ah!-bright-wings

“So Moke took the man, and set him upon a cow 

and he drove the herd into the hills 

to find the tear in the hide. 

For the great beast Khun-ieti 

has an eye made of hot fire 

and his eye burns

and once he stared at the world, 

unlidded, and it was burned, 

the world was burned, 

until Moke, the tent-maker, 

slew a cow and stretched its hide 

across the mouth of the cave 

which is the sky, 

where Khun-ieti dwells. 

And all was covered, save for a hole 

a hole, which the burning eye made 

which it burned through the hide 

Falla—but that is another tale.”

“Then Kyfosians seem to wrap up seven stories in one,” says Anyosos, interrupting quietly. “They begin with Awat-enio and slide into the life of Moke instead.”

“The story would end sooner if you didn’t speak through the telling.”

His mouth curls at the corners. “Perhaps I'm enjoying the company.”

“And perhaps I'd like to finish my story.”

It must be the wine that makes Zahid so bold. But, no, he did not drink, and it is Anyosos who has finished the cup. If this man were Jehoda or Ihsan, Zahid would have no pains arguing or pushing back. Brothers are brothers. What his captain is, he's not entirely sure.

Zahid expected a balding old man when he walked into the barracks of the legion. Instead, he found a man barely older than himself with the weariness of an elder and scratched armour that fell far from the pristine glow of Zahid’s own. Anyosos comes from wealth and title, and he gained his captaincy on his father’s name, not his own merit. It brought with it a rigid code of conduct, one placed also on his men. From a man such as that, Zahid might expect a reprimand sooner than a laugh.

But he does laugh. He tips his head back against the stones and laughs, quietly, and then he closes his mouth and waits for Zahid to finish his story.

“Moki took the man 

and set him before the tear in the hide. 

And the man’s flesh was hardened. 

It was made sound. 

And Moki returned the man so made 

to Awat-enio. 

“My brother,” said Urbi 

as she came from the covers 

of her bed. 

“He is a fine thing! But— 

He has no breath.” 

“This I see,” said Awat-enio. 

“Help me!” 

So Urbi took the man 

and put him in her arms. 

She drew back the veils 

which covered her body, 

the green veils, which lined her body, 

and she kissed him. 

And breath came into the man. 

It swirled in the hollow of his belly. 

It filled him from crown to his feet. 

And the man opened his mouth. 

He took his first breath, 

and out flowed the breath of Urbi, 

and Urbi returned the man so made 

to Awat-enio. 

“Ah,” said the creator god. “He is so made. 

His flesh is sound. 

He has breath in him. 

This, at last, is what I meant him to be.” 

So he set the man beside Urbi’s river 

and made for him a house 

in which to dwell. 

And so man came to be.”

“And so man came to be,” repeats Anyosos. The line dissipates into the stale air. “It sounds almost simple told so. If only we could make a man so easily.”

“If it were so,” says Zahid, “then Khamon would have molded an army of clay by now.” 

Malchus holds out the flask. Then, as an embarrassing afterthought—the man is in chains—he uncorks it. 

“It’s just water,” he assures when the man doesn’t move to drink. He tips the flask close enough to meet the cracked lips. The Nazarene swallows twice and then pulls back, chains jingling. His face is wet. Tears, Malchus thinks, until he hears the drip of water dropping onto the man’s head. It slides down his temple and dirty cheek, carving a clean track through the crust. Malchus re-corks the flask.

It’s not quite fear that he feels. He had felt fear on his knees in Gethsemane, blood down his neck and a howl on his tongue. The world was silent, then, and shrieking, dizzy with pain and the terror of new loss. When strong hands cupped his face, he clung to them. He grabbed hold of words he could not hear but lips he could see moving, breath he could feel on his face, brown eyes he could see.

And then, he could hear. 

It was as if he’d never before heard sound, not true sound, but only echos, half-formed, half-heard, until that very moment when he heard truly. Each noise was crisp and new. Around him were the night birds stirring in the trees, the puffed breath of the disciples, the crackle of licking flame, the creak of leather belts. He heard them all, and he hasn’t stopped hearing since. Creation is vibrating, uncountable voices overlapping in the same tremulous song. Even the breeze seems to have a voice, and the water running on stone. Even his own heartbeat. They cry out when the rest of the world is silent.

“What did you do to me?” Malchus asks, voice barely above a whisper, for everything is new and he cannot make sense of it. 

The Nazarene’s smile isn’t mocking. It’s as quiet as his voice, and it crinkles the corner of his good eye. “I know how long you’ve waited to hear.”

They’ve never met, of course. Of course not. This man doesn’t know him. How could he? Malchus has taken great pains to hide his gradual loss of sound. Each year, the muffle covers his ears a little more, stealing his senses, deadening the world to him. If he misses a call, he plays it off. If he cannot hear his wife calling, he feigns captivation by his task. He does it well, he thinks, well enough. Perhaps his wife suspects. But only he knows, only he and his God. And this backwater Nazarene with an accent pulled from Galilee’s fishing waters—because Malchus can hear the accent now—cannot know Malchus. How could he? No, he does not.

But he knows. 

Malchus is sure, standing before this man who made him more than whole, that he is known. Known, and known truly. And here stands Malchus, his jailer. His enemy.

“How could you know?” he asks, eyes searching the Nazarene’s. The water drips, drips. A rat scritches at a bit of stone. “I can’t do anything for your case. They’re bringing you to Pilate.” His grip tightens on the flask—his only offering—and the stale water it holds. The words pour out of him. “I’m a guard. They told us to go, so we went. I had no stake in it, see? See, we were told to go. I was told to go. I never intended—”

“Malchus,” the man says softly, almost fondly, as if he is interrupting a brother and not one walking him to his death. “Will you pray with me?”

The request startles Malchus out of his own thoughts. He pauses, wary of some trick. Without meaning to, his hand rises to touch the warm outer shell of his ear, tracing the connecting point between the cartilage and his skull. There’s not even a seam to show where it had been severed.

Mouth dry, Malchus finally nods, and the Nazarene closes his good eye. The water slides again down his temples. His words fill the damp space, and Malchus recognizes them at once, joining the recitation:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked shall I return.

The Lord gave—”

The man breathes in, and Malchus breathes with him.

“—and the Lord has taken away;”

Their breath stirs the stale air of the room. All has finally gone quiet. The Nazarene opens his eye and tips his head to look up, past the stone roof, past the courtyard and the trembling earth, to the heavens, spread out over them like a tent. The water no longer falls. The rat is silent.