There were always patterns everywhere, you just had to learn how to see them.

Sometimes it took a lot of time and patience, but if you looked carefully enough and long enough you could always find a rhythm in everything around you.

Even things that appeared random at first glance would show their patterns when seen close or far enough.

Yes, he was very good at finding patterns… he was obsessed with them. He was also very good at finding the anomalies, the ’holes’ that lurked in every pattern.

His knowledge of the patterns that governed the world could have made him very rich, or a great strategist, or a king –but there were no interesting patterns to be found there. He became instead, a healer.

He could see the fascinating rhythms and patterns of their minds and bodies. He could see where there holes in every pattern. He could see exactly where and how to fix the holes and heal them.

But then he began to see other patterns change. As whispers cropped around him and the gaze of priests and shamans started following him, a new pattern emerged. A pattern he was not a part of.

As the looks of fear and jealousy spread about him, he noticed how the pattern closed around him. He had now become an anomaly himself, a hole the pattern was trying to close.

The looks gave way to words, and then to action. A veiled shove, steps too close to his, a barely missing stone. And finally, an angry mob. Cries of “Witch!” and “Devil!” getting nearer to his simple home.

He watched the faceless pattern of the crowd as it got closer, and suddenly realized even reality was itself a pattern –and there were always holes in every pattern. With a smile, he closed his eyes and stepped into a new world full of patterns to discover.

The cries from the mob turned into stunned silence as their sticks and swords were swung into a suddenly empty space.

The hole had closed.