****Its old, its rough, its 18, borders on blasphemy, and is old enough to vote and legally marry, if it was a person and not a short story… Hope you like
The executioner fastens cold bands of metal around Jacob’s wrists and ankles, shackling him to the chair. Then he examines the wires that thread Jacob’s body. The clock on the wall reads 11:59. “No word from the governor,” the warden says to him. “Looks like you’ll get what you wanted.”
Jacob doesn’t respond, hums Nearer My God to Thee. The warden scoffs. “He’s still not talking. Hasn’t said a word to anyone for the last two weeks, not even to his wife.”
The warden turns away, stands next to the minister and doctor waiting against the wall. “He’s been reading his Bible, though. Probably checking the fine print in his contract with God.”
The executioner laughs. The doctor grins sourly, looks quickly to see if the minister notices. He hasn’t. He wipes the grin from his face, guiltily.
“Blindfold him,” the warden says. “It’s almost time.”
He’d rather not have the blindfold. None of the old martyrs were allowed that courtesy. He has no choice but to submit. The black cloth fits tight across his eyes. Nothing to see in here, anyway, he tells himself. The minister meeting his eyes earlier, asking if he had any regrets. He has no need for comfort or sorrow, now. This is a night of celebration. The minister, of all people, should know that. No, nothing to see. Only these gray painted walls, the heavy steel door; the threatening clock with the red hand turning irreversibly towards midnight.
Jacob wonders who is watching this behind the mirrored wall. The clinic director, perhaps. Muffled hymns and shouts come through the thick walls. Hymns from his supporters; shouts from the others. The warden reads the sentence from a typed sheet, something something State of Florida you are hereby…his words an officious drone invading Jacob’s ears without comprehension. Sweat slicks his palms and forehead. The minister is in the middle of the twenty-third psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…”
“It’s time,” the warden announces. The executioner throws the switch. A dull snap fills Jacob’s ears, no more remarkable than a hand casually turning off a light.
Simultaneously, a current enters his body, blistering and strong. Jacob bites his tongue once, twice, and doesn’t feel it, just tastes the blood in two floods as his jaws snap together. A brilliant light consumes his vision, like a star exploding behind his eyelids. Stink of burning hair in his nostrils as his heart stops. Then Jacob is above his body, watches as it twists in a Vitus dance.
The doctor approaches Jacob’s cast-off husk in the chair. His hair is thinning on top, like the Warden’s. Jacob hadn’t noticed this before. The doctor’s skin takes on a grayish tinge. He clutches Jacob’s chart in his hand. “I hate these things,” he tells the minister. The minister nods in agreement. From the ceiling, Jacob observes the doctor’s shaking hand write: Time of death: 12:01 A.M.
Jacob would like to linger, but whatever he is made of now passes through the ceiling, and rapidly past the roof. Something draws him upward, an irresistible pressure. The prison compound; the protesters and celebrators ringing the razor wire, waving signs and singing hymns; the lights of the small town nearby; grow smaller and smaller in his vision, until they are obscured by clouds.
He breaks through a barrier. A velvet darkness enfolds him, deliciously soft. Ahead is the purest light. This is the magnet that siphoned him here. It is infinitely larger, more beautiful than can be described. He passes through it, exquisite pleasure. He is alone in an unfurnished room without windows.
He looks behind him. No door. “Sit down, Jacob.” A voice that emanates from everywhere addresses him. He turns around again. A modest pine table and chair assemble themselves from air. The voice continues. “We’d like to talk to you.”
“Where am I?” Jacob asks. “It doesn’t feel like heaven.”
“You are in what we like to call the conference room. You’re an interesting case, Jacob. We haven’t had to use this room since the Spanish Inquisition.” Soft, gentle voice. Jacob can’t tell whether the voice is male or female. “Of course you can’t define our gender, Jacob. Remember. The Bible says we made man in our image. But we meant man in the old sense of the word, meaning humankind. We told Moses to write man and woman, but he was speedwriting, frantically trying to get everything down. The Greeks and King James complicated the issue further in their translations.”
Another soft voice laughed. “No matter. We’ve been discussing that little slip of the quill for millennia.”
“But, what do you look like?” Jacob asked, unsure if he should ask the question. “Since I was a little boy, I’ve longed to see your face.”
“So you hastened the process.” A third voice commented dryly.”Very well, you shall see us. We’ll be spending some time together.”
Three chairs came together out of the air. “You’ll forgive us our showmanship,” the voice continued. “But we have a habit of creating things.”
“Of course,” Jacob said, baffled. “I wouldn’t presume to judge. That’s your job.”
“Well, it’s one of the many. But Jacob, that’s precisely what you’ve forgotten. You took judgement into your own hands when you killed that doctor.”
The fiery conviction that has possessed Jacob for the last twelve months wavers. He hangs his head. “Is that what our conversation’s about?” He asked, “because if it is, then I can explain–”
“We’ll get to that, Jacob.” The voice interrupted. “Excuse us while we assume forms you can understand.” A door appears in the wall opposite Jacob’s chair. Jacob holds his breath as the door opens. An elegant, elderly man with penetrating blue eyes and a humorous mouth walks into the room. Jacob stands, takes the hand he’s offered. “I am,” the form introduces itself. “I assume I need no further introduction. You might as well stay standing. The rest of us should be here in days.” When he senses Jacob’s surprise at this, he explains, “time is different, here. You’ll get used to it.”
Jacob nods. the unnameable god is as commanding, as handsome as Jacob expects Him to be. But should the God of the old testament display such good humor? Should he have such dark skin? He looks like an Arab with blue eyes. Jacob had thought he would be an angry God, consumed in holy rage by the state of the world his children struggled within. “Only on my bad days,” the god with the unspeakable name says. “Oh. You’re surprised that I can read your mind. Remember that I created it. And of course I love dark skin. That’s why I concocted so much of it. Melanin’s a wonderful thing.”
The figure sits in the middle chair opposite Jacob. He pulls three golden balls from nowhere and begins juggling them. “This is how I occupied myself before I made the universe. Then I decided that if I could make something out of nothing, I should make something worthwhile.” He smiles. “I think you’ll agree that the universe is infinitely more entertaining than these balls.”
Jacob agrees. The door opens again. A beautiful woman enters the room. The glow from her skin illuminates the conference area. She is slightly transparent. Jacob gasps. He can see the back of the chair through her body, clad in a loose white robe. The robe is translucent without being indecent, he notices. Skin like clear honey. Asiatic eyes and hair, both the color of night.
There is something familiar about this woman, a presence he’s sensed before, warm and comforting. “Yes, you’ve felt my influence.” The spirit claims. “But not,” she adds crisply, “for the past year.”
“Why not?” Jacob asks. She shakes her head.
Her eyes soften. “You do have an endearing nature, Jacob, despite your folly.” She takes his hand and squeezes it. Her hand is warm as July sun caressing the skin.
The door opens a third time, revealing a tired, sweet-faced young man with long hair and a beard. At last, Jacob thinks, someone who looks as I thought he would. There are scars in his hands and feet, fine scratches etched on his forehead. “Jacob, what have you done in our name?” He asks.
Jacob can’t meet these eyes, eyes that mirror all the pain the world holds. “You know what I’ve done. I thought it was your will.”
“Sit down, Jacob.” Jesus walks around the table to pull the chair out for him. “That’s what we want to talk to you about.”
Jacob squirms in his chair. “But I–”
“Sorry, I have to interrupt you.” I am lifts a hand to stay any more words. “You have, like every other man who claims to serve us, said and done things in our name that we don’t approve of.”
“Yes. You’ve taken matters into your own hands instead of waiting for our will.” The spirit shakes her head again. “Jacob, you acted out of personal conviction, not divine inspiration.”
Jesus stands, begins to pace the room. “Jacob, since the dawn of Christianity, men and women have performed heinous deeds in our name. Look there,” he says. A portion of the wall shimmers, becomes a window. Jacob observes the forms behind the sudden transparency. Medieval men clad in metal carry a white banner with a golden cross sewn in the middle.
The men march into a desert city, waving swords. Hundreds fall under the shining metal. Bodies collect in the streets. Blood fills the gutters. The blood of women and old men flows like a river. Children are run through the middle by massive lances. Jesus resumes his commentary. “They called them Holy Wars: the Easter pogroms; the crusades; persecution of innocent women they claimed were witches; torture of free thinkers they called heretics.”
The picture changes to one of Russian soldiers slaughtering ragged men and women in a ghetto, expands to include a terrified girl tied to a crude wooden stake. He watches the priest smile, hug a Bible to his chest as the soldiers light the pitch and wood beneath her. Three soldiers drag a pregnant girl into a room. They cut the child out of her body. Then they set the houses of the ghetto afire. The picture is obscured by the fine white ash of burning. A burning ghetto, a burning woman.
“The screams of the innocent and the guilty echo in our ears daily.” Jacob watches himself through the window, kneeling to pray just before he pulls the trigger. He views his own smile as the doctor falls, the hole in his forehead large as an open mouth.
“Does no one understand my sermon? Instead of embracing each other, you argue constantly. I can’t bear the squabbling between the protestants and the Catholics, the Baptists and the Methodists. Not to mention the Muslims and the Jews.” Jesus sighed.
The window clears from the smoke, shows an elderly man baptizing a woman in a river. It is a thick wooded area. Soldiers come, drag them both to jail. An Inquisitor lights a fire under a huge vat of oil. A cross is the only witness.
Jehovah nods in agreement. “Yes. Jacob, many men and women have wrapped their agendas inside my message. Wars have been fought in my name. Do you think I want my children slaughtering each other? It makes me ill. Of course, I knew that the creation of a species with so much potential for self-righteousness would give me headaches. But this is insanity! I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am with you. You had so much potential for good.”
Blood or it’s equivalent rushes to Jacob’s cheeks. “But Lord,” he begins, addressing all of them at once, “You can’t tell me that doctor’s actions are forgivable. The slaughter of unborn children–”
“Has been going on since the beginning of time. They used herbs for that purpose for centuries.” The Spirit finishes his sentence. “Yes, it is a sorrow, as all life is sacred. Which means that doctor’s life was also holy. Still, you took it, even as your prayers assaulted our ears. They weren’t really prayers, they were the rantings of an angry, bitter man.”
Jesus continues her thought, smoothly. “It was easier to use the gun than wait for judgment or redirection from us.” His tears stain red lines down his cheeks.
I am’s eyes are lit brilliant with anger. “Jacob, I can’t tell you how close I was to throwing you in the pit for that action. Then my better thirds,” He continues, nodding at the other two, “reminded me of your salvation, your ultimate love for us. You were possessed with temporary madness, like so many of the men we’ve shown you today.
“But you still show no remorse. It is proper for you to preach, for you to urge others to see from your perspective. It is not right to kill those who persist in actions you find wrong.” The Spirit’s brows meet in a perfect V over the bridge of her nose. She has a face beautiful even while scowling. “Judgement is our business, not yours.”
“Remember again what I told the Jews,” Christ murmurs. “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”
“But he killed so many children. What about `’an eye for an eye’?'” Jacob demands. “I can’t believe you’re condemning me for his death.”
“You are accountable for your actions. He is accountable for his!” Jehovah bellows. “Aren’t we getting through to you at all?” The just God, the angry God pounds on the table for emphasis. His fist shatters the wood like glass.
The table rises, fuses itself. Jacob moans. He knows he is not fit to sit at this table. How had he ever felt he was?
“Forgive me. I didn’t know.”
“At last you show humility. Of course you are forgiven. It is those who love us most who often disappoint us.” The Spirit smiles at him. “But your love borders on fanaticism. And like any true fanatic, you decided to act for us as you felt we would if we were available, in that particular situation.”
“But you forgot one thing.” Jesus adds. His smile is sweet but infinitely sad. “You forgot that we are available. And you acted without knowing our will. In your blindness, you acted in anger. You did not submit to our will. You acted out your own.”
“So I served myself, and not you.” Jacob slumps in his chair. “And I am no better than the Inquisitor.”
“No. And you are no worse.” Jehovah grasps Jacob’s hand in his own. The power under that skin races through Jacob’s bones, explodes in his spine. “That is why you are with us, now.”
“But why am I with you? Surely my act was too terrible.”
“Ah, Jacob. You have also forgotten my capacity to forgive.” Jesus shows him the scars on his hands and feet. “Didn’t I die for you?”
“Yes, you did. But I thought I died for you.”
Jehovah stands, opens the door. “You were in error, my poor, troubled child.” He turns. “But come, you have much to learn.”
The three forms merge into one. For a moment he sees a laughing Buddha, then faces of other, stronger, and nameless archetypes take shape at his side. The body of God like thousands of faces fragmented, contained in one form; a kaleidoscope. “This is my natural shape,” says the figure. “Your first lesson, Jacob.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand.”
“You’ll have to go back, Jacob. But visit a while. Do you think it would be good for you to go back as a woman, this turn around?”
“Thy will be done,” Jacob said.
The infinite faces of God smile on Jacob as they walk together through the door.
Susan Daniels Poetry 