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he cries a little as though the tears might wash away the stains, but they don’t

the crying is so close.  a ripping sound--his flesh or his soul,  maybe--but it is so far away that he can’t quite tell the difference.

an apparition of mary tugs at his sleeve and begs him to hurry.  her son is bleeding too.  he cares as much as he can, but in the end she just stares at him, and her eyes are the sky.  the crying is heavy on his chest.

but he dreams of drowning, wandering in water, breathing water.  he dreams of his arms being torn off by sharks.  a warmth dribbles.  it moves the hair on his cheek.  he thinks maybe it was the wind, or his tears, or his blood, or the rain, but because his nose is gone and he can’t smell anything, he can't quite tell the difference.
 
mary tugs at his sleeve again.  time to go, she says, smiling at him patiently.  it’s been a long day for both of us. he feels himself walk away from her.

he looks at the boy that sits on his feet and then he sits down too. what are you doing? he asks the boy.
i’m digging. the boy says.  the boy wears a small white hardhat and gucci loafers. 
why?  for what?
the bones.  the boy says.  because I need them to build my castle.
i’m going to die soon, i think.
the boy looks up, and his eyes are empty.  i’ll build my castle out of your bones too.

“you hold on, buddy, you’re going to be okay.”
“didn’t you hear?  there’s boys out here building castles out of our bones, man.  our *bones*--”
“you need to lie still, sir.  try not to talk anymore.”

she seems to be crying now.  he thinks she’s crying because someone nailed her son to a cross.  he almost remembers reading somewhere that that same son rose again, walked around, broke bread .. but he dismisses it immediately because you can’t believe everything you read these days.
who is God? he says slowly.
God is a Being in whose likeness we were all made.  God has always been, and always will be.
i know all that.  it’s shit, it's words, it's a novel.  you’ve seen Him .. talked to Him.  really mary, who is He?
i can’t tell you anything else.  it’s beyond words.
beyond words.
yes.  like grief.  like happiness.  like motherhood.  like death.  like love.  beyond words.

he drifted beyond stars.  he moved beyond shellshock and deciding whether or not friendship was as important as staying alive.  he blamed noone.  he struggled to surface and to tell her that he didn't blame her.  that he didn't blame God.  he didn't blame mary.  he was beyond blame.
what’s it like in heaven?
there are roads paved with gold, no tears, no pain, no death, and no war.
oh .. ok.
you don’t sound like you believe me.
hell, you’re mary.  the mary.  i can believe anything you say, right?
tell me what you doubt.
the war .. thing.
there is no war in heaven.
mary, there’s war everywhere.  (he smiles at her.)
mary’s ear bent slowly slowly to one side.  a shimmer of summer light in her hair, threads of bronze and gold.  there was the first war, she said finally, when satan was sent away...and soon, jesus and all of his angels will return to earth to fight in the armageddon... yes. i suppose there is war in heaven.
no place is immune, mary, he said with a chuckle and a sigh.  no place is immune.

mary plays his guitar now.  the one he sold for the bus ticket.  the melody is sweet, and her fingers slip over the strings as though the guitar were her blessed harp.
a sobbing came close to him, in his ear.  he tries to open his eyes, look at the girl, but he is blind.  he tries to speak to her, but he is dumb.  and it goes on, and on, and it makes his thoughts throb, and begins to drown out mary’s song.  he begins to wish he were deaf, too.

she’s crying again mary.  play louder.  the boy who is digging the bones will come to sit on my feet again!
don’t worry.
did you cry when jesus died?  he asked.  the noise retreated slowly.
tears of pain.  i cried for joy when he came back to me.
did you know it was him when you saw him?  he is lying in cool grass, shaded by summer trees swaying, swaying and rustling, saying 'shh.'  the sunlight stabs his eyes now and then as it falls though the leaves like knives and she sits on a stump nearby.  she cradles the guitar in her lap, like a baby.
he showed me his hands, and i believed.
showed you where the nails went through.
mary strikes a strange chord.  yes, she says.  and i understood where he had come from, and who he was, from the very beginning.  that helped.  she strummed again.  but nobody can lose a son like that and not weep for him, no matter how honorable his goal.  it .. was hard to let him die.
you think you let him die.
i think i could’ve done something.
but you didn’t.
it was mankind, or my son.  who would you have chosen?

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