Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: ENOUGH (01/07/21)
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TITLE: The knotted rope | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
01/08/21 -
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Six days ago, we’d walked into the city beside one of these beasts. The black cross emblazoned across its neck and shoulders should have told me something. Hindsight is everything. The chaos and din around us deafened the ears but our momentum carried us right into the heart of the city. We had come to make a difference in the history of our nation but there were a few who no doubt would have hung our leader if they could get their hands on him. All he had to do was rally the crowd to his cause and it would have been enough.
Festivals are meant to draw nations together, to rally national fervor, to inspire people to throw off the weight of oppressors and to strive for justice and hope. Our discussions on the way left no doubt that this occasion would be different than any other we’d attended. We were primed and ready. The signs were all around us and it was enough to set the adrenaline on high. These people would have done anything if only he had known when to stop; if only he had not crossed the line into defaming their sacred space; if only he had understood where their true passions lay.
The black robes perched on the edge of the flat-roofed parapets like carrion crows ravenous for death. The depth of their darkened hearts meant nothing on that first day. When the devious thought of using them to force his hand came on me it seemed like a harmless plan. What could they do against so many? One of them even admitted that the whole world had gone after him and I knew it was enough.
Every day the talking went on. Questions were asked and answered. He was invincible but it wasn’t enough. The blood bubbled and boiled when he said that everything we saw would end one day. He kept pushing the limits of understanding – daring us to think that the three years we’d walked in his dust would drift away like a morning cloud in the hot sun. There’s no question I’d profited off of this movement and it hadn’t been enough to satisfy the desperate hunger inside my soul.
I think it was the waste that tipped the scales. Enough was enough. The woman took the most expensive gift she had and poured it out all over him. “Why this waste?” I asked. I chastised her -expecting his support but instead, he supported her. “She’s preparing me and she’ll be remembered,” he said. A deep surge inside pulled at me and it was enough to get me slipping out. We hadn’t found enough to make him declare himself but I knew they wanted him and I knew how he would rise up and prove himself.
We negotiated the price until it was enough. I could easily balance the books and have enough left over. I knew the time and place. He seemed to know. Dinner came. Footwashing, bread. Someone would betray he said. “Me?” I asked. “Yes!” he said. He knew enough. His eyes seemed to urge me to go and do what I needed to do.
A kiss of friendship in the garden with the presence of the mob shrouding us like a heavy quilt of darkness. “Identify him clearly,” they said. “A kiss is enough.” When he declared himself the crowd fell back in awe and I knew it was enough yet he allowed himself to be taken, tried and condemned.
I hovered around, watching, waiting for the moment when he would call down the glories of heaven and rally all of us to the cause. He had the words, the power, the gaze that could do it. All night the sham trial went on and still he stalled. The mockery and abuse was enough yet it continued.
As the sun rose, he was condemned. “Take it back!” I said. “All thirty pieces.”
“No,” they said.
And now here I stand with the knotted rope. It will be just enough.
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