You sit silently, one among thousands, maybe millions. You stare off into the distance, nothing different than when you checked not a moment before. Endless people, sitting, some standing, some babbling nonsense, others screaming out curses and blame.
You wait silently in the sand as the heat from the unforgivable sun beats down on you. There is no shelter, no water, and no sign of anything remotely familiar, all that surrounds you are rocks and sand. This is not how you imagined things turning out.
Before all this you had such zeal and excitement for life, thinking that soon everything you wanted would be achieved, and that life would be perfect. Your time was all spent in vain you can now see.
You try and adjust the heavy pack on your shoulders, but its no use, the pack will always be in the wrong place, always uncomfortable, and to the best of your knowledge, there is no way to get it off. Unsure of its contents, you can only speculate that it has something to do with your past.
You talk to one of the people sitting next to you and ask him if you can look at the pack he is wearing, one nearly identical to your own, and see if there is any way to get it off. He looks at you with all despair and shrugs a yes.
You pull yourself over, your own pack making it difficult to move. You examine the big load on his back, pulling on it, twisting it, looking for a latch or something that might release what is being held so tightly, almost as if it is attached to the very flesh holding his body together. After minutes, maybe hours of trying, you give up. He looks all the more tired and weary, and is almost thankful that you stopped.
You crawl back to the place you had been sitting before, more broken than ever. Every person was wearing a pack, but none could get them off. The only thing to do was wait, but wait for what?
You weren’t sure how long you’d been sitting there when you heard the yelling. But it was loud and distinct, and you, along with those sitting close by, look up to see what all the commotion is about. Yelling was nothing new to you. People were always yelling and screaming, hoping their vocal chords would reach a note loud enough that someone would hear. But this yelling was different. It sounded triumphant, almost joyful.
Off in the distance you see a figure running, they are barely a speck on the horizon, but there is no doubt in your mind that they are running your direction. That’s odd.
As they near, you are able to see that not only are they running, but they are smiling and laughing. Laughter was not something you had seen or heard in a long time. It took you by such surprise to see a smile that you almost did not notice the unmistakable feature of this man as he ran by, he had no pack. The giant burden that every other person carried was strangely absent from this man, but there was no doubt that he had once carried one; you could see the marks that it had left on his back and on his shoulders, deep scars and dried blood were the only reminder of the now lifted load. The pack did indeed attach itself to flesh. But he seemed to feel little pain from his wounds.
As he ran by you he was yelling something inaudible. Not babble, but words you could not understand, a foreign language you had never heard. You would have thought him insane, but for that one curious feature, the missing pack.
As he fades off into the distance behind you, you wonder at his foolishness, didn’t he know that this was only a desert, and there was no way out of it. Even without a pack there didn’t seem to be any hope.
You continue to sit. You shuffle some sand, make a pile, break it down. You write in the sand with your finger pushing down deep so that the sand gets into your fingernails. The name you wrote looks familiar, but you're not sure who's it was. Confusion sets in. As your mind wanders, you recall old memories of the ocean..
You had once marveled at that awesome body of water and the white strip that surrounded it, the belt of sand that seemed to keep it in its place. You remember spending time there with friends, and with family, enjoying the warmth beneath your feet, and the coolness of the clear water. What you wouldn’t give for a dip in that water now.
As your memory digs deeper you remember old stories that you heard. Of fishermen who were called from their jobs, to follow some radical teacher-carpenter guy.
With hardly an afterthought they left their boat and followed him, leaving everything behind.
Your train of thought is broken as you see another person, this time a woman, running and laughing much like the man before. As she came within earshot you could hear what she was saying, “yes! Say yes!” was all you could understand, then she broke out in song, discoursing some of the same speech the man before her had. Her back was also strangely absent of the now less common burden. she continued running and shouting. “Lunatic,” you say to the people next to you. They nod their agreement.
“Do you think she is crazy?” a voice asks you. You turn quickly around and are startled at the site of a man dressed completely in white kneeling next to you. He must have crept up while you were watching the woman.
“Do you think she’s crazy?” he repeats.
“Well, a little I suppose,” you sputter, still trying to process this mans sudden appearance.
“And the man before her, him too?”
“I guess so.”
“I suppose in a sense you’re right, they are a bit crazy.” He stands and looks back in the direction the woman ran. “There’s nothing around here that would make a person as happy as those two.”
His nonchalance and vague response towards the matter throws you off, so you ask him if he knew where they were going, not even really thinking to ask where he came from or who he was.
“I do,” he says, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand while looking around at the endless expanse of rocks, sand and people.
It struck you as odd that none of the people seated near you really cared to pay much attention to this man that had seemingly appeared out of no where, and was giving you some sort of a strange and subtle answer regarding the jubilant man and woman.
“and I hope soon you will follow them,” he says.
“What? Follow them, they were crazy!?” you say, half stating it, half questioning.
“Really?” he says, furrowing his brow as he looks down at you. “as opposed to you sitting here doodling in the sand with your finger? You’re right, they must be totally nuts.”
“well I was just trying to figure out what to do while I’m here.”
“Looks like your off to a great start.” He smiles. “What do you plan to do next?”
You look down at the sand and say you’re not sure.
“How ‘bout we take that thing off for starters.” He points to the bulge on your back.
A surge of adrenaline pumps through you. What? It can actually come off, how do you do it you wonder, will it hurt?
“yes.” says the strange man casually, it can come off.
You startle again as he answers your thoughts. You look up and stare at him for a moment, not knowing what to say. He smiles again at you.
You’re curious, “how can I get it off?”
“you give it to me.” He says “I take it,” his tone becoming serious.
“that’s it? Why do you have to take it, why can’t I just take it off myself?”
“someone must pay for that pack. You cannot do it, none of these people can do it,” he gestures to the man you talked to earlier, “they have packs of their own that they cannot remove either. So I must do it.”
You’re skeptical. “Yeah, but if you do help me here, how do I know you won’t hold it over my head. I don’t like being in anybodies debt, or owing anybody anything.”
“Oh there’s nothing you’d be able do for me, I’m offering it freely.”
Nothing is free you say.
“This is.”
You give him a skeptical glance.
“I don’t think so, this sounds a little too crazy, too mystical, you must be some sort of whack job.” “You’d rather sit here then,” He gestures to where you are and the vast expanse of sand and rock surrounding you. “around these people who think of nothing but their packs. Do you think me some kind of overbearing taskmaster that I would enslave you? The debts you owe already you cannot pay. They are in that pack. How can you judge me, you don’t even know me” His tone is stern, but his face is the picture of benevolence.
Tears begin to form in your eyes, reflections of the tears already in His.
“You’re Jesus,” you say remembering his name from a conversation so long ago. “I do know you.”
“But I do not know you,” he whispers.
You wipe your eyes, but they will not dry.
“I have forgotten my name,” you say, “I can’t remember what it is.” You turn your head over your shoulder, “It might say on this pack. Can you see it?” you struggle for a moment still fighting back the tears, which eventually give way to sobs.
“yes” he says “it has your old name.”
“my old name? But..”
“give me the pack.”
“I can’t…I can’t its stuck to me.”
“give me the pack,” he repeats, gently taking hold of it.
You struggle for a moment, not sure what to do. You feel trapped between knowing what is, but unsure of what might be.
You feel a sudden tug on your back, a quick and instant pain surges through your body…then an overpowering sense of freedom. You fall to your knees.
You turn around to see the once smiling face of the man in white, now gravely beaten and torn. He is bent in pain, keeled over from the load now upon his back, that once belonged to you. Blood drips from his shoulders, from his hands and feet, and from a puncture in his side, seeping through the whiteness of his clothing.
“there,” he says quietly, “it’s finished.”
