And a voice speaking from the grey,
“These are my beloved masses! my huddled addicts! my infernal fabric, a tapestry of the shafted! my sick and lonely captives! my – ”
“Sorry, what?” Jesus turned to look at the man on the rock behind him. His skin was a pasty, translucent grey.
“My…” the man wheezed and slipped a hand inside his tunic, scratching somewhere in the vicinity of his lower back. “My, uh, infernal fabric…you…uh?” He took out his hand and sniffed his fingers. Jesus raised his eyebrows and wondered at the frailty of the thing before him, the face stretched like dough from cheek to cheek, from chin to skull.
“Um, which part didn’t you hear?” the man asked, wincing and rubbing the top of his balding head. A tuft of hair dragged from its tenuous roots in the scalp.
Jesus chuckled and turned away.
Another wheeze: “All of it?”
“Most of it. I think I stopped listening when you called them yours. I figured anything else after that – ”
The man leapt from his perch and moved toward Jesus with violence, dust bursting beneath his hands and feet as he shuffled, absurdly, on all fours; his limbs carried the lurching weight of the mere beast; his face twisted in upon itself, a mask alien to anthropology.
Then, slobbering and face to face with the teacher, his body spasmodic and bent, shivering with tension.
And Jesus said, “Thanks for that.”
“They are mine,” a growl. “They’re in my hands!”
And to prove it, the man grabbed fistfuls of dirt and lifted his evidence right up to Jesus’ nose. Opened his hands. Innumerable figures squirmed in his musty palms. The multitudes. And the screaming alone, the fevered howling, would have been enough for most people. Jesus wasn’t most people. He glanced at the crowd of thousands in the distance, gathering at the foot of the hill below, waiting for him. In general, they were composed – no unhinged terror…not yet. But it seemed like the little, grey person expected something. This was no parlor trick; the man in front of him was totally serious and…
…disappearing? Face to face, but like through a fog? Somehow, the man seemed more grey – and less there. He was glaring in fury with his mud-stained empire, those two greedy hands thrust in Jesus’ face; thousands there too, like at the bottom of the hill but maybe even more, and in agony. The misshapen figures in the man’s hands were begging for release. Begging him to let them go; Jesus watched them cower, puppets made of mud. Whatever this presentation of mud was, it wasn’t a bluff. If anything, it was a promise, a brutal vow. And Jesus had to admit, he was a little curious about how this would play out. Seeing as how he had his own promises to keep…
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Idiot. These are my people. My people! And I hold them in my hands, and I do what I want with them, and when I do this – ” abruptly the hands were upside down, and the creatures were falling. Both Jesus and his interlocutor watched the bodies splatter on the stony ground.
“Oops.”
Jesus looked up. Then he stood and turned to look at the crowd below him. Still no screaming. No panic.
“Did it work?” Jesus asked.
“Did it work?! Did it work?!”
Standing slightly behind Jesus now, the man was a hazy silhouette carved out of the horizon; he was a shadow, a ghost reaching for Jesus’ shoulder. “It’s already finished, brother. It’s all been said! I’ve already crushed their spirits and drained their souls – they’re hollow. Those aren’t people down there. They aren’t human. The person parts of those people are all right here: here, in the mud at our feet.”
“Oh, so you’ve already done it?”
“I told you, man. It’s game over. For them. For you.” And the grey guy smiled so wide Jesus could count all four of his teeth.
Jesus grinned back.
Bewildered hands became fists: “What in this actual hell – ” sudden coughing and gagging. Then a sneer: “What are you smiling at?”
The man snapped his fingers. Once. Twice. Leaning toward the dirt, snapping in frantic authority. But the mud puppets didn’t rise from the grime at his command; the mob at the foot of the hill didn’t stampede, or wail, or even whisper. Nor did Jesus do anything except smile, for a moment.
“Sorry, uh…this doesn’t usually happen,” choked the grey man. “I had this whole thing planned…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jesus patted him on the back, producing more coughing. “Game over, right? I have an idea though.” And Jesus turned to the crowds below. In a strange and sudden choreography, every face lifted to meet his gaze, and those who were closest started walking up the hill. Others followed. So, Jesus glanced sideways and whispered to the fading man beside him, the ghost who was now going, going, gone:
“Let’s play a new game. My house, my rules.”
And to the crowd, in a loud voice, he began to teach.
Matthew 5:1-2