Matt said, “The parable of the blind men and the elephant; we probably all have.”

Albadi nodded. “There are many different versions, but the message is primarily the same. It is an old parable dating back to Jainism, the obscure fifth-century BC Indian religion. In essence, it is the tale of a group of six blind men in a deep forest who come upon an elephant for the very first time. They wanted to determine what it looked like, so each approached the beast, feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; another, the tail and says it is like rope. The trunk is like a tree branch, the ear is a fan, and the belly is a wall, says three more. The final blind man feels the tusk, and announces it is a pipe of stone.

“None of them could agree on what the huge creature was actually like. It was just then that a sighted man walks by and sees the entire elephant all at once, and tells them. They are shocked, but then realize that the lesson is that while one’s subjective experience is true, it may not be the totality of truth.”

Matt nodded. “In another version, the men also learn for the first time that they are blind.”

“And have perhaps never really seen anything as it truly is,” Albadi finished. “And that, my friends, is perhaps what we are like here. Each of us has information about what we are experiencing, but none of us knows exactly what it is we are actually dealing with…and even if we did, would not see things as they truly are.”

“Because none of us has seen the entire picture…including you,” Major Abrams said. “So, has anyone seen the entire picture, Doctor?”

Albadi bobbed his head from side to side. “Yes, I believe there have been a few. But only one recorded what he had seen.” He turned with his lips pursed to look at Matt, and he nodded, perhaps coming to a decision.

“What do you know of the Al Azif?”

“The Book…the Book?” Matt’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

Albadi nodded solemnly.

“The Al Azif, AKA The Necronomicon, AKA The Book of the Dead?” Matt shook his head. “Yeah, I know a lot. It’s a fictional – what? Grimoire? – created by H.P. Lovecraft. It doesn’t exist. It was first mentioned around 1924 in a short story called ‘The Hound’. The author of the Al Azif was supposedly a man named Abdul Alhazred, known as the Mad Arab.”

“Yes, the famous English writer, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He had a copy, and found out very early that the Beast and its army would return. He was another who had seen…all of the elephant. He tried to warn us the only way he knew how – through his literary works. For all his brilliance, and his prodigious writings, he died penniless and in great pain.” He looked up at Matt. “He was ruined financially, mentally and finally, physically. It seemed powerful forces tired of his expositions.”