Glenn Kleier - The Last Day

“Those, Holiness, date from about 1580, and are some of the early calculations in the preparation of the famous Gregorian calendar, the computations for which were developed right here in this observatory.”

“Amazing!” Nicholas exclaimed. “Who would have believed at the time that, four hundred years later, this tower would still stand and Pope Gregory XIII's successor would come here to gaze out upon the third millennium!”

“Of course,” the monk added lightheartedly, “you'll need to visit me again next year to do that.”

Nicholas was confused. “How do you mean, my son?”

“Well,” Dominici smiled, “although the world doesn't celebrate it this way, the true turn of the millennium won't occur until January 1 of next year-”

All the color immediately drained from the pontiff's face. “What did you say!” he demanded.

The monk stepped back. “Holiness, please, I did not mean to offend you! I-”

“Explain to me what you mean!” the pope shouted, grabbing the hapless friar by the front of his brown robe.

His eyes bulging from their sockets, the quaking monk searched the pope's face, as if looking for a clue to the meaning of this inexplicable display. “H-holy Father, forgive me, I merely mean that in terms of the calendar, we are only now completing the one thousandth year of the past millennium. The first year of the third millennium does not begin until the year 2001.”

The pope's grip had loosened and he stared past the humiliated monk, out across the tiled rooftops of his Eternal City. “Of course!” Nicholas whispered to himself, in shock. “I knew this! How could I have closed my eyes to something so obvious!”

The friar continued his explanation, trying to redeem himself. “Just as the number twenty completes a full score, and the number twenty-one would begin the next score, and…”

But Nicholas was no longer listening. As the significance of this revelation fully enveloped him, he released the poor, frightened monk, slowly collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor, his eyes glazed.

At the sight of this, the friar became hysterical. He dropped his notepad and pencil and fled screaming down the staircase for assistance:

Before help could arrive, Nicholas had recovered enough to begin a lumbering, lurching retreat down from the tower. He met a flow of would-be rescuers rushing up from below, but they stopped immediately at the sight of him and stepped aside, flabbergasted, as he pressed past. At the bottom of the staircase, Nicholas confronted a bevy of flustered, well-meaning nuns and priests gathered in unfocused confusion. He did not look at them, but waved them off and staggered down the hall, moving persistently onward.

Vehemently, Nicholas threw open the main doors of the museum and exited into the night air. He trudged relentlessly forward, heading toward the Basilica, a desperate group of Vatican personnel following in halting disarray. Pushing past the astonished guards at the front gates of the cathedral, Nicholas entered the quiet sanctuary. St Peter's was still full of worshipers this Easter Sunday evening, all of whom were quickly overcome with the unexpected distinction. But for those directly in the path of the distraught pope, the exhilaration was cut short by the anguished, wild look on the pontiff's face.

The baffled faithful recoiled in disbelief as he brushed by. Oblivious to the commotion he was causing around him, Nicholas approached the gaping maw of the catacombs leading to the tomb of Peter. He staggered to a standstill in front of the railing, swaying from the exertion and emotion. Panting, his arms trembling beside him, he glared down into the silent depths, calling out in a booming voice that shook the entire basilica. “Why?

“Why? Why? Why?”

Nicholas waited for an answer, but there was none. He leaned on both hands against the railing, breathing less rapidly now. Shifting his gaze upward to the High Altar, and in a more subdued, broken voice, he moaned, “There have been worse popes! There have been popes less sincere, less conscientious, less faithful. Why! Where have I failed? Where have I earned Your disfavor?”

Still no answer.

In frustration, he blared down once more into the catacombs, “Simon Peter!” And the words resonated endlessly. “Hear me, Peter! I want no more of it!” And then in an impassioned voice of resignation, “I want no more of it!”

With that, Nicholas tore the papal ring from his finger, holding it aloft where the light of the altar candles caught it in golden gleams. “I give it all back to you, Peter,” he wailed. “The burden, the agony and the mystery, I return it all to you!” Pausing for a moment, he then hurled the ring into the blackness of the catacombs below where it clanked and clinked and chimed off the stone steps in its descent.

The bewildered onlookers had drawn close in dumbfounded regard to witness this unprecedented exhibition. Nicholas, sweating profusely, spun around on them suddenly, catching them by surprise and sending them scattering. Taking no notice, the aggrieved pope stumbled off down the main aisle, through the gates of the cathedral, and out once again into St. Peter's Square.

A large gathering of Vatican population had already collected there. In short order, word of the crisis had circumnavigated the city, and Nicholas's final, labored leg through the square to his papal quarters was through a gauntlet of shocked, embarrassed but irresistibly curious onlookers. It was everything the desperate Swiss Guard could do to clear a path for him.

While the screams of ambulances drifted closer, the white, perspiring Nicholas finally entered his apartments and arrived at his chambers, sending his attendant nuns into abject panic at his sight. Inside the sanctity of his library at last, he locked his door and faltered to his desk. Dropping heavily into his chair, he laid his head down amidst his books and papers, closing his eyes to the incessant pounding at his door.

Having never had to cope with such an emergency, the distressed chamber nuns required ten minutes to locate a key to the pope's quarters. Several anxious cardinals and the resident papal doctor, a napkin still around his neck from his interrupted dinner, slowly, cautiously edged open the large wooden doors.

“Papa?” one cardinal ventured timorously, looking around unable to spot the pontiff immediately.

Nicholas never even lifted his head. “Leave me and lock the door! I command you!”

The cardinals stared at each other, and then expectantly at the doctor. The physician gave them an uncomfortable, searching look and cleared his throat. “Holy Father,” he croaked, “we are concerned that you have taken ill. You do not seem yourself.”

Nicholas bolted upright in his chair. “I am not myself!” he cried out, clenching and unclenching his fists on the desk in front of him, his face a contorted mask. And then overwhelmed, hanging his head with grief, he moaned tormentedly, “My self is lost to the ages now. I am reduced to a metaphor, a- a Caiaphas!”

His fury welling again, he bellowed, “Leave me now!” There was a scurry of footsteps and the door creaked shut.

Nicholas buried his face in his hands. “My God, my God!” he lamented repeatedly. His phone rang and he slashed out furiously with his arm, sending it crashing to the floor, a passel of papers fluttering down after it.

His eyes were feverish, his face red and wet. Shaking badly, his hands fumbled for his waist fob. Locating a large, golden key, he jabbed it at his desk vault, missing the lock badly several times until he penetrated the keyhole. The tumblers turned, the vault door sprang open, and Nicholas grappled the faded leather portfolio from its dark haven onto the top of his desk. He tore the securing thongs from their stitchings and threw open the heavy cover, revealing its familiar contents of faded parchments.