by A. L. Mengel
Stephen nodded. Darius looked at him, making eye contact and a small smile. Stephen no longer bothered to keep his condition a secret. In the years past, sure. Had he told others about it, because if he hadn’t he had feared he would be alone. But his eyes dropped as he remembered the consequences for doing that.
Darius placed his hand on Stephen’s arm. “We are here today to tell you that you don’t have to die.”
Stephen was pulled out of his thought, and looked down at Darius’ hand, and then up into his tired eyes. “Darius, I want to live. But what do I have to live for? I’m wasting away to nothing. I can’t even eat and keep food down anymore. My life has become such a hell…”
“The gift won’t give you your youth back,” Delia said. “I was in a similar situation as you, my friend. I just had a different ailment. I aged rapidly, to a point, and then I stopped. Like I was frozen in time.”
Stephen stopped. “Uh…frozen in time?”
Darius nodded as menus were brought to the table.
Delia unfolded the menu, and started scanning the offerings. “Stephen, if you come with us, you will not die. But you must receive this gift. Or you won’t have much time left. It’s a decision that only you can make.”
“But I will be stuck like this for all of eternity? When I was first transformed, I was youthful. I was muscular. Tanned. Now, I might as well really be sick because I sure look it.”
Delia looked at Stephen until they made eye contact. “It is my understanding that you aren’t really sick,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Yes. I am not really sick.”
“I understand why you are feigning illness,” Delia said. “But you really believe yourself to have AIDS, don’t you? Have you convinced yourself as you try to convince others?”
Darius leaned forward. “I have chosen this, Stephen. I’m not like you – but then, again, I am. I was once youthful and full of energy. But now, I am a skeleton of my former self, cursed to live in this decrepit mortal body.” He unrolled his silver, tossed the napkin in his lap and slammed the silverware down on the table. He then looked up. “But it’s better than the alternative,” he added.
“What are you saying?” Stephen asked. He pulled his arms back and placed his hands in his lap. He looked at Darius, and then at Delia, who peered over the menu to look back at Stephen, and then he looked back at Darius. Delia raised her eyebrows.
“I am immortal because I took the gift,” Delia said, and then returned to the menu. Darius exhaled and closed his eyes. “I was once immortal,” he said, looking outwards toward the ocean. “I was once immortal and then it was taken from me. We can help you find that gift.”
Stephen’s mouth dropped open and he sat back in his chair. He folded his arms across his chest. He shook his head. “I see. So what kind of crazy getup is this?” He looked over his shoulder, and then to the right, and the left, and back at Delia and Darius.
Delia slammed her menu down. “Excuse me?”
Darius shook his head, about to speak.
“What is this, some circus act?” Stephen said, leaning forward again, pushing out his chair.
“Sit down, Stephen,” Darius said. “We exist. We are real.”
Delia got up and leaned forward over the table, staring down at Stephen, directly into his eyes. “If you don’t let us help you, expect to be dead within weeks. I can see how much of a skeleton you have become. I told Darius to come see you to save your life. If you don’t want to be saved, well then.” She shrugged her shoulders and sat back down.
“Calling yourselves immortals? Look, I need real medicine and real help. I need to be prepping my will. Not listening to some hocus-pocus mumbo jumbo.”
Darius rose from his chair but Delia grabbed his arm. “Sit down. Let him go. Let’s order our lunch. He is clearly in a state of denial.”
They perused the menu and lunch specials as Darius glanced and saw Stephen standing at the end of the corner. “Why do we need him again?”
Delia looked up. “She needs an even swap. That’s the only way.”
*~*~*
JERUSALEM
When Claret had returned from Gethsemane, back to her dusty bungalow in Jerusalem, back from her time in Gethsemane, she thought that she had a dream that night when she drifted off to sleep. She was right on the cusp of drifting off, at the point where one might hear a noise in the room or a voice; but it would sound distant and isolated, a mere echo in her mind. She thought she dreamt of the strange hooded man that stood outside the lambskin covering her door. She could have sworn that she did.
But she didn’t.
She hadn’t been dreaming and that she knew. She knew when she felt the cool air covering her legs like a pair of hands, gently caressing her thighs and lifting her off the bed.
The man removed his hood and smiled, his face warm and friendly looking, beckoning her to come.
Looking around the room, she saw her sleeping family. Her mother and father, huddled across the room in a small straw bed made for two, and her brother and sister in beds on the opposite wall. All of them slept with a silence like that of death.
But Claret was awake. She knew now that she was not dreaming.
The man stood and went to take her hand, and she willingly arose from the bed. She did not cry she did not fight nor did she wail; looking at her family as if saying goodbye for the last time, she placed her tiny hand in the man’s – and he led her out the door.
The night was cold and she could see her breath, each puff of air looking like a small puff of smoke, and she looked down at her fingers; her cold fingers turning numb in the chill of the night; her fingers that were wrapped around the large hand of her strange suitor.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, craning her neck upwards and to the right to look and see who was under the black hood. But all she could see were the shadows.
“Come with me,” the man said, lifting her up to carry her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and placed her head down on his right shoulder, as he placed his hand against her back, holding her tight to his chest as he broke out into a run. “We must get you away from here, and quickly,” he said through deep breaths. “They are coming to get you – coming to get you for what you did.”
Claret knew.
She opened her eyes and thought of the previous night, the previous night when she stood outside the beautiful garden watching the man who intrigued her so much; watching the man fall to His knees in prayer, she watched him through the bushes in security and safety.
The man who was to be crucified and nailed to a cross today.
That much she knew.
That much she knew because everyone knew it and everyone was going to come out later to watch Him carry His cross through the streets.
But what she remembered after He left the garden was the small stone house that He retreated to; she remembered finding a small stone, a stone large enough that she could stand on and peer through the window – a stone small enough that she could lift and move it from the garden to the edge of the hut.
The window was covered with a white sheet that she could see through, and she hoped that the darkness was her shield. A group of men in robes were gathered in a circle on the floor of the room; a small fire popped and glowed in the corner of the room. The man she was looking for was in the center of the table, His followers on either side around them, sitting cross legged – their wooden staffs leaning against the wall. The shadows of their heads played against the wall like a picture, and little Claret stared at the group of men in awe.
The man had taken a loaf of bread and ripped it in half, distributing it to the men on his left and then to his right. He started speaking, the men trained on His face, some nodding. Claret struggled to listen but she could not. But it did not matter. She was too fascinated to let go, so she remained on her rock, standing on her barefooted tiptoes, her small hands hugging the dusty cold stone ledge, her eyes squinting to see through the white cloth.
&nbs
p; “Do this in my remembrance.”
Claret heard that, and then she saw the Cup.
The man stood and spoke a little louder. “Drink from this Cup my brethren,” he said, holding the Cup before his followers. Claret did not take her eyes from the Cup. “This is my blood.”
Claret buried her head in her suitor’s clothes, closing her eyes as tight as they would go. She didn’t want to know nor did she care where he was taking her. She was probably going to be hung for taking the Cup. She just wanted to go back to her warm bed and sleep and wake up and smell breakfast cooking and forget this whole night ever happened.
But she knew that it had to happen.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked sleepily, lifting her head up and looking around, and noticing that they were no longer on the streets of Jerusalem but in the middle of a black desert, far away from any civilization, heading into the blackness towards no apparent destination. She looked her suitor directly in the eyes, but he did not return the gaze. “Where are you taking me?” she asked again, this time the tone of her voice more insistent for an answer. The man continued to run.
But he spoke, short and through deep breaths. “You are the chosen one!”
She crinkled her face as only a child could do. “What?”
“You took the cup, you are the chosen one!”
The man stopped, he put Claret down in the sand, in the middle of the dark desert, and he collapsed and sat in the sand to catch his breath.
Claret looked up at the vast array of stars gazing down upon them, something she saw for frequently outside her hut in the city but, for some reason, they looked brighter and different in the dark isolation of the desert.
She turned her attention to the man who captured her, watching him clutch his chest in an effort to regain his breath and speak normally. “Are you alright?” she asked, as he waved that he was okay.
“How did you get that cup?” he asked.
She looked again up at the stars and saw the same things that she saw so recently, the picture so vivid in her mind that she could swear that she were still standing on the rock that she was standing on so recently; it was so recent that she could still feel the cold, hard stone against her bare feet; she could still see the muted silhouettes through the mesh drape.
“They had a supper,” she said, breaking her gaze, watching the man take a sip of water from his satchel. “And that’s when I saw it, through the old white cloth through the window.”
“What did you see?” he asked.
“He passed the cup to everyone there, and they all drank from it. And he said that His blood is the life.”
“The life?”
“Yes, the life. They would share eternal life with Him if they drank from it. And they all did.”
The man sat for a few minutes and stared up at the stars in the sky, his legs crossed, his arms over his knees, thinking about what Claret had just told him. “How did you take that cup?” he asked again, this time getting up and standing, dusting the sand from his robe, grabbing her arm and pulling her to look at him in the face. With more insistence, he asked again. “How did you get that cup?”
She stammered and pulled away from him. “I don’t know you, why should I tell you?”
“Because I know you know where it is,” he said. “And I know you know of its power.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, sitting down in the sand. “The cup is gone.”
The man stopped, dropping his cane, and looked right at her. “What do you mean it’s gone?”
“I gave it away.”
“You gave it away?! To whom?”
“Someone I know. Someone who needed the life from it.”
The man cursed under his breath, staring at the sky and throwing his hands up in the air. “You need to take me the one who has the cup,” he said. “We need that cup.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because he is dead.”
“He is dead?”
“Yes, he died a long time ago. But I go back and see him sometimes.”
“What do you mean you go back to see him?”
The man grabbed her arm, forcing her to look him in the eyes. His large, blue eyes beckoned her for an answer. His face, much closer than before, made him seem much older than she had originally thought he was.
Claret stood up straight and proper even though she was being held so roughly. “I would see him all the time. He was a king. He had an empire. Many servants and followers. And I would visit him all the time, and we would have fun together, and we would play games together and I would be much older then.”
“Tell me, dear Claret. Tell me what you do and how you get there.”
“I close my eyes, I lay down and then I am there with him.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I brought him a gift.”
Freed from his grip, she now walked next to him, led by the tall hooded man, to a destination in the pale blue moonlight to a destination still unknown to her. But she followed like the obedient child that she was in her mortal life, and told her story to him with the utmost detail. The man listened to every word and let her speak; he never once interrupted and his thoughts remained focused and hardly wandered – but at one point he did make a mental note of how much she spoke like a fully grown adult.
“The cup was very easy to acquire,” she said. “I stood on my stone and watched the supper take place before me, watched them eat and break bread, and watched them drink and share the wine. But He called it His blood. They drank His blood. And He told them to share His eternal life.”
“I see,” the man said. “And so that is when you wanted the cup?”
“That is when. I thought it would be a precious gift; something I could honor him by and thank him for my life.”
“Honor who?”
“The boy who I was with.”
“What boy?”
The man looked down at him as they approached a small outpost village in the middle of the desert; it was still in the middle of the night. The houses were the same, small square stone boxes that were in Jerusalem – but they were far less in number and stood in contrast to the flat vastness of the desert.
“Come with me, girl!”
The horses sought water, and the man dismounted.
Claret sat near the water bin, and waited. The heat was oppressive, the sun was intense and beating, and there was no relief except under the tapestry that hung from sticks.
The man approached her again with angry eyes. His face shifted. “Where is that cup?” He grabbed her arm and lifted her from the ground.
“I don’t know, I don’t know! I gave it to him but that was so long ago!”
“Come with me you stupid little girl! I am taking you with me to the priests!”
And she was drug through the sand, closer to the tables in the market. There was a biting wind and sand snapped at her face.
“This girl knows where the cup is.”
A priest dressed in black, seated in a chair at the first table, leaned forward as Claret was stood in front. “And how did she come across this cup?”
The mysterious man raised his eyebrows and looked over towards where Claret was standing.
She looked down at her toes, and kicked the sand. “The cup is gone.”
The priests fought amongst themselves, it sounded as if they squawked like geese, determined to know the meaning for the presence of the girl. The man stepped forward.
He stood before the priests, and knelt. “Permit me to speak.”
One of the priests gestured his hand.
“This girl is Claret. She is a chosen one.”
The priest in the middle interrupted. “What do you mean ‘chosen one’? What has she done?”
The man stood.
He looked over at Claret, who was now at the edge of the clearing, sitting with the other children, looking over at him with interest. “She was able to get the cup. From the man who calls hi
mself the Savior. The one who will die today.”
The priest in the middle of the table rubbed the hair on his chin. “I see. And where is the cup now?”
The man’s face fell. “Right now, we don’t know that.”
The priest looked the man directly in the eyes. “And why don’t we know that?”
The man stopped and looked over at Claret once again. “She says she gave it to a boy.”
The priest slammed his hand down on the table. “Why would she do that?! Bring her back here!”
The man walked over to the waiting children and grabbed Claret’s arm. “Come with me now!”
He drug her back over to the clearing, and then stood her in the center, just in front of the table, in front of the priests. She stumbled as the man held her into place.
There was silence for a while, as the priests examined the girl. She clearly was a peasant girl. Her clothes were tattered and torn. Her arms and legs were dirty. She was very plain.
But she knew where the cup was. “So tell us, little Claret. Where is the cup that you found?”
She stomped on the ground and looked the priests directly in the eye. “I didn’t find it I stole it!”
The priest leaned forward and looked directly down into Claret’s eyes. “So you say you stole it? How so? What did you do?”
And then Claret was transported back to the evening just outside Gethsemane, when she stood on a wooden box and looked inside, through the cloth. She saw the cup. She saw it passed around the table. And then everyone drank from it.
“Everyone drank from it.”
“And they all drank? Why?”
“He said that it would bring them eternal life.”
The priests talked amongst themselves for a moment. And then the priest in the middle spoke again. “So you are saying that these men are immortal?”
“So I say! And I will do what I say!”
Claret was grabbed by her arm and dragged back towards the other children. The man bent down and drew her aside. “They are getting angry. There is too much confusion about how you got the cup.”
