Williams Niall - John

The early morning we followed you again to the temple, each of us knowing what talk and judgement awaited, what already was said against you. The scribes and the Pharisees brought you the woman taken in adultery, asking if you would break the Law of Moses and not have her stoned. Seeing if they might accuse you.

For now there was hatred and some who sought to kill you.

You judge after the flesh, I judge no man. I am the one who bears witness of myself and the father who sent me.

And they said, 'Where is thy father?'

You neither know me nor my father. Whither I go you cannot come. You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

And they cried: 'We are Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any. How shall we be made free?'

The crowd pressing forward, James and I stepping in front of you lest they try to seize you.

Your voice crying out above the clamour. Those who shouted against you, who pushed against us. One who stepped to the pillar and called, 'See, say we not well that this is a Samaritan and hast a devil?'

The jeering. The mockery. The ones who raised their fists, sought in the ground for stones. One standing on the pillar shouting, pointing. And the first stone coming, and the great surge of the people to seize you. Philip striking out against the head of one; James with both hands outstretched pressing back a number. I pulling down one by the pillar, dragging him by his garment to the ground, falling down upon him amidst the sandalled throng, the sea of anger.

The turning.

That now will turn again.

For you are coming. Your time is at hand.

Facing the sea, John sits against the rock wall, his head back. As light into a cave, memories. Detail, words, voice. They come without summons, vivid, startling. The decades since fall away and he is returned to himself as a youth. He can see each place as if standing there again. In a grove of olive trees. On a road not far from the pool of Siloam. Whole days, sights, weathers, things he did not know he knew, or were ever in his mind. So it comes to him that such were not lost in his memory but are gifts. Out of the great length of time he has lived, out of the constancy of his enduring, his body has weakened, his mind been betimes unclear. But now he is lit. All is strangely clarified. He hears the words of Jesus spoken a lifetime since and knows that change is here. He hears them as if in his company again. There is a sense of nearness, and of imminence; he sits by the rock wall and suffers illumination with a pulsing joy. His blind eyes flicker as if at sights.

Papias thinks to visit Simon and Ioseph before leaving. He thinks of the contagion that killed Prochorus and now stops the two eldest from joining them. Is it my fault? Is it of the air or the flesh? Is it me? Should I have told Ioseph I would stay in his place? I should. It was cowardly not to. Why did I not speak up?

In the cave he gathers and wraps in cloth a few precious things they are taking: two chalices, scrolls, three oil lamps.

What stopped my tongue? Why am I so weak?

Is it simply that I fear death?

Is my faith that small?

Or is it just that I want fiercely to go to Ephesus? To be there when he comes? To witness?

Is my vanity that great?

Papias sickens his spirit with questioning. He has so anchored inside him the elemental prime desire — to be good — that his failure twists in his stomach like a rag rope, leaking loathing, sour, fetid. Goodness — not the act of it, not an incidence considered and carried out, but a constant way of being — is his goal. Papias considers this an answer to heaven, a cry of gratitude for his creation; we should live in the image. We should be as near angels. Imperfection is in each of us, but this we can strive against until our flaw is so near to healed as to show the glory of living, what we can become. Goodness, to be good. Can a man not be good all the time? If not, then we are greater flawed and thus the Creator lessened.

In Papias imperfection is a grievous failing. It rises from his spirit on to his skin. He finds an itch behind his left shoulder blade; at a site he cannot see he scratches roughly. In the cool of the cave he feels hot. He needs water. He hurries the readying of the things so he can go outside.

The Apostle sits in reverie. The day is bright and blown stiffly.

'If you do not need me to attend you, I will go to the well and fill water bottles for the journey,' Papias blurts.

The old man turns his sky-tilted head, his pale eyes. Perhaps he already knows the other's inner condition. 'Go, Papias,' he says. 'Go with peace to get the water.'

The sea is high, the waves white. There is the rolling turbulence of spring, the restless energy of the world returned. He hastens along the wind-way, the water bottles on their cords knocking. The furious itch does not quiet. He walks, chin-in-elbow, with his right hand over his shoulder scratching, so it seems from behind he is drawn forward one-handed by an otherwise invisible other. He shortens the route by cutting upwards across the rock slope, needs both hands to clamber forwards over a steep incline, then again scratches as he stands upright on the high point. The island is all below him. And for the first time since the Apostle's announcement, Papias realises he may not see it again. He has been here and nowhere else as a Christian. It has become even a place of comfort, because here the community dwelled as one without significant interference from others. For all its harshness Patmos has been home. He knows its contours, its goat paths and water holes. Ahead there is only the unknown. He might have taken more time to consider this, but his face is hot and flushed, a cold tide of sickness in his stomach. He needs water. Even the wind blowing against him as he crosses the high rock cools him not. What if I, too, have the contagion? What if it is in me and I gave it to the others and now bring it with us to Ephesus? What if I pass disease to the Apostle, bring about the death of all of us, the end of Christians?

Thrice he strikes his hand hard against the itch in his back and shouts out against its persistence and intensity. He flails at the itch with his nails. What heats so in my blood? Is there a bite? Vividly he sees a night serpent cross the cave floor to his bed mat, stealth and slither, the head finding access in the low back of his robe.

'There was no snake. This is not a snake. Don't be a fool, Papias,' Papias says aloud. He licks at his dry lips, palms a pasty sweat from his forehead, and suddenly feels pulsing pain where his ear has been bitten. He touches it tenderly, as if its healing is turned backward and the ear grows raw and bloody again. As if what goodness was in him is now overcome. He begins to run.

He runs across the top of the island like one who would take flight if not for the absence of wings. He runs against the wind, his long legs clapping his sandals against the rock. He comes breathless and wild to the water hole. It is a dark cleft. A bucket is left. He throws down the water bottles and falls to his knees. He scratches furiously over his shoulder, then takes the bucket and dips it. He draws it back quickly; it cannot come quickly enough. His eyes are blurred. The thing that eats at his left shoulder ravages away, and his head is so hot he thinks in a moment it will flame. He moans with defeat, clasps the bucket, and brings it full to his face. He pours the water into his mouth so it fills and overflows and washes past him down his throat and chest as he gulps. He empties the bucket on to and into himself, drops it and draws it again. His hands are trembling, his arms; the whole of him pitches in shakes. Papias takes the next and again drinks furiously. He is awash in water, his knees in pool. He opens his mouth a wide chalice and fills it, letting overrun before drinking. He cannot drink enough. The water hole itself he will empty. He wants to be inundated, to have all that is within him sluiced, laved. Again and again he drops the bucket to the water. Again and again, from his position on his knees he pours it into and over him. His face and hair, his chest and torso drip. He pulls back the opening of his robe and then roughly draws it off him. He is naked in the wind. The bucket he fills once more. Once more he gulps, his throat aches under the deluge, but he cares not. He tilts the bucket into him. Is there end to what man can take of water? Papias thinks not. His eyes weep it, his body bucks with the assault, but still his thirst. It will not be slaked.