The Silence of John

Book Excerpt: Chapter One

CHAPTER 1

John

     He stood within the shadow of the cross. Among women. He was invisible. Among women. He was paralyzed by the emptiness of his Rabbi?s eyes.
     An old woman placed her right hand upon his left shoulder and startled him. ?John. Where are you??
     He trembled.
     She lifted her hand from his shoulder. ?Our Rabbi is awake. Speak.?
     John blinked; sorrow disconnected his ground of being. He opened his mouth; terror arrested his ability to talk.
     If he could not speak, they could not accuse him. If he remained still, they would not find him.
     He shut his eyes and tried to hurl himself from the present, but the past would not allow it. He clenched his teeth and reached for the future, but he heard his Rabbi?s voice instead.
     ?Woman, behold, your son.?
     John opened his eyes: his Rabbi?s mother stepped closer to her son; his Rabbi gathered strength to speak.
     ?Behold, your Mother.?
     Increased emotions provoked several women to surround John. Their anxious breaths were suffocating. They urged him to speak.
     John raised his trembling arms to demonstrate his unworthiness but unintentionally acted as Jesus? conductor, instead.
     ?I thirst.?
     John escaped from the center of the group and stumbled toward a bowl filled with posca. A dirty sponge, half-submerged in the dark vinegar, was impaled with a long stalk that rested diagonally from the bowl to the ground. He grabbed the stalk and raised the acidic sponge to his Master?s lips.
     John tried to let go of the stalk when a surge of energy suddenly coursed through his body, but the stalk remained attached to his open palm. He was frightened by this magic, confused by this strange sensation.
     He collapsed when the surge dissipated. His eyes crossed when he squinted at the dark liquid sky.
Jesus belched.
     John rolled onto his stomach and picked up the foul sponge. He rose to his knees and pressed the sponge to his cracked mouth. The wine burned his throat.
     John dropped the sponge as he stood up and raised his arms; he wept. Lightning split the sky and thunder pealed like a penitent ghost; he waited to be struck dead.
     Heaven flickered like an injured firefly. Then the sky flashed intensely and illuminated his Master?s thorn-pierced head.
     Bolts of lightning struck Golgotha?s ground and dispersed many spectators, but several clusters of devoted women maintained their positions near his cross.
     Women wept and spectators hollered as John beheld his Master?s wounded head:
     Patches of flesh were torn from Jesus? scalp; patches of scalp hung raggedly from his head. Hair and scalp, blood and dirt were the elements that composed this grotesque image. But mind and matter, fear and loathing were the rudiments that transformed this image into a hideous abstraction.
     John lowered his gaze and beat his breast and managed to remain upright despite the storm?s ferocity. The wind blew through him and raked his naked soul. John lifted his gaze:
     His Master?s left foot was nailed lower to the side of the upright stake than his right foot. A square spike was used to pierce the side of the nonload-bearing ankle and anchor the left foot against the splintered wood for the practical purpose of torture. Fecal matter and mud covered the torn-off nails of three toes. The other two were cracked and blackened. The trauma of the large crushed toe and the extreme attitude of the dislocated index toe accentuated the complex injuries that transformed the extremity into a grotesque object. Cuts and scratches, bruises and abrasions, gouges and puncture wounds maimed the top and the bottom, as well as the ankle and the heel, of the left foot.
     John wrenched his gaze from the painful sight to seek the darkness of the tempestuous sky, but his Master?s deformed left hand caught his attention:
     A square spike pierced the wrist and secured the limb to the coarse crossbeam. The ruined fingertips curled inwardly and almost touched the palm near the base of the fingers. Except for the blackened thumb, all the fingernails were torn off with some of the flesh. Blood and dirt obscured some of the injuries, but the mutilation was too dramatic to conceal.
     A long rumble of thunder announced the end of the world.
     ?Say something!? a woman screeched. ?Do something!?
     John dropped to his knees and embraced the foot of the thick stake. The piercing cold and the savage storm made him shiver like a helpless woodland creature clinging to the gnarled bark of a tree.
He dragged the right side of his face against the stake as he slumped to the ground from the weight of his sorrow. A large splinter tore his cheek and forced his eyes to flutter; he flinched away from the wood. He combed through his beard with his fingers, found the splinter, and yanked it out. He welcomed the pain. He welcomed anything that detracted him from his guilt.
     ?Save yourself, if you are the King of Israel!? somebody shouted through the din of the storm.
     ?King, my ass!? one of the other crucified men shouted.
     John pressed his hands over his ears and rocked from side to side like a demented penitent, as the crucified thief ranted venomously.
     ?There?s your . . . King . . . a misfit . . . in the company of women . . . a mad prophet . . . ha! . . . cannot help your??
     John wanted to tear out his ears. Mud seeped into his loincloth.
     He looked up at his Rabbi and was startled to see love in his half conscious eyes. John sobbed convulsively. He was determined not to abandon Jesus even though he was a cowardly wretch who was unable to speak. His lips trembled.
     Was this . . . this love stronger . . . stronger than death?
     John held his gaze as lightning assaulted the sky and illuminated his Rabbi?s countenance.
     This . . . this could not be the end of love.
     John rose to his knees and grabbed the bottom of his Rabbi?s wooden stake with both hands. Then he released the stake and pressed the palms of his hands against his ears again to stop the sound of crying infants, the sound of sobbing children, the sound of mourning women, and the sound of that tortured criminal.
     The ground trembled. He trembled. Rain pelted the top of his head. Lightning illuminated his shame, his impotence, his cowardice. . . .
     He banged his forehead against the wood. He banged his forehead repeatedly in order to substitute  external pain for internal agony. He banged his head.
     Pain. Blood. Darkness.

continues...