My Last Idols Entry

I've pulled out of the Idols race for personal reasons (can you call a move to the other side of the world a personal reason?!?) but this was my entry for Week Nine, the prompt for which was Twilight. I cheated, due to lack of time. This one was written about four or five years ago and it's a very *religious* kind of piece, so if you don't like that kind of thing, feel free to skip! (It also doesn't really reflect the way I write these days, so I didn't mind that it didn't pick up many votes ... )

SACRIFICE

He blinked rapidly, trying to see, but his vision was cloudy, his mind dipping in and out of consciousness. Waves of nausea and heat flowed over him as the sun blasted down out of a cloudless sky and nothing in his body seemed to belong to him anymore. It almost didn’t matter that he was naked, in agony, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

My God. How long had it been? The taunts and catcalls from the crowd had fallen away; only the soldiers continued to mock him, and even they were now visibly bored. He had no idea whether he’d been up here three hours or three days. It couldn’t be much longer surely? And then he’d be done, the fight complete, the battle won.

Nearly there, he thought. Nearly home.

A sudden darkening in the sky as something crossed the sun. Nightfall already? Surely not. He tilted his head, trying to see upward without moving his pain-wracked body. A thunderhead of dark clouds came boiling out of nowhere, thickening with every second, coating the world in twilight hues of black and gray. A chill wind licked his fever-dry skin, dull rumbling filled his ears and the sound of demonic laughter echoed crazily through the caverns of his mind.

Father?

Below him on the ground, the soldiers shouted in surprise, confused by the dusky twilight that had so suddenly shrouded the land. An immense fear filled him as the dense black cloud descended further, wreathing and enfolding him, bending his neck beneath its weight.

Father, help me!

But even as his silent scream cannoned off Heaven’s door, he knew. And he groaned as the sin-thickened darkness seeped into his soul and he felt himself sinking fathoms deep into guilt and despair and shame. In that moment, he became the addict, drawn to the slick, cheap thrills that failed to satisfy; the adulterer, sliding helplessly into the gaping jaws of lust; the murderer, blazing with rage as he stole the life of the innocent. He felt the mad fury of the warmonger, the deep shame of the sexually perverted; the humiliation of lies revealed and theft uncovered; the searing agonies of prostituted flesh. He wept without sound as filth, squalor and degradation filled him. On and on it went until his soul was black with it, inside and out.

Father? It was a whimper, a hopeless plea.

Nothing. There was nothing around him but empty air. His Father was gone. The demonic laughter rose from the pit at his feet, lacerating him until his blood ran thick and dark with it. Above him the impenetrable vaults of Heaven rejected his every breath. Time fell away as he hung between two worlds, suspended between justice and damnation. Was it an hour? A second? In this world of lost time and unrelenting darkness, he had no way of knowing.

My God… Panic built in him, threatening to suffocate him. He pushed himself up against the spikes of steel, and dragged in a lungful of air, hearing it crackle and burn in his chest. He threw his head back and howled.

“My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

The words reverberated off the walls of the heavens, clanging like empty cymbals, the ringing sounds of abandonment and death.

Aeons later, a weak, faint wind lifted the dark air from his face. He felt a sponge being thrust into his mouth, the acrid vinegar-flavoured water burning his lips and eyes, and he turned his face away. He was done, all poured out, an empty vessel. He forced his eyes open one last time, saw the dark clouds receding, flowing away faster than water spiralling down a plughole, the preternatural twilight giving way to the corrosive rays of the noonday sun.

It was over. The end was in sight.

It…… is ………finished……

He forced the words past dry and cracked lips, but no one heard. No one cared. The heavens remained hard as brass, unyielding, unforgiving. No matter. He’d stayed the course and kept the faith. A spark of hope touched his soul and he twisted his head upward and opened his mouth again, oblivious to fact that he had no breath left in him.

Abba, Father!

The words rose upwards and outwards, a shout of absolute victory in the face of absolute defeat.

Into your hands I commend my spirit!