Jericho

There is this city laid out around me, and I am its captive. It’s not one you’d see today, not one with tall sky scrapers, gleaming metal, blinking lights. It’s old. Archaic even. Built on the empty, grassy plains of an ancient time. There are fields of flax surrounding it, with beautiful blue flowers in bloom, and only one or two roads of dirt approaching so this city of mine can see who’s coming and going.

It’s surrounded by high, fortified walls.

Walls strong, and thick, and impenetrable – because there is always, always, the threat of attack. Life is so predictable inside that sometimes I can’t breathe. The walls close in, choking me, smothering every bit of hope, every piece of life. Every morning I glance outside of those barriers – wish I could escape, hope I will be forced out somehow, long to find myself in that wide open space out there. Where life is. Where you can smell the fresh, wild scent of freedom.

But it’s become a habit to live here like this – normal even. And the routines that make me want to scream – make me want to run wild through these narrow streets, tearing out my hair – succumbing to the raging, quivering thing that lives in my breast… these routines, with their half-life, also keep me hidden from whatever’s out there. Keep me safe. And these awful, stony walls – even if I am a captive – keep anyone from seeing into me – seeing the half broken, desperate, angry, lonely thing that I am.

So I keep living here, day in and day out; all the screaming inside my soul hidden behind the face I show my accusers and my fellow inmates. Accusers with names like self hate, fear and doubt – doubt that anything matters, that anything is real and true.

Every morning after I let myself glance past that wall, I pay penance for wishing for more. I cover my hate, my resentment, in paint. It’s a paint I mix myself, with pigments of shame and oils of fear. I sit, silent, looking into my mirror as I layer it on thick; coating my hair, brushing it over every inch of my skin – a muddy, sticky, itchy armour that hides me, that reminds me every time I pick up the brush, every time I dip it in the paint, that I belong here. This is my proper place – caught in this life of monotony and unending boredom. Nothing can reach me here, no one can see the mess that I am inside.

And then I go out into the streets of my accusations. Bolstered in my armour to face another endless day. The voices that greet me are familiar ones; the eyes that study me are no different than mine, empty and shallow and looking away before either of us sees too much. What my accusers find when they look at me is only a shell, a floating bit of chaff just like any other. What they want from me is only my body and I give it up willingly, eagerly, hiding from the broken thing that beats inside me, suffocating it with empty pleasures and promises of relief that are really just fleeting lies.

But today there are murmurs in those streets, and a different kind of fear coats the air with the tang of blood. A biting, freezing kind of fear. Something is different, something is stirring. I wonder if it’s another enemy attack, just like the others that have come and gone, breaking themselves on the walls. On my worst days, the most numb kind of days, I wish that one of them will get past. Destroy everything that lives. Because then it would be done. Then I could be done.

But somehow I know it’s different this time. It’s not just any horde of barbarians out there. The paint we’re all covered in today is thicker – so thick that nothing real shows through. It’s how those of us who live behind walls deal with the worst kinds of fear. And my heart gives a lurch, because I know, somehow, I know, like any prey would, what’s outside the walls – who’s outside.

I run, and I peer out through a small notch carved just big enough to shoot an arrow out. And my heart, that broken quiet thing that lays so still most days, lurches in my chest.

He’s out there.

The sun glints off his head, surrounding him in that beautiful nimbus of light. A light that’s pure; so quietly true, that I am torn between wanting to stare, to soak the sight of him in, or to cover my eyes and pretend he’s not there. Every part of me suddenly aware – acutely aware – of the paint that covers me, paint made of such ugly, fake, desperate colours. Paint made of all the things he must hate.

I am glad he can’t see me. So. very. glad. that I built those thick walls to keep me hidden from him. If he knew all the broken pieces inside me – if he could see the things I’ve done to dull the scream in my chest… I don’t know what he’d do, but I couldn’t bear it.

When I see him out there, standing in front of his army with his wide shouldered stance, his quiet authority and his beautiful, naked, paint-less face, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to carry myself. I can’t quite pretend I’m ok with all the paint like I usually would. I can’t stay numb. The thought of standing next to him knowing the difference between us makes me want to sink into the ground. Or lash out with all the fury that lives inside me. I want to blame him for everything. I want him to take responsibility for every last inch of it – my pain, my numbness, my loss of innocence. All the murmurs around me float to the surface with their fears that he will destroy us. That he can’t stand our existence. The rumours of him all say he is harsh and punishing, not giving an inch for anything that doesn’t meet his exacting standards. That he has no room for paint.

I’d agree with every accusing voice that surrounds me. Except. Even as I quake with apprehension – even as I dread his presence outside my walls – there’s a small, very small whisper in my heart. One that reminds me of a promise spoken. Two messengers he sent a few days ago. Two spies that came ahead of him, to find and identify what belonged to him. And somehow, in all this crowded, chaotic place of lies they found me.

They came right to me. Zeroed in like I was always his goal. And there was no hiding from them who I am. I could tell they knew everything the moment they laid eyes on me. This whole city knows my worst secrets. Even with all my paint, even with my empty eyes and the fear that made me shake when they walked through my door and I recognized who they belonged to – even then they promised me safety. Made a covenant with me of his protection, invited me to join him. Told me he’d let me stay with him if I didn’t betray them, give them up to the accusers that would gladly tear them to shreds.

And even though I could hardly look at them, even though their presence shook the numb lake I live in, made the paint I wear itch and itch, I hid them. I hid them from the angry, fearful mob who showed up at my door looking to tear them to shreds. All the voices that tell me to destroy them before they can destroy us – our bristling fortress, our hiding place. I know those voices are right, but I kept them safe anyway under the stalks of flax I work with.

And now he’s out there. Like they said he would be. With his army of beautiful, gleaming, clean promises. His weapons of things so alien to me, so nakedly pure, that they make me quake and shiver in my shoes.

I look up at my window and see that scarlet thread I hung – the one that tells him I’m waiting. The one that says I accept his invitation. And half of me wants to tear it down. It embarrasses me with its blatant call for attention, its asking things of him. Half of me can’t bear to let him ever find me, see me. Not until I figure out a way to make myself more whole. Not until I somehow find that better self I wish I was. My throat squeezes. It’s impossible. It’ll never happen.

I know even if I wash off all this paint, he’ll still see it – it’s soaked into my skin – hangs around me like a phantom limb even when I don’t wear it. My breath is sawing out of my throat, harsh little pants of razor sharp teeth. He’ll see it all if he gets through this wall.

But no one else has been able to. No one else has been strong enough, smart enough. I wait for him to attack the walls and fail. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t.

Instead He stays out there with his army. He gives them orders that I can’t hear, organizes them, lets them all be seen for what they are. His. Fear ratchets up until no one inside can bear to do anything but watch. Desperate for it to be over. For something to break the tension.

Instead of attacking, He circles the wall. Again and again. His eyes studying it, searching it. And as I watch him he keeps seeing through those little notches and crannies that I peer out of – and our eyes meet in a breathless clash that makes me whirl away like a coward. He’s totally silent. Completely deadly. And I know, down to my bones, that strength inside him is more than mine. I, mess that I am, recognize that will of adamant that shines out of those eyes. Eyes that see too much of me.

I find myself on the verge of tears. I find the urge to weep rising inside of me, and I have to squish and stomp on and shove it down deep where I can’t feel it. Over and over. Every single, silent day that passes. What if he figures it out? What if he makes it through? What will I do then? What will he say when he sees me? How will I bear it – being so close to all that bigness of him. All that intensity. There’s something in his eyes every time they meet mine that makes the questions shout louder in my head. I don’t know what it is – I try not to think about it, but I feel it anyway. Like a shock to my nervous system. And my eyes fill every single time until I turn away.

Because I think it’s determination in that gaze – to get to me. I don’t know why he cares, why he’s putting so much effort in. And why is he being so quiet about it? You wouldn’t know how determined he was from the way he’s going about this. Why would he bother at all, anyway? Why does my heart ache so fiercely the longer the days get? The more I catch sight of him the unsteadier I feel. Like a wounded animal. Unhinged.

I wish I could let him in. But he’s too much. Too scary. Too real. I won’t be able to hide from him once he gets through. He’d make me feel it all. He’d peel all that paint off and expose me like a raw, soft, and weak little nerve.

So I retreat to my house, gather all the things most precious to me, guard them protectively and stare out my window, ignoring that scarlet thread fluttering in the wind. Everything in me wants to tear it down. But I won’t. I won’t.

Because underneath it all is a small and fragile hope that’s growing. Making those walls brittle. Threatening their foundations. Worming its way under them. I don’t give it words, I don’t let myself look too hard at that feeling. But even so, I already know. That determination in him? It’s a sign of something else. Something that lives behind it. Something big and frightening and.. and I won’t name it. But I can feel it as the days pass so agonizingly slowly – even when I can’t see him.

As I wait, huddled in my house, mulling over what it is that I can sense behind his determination, I realize that it’s a lot like music. It’s like a throat-achingly, haunting, melody hidden under all this silence that he’s been surrounding me and my walls in. Notes that he only lets sound in my heart, pulling at the broken thing it is, tugging gently to wake it up, calling me closer to the surface. The music is so familiar that it feels like big, gentle fingers brushing against the pieces of me that have been so lost. Ruining the paint from the inside.

Somehow I know it’s the sound of his heart.

And somehow, someway, my heart knows his. Recognizes that melody he’s singing to me as if I’ve heard it all my life. And the broken parts of that thing I’ve tried to forget I have, greets the sound of him like a long lost piece of itself I never knew I missed so much. He’s only been waiting for me to admit it. That I’ve been missing him.

That’s when the walls fall. Under one long piercing call of music so deep and true and him. That’s when all the crushing weight of hiding tumbles down in chunks, falling before him so he can just walk right in.

That’s when I open my door, my heart in my throat, and I find him there, waiting for me, his eyes full of adamant, asking that silent question of whether I’ll let him in.

That’s when I fling myself at him and he catches me close, squeezing me to him paint and all.

(portrait of Rahab… and me.)