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TITLE: One last meal
By Deborah Shipman
01/14/05
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This is a story that I was inspired to write through a challenge from another forum. The challenge was to write a story based upon the thought "one last meal". As I thought on this the story of Jesus's last meal came to me to write yet write it in a way that only as one begins to come close to the end of the story will they begin to realize who it might be. My daughter got involved in helping me write this. She really did enjoy it.
I am thinking about posting this to a contest in another forum so need some help in getting this one shaped up. Help me with anything you might see.
He sat looking at this meal that he knew would be his last. Thinking about the execution that was coming sent shivers down his spine. He wasn't guilty. Who would believe him? His own father had decided the guilt was his so where else could he go. Who else could he turn to? No one.

The loneliness draped over him like a blanket. Its suffocating grip almost caused him to choke as he swallowed. Every morsel of food taken meant one step closer to a horror unimagined. Try as he might nothing relieved the weight that reality's ugly hand had placed upon him.

Was it really time? Thoughts began to flood his mind. Maybe there was something he could do to change it. He knew his father was very powerful so maybe if he talked with him, even pleaded his case, begged if necessary that would change the decision. Or at least postpone it. He would be seeing him in a little while so that was something he determined to do.

A peace began to flood him as he thought on this. The glimmer of hope brought on by the thought of changing the decision caught him by surprise. He thought he had settled this once and for all. Now he felt a tug toward reversing a decision already made many years before. As he continued to allow the enormity of this to flood over him the decision to talk to his father was made. He would do it. His father might not listen but it never hurt to try.......

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She looked outside. Her little boy was playing in the dirt. As she watched him she thought about how cruel everyone had been. It just didn’t seem fair that he had to suffer for choices that were not his. He had not planned his birth nor had he chosen who would be the ones to raise him. He was just a little boy, that’s all he was. So why? Was this some cruel joke that the one in charge was pulling on everyone? She knew that God was supposed to be love so where was he for her little boy?

The little bastard boy was his nickname. Whispered everywhere. Behind closed doors, on everyone’s lips. The talk of their village. Her heart ached for him, wanting so much to make it go away. Nothing would tho. He would have to bare this mark just because she was supposedly chosen to carry him. Couldn’t God have done it differently? Didn’t he care what it would do to her little boy?

Suddenly he looked up and stared at her as if he knew what she was thinking. Their eyes met. Could he have known? No he’s just a little boy. How could he. She smiled at him as he went back to playing…..

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He thought about his mom. If his father would not listen she would struggle as he faced yet another cruelty, knowing she could not stop it. She had endured much though out his life. Now she would be called upon to have her heart ripped apart, torn to shreds and trust that everything was okay. He wanted so much to comfort her as he had desired to so many times before…..

The man next to him nudged him jerking him from his thoughts and said "Will you pass the bread"? Passing the bread he looked at the men setting around him. He knew them intimately for they had spent much time together sharing a lot of laughter. He loved to make them laugh. Seeing them smile always brought him such joy.

Peter had been a real challenge. Always the serious one with a temper that could move mountains. He smiled as he thought of John who stayed irritated at Peter most of the time. It had been very hard to get them to start laughing in the beginning. Their image of him was something he had had to change. Once that was done it had been easy to begin a relationship with them.

Where he was going they could not go yet leaving them would not be easy.

As he passed the bread Jesus thought “Yes I will have to talk to the Father”.
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