Ade Grant - The Mariner

The high population was instantly confirmed. Figures stood in adjacent doorways, peering from windows. Small, tanned and scrunched up faces, squinting expectantly. But they were not looking at him. They were waiting for something else.

And then he heard it. Music. Brass instruments and drums, their sombre timbre striking up in the residential mess. The sound grew louder so he dodged into the shade of a porch, looking along the cobbled street, waiting for the march to grow near. Others were doing the same and it felt odd to stand in a crowd, to be amongst human beings. It was stuffy and uncomfortable, but the Mariner didn’t flee. His curiosity had been piqued.

An elderly gentleman took off his hat and smoothed down a lock of wispy white hair as a mark of respect. It was then the Mariner realised the nature of the sombre sound; it were a funeral march. Someone had died, and the town had turned out to mourn.

I am here to tell you about Jesus Haych Christ. God’s fella sent to Earth.

I can see you are sinners, a fearful flock, in need of a rock in these dark times. And there is a boulder in this ocean for you. That stable island you seek is not that upon which we stand, it is not your ship nor your home, it is not the drink that Hendrick pours down your throats in exchange for your mother’s necklaces and wedding bands, it is not the gun you keep under your bed, it is not the doctor who preaches his science from a’top the hill, and it is certainly not a tradesman’s galley fresh from faraway waves. No my faithful congregation, it is none of these things. It is a man who is dead, yet still alive. It is a man who passed beyond our world, yet remains in our hearts. Jesus Haych Christ. God on earth.

We have committed the greatest sin we are capable of: forgetting him, forgetting his wisdom. No doubt some of you have never heard his name, but do not fear, there is still time to save your souls from this sinking world. Listen close, for I will tell.

Jesus was a carpenter, taught by his father who in turn was taught by his. He lived in a time before the floods, when our world was a single piece and islands stretched for miles. The Roamings ruled back then. A vast and powerful nation, but cruel too, always expanding, conquering, destroying. Jesus was not a Roaming, but a subject of them, his people bound to do their bidding. It was that or die.

One day, Jesus was summoned to stand before a Roaming called Pontoon Pilot, the local governor charged with upholding a brutal law.

“I hear you are the finest carpenter in the land,” he said. “I have a task for you. Twelve have sinned and twelve must die. Examples shall be made of each and every one. I want you to craft a dozen crosses large enough for a man to be affixed to.”

“Begging your pardon, my Lord,” the carpenter asked. “How will these men be affixed? How strong does the wood need to be?”

The Roaming eyed Jesus suspiciously, but soon cast away his doubts, confident he would not be betrayed. “Each man will be nailed to his cross and then each cross will be planted in the Tear of the Gods.”

At hearing this Jesus wept, for he understood the punishment fully. The Tear of the Gods was a valley that flooded every month, on the full moon when the river swelled.

The men would be drowned for their crimes.

But Jesus had no choice but construct the crosses as ordered and a week later the flood and the punishments were due. Each convict was put upon a cross and the local townsfolk stood atop a hill to watch.

The waters rose and the sinners screamed in fear, but not one person felt sympathy for them. No-one, that is, except for Jesus. Just as the waters reached their necks, Jesus walked from the crowd and into the rising tide.

Silence descended upon the watchers, for the lowly carpenter did not sink, but walked upon the water as if it were the thickest of ice. He reached the condemned twelve and released them one by one, pulling the nails out of their hands and kissing each wound in turn, healing the broken flesh.

Pontoon Pilot was furious and ordered his men into the water to arrest Jesus Haych Christ, but the currents were strong and each Roaming was dragged beneath the surging torrent.

Jesus turned to the crowd and spoke. “I have forgiven these men, their crimes are clear in the eyes of God. For God is within us all, and so is the power of absolution. When we reach out to one another, we pull ourselves closer to God. I ask you all to do the same.”

That was the first preaching of Jesus Haych Christ, the son of God, and those twelve men became his Disciples.

His message is as true now as it was then.

Forgive.

Say it with me people. Forgive.

Reach out with your hearts and your souls, and look out across the waves and perhaps one day we will see Jesus Haych Christ walk out across the endless ocean, returned from his torment with Disciples in tow.

Say it with me. Forgive.

Forgive.

THE MARINER WATCHED THE FUNERAL from his vantage point, high upon the rising slope. He stood in the shade of the mighty inner wall, allowing the cool stone to sooth his sun-scorched back. After following the procession for a while, he’d returned to the Neptune and gathered his tools, finally returning to a quiet point where he could watch the events unfold. Like a vulture he scrutinised, unnoticed from on high.

Around a hundred people had turned out for the girl’s burial; they had meandered through town, a band playing the march to match the people’s tears. Women had wailed and men cursed. The local holy-man, Reverend McConnell, led the procession, his scriptures clasped in his hands, muttering prayers and pleadings for the deaths to stop. The Mariner did not know how the girl had died, but was sure this was not the first death of this sort. The procession had an air of the rehearsed about it.

Finally they arrived at the town’s small graveyard, an embarrassingly tiny plot of land for what was such a large community. But this was a first generation town, peoples thrown together, forced to eke out an existence on an island barely capable of sustaining a third of their number, a fact painfully clear as they stood around the hole in the ground, so many baring witness that most were forced to watch from upon graves filled just weeks before. An uncomfortable position, made plain by their anxious glances to the loose soil at their feet.

A man stood removed from the crowd in a position of honour. The dead girl’s father. The onerous grief could be seen from the grey in his face to the dead of his eyes. All held him in high regard. His sorrow gave him importance, at least for today.

The Mariner toyed with his bag, a leather satchel containing the tools he would need: a pick, shovel, candle, matches, rope . It was a shame to watch them pour earth into the very same hole he would have to empty later, but there was nothing he could do about that. Patience. That was the key.

But patience was hard to come by. He was starving, and not just for food. The Mariner was an alcoholic, a slave to devils and the demon drink, and both would be loath to forgive such delay. But the Mariner understood well that once be began drinking, there would be no end. He had to acquire a meal for the devils before that grim process began. They’d tolerate nothing less.

The service lasted until sundown and the Mariner waited in the shadows until the final mourners slouched away. Perhaps some in the crowd saw him, but it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t stay in Sighisoara long. After gathering food and booze the Mariner would be off, continuing his search. There wouldn’t be time to incur their wrath.