He staggered down the high street, half stooped, his arms and hands bent out at strange angles with some of the fingers rigid straight and others bent or poking down. It gave the impression that all the bodily pain which he could not feel was channelled down his arms into a contorted, paralysing force. In those first moments post post-mortem Jesus was completely oblivious to his own self. It was as if his soul, his essence, had not returned with him. He was conscious but he had no notion of destination or direction; temperature or night or day. So bare footed and naked from the waist up he made his way east, the syringe working lose and falling out his foot and blood running afresh out the wound. For some way along, the blood ran under his toes and to his sole, and a series of bloody left footprints were printed, leading diagonally across the road. The night was now so chilled that frost particles settled and welded to the metal of cars and a fine veneer of sparkling white covered the road up in the distance. The street lights gave off spheres of light but Jesus saw nothing of it. As Jesus reached the far side pavement a small group of revellers, the last left on the street, came down from the opposite direction. They parted to let him through and some slapped Jesus on the back and one of the party blew a party hooter in his face. Jesus carried on without so much as a flinch.
It was somewhere off the high street, along a dark and deserted turning of road, that Jesus first saw and had his first or what could be called conscious thoughts. Through a letterbox of awareness he saw a pair of naked, walking feet and the left was wounded and bloody. His eyes closed over and opened to the same scene many times and with each vision the blood and the red became more pronounced and without feeling it he was reacting to horror. Soon after Jesus felt discomfort and then pain and then cold. He heard shouts and though he did not understand them he felt some obligation of response, even if that response was only the recognition of voices themselves. There was still no conscious drive onwards and absolutely no notion of destination. His feet just walked and his eyes observed and soon his eyes moved and he saw a hand and then a bare chest, and in the same moment he heard a groan he realised the groan was his although he did not know what 'his' was and yet he groaned again as it seemed to reverberate some intrinsic need within him, some natural echo of existence and a call to those other sounds which he had not understood but reacted to. The first time he willing moved his head was to a loud crashing in the sky. He looked up but saw nothing and on slowly turning back to his feet he caught a car passing by and he followed the red tail lights until they disappeared out of distance, into the cold veneer of white which was the dark of the distant night.
He saw the twinkling of the black river. It rippled in the dark of the night catching the light of the bridge and some vague notion of profound depth came to him. He shivered and groaned and now he felt his skin tight over his chest and his insides frozen and sore. On the near shore a party boat was unloading and people were coming off the boat and whooping to fireworks which exploded way over yonder above the next bridge along. Jesus saw the explosion of colour and remembered some great event, some special occasion and the number 2000. He now stopped and watched the people load off the boat and he had an instinct to hide and remain quiet. The river gently lapped in the dark and now a strange stagnant smell came to him and a burning feeling all over his body. with this burning sensation he heard the wind howling under the bridge and he grimaced and his eyes watered and he held himself in and rubbed himself and then hurried on to wherever he was going. Now Jesus came to a highstreet and on the far-side, on the first corner up, there was a circular building potted out with blue lights and a bright white display with red letters on it. He remembered this place. In the dead of night, with blackness in all directions, something now figured. He looked up past the building, in the opposite way from which he would take, and he said "oh no oh no" and he somehow knew his pain was from there and to that way was not home. And now Jesus was conscious and freezing and in pain.
(copy and paste from initial writing. just an idea of the walk home)
the group laughing and howling with a slimey his half folded form half illuminated by the shop displays and blue neon sickness across his face. Ill. He staggered past a cruising police control car, the radio only in his head a a lost vfeeling of warmyth and comfort from when hs father had been arrested and he hd once sat in the back of such a car ad smelt the radio. On the bridge. Trying not to look down into the river, a dark expanse leading into nothing, something tortued in the distance, in the deserted and quiet wastelands of the outskirts of town, something tortured in his minds eye; a razt crept away to die. He kept his thoughts on the middle of the bridge, a marker of sorts, somewhere to aspire to, to reach, thinking of the downhill slope and the little acceleration it would afford him not of his own volition He walked through the dead streets now, cursing his illness, groaning in self-pity. The bars were all closed and midnight loomed, that lonely touch of time as TVs flick off across town and people climb stairs to bed and the last lights flicker in living rooms. As he walked past the old school he though he was crying. It was one tear and then another and then blob, plop of heavy rain tarting to come down. The city was aromatized around him. He could smell scabby, ulcerated mongrel dogs, the water on concrete and for a moment the word was a his of slapping rain. Beneath the wet he was sweating through and a cold was on his chest and freeing his chest cavity. The ran slapped down and brought a faint refection of him into the road, a dark, shiny presence in the rivulets of water making their way to the gutter and sewer. He tried to hasten his pace, wanting now just to be home, to suffer down and get on with this wretched illness that was now in him. But any comfort, even of the mildest notion, wa unattainable He had surrendered so much that the rain cut right through him, soaking him to the bones. His hair was curled against his head, his clothes cold against his body, water dripping off his nose; his shoes squelching past old haunts which somehow now screamed out to him and imbued him with a profound and irrepressible feeling of sadness and history, a loneliness that only a man adrift in the universe could understand, floating off to nowhere on memories of home.
It was somewhere off the high street, along a dark and deserted turning of road, that Jesus first saw and had his first or what could be called conscious thoughts. Through a letterbox of awareness he saw a pair of naked, walking feet and the left was wounded and bloody. His eyes closed over and opened to the same scene many times and with each vision the blood and the red became more pronounced and without feeling it he was reacting to horror. Soon after Jesus felt discomfort and then pain and then cold. He heard shouts and though he did not understand them he felt some obligation of response, even if that response was only the recognition of voices themselves. There was still no conscious drive onwards and absolutely no notion of destination. His feet just walked and his eyes observed and soon his eyes moved and he saw a hand and then a bare chest, and in the same moment he heard a groan he realised the groan was his although he did not know what 'his' was and yet he groaned again as it seemed to reverberate some intrinsic need within him, some natural echo of existence and a call to those other sounds which he had not understood but reacted to. The first time he willing moved his head was to a loud crashing in the sky. He looked up but saw nothing and on slowly turning back to his feet he caught a car passing by and he followed the red tail lights until they disappeared out of distance, into the cold veneer of white which was the dark of the distant night.
He saw the twinkling of the black river. It rippled in the dark of the night catching the light of the bridge and some vague notion of profound depth came to him. He shivered and groaned and now he felt his skin tight over his chest and his insides frozen and sore. On the near shore a party boat was unloading and people were coming off the boat and whooping to fireworks which exploded way over yonder above the next bridge along. Jesus saw the explosion of colour and remembered some great event, some special occasion and the number 2000. He now stopped and watched the people load off the boat and he had an instinct to hide and remain quiet. The river gently lapped in the dark and now a strange stagnant smell came to him and a burning feeling all over his body. with this burning sensation he heard the wind howling under the bridge and he grimaced and his eyes watered and he held himself in and rubbed himself and then hurried on to wherever he was going. Now Jesus came to a highstreet and on the far-side, on the first corner up, there was a circular building potted out with blue lights and a bright white display with red letters on it. He remembered this place. In the dead of night, with blackness in all directions, something now figured. He looked up past the building, in the opposite way from which he would take, and he said "oh no oh no" and he somehow knew his pain was from there and to that way was not home. And now Jesus was conscious and freezing and in pain.
(copy and paste from initial writing. just an idea of the walk home)
the group laughing and howling with a slimey his half folded form half illuminated by the shop displays and blue neon sickness across his face. Ill. He staggered past a cruising police control car, the radio only in his head a a lost vfeeling of warmyth and comfort from when hs father had been arrested and he hd once sat in the back of such a car ad smelt the radio. On the bridge. Trying not to look down into the river, a dark expanse leading into nothing, something tortued in the distance, in the deserted and quiet wastelands of the outskirts of town, something tortured in his minds eye; a razt crept away to die. He kept his thoughts on the middle of the bridge, a marker of sorts, somewhere to aspire to, to reach, thinking of the downhill slope and the little acceleration it would afford him not of his own volition He walked through the dead streets now, cursing his illness, groaning in self-pity. The bars were all closed and midnight loomed, that lonely touch of time as TVs flick off across town and people climb stairs to bed and the last lights flicker in living rooms. As he walked past the old school he though he was crying. It was one tear and then another and then blob, plop of heavy rain tarting to come down. The city was aromatized around him. He could smell scabby, ulcerated mongrel dogs, the water on concrete and for a moment the word was a his of slapping rain. Beneath the wet he was sweating through and a cold was on his chest and freeing his chest cavity. The ran slapped down and brought a faint refection of him into the road, a dark, shiny presence in the rivulets of water making their way to the gutter and sewer. He tried to hasten his pace, wanting now just to be home, to suffer down and get on with this wretched illness that was now in him. But any comfort, even of the mildest notion, wa unattainable He had surrendered so much that the rain cut right through him, soaking him to the bones. His hair was curled against his head, his clothes cold against his body, water dripping off his nose; his shoes squelching past old haunts which somehow now screamed out to him and imbued him with a profound and irrepressible feeling of sadness and history, a loneliness that only a man adrift in the universe could understand, floating off to nowhere on memories of home.
By the time he turned into the front path of the house he was soaked and drained through. He slodged along the path, walking the faint light down into such darkness that he was eaten up by his own shadow. As he painfully searched for his key he now regretted reaching home, reaching a place where there was no more hope just surrender. He dropped his key and it jingled twice and then fell silent in the wet yard. With no will at all he swooped down and gathered it p, scraping his knuckles on the enough concrete yard? A drop of blood rolled across he top of his hand and dripped and burst like ink in the rain. He opened the door, and in the dark, he climbed the stairs, the smell of the empty house and foul kitchen overpowering him. he entered his symbolic room. without turning on the light he walked over to the bed and for in, boots still on his feet. he pulled the cold blanket up around him and lay shaking in the dark, the tears falling and shadows jutting out *
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