Five miles from the gold-mining town of Mull Creek, there were three fires burning, and each camp had no knowledge of the others.
At the first was Jesus Whitetree. And Jesus loved gold.
For the time and place he lived, Jesus had an unusual name. But he didn’t know that. There were many things he didn’t know.
He didn’t know his age or the date he was born, although he guessed that he was about fifty years old. Maybe a little older. All he knew was fifty was half of one hundred, and one hundred years was a very long time. And he felt like he’d lived at least half of a very long time.
But he was wrong. In truth, today was Jesus’ birthday, and he was just eighteen years old.
He had never seen a calendar and he’d never heard much about dates and months and years. He knew the days of the week and he could recite them, but he always made a mistake in the order. He would put Friday before Thursday, and he thought Tuesday was the first day of the week. The errors had been implanted in him when he was very small, and no-one corrected him nor cared that he got it wrong.
And he’d never seen a map or a globe of the world, so he didn’t know where he was on this planet. He didn’t know the country he lived in and whether it was surrounded by other countries or if he was on an island. And he didn’t know the names of any of the towns he’d been through or if he’d crossed any borders.
On the occasion of his eighteenth birthday, it was the year of 1861 and Jesus lived in the British Colony of Victoria on the island continent of Australia.
It was getting colder but it wasn’t winter yet. The sun was gone and Jesus had a good fire. The flames glowed orange on his white face and behind him it was black. It was so dark that it seemed like the only things that existed were the objects touched by his fire’s light. The logs crackled and moved and he thought it sounded like a song he’d heard a long time ago, but the fire never sang it long enough for him to remember how it went.
He’d be asleep soon, but just before he closed his eyes, he would say his name three times. He’d say it first in a whisper.
Then a little louder. And then louder again.
He did this every night so he wouldn’t forget. He’d only had the name for a short time. Maybe a year. Maybe not even that long. No-one else knew it and he was afraid he’d wake one morning with the fire dead and realise he’d forgotten his own name…
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