The old lodge room smelled faintly of oil and dust. Candles flickered in their sconces, and faint beams of moonlight drifted through the high windows like forgotten prayers.

A few aging Brothers moved quietly around the room, straightening columns, polishing the Masonic symbols, and arranging aprons as if keeping order in small things could fend off the creeping silence at the edges of the pending darkness.

At the center stood the Inquisitor, a younger Brother with clear eyes and a troubled brow. He watched as an older man, whom they simply called the Builder, carefully adjusted the square and compasses on the altar.

Inquisitor: Builder, why do we polish these symbols when the rust always returns?

Builder: Because it reminds us of when they shone. But perhaps rust is the sign we should be forging new tools, not just preserving old ones.

Inquisitor: Why guard these flames that dwindle to darkness night after night?

Builder: Because we forgot that the purpose of fire is not guarding, but lighting. Perhaps it is time to gather tinder again.

The Inquisitor paced beneath the tattered banners that listed the lodge’s founding date and Past Masters.

Inquisitor: We honor these names year after year. Yet these honors don’t bring back the spirit that once filled these walls. Why record and honor shadows when no one walks in the light?

Builder: Then open the shutters. Let the morning in. The shadows will fade, and in their place we may see where to build anew.

The younger man turned toward the altar. The lodge room walls appeared smaller than he remembered, with the spaces between the columns narrower, the ceiling lower, and the furniture more faded.

Inquisitor: We are mending the same old vessels, aren’t we patching sails that will never catch wind?

Builder: Then build and launch new ships. The sea is still there, even if we have forgotten its song.

Silence settled in. The dust drifted downward in slow spirals, as if time itself hesitated.

Inquisitor: Why do our rituals march us in circles without us knowing where they lead?

Builder: Because the circle feels safe. But one step outward turns the circle into a spiral, the shape of creation itself.

The Builder motioned toward the east. The moonlight grazed the working tools, scattering a gold reflection over the floor.

Builder: Tradition is not the preservation of ashes, my brother. It is the keeping of fire. The lodge will live again when men come not to conserve light, but to kindle it.

The Inquisitor stepped closer, his doubt giving way to wonder.

Inquisitor: Then it is not the edifice that must rise again, but the builders themselves.

Builder: It is so. The stones for building are waiting; it only lacks the hands that learn and begin to shape them.

And there, among the relics of their predecessors, the two men knelt, not to mourn the past, but to lay the first line upon a new trestle board.

The evening moonlight widened across the lodge floor, erasing the last trace of dust.