Fragment 82 /Christmastide /Matins /Fri, 25 Dec 1998
Consciousness rises to Jude with the swift buffet of cold sea wind buoying his weightlessness as if all the world had fled away in the grips of a great earthquake. He vaguely feels his broken body being ruptured by rocks before feeling the cold salty sting of sea immerse him. Then there is nothing left to breathe as his weight drags him down like a whirlpool. Going down, his life in stages goes through his mind, the final scenes flashing last: of being awakened from his trance by Paul in empowered fury; of Paul causing him to snort line after line of cocaine; of being driven to the cliffs and the beautiful sunrise, of the heirs creating the scene of a suicide and the beautiful sunrise, of being thrown from the cliffs and the…Now suddenly, amidst the peals of thunder and lightening flashes, there is the great white throne again before him and a voice.
“I put to death and I bring to Life, I have wounded and I have healed. Here you will lie until the sea gives up her dead. The rise and fall will not leave you, but neither will death take you.”
Then Heaven is silent.
Jude smiles his last, forgetting forever that sea gulls cry and that sea waves swell, and leaving behind the profit and loss of this world. Where he lies, a sea current will dissolve his flesh, then pick at his bones in whispers until the coming of the Lord, and the resurrection of the dead.