The story teller job is never done

A storyteller job in never done or/ A brush with the past

 My first encounter was in a dream.
I was climbing the Roman ramp, on the steep, narrow trail leading to the top of Masada.
 It is early in the morning, in the spring, and even though the sun is already rising over the Dead Sea, it is not high enough to reach this side of the mountain. Here on the western slope, the shadows are so deep that only a faint contour of the top of the mountain can be seen, lit up by the sun as it is wearing a halo. Every small stone my legs disturb create a sound that in the utter quiet can be heard without end until the stone is swallowed by the open chops of the water cisterns, dug into the side of the mountain. It is not the first time I have climbed to the ruins of the ancient, almost two thousand years old fortress, but this time I am alone. I stop for a minute to take a deep breath when I hear hurried footsteps and a man appears from the trail behind me and stops next to me.
  “In the three years I sat at the bottom of this cursed hill I never once climbed it, and now I know why,” he says.
  I look at him, gasping for air and straightening the big turban almost covering his face. There is something odd about his appearance, the clothes, the hair, and yet vaguely familiar.
  “Have we met before?” I start when it hit me. Of course, we did.
  “Josephus?” I start slightly hesitant, this is weird.
  “The one and only, “he extends his hand and adds a slight bow.
  “Titus Flavius Josephus, also known as Yoseph Ben Matityahu, a Romano-Jewish scholar, historian, and hagiographer.” He ends the long introduction.
  “Also an army commander, defector, advisor to Titus, a translator…” I add from my memory.
  “And let’s not forget a pretty famous writer.” He signs with a wink.
  “The Jewish War, I know, quite a bestseller, “I pull on my sparse knowledge earned in history classes about the big revolt against the Romans in 66 AD.
  “A true masterpiece, even if I have to compliment myself,” Josephus adds.
  “Based on the blood and tears of your people,” I cannot resist the temptation to deliver the last punch.
 “Ok, Ok, but I am here to help you, not argue about my personal qualities,” he waves my words away.
  “There is something I want you to see, come,” and with that he rushes me up the ramp to the top of the mountain, now all lit with the morning sun.
  Masada, the view from the top is as breathtaking as I remember it. The isolated rock cliff, at the western end of the Judean Desert, is overlooking the Dead Sea. With its ancient palaces and fortifications, it is a place of majestic beauty and practical thought all in one, palaces and storage facilities, elaborate water system and delicate columns and porches. It was designed to hold against any force of men and nature.
  “Except for the Roman Empire,” Josephus finishes the sentence as if he can read my mind.
  “Look,” he pulls me to the edge of the stone fence, “look at the bottom, what you see?”
  At the bottom of the hill just below us I can detect the the remnants of one of the camps, one of several camps just outside the circumvallation wall around Masada, left by the Roman tenth legion. Low piles of pale sandstones spread all around the hill and mark the huge compound that hosted 15, 000 soldiers and assorted help forces, all part of the siege that lasted close to three years.
  “They had no chance of coming out alive,” that is Josephus by my side. I know that he is talking about the small group of people who dared to defy the Roman Empire; a thousand men women and children who snuck out of the siege of Jerusalem in 70AD and found refuge in the old fortress.
  “So instead they decided to fight till the bitter end and take their own life when all hope was lost,” I interrupt, “I know the story, everyone knows the story, thanks to you.”
  “A story-teller job is never done,” Josephus continues as if he did not hear me, “Someone had to make sure these people will be remembered, and I happened to be there, a firsthand witness.”
  I stifle the many remarks I have about the questionable role Josephus played in that ancient drama. Ultimately he is right, if not for him, witnessing the events and documenting them, there would have been no story at all. I look at the structures around me, reconstructed with great care and love, a whole town being a living memory of the people who decided to abandon not only their homes but their lives as well. I grew up to honor their message, “live free or die,” transformed into the new motto of the young state of Israel, “Masada shall not fall again,” a clear broadcast against giving up, going quietly into your fate.
  “So why did you bring me here? “I turn around, but he is gone, and I am in my bed, back in my cold apartment.
  “Without the storyteller there is no story,” when I wake up to a gray, dreary morning, I can still hear the words Josephus said to me in my dream. A story can only live if someone takes the time to tell it, so it will not cease to exist.