Read Online Mirrors by Ted Dekker - Free Book Online Page B

notion, but let’s be honest, shall we? You ride high enough on your horse to think that most people traipse mindlessly through life without asking a single meaningful question. Tell me I’m wrong.”
    A beat.
    “Unlike most people,” Fisher said, “questions are what make you tick. Knowing is what gives you a reason to roll out of bed in the morning, because you’re not just in search of knowledge. Facts are never enough. You’re after something else, something more fundamental. You’re after the truth.”
    Fisher stopped his pacing and regarded Austin directly. “But the problem with believing you can think your way to the truth is that you can’t know the unknowable.”
    “All things are knowable.”
    “Is that so?”
    “With enough time, yes.”
    “Then tell me, where did you come from? In the very beginning.”
    The question caught in Austin’s mind.
    “It’s a simple question,” Fisher said. “Surely you know the answer.”
    The question turned over in his mind. “No one knows.”
    “Of course not. Just as you can’t know with certainty the other questions that drive you to the brink of madness. Is life eternal and if so, where were you before you were born? Does God exist? Do you even matter in this great big universe of ours?”
    “Esoteric questions,” Austin said, wondering why Fisher was taking the time to give him a philosophy lesson.
    “But those are the ones that will eventually drive you crazy. Our minds ask questions we can’t know the answers to with certainty. Our answers depend on when and where we were born, which myths and legends we were taught to believe, our perceptions that mold our very small realities. A few hundred years ago, you would’ve believed the world was flat and sickness could be cured by leeching the blood from your body. And you would’ve been right as far as you knew. Which of your beliefs today will turn out to be obviously false tomorrow?”
    The blue surgical gloves in Fisher’s hand were starting to concern Austin.
    “You’re obsessed with figuring out the truth, but you can’t. It’s unknowable, a mystery sunken so deep in the universal ocean that the only way to reach it is to die. You’re going to spend the rest of your life chasing illusions of certainty, but you will never find peace. You see, it’s not what you know that matters, it’s how you are . And you, Scott, are ill.”
    A thick silence passed between them.
    “You say I’m ill,” Austin said, “but where’s your data? In the file you fabricated, of course.”
    “Fabricated? Tell me, how are your headaches?”
    “What?”
    Fisher lifted his index finger to his left brow. “They radiate from here, don’t they? Is it a throbbing pain or more like a jagged ice pick?”
    Austin could hear his own pulse in his temple. How could Fisher know about his headaches? From his file? Scott’s file.
    No. He could have found Austin’s medication in his jeans pocket. It wasn’t too much of a stretch.
    “Frontal lobe lesions are quite common in patients who suffer from delusional maladies, particularly those of a grandiose or schizophrenic nature. Severe headaches are quite common among patients like you.”
    “You keep saying I’m delusional.”
    “Like you, I follow the data wherever it leads. But rest assured, I’m here to help you. I want to help you find peace.”
    Fisher crossed to Jacob. Stepped next to the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think Jacob knows? Hmm?”
    “He doesn’t know what’s going on around him,” Austin said. “He’s in his own little world.”
    “And yet he is quite happy.” He turned to Jacob. “Tell us, Jacob. Are you afraid?”
    The boy blinked. Slowly shook his head.
    “No, of course not. Is anything upsetting you at all right now, Jacob?”
    A slow response again, but a definite shake of his head. This time Austin was sure that he smiled, although his lips didn’t move per se.
    “You see.”
    “He’s practically a