Ezekiel's Delight

Over the past couple of years, I've jotted a few stories or poems, from the sublime to the ridiculous...         

The noise of the market was more muffled than usual. I advanced to the front of the straggling crowd, like one advancing into the maw of a hungry tomb. Would Death’s appetite ever be satisfied?

            

For years I’ve performed signs at the command of the LORD so that Israel may see with their own eyes what God is saying to them. Call me “a living object lesson,” if you will. But I’d never expected to see a dying one.

            

Jagged wood grazed my shin as I stepped onto the wooden crates I had stacked to proclaim God’s word to the masses of passerby. Sand scraped rough wood as I planted my feet.

My lips cracked as they parted: “Thus says the LORD,” I croaked. Something like sandpaper lodged in my throat. Not one head turned. “Thus says the LORD,” I repeated more loudly. “Son of man, behold, I am about to take the—delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke.”

A child cried nearby. An image of Tirzah’s face swam into view. Her warm honey eyes crinkled with pain. I closed my own eyes to block out the image.

“Yet you shall not mourn,” my breath snagged, “or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban,” my hand trembled as I felt for the one I was wearing, “and put shoes on your feet,” my feet shuffled unconsciously, grit scraping the box again. “Do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.”

My words echoed hollowly as though over a valley of dried bones. Death and Darkness were absolute, pressing me down, leaving me sure of nothing but loneliness. My eyelids felt moist, and, realizing that they were still closed, I opened them. Bodies shifted and swarmed—moving skeletons. Only a few were looking at me, but I doubted that they’d even heard me. This was probably the shortest message I had ever delivered, but I was surprised to see the morning still reeling around me.

Was God really worth all this?

I checked a sigh and got down off of my pathetic pedestal. Then I froze. At the far end of the market, someone had heard me. She stood, motionless, her eyes locked onto mine. And there, through that long silent tunnel between us in the bustling crowd, stared my darling Tirzah. My gaze groped for her reaction, expecting to see the pain in those honey brown eyes. Her eyes did crinkle, but not with pain. Overflowing with tears, those eyes actually beamed—beamed!—and that beam ripped through my darkness and fortified me for many storms to come.

She died that evening.

And the next morning, I did as I was commanded.