“Cunning!” said the Trappist.

“And false!” added the Antipodean, standing in for the Sage as the supplier-in-chief of Shakespearian quotation, as with the Nestorian they peered at the glowing screen of the i-phone, whereon the latest message from the Elderly Man, also known as the Sage and the Bard, was inscribed.

“Which planet does he think he’s on?” said the Trappist, somewhat curtly and ungenerously.

” ‘Imagine’, ” corrected the Antipodean. “To which planet do we ‘imagine’ that an imaginary Saviour came, and what would the difference be between such an imagined event, and its actual counterpart?”

Somewhere from deep within the folds of the Nestorian’s cowl, a spectral voice emerged, weak at first, but rising in strength on a mighty crescendo:

Imagination—here the Power so called
Through sad incompetence of human speech,
That awful Power rose from the mind’s abyss
Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,
At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;
Halted without an effort to break through;
But to my conscious soul I now can say—
“I recognise thy glory:” in such strength
Of usurpation, when the light of sense
Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed
The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,
There harbours; whether we be young or old,
Our destiny, our being’s heart and home,
Is with infinitude, and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be.
Under such banners militant, the soul
Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils
That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts
That are their own perfection and reward,
Strong in herself and in beatitude
That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile
Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds
To fertilise the whole Egyptian plain.

The Trappist and the Antipodean looked at each other across the awesome void that was the Nestorian’s cowl. There was only one appropriate response.

“Jeez!” whistled the Antipodean, and downed another slug of Fosters.