Stephanus Chapter 14 - The Water of Life

Chapter 14 - The Water of life

Stephanus remained crouched behind the cedar tree, tears cutting channels through the dust on his cheeks.

“Did anyone see where the other one went?” the first soldier barked.

“He’s long gone, by now!” a third soldier answered.

“Let’s get out of here! We don’t want witnesses.” they agreed. “What about the corpse?”

“Leave it, jackals love a free lunch.” Boots scraped away. Silence followed-thick, waiting silence. Stephanus crept out. Legs shaking. “Akakios!" he whispered. "Akakios! I'm sorry! First father, now, you!” he moaned.

“How do I continue to go on in this miserable world?” Stephanus cried.

“Well, you can start by helping me get up!” Akakios croaked.

Stephanus froze. “Wh...What? Aka….Akakios?! You...you’re alive?!”

Akakios rolled onto his back. The leather sling across his chest had a neat slit, water leaking in small beads onto the ground.

“Yes, I fainted” Akakios said, voice wobbling.”The water sling took the blade, I played dead."

Stephanus laughed hysterically, then hugged his brother so hard ribs creaked. They inspected the sling damage. The knife had cut the sling but never skin. The water had cushioned the blade like a tiny impossible shield. Akakios tunic was soaked, not blood-clear, cool.

“Stephanus, we can't return to the city through the gate." Akakios said. "The soldiers will know us."

Stephanus tenderly sat down next to his older brother, terribly relieved to still have him at his side. He gave Akakios a tight squeeze and comforted him.

“Did you hear the Roman soldiers? They're scared too," Stephanus answered. "afraid of explaining a dead Jewish kid to Pilate. And afraid of riots."

Akakios swallowed. “Y’shua! Surely his trial is over in the square! Let’s see what happened?”

The two boys returned to the trail. At every corner they peered ahead, looking for Roman evocati on patrol.

Traveling west toward Hezekiah's tunnel they saw a Roman detachment at the entrance turning south towards the Water Gate. They thought to find a way around the tunnel, but decided it would take too long.

A crowd surged west through the tunnel.?families, field workers, and merchants closing stalls early. Stephanus slipped in along side a tall Field hand, making friends with his two sons as they traversed the length of the tunnel.

"I am Simon" the man introduced himself. "And these are my sons, Rufus, and Alexander."

Rufus said "Hello!" and Alexander grinned saying, " You look like you've run from a lion."

"Close enough." Akakios muttered, as their footsteps got lost in a dozen more, remaining in the middle, voices muffled.

Inside the tunnel the air was wet stone and torch smoke. Soldiers watched faces, but no one noticed two small boys buried among bigger bodies. City walls rose again?warm lamplight, cooking smells, rumors louder than drums: Pilate's verdict; crucifixion, Golgotha.

Simon's jaw tightened. "I came for the Passover. Not this. Crucifixion." The word hit like hail on metal. The crowd funneled west, past Barclay's Gate, Warren's Gate, until the road narrowed between houses as they spilled onto the path that led to the Skull.

Y'shua staggered ahead crossbeam grinding his raw shoulder. Soldiers prodded with whips; blood fell like dark rain. Y'shua fell, and Stephanus knelt beside Him. The stones scraped his knees. Y'shua's face-swollen and thorn-crushed–met his for a heartbeat. Recognition flickered. Stephanus silently mouthed "don't get up." The teacher did anyway. Stephanus tugged Akakios. Water. The torn sling passed hand to hand, empty now but for one last swallow.

A soldier's boot came down on Stephanus' wrist. "None of that, you little Jewish street rat." He growled, as pain flared.

Then 'Strider' appeared?warm flank and wet nose–pressing against Stephanus' side. Ro'i followed, Ariel and Miriam behind him. Simon and Ro'i exchanged quick nods. Old fields hands, older grief. Y'shua fell again.

A women darted across the procession, as someone yelled. "Veronica, no!" Veil to His face, sopping red.

Soldiers hauled her back. She stared at the stained cloth and tucked it away, didn't replace it.

Women wailed. Y'shua's voice cut through; "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but rather weep for yourselves, and your children." (Lk 23: 29~31)

Y'shua fell a third time. Blood and sweat smearing stone. Soldiers laughed, spears prodding Him on, but Simon lunged forward, snatching the beam as soldiers shoved him ahead with the cross. Y'shua knelt. Hands empty, Eyes to the sky. Simon staggered as soldiers pushed him on. One soldier raised his spear, prodded Y'shua with the blunt end, and He rose. Simon moved ahead with the cross and He followed. A woman let out a faint cry from the crowd, which echoed off the stone walls.

The procession crawled forward like a wounded serpent, the air thick with dust and the tang of blood. Simon of Cyrene, broad-shouldered and sun-darkened from the fields, bore the rough-hewn cross with a grim silence. As he carried the cross heavy on his back, the crossbeam biting his neck like a thousand tiny punches, as splinters attacked his hands. Simon's blood joined the stains from Y'shua's suffering, running down the cross and mingling with the condemned man's own.

"Look at him bleed!" he heard a little girl say, but he wasn't sure who she were talking about? Him or Y'shua? The comment made him feel taller.

A bead of sweat fell from his brow as he labored with the heavy wooden beam. He watched it fall to the ground, landing on Y'shua's blood. It did not blend, but rested on top of it like a gleaming star against the deep red color. Y'shua continued to stagger forward, stumbling with every step, crimson prints staining the ground that the crowd trampled into the earth.

Stephanus walked as close as he dared. Strider pressing warm against his leg, the dog's ribs heaving with anxious breath. Akakios stayed at his elbow, the torn water-skin still clutched in one hand like a talisman. Neither boy spoke. There was nothing left to say that tears had not already stolen.

At the front a Centurion rode a restless horse, his scarlet cloak stirring in the wind that brought no relief. When the hill called Golgotha rose before them?bare, ugly, stinking of old death–he raised one arm. The column halted. Hammers and nails clinked in a leather bag slung across a soldier's shoulder, the sound bright and obscene.

They threw Y'shua down.

Stephanus flinched as if the ground had hit him instead. He had heard men speak of crucifixion?casual, tavern talk over watered wine?but nothing had prepared him for the raw mechanics of it: the way the soldiers worked quickly, efficiency, like carpenters framing a roof. One held the crossbeam steady. Two more stretched Y'shua's arms along the wood. The first nail was positioned at the heel of his right hand, between the small bones.

The hammer rose.

Stephanus turned his face into Strider's neck so he wouldn't have to watch, but the sound still came: a single, wet crunch, then the long tearing scream that did not sound human at all. Akakios made a small, broken noise and pressed both fists to his mouth.

When Stephanus looked again, the right arm was fixed. Blood pulsed in bright arcs with every heartbeat, spattering the soldiers' forearms. They laughed?short, nervous barks, as if even they felt the wrongness of what they did under this sudden, unnatural darkness.

The left hand took longer. Y'shua had no strength left to resist, but his body still tried, an ancient refusal of the flesh. The nail grated against bone before it found purchase. Then the feet–overlapping one atop the other?pinned with a single iron spike driven through both ankles. The sound that escaped Him then was not a scream but a sigh, as though all the air in the world had left Him at once.

Simon of Cyrene stood a little apart, chest heaving, staring at the blood on his own palms where splinters from the cross had torn his skin. He looked suddenly old.

The cross was hoisted.

The upright beam had already been planted into it's socket; now the soldiers lifted the patibulum with ropes, slotting it into place. Y'shua's body sagged, shoulders wrenched upward by his own weight until the joints made soft popping sounds. His head fell forward, the crown of thorns driven deeper by the jolt, fresh rivulets tracing paths through the grime on His cheeks.

For a moment the hill was silent except for the creak of the rope and the ragged breathing of the dying man. Then the crowd found it's voice again–some jeering, some weeping, some simply watching with the stunned emptiness of people who have seen too much.

Akakios felt Stephanus sway against him. He caught his brother's arm. "Breathe" he whispered, though his own lungs felt filled with glass.

Above them, Y'shua lifted His head with visible effort. His eyes?swollen almost shut, crusted with blood–moved slowly across the faces below. He first addressed His Mother, standing with Yochanan, the apostle, alongside Maryam Magdala, and Maryam, the wife of Cleophas. When He found the boys, something changed. The ruined mouth shaped words to soft for anyone but Yahweh to hear. Stephanus thought it might have been their names.

Then the sky cracked open.

It was not thunder. There was no storm, only the darkness that had hovered since noon now thickening until the torches gutted and the sun itself seemed bruised. A wind rose from nowhere, whipping cloaks and stinging eyes with grit. Somewhere a woman screamed. The ground shuddered?not the gentle tremor of distant carts, but a deep deliberate groan, as though the earth itself recoiled.

The Centurion's horse reared. Men crossed themselves or fell to their knees. Even the soldiers at the foot of the cross looked up while casting lots over Y'shua's robe, gripped by uncertainty, and now grasping their spear shafts.

Y'shua drew one last, tortured breath.

"Father." he said, and the words carried impossibly far, clear as a trumpet, "Into your hands I commend my Spirit!" (Lk 23: 46)

His head dropped.

The hill held it's breath.

Then came a second quake–stronger, angry. Rocks split with sharp reports. A fissure zigzagged across Golgotha's crown, sending pebbles clattering down the slope. Akakios grabbed Stephanus and pulled him close as the ground bucked beneath their feet. Strider whined and pressed hard against their legs. Simon, Ro'i, Ariel and Mirium braced themselves.

When the shaking stopped, a silence fell heavier than any darkness.

The Centurion stared up at the cross, face bleached beneath his helmet's rim. Slowly, as if the words were being dragged out of him, he said, "Truly.....this man was the Son of God."

From the city came a distant, rising wail?hundreds to thousands of voices at once–as the great veil in the Temple ripped from top to bottom with a sound like the heavens themselves were being torn in two.

Stephanus looked at the figure on the cross, motionless now, and felt something inside his chest crack open?not with fear, but with a vast and terrible recognition.

Akakios' hand found his and squeezed until the bones ached.

Above them, the broken body of the Teacher hung against a sky gone suddenly, impossibly still.

And somewhere in the darkness that was no longer darkness, a single drop of water–clear, living, impossibly bright?fell from the torn water-skin at Akakios' side and struck the blood-soaked earth, where it did not sink, but remained, shining like a star.