Williams Niall: John

'You stay,' says John.

'No, Master, please.'

'Stay. I command it,' he says, and he goes out of the cave into the driving rain.

His footsteps know the way. His sandals do not slip as he makes his way down to the sea. The wind and rain is a hurly-burly, the heavens unpacking torrents and gales and all manner of broken weather thrown out in the dark. The old man feels the thin framing of his body, how his joints ache, how the very bones of him resist movement. He has walked ten thousand miles, more, preaching. He knows that at his great age he should long ago be dead. He knows that already of the twelve there are few remaining. He has heard of crucifixions, stories of torture and stoning. He has heard from boatmen landing on the island how the persecution of the Christians has continued until it has seemed he has lived to see in a hundred years the vanquishing of the faith that gave his life meaning.

He goes down to the sea and along the shore, where the tide is high and the rocks rattle like bones. Blindly he finds the stones that are the steps and returns for a third time that day to the Rock of Revelation. He does not want the others about him now. To go truly he has to bend forwards and feel with his hands the way. The cold of the rain-wind is bitter, the sea in the night loud. There is no moon nor stars, as there have been none for him in many years. He clambers higher, then loses his footing and slips. His skin is thin and bleeds easily; the salt air tells him of the wound at his ankle. He climbs on until he comes at last to the flattened rock itself.

John stands in the storm. He has no fear of any kind. He has outlived all manner of pain and been near enough to death to kiss its face and walk away. He has lived for a purpose and believes he knows what it is. He remains, awaiting the coming.

And so now, at his great age, he stands and opens his arms to the wild night. It whirls about him. Not twenty feet away Papias watches silently. Rain comes and goes and comes again. The old apostle's arms tremble and waver, his long white hair blown back, and the flesh of his face weeping the salt rain.

'My Lord,' he cries out, and raises his hands upward to the utter dark. 'My Lord, your servant waits.'

Later, sleepless, in inconsolable dark he thinks of the beginning.

The day was blue and still. We were to be out in the boat fishing on Lake Genesareth, but I did not go that day. When Father came to call for me, I was already gone. Fishing was dull and tiring. What did I want of the family business, catching fish and drying them for sale in the narrow storeroom at Bethsaida? I was proud and stubborn. I left the house as if pulled on a cord, and walked that day as others before many miles through the dust to the place by the river where small numbers gathered to hear the teaching.

This day was no different. I was gone before James and Father had woken. I walked out in the cool of the early morning and across the unrisen dust of the street. It was a long journey. The sun rising thinned the blue of the sky until it shimmered.

On the road there was no one. No birds flew. For sound there was only my footsteps, the soft crush of sandals in sand. Brilliance of light. The low hills and folds of the desert unshifting in the windless day.

Remember looking upwards at the sky. Remember wondering what a day this was, and thinking of them waking now and going out on the lake with the nets. Remember thinking of the disappointment my father would feel seeing my bed empty.

But I walked on. That blue morning crossing the distance between one life and another, though I did not know it yet.

The Baptist was a thin figure with long hair. He seemed to eat not at all. From long speaking his voice was strong, his words compelling. He spoke of the Messiah coming. From scripture he quoted Isaiah: 'I am a voice in the desert, crying out, "Make the Lord's road straight!"' This man spoke, it seemed, all day and night, untiring. From him the stream of words that washed over those who sat by the riverbank, in some manner comforted by the vision of one so flowing.

I sat by the side of Andrew and listened.

The sun was hot, the river shone. Soft dazzlements crossed the current. I watched the water moving in light. I watched the heavens blue in the water. Remember. I turned my face upwards, imagined flight on such a day as this. What height I could reach into the blue, and what it might be to see from above. Imagining when the Baptist made louder his voice and cried out, 'Look! Behold! Here is the Lamb of God!'

Andrew turned first.

I looked around behind and saw you walking.

The storm continues for three days. The disciples come to the Apostle's cave. They pray the prayers he has taught them. Pro-chorus asks, 'Master, will you teach to us from the Revelation?'

John does not answer. They are unsure if he is with them or not.

Prochorus carries the copy he himself scribed in the Greek language. Matthias nods purposefully to him, and he begins to read from it.

'After these things I looked, and behold a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet speaking with me, which said: Come up hither, and I will show you the things which must be done hereafter.

'And immediately I was in the spirit: and behold there was a throne set in heaven, and upon the throne one sitting.'

Father's eyes. His face when I told him.

'Jesus, son of Joseph?'

'Yes, Father.'

'You are going to follow Jesus, son of Joseph?'

James beside me. I had brought him the next morning to see for himself.

'Both of you?' Father said.

Mother by the table, arms crossed on herself. 'Zebedee, be quiet.'

'He is your mother's cousin, he is Salome's cousin. And you think he is the Messiah, he is the Christ? And what of the family? What of the fishing? I am old. Who is to care for us in our age?'

'We must go.'

'Why? Why must you go? You are young. You are rash and stubborn. I am your father. I know because it is my rashness and my stubbornness. But why? Are there not others who have gone? Why must you also? Both of you? I need you here.'

'God will care for you,' James said.

Father's fist hard on to the table. He would have broken things. He would have lifted the table and thrown it against us. He would have nailed shut the door. Mother came to him.

Father's eyes. How they looked upon us, sorrowful.

And knowing.

As if he knew, the years ahead, the suffering, but could not save us from it.

Father.

His last look as we went. Knowing.

When we returned from Cana, illumined, excited, witnesses of the signs, proclaiming, Barnabus met us at the road and told us, 'Zebedee is dead. Your mother is gone to live with a cousin.'

O Father. O Father, look down upon me.

'Master? Master, surely you will teach us now,' Matthias says. He is a thin, dark-bearded figure of thirty. His hands he holds cupped in front of him, his head angled forward. His manner is honeyed with humility.

'Is the storm passed?' John asks.

'It is passing, Master,' Papias says.

'Master, the teaching?' Matthias presses forwards. 'We wait for your teaching. If you do not teach us, what are we to think? We are weak and you must give us answers. You have answers for us from on high.' He has stepped forwards to stand directly in front of the old man. 'Tell us,' he says. 'Tell us, O holy Master, what the Divine sees for us.'

There are looks and frowns. The cave air is clotted with disapproval, but Matthias is unperturbed. 'Tell us, O wise and holy Master,' he asks, 'how long are we to live here on this island in banishment? Tell us his plan. How are we to continue to wait and pray here, Master, if we do not know?'

'Matthias! Cease, be silent,' an elder, Ioseph, says.