The World He Claims, Claimed Him

He cannot do anything deliberate now. The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up, displaces thought, as much for him as it has for everyone else who has ever been stuck to one of these horrible contrivances, or for anyone else who dies in pain from any of the world’s grim arsenal of possibilities. And yet he goes on taking in. It is not what he does, it is what he is. He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own. This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act, each dripping memory, as if it were something precious, as if it were itself the loved child tottering homeward on the road. But there is so much of it. So many bruised sons and daughters; so many locked rooms; so much despondent anger; so many incendiary devices in public places; so much callous fanaticism; so many teenagers with nothing to do; so many well-oiled girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many gags that go too far; so much ruining voracity; so much sick resourcefulness; so much burned skin. The world he claims, claims him. It burns and hurts, it shards and gashes, it tresses him round and yanks him down… All day long, the next day, the city is quiet. The air above the city lacks the usual thousand little trails of smoke from cookfires. Hymns rise from the temple. Families are indoors. The soldiers are back in barracks. The Chief Priest grows hoarse with singing. The governor drinks wine, plays Latrones, a popular Roman board game with his secretary and dictates letters. The free bread the temple distributed to the poor has gone stale by midday but tastes all right dipped in water or broth. Death has interrupted life only as much as it ever does. We die one at a time and disappear, but the life of the living continues. The earth turns. The sun makes its way towards the western horizon no slower or faster than it usually does... to be continued Easter Sunday.