So, yeah, my own version of the Resurrection of Christ from Martuk…the Holy: Proseuche.

You’re welcome 😉

***

From death, I woke. My eyes opened to the dark of the tomb, the smell of myrrh and aloe and sweet perfume in my nose, the linen wrapped around my arms, my legs, my body.

They stood before me, my angels, their faces pressed close to mine.

Were it not for the great wings that stretched from their backs, wings I could see even in the dark, I would think they were human. They looked like you and me. They weren’t kind or angry. They were still and silent. And they stood there, waiting.

They just were.

But they were not.

These winged ones were angels. They rose and turned their heads, looking to the door. And with that look, and that look alone, they moved the stone and let in the light.

There Mary of Magdala stood in the bright sun of morning.

Through their unfurled wings, I could see her. I watched her fall to her knees. Watched her face grow pale and the basket held in her arm fall to the ground. I saw the spices and oils spill into the dust.

Spices and oils that were for me for she was there to anoint me for I was dead.

I was dead. And yet I walked.

This could not be.

The pain was there, still. Holes in my wrists where hammer had met nail and nail had torn flesh and cracked bone. Holes in my feet. Wounds that still stung and bled where thorns had pierced and stabbed and ripped. And my back and my shoulders still wept, the skin peeled from the muscle, and the muscle no longer clinging to the bone.

It all still bled.

It all still hurt.

I felt such pain. There was such confusion.

I was dead.

I wanted to weep. Life was agony. Every step was agony. Every breath was agony. I remembered you and your Darkness. How you sliced your arm that night, my friend with the everlasting life, and you bled and then the blood wouldn’t run. How I took the knife to your throat and sawed deep. And how, in time, in not very much time, the blood stopped and the wound healed and it was no more.

I remembered how you seemed to feel no pain.

Yet now, as the shock of this new life grew, pain was all I felt.

If this was life, a new life, I wanted death.

“My lord,” Mary said as I drew near. She was still on her knees, shocked, afraid, disbelieving.

No, this wasn’t right.

“I was dead,” was all I could say. I wanted to fall into her arms and weep. I was dead, I wanted to say again. I was dead and now I walk and there is pain, so much pain, too much pain. Do you not see the flesh hanging from my back? And the jagged wound, here, where the spear cut my side? Do you not see the flesh cut and peeled back and bleeding again?

All this hurts, I wanted to say. There is pain, I wanted to say.

This life is too much pain.

“I was dead,” is all that would come out.

And then I saw her again. Saw the fear in her eyes, the terror growing as she watched me stumble closer, my wounds running red.

“Do not be afraid,” I heard myself say.

Somewhere deep in my mind, a demon laughed.

I blinked back tears.

Her eyes looked at the holes in my hands and how they bled. And then at where the nails pierced my feet and how they, too, bled, the blood dripping to stain the ground where I stood.

“Have you returned, my Lord?” Tears stained her cheeks.

There was a scream in my throat. A howl of such rage that, were I to open my throat and give it a voice, it would tear Jerusalem in two and pierce Heaven itself.

Instead, I said nothing. I gritted my teeth and swallowed hard and stifled the rage.

But I had thoughts. Dark thoughts.

I wanted to quiet her tongue. Grab her face in my bleeding hands and squeeze. Watch her skin blush and the panic grow in her eyes and feel her hands grip mine as she fought for release. Hear the bone crunch and feel it splinter and see the eyes pop from her skull and feel her perfect white teeth snap in her mouth as I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed.

She didn’t know the pain I felt. No one knew the pain I felt. If she knew the pain, she would understand my rage. And she would forgive. But she didn’t even know of my rage.

I stood silent instead, tears on my cheeks, my body weeping, the wounded flesh stinging with each breath as I stood in the bright sun.

They waited behind me, my angels. They did nothing.

Did they know of the pain?

“I must tell the others,” Mary was saying. “I will go now and tell the others that you have Risen and walk among us.”

I nodded. Could she not see the angels? Did not these silent ones with their wings unfurled shock her or surprise her or cause her distress or fear or terror?

No, she could not, I then decided. They were my burden alone.

She rose, her body still bowed, and then turned to start down the road, the linen flapping between her legs as the walk turned to a small run, her head looking back again and again as she grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

Yes, go, Mary, I wanted to shout. Go before the pain becomes too much and my soul breaks and I tear you limb from limb and rip your body in two.

Go, Mary,

Run.

***

from Martuk…the Holy: Proseuche