He regains himself, turns to hurry back to his dwelling, but cannot keep from another gaze. He looks back at the swan sea, considers, nods.
A portent. Useful. Mythological. The Night of Resurrection it happened that.
Stepping inside, Matthias relights the candle, stoops to see Papias is breathing well.
They will come at daybreak for prayers. There is an hour, maybe less, beforehand. He readies himself. In the earth of the floor next to the bed mat he scrabbles two depressions, rubs at his knees with a small stone till they redden raw, then kneels into the holes. In fools appearance is the foundation for faith. A soul cannot easily be resurrected. There must be effort, and of this there must be evidence. He considers his posture when they come to the door. He will bend down so, he will have prayed himself into the very ground so — nay, look at the imprints. He will have his two hands lain upon the youth's forehead and be praying and not even look up or notice they are arrived.
But I will need another sign. Something of the cost of intercession. That it is not the business of mortals, but only those who can touch the Divine.
A wound. I should have a wound.
From where he kneels, Matthias looks into the shadowed room. Upon the table is a short metal spike, holed one end as a needle. It is within his reach. How the Divine provides for his own.
Matthias waits. He listens into the whirl of the wind for the bell ring and for those who will be coming. He is perfectly poised. Papias breathes easily now and soon will wake. He may hear or not, it is of no import. The others will let him know Matthias wrestled him back from death.
Then, faintly, like a distant bird lost, the bell sounds. There is no light. No daybreak is apparent to Matthias, but must be. He takes the metal spike, touches its tip to the candle flame, then he brings it to the corner of his eye.
I will weep blood.
With one hand holding the spike to the outer corner of his eye and the other raised behind it, he begins to press. The needle burns minutely. With a sudden blow, he smacks hard the hand that holds it, and it pops with blood spurt in past the corner of his eye socket. He shrieks out, pulls and lets fall the spike, then must fumble in the dirt to find it quickly and throw it out of view. The pain is wild. Blood blurs his seeing, but he finds the needle and flings it away. Roughly he pokes at the wound, the pulpy blood and watery leakage of himself, draws a weep line on to his cheek. His teeth chatter and he has to bite hard to keep from weakness. Their footsteps approach. He throws himself forward, lays both hands on the youth's forehead, and says aloud the prayers in a voice not his own.
Then John and the disciples step inside. They see the shocking figure of the kneeling mourner, the blood flowing freely from his eye. Then Linus sees the chest of Papias rise.
'He lives!' he cries out. 'Papias lives! Look. Behold, he is brought back!'
15
The younger disciples fall to their knees. The Apostle stands.
'Papias lives?' he asks.
'He does,' Auster says. 'Praise the Divine.'
There is the murmuring of prayer. The door being ajar and the gathering both inside and out, the storm blows amongst them. The framing of the hut creaks, the cloth tenting slaps and snaps angrily. A beaker rolls on the floor.
'Bring me to him,' John says.
Ioseph leads him. Auster and Linus offer their arms to lift Matthias from his kneeling, his bloodied eye-weep making the others look away.
'God has answered my prayers,' Matthias says aloud. 'Praise him.'
'Look how he has prayed himself into the ground,' Linus whispers, pointing to the imprints.
John reaches his hand, pats the dark until his outstretched fingers descend to find the face of the youth. He kneels then. His fingers lie flat against the cheek of Papias and he bows his head. He says nothing. He touches the ravaged ear and a shudder passes through him. His blind eyes he shuts tightly.
O Lord. O Lord Jesus.
I am a poor shepherd who loses his sheep.
Forgive me.
His lips do not move; his prayers are unheard. Some leave to accompany Matthias and to dress his wound. Others kneel on their uncertainty. John stays, and in his staying suffers the pain of self-knowledge. He sees his weakness, his withdrawal, his waiting. He sees how ineffectual he has become, how the community itself falls away to nothing. How day by day time erodes what had been built with blood and suffering. It is his fault, vanity that made him believe his work was over and the Lord Jesus would respond by coming now. He has been blind in all ways, not merely in sight. But above all, he has forgotten the essence that returns so powerfully to him now. He has forgotten love.
On his knees by the side of Papias it suffuses him. He feels it like a course of water coming, sluicing from gates unlocked. It roars into the very blood of him, his ancient arteries quickened, laved. Love. Love. His eyes weep. He draws his hands together. The knuckles whiten in fierce clasp. Love. What comes pouring, flowing to every end of him is the awareness of love. And within it sorrow. Here flows and intermingles the sorrows of failed love, of untold love, of love afraid and perishing, of love twisted by pride, made silent, destroyed. He loves Papias, as he loves Ioseph, as he did Prochorus, but feels he has failed all. He weeps, his shoulders shudder. Ioseph kneels down at the Apostle's side, as do others of the elder disciples. The wind whirls in the little dwelling, the day breaking with little light. Still John is bowed, his heart inundated. We are nothing lest we love. We are of God, who is love. Therefore let us.
The thoughts course, swollen with feeling, carrying in bright effluvium flotsam of phrases, things he might say. Antique channels of him open, wildly irrigated and overflowing. Comes the vivid recall of the love he felt for Jesus, the absolute, the unconditional. This is light and water both. Flowing, flowing, and he a vessel. Love. How a man might be filled and overfilled and feel the radiance of all creation to be the radiance of love, the daylight itself awash, dazed, deluged. How he might be humbled so to feel himself connected to the everlasting, the infinite flood of love, the bounty therein. And feel himself taken, carried, helpless but hopeful, full, filled. A man filled, light-filled, touched like the wick of a candle with flame so he trembles. Love. And knows a bliss of gratitude, an ecstasy of soul to witness himself so capable of such light, such water. Water of life itself. We are nothing lest we love. We are of God, who is love. Therefore let us.
John's frame is bent over, his brows knitted, his white hair a gleam waterfall over the prone figure of the youth. He is other than himself. Not yet is he thinking of what happened to Papias, of the fire or the woman or what Matthias claims. Not yet is he considering the straying of the community, the meaning of what happened, or what must follow. For he is breathed into with spirit, in-spired and at one with what was from the beginning.
At the fifth hour Papias opens his eyes. He lies still. He sees the host of elders gathered around and wonders if he attends his own funeral. Does his spirit float free? The faces are grave, heavy-featured, the room dimly shadowed. There is a noise like the sea that is not the sea. Has he drowned? Has his body drowned and he been thrown up on the shore to be laid out before burial? The waves whisper.