The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz
Author: Russell Hoban
Desc: There were no more lions any more. There had been lions once. Sometimes in the shimmer of of the heat on the plains the motion of their running still flickered on the dry wind – tawny great and quickly gone. Sometimes the honey-coloured moon shivered to the silence of a ghost-roar on the rising air. Jachin-Boaz lives in a dusty town where he owns a shop that sells all kinds of maps: maps to find water love money whatever the heart desires. He has a son Boaz-Jachin for whom he is making him a master-map that will be given to him when he is a man. This map that will contain all the secrets of the other maps combined so that he will be able to find whatever he wishes to seek. Jachin-Boaz shows his son the map a labor of love representing years of his life spent upon it. Rhetorically he asks ‘What can you seek that this map will not show you how to find?’ ‘A lion?’ asks Boaz-Jachin. Disappointed the father responds: ‘A lion. I don’t think I understand you. I don’t think you’re being serious with me. You know very well there are no lions now.’ But then Jachin-Boaz leaves home abandoning his wife and son and taking the master-map. He leaves a note which reads ‘I have gone to look for a lion.’ In the desert outside the town there is a palace where the last king is entombed his lion hunt carved in stone. Boaz-Jachin who has decided to seek out his father and ask for the map takes a bus to the palace where he makes a powerful connection with the image of the dying lion carved in stone. Through a simple act of sympathetic magic the son loosens the spears and sets the lion’s spirit free then begins his journey across land and sea to find his father.