permission, but tied our hands at the same time.”
Tomas nodded, folding his hands over the top of his cane. “That is the nature of power, Emil. Councils, governments, rulers—they rarely give without strings. But tell me: does a seed ask permission to grow?”
Emil frowned, staring at the scarred wood of the table. “No… it just grows. But what if they prune us too soon? Hargrove’s metrics, Marco’s whispers—it’s like they’re waiting for us to stumble.”
Grandfather’s eyes glimmered in the lamplight. “Then remember this: permission is not the same as freedom. Permission is a gate, sometimes narrow, sometimes high, but always man-made. Freedom is what happens inside your soul, when you choose to act rightly whether the gate is open or closed.”
He tapped the ledger gently. “The council may weigh your sprouts by numbers, by charts, by their own fears. But truth is not measured in their reports—it is written in the voices you keep alive. If you guard those voices, if you tend them honestly, then even if the council slams its gate, the roots will already have spread.”
Emil finally set his pen down and looked up. “So what you’re saying is—the ledger isn’t theirs to permit. It’s ours to tend.”
“Exactly.” Grandfather’s voice deepened, like roots sinking in soil. “Do not confuse the council’s verdict with God’s. The test placed before you is not whether the council approves—it is whether you remain faithful keepers when approval shifts like the wind.”
Outside, the night breeze rattled the greenhouse glass. Emil closed the ledger, but his shoulders eased. The weight of permission still pressed on him, but it no longer felt like chains. It felt like soil—hard, cracked, but still soil where roots could take hold.