Story - A Prodigal Tale 2

After this he stole regularly. Though he ate infrequently it was
enough. He slept rough in abandoned houses, in the street, sometimes
outin the fields. His poverty depressed him and the dreams became more
frequent and intense. He began drinking wine of the cheapest and
roughest sort. He was now submerged in the underworld of the city.
Most of the people he spent time with were drunkards like himself,
living by stealing, the women by hustling. Each had his or her story,
elaborated and embellished over so many years the teller no longer
knew where the truth ended and the lies began. Though they banded
together out of need for each other, few confided the true reason for
his being there. Amongst this shifting group of outcasts he had no
real friends. He spent a lot of time on his own. Even when with others
he was withdrawn, alonein their midst, quietly brooding.
One particular eveninghe sat with a group under a tree drinking.
Hereached out for a jar of wine which stood to his right. His hand
found the earthenware jar and he dragged it towards him across the
ground. As he did so one of the girls leaned over him.
'No more,' she said. He tried to fend her off with his arm but
found he didn't have the strength. 'You've had enough, you'll be sick
again.' She took hold of the neck of the jar as he tried to raiseit to
his mouth. She was too strong for him and he lay back against the
stony earth, the girl's face appearing above him. She was young but
little of youthfulness remained to her. He closed his eyes, feeling
the tears wanting to come. He lay still, wishingthat she might release
him from the prison of his silence. If only she would ask him what the
matter was, and persist in asking until she had got an answer. But she
simply sat there watchinghim, perhaps angry at hisfoolishness, or
indifferent, not wanting to burden herself with his problems.
Thus he went on from day to day, finding ways to occupy himself
for hours at a stretch. He walked for miles around the city with his
head bowed, or simply sat, staring into the dust at his feet. Need of
money forced him to beg and to steal. If he was lucky someone would
take pityon him and buy him wine. His once smooth and youthful face
became sunken and dark,and his eyes, often jaundiced and
bloodshot,bulged in their sockets. His clothes were torn andstained,
his body thin and bruised.
< 5 >
The Feast of Passover came and thousands of pilgrims gathered,
filling the inns and camping in the environs of the city. He stayed
away from them, knowing his familywould be somewhere amidst the
throng. For safety he moved outside of the ritually clean areas. His
family could not wander here withoutrendering themselves unclean for
the ceremonies and this they would not do. He was secure in his own
uncleanness. On the few occasions when he did venture into the city it
was never to a place where someone might know him. He did not liketo
go into the busy thoroughfares. Most of the day he lay in the fields
watching. In the distance he could see the steady column of smoke
rising from the Temple area. White and blue figures moved in the haze,
the sun reflecting from whitewashed walls, the grey smoke rising and
dispersing in the clear sky. The noise of thegreat crowd carried
across to him, the sound of voices, of bells and cymbals, and
sometimes of chanting.
He was cut off from it all and the sense of dispossession
oppressed him. It was not that he was particularly religious. He had
never been fervent in his observance, or strong in his beliefs. What
troubledhim was not spiritual pain, but simply a sense of no longer
belonging. He left the fields and wandered for an hour through the
back streets and alleyways where he came on an itinerant preacher
proclaiming to anyone who would listen. The holy man was in his
mid-twenties, bearded and simply dressed. His face had a severe,
ascetic angularity,but his hands were long and slender and he gestured
as he spoke with great gentleness. 'A father always has room in his
heart to forgive a son who repents,' the preacher was saying. It was a
phrase caught in passing and barely registering in his mind. But the
words had found a place in his thoughts, like seeds in the crevice of
a wall. The encounter lasted a few minutes onlyand was soon forgotten.
In the following days his mental condition worsened. Secrets
contained for so long were now demanding audience. He had eaten
practically nothing for a week and had little appetite. Wine eased his
hunger. He had grown thinner, more lethargic, and found it
increasingly difficult to concentrate. On the last night of the Feast
he had the first of many visions. He was sitting in the corner of
aninn completely drunk. A woman he knew came over towards him, her
eyes heavily darkened with makeup. He smelled the sweetness of her
unwashed body as she placed the palm of her hand against his face.
< 6 >
'Why don't you stop drinking?' she asked. He heard someone
laughing,he felt nauseous. The woman stroked his cheek, and then his
hair, looking into his face. He bowed his head and moved slightly
aside. A triangle of light fell from a gap between the curtain and the
doorframe, highlighting the head and shoulders of a man across the
room. The man was laughing, his mouth wideopen and the lips drawn back
to reveal an irregular set of decaying teeth. As he tried to focushe
saw that there was noflesh on the head at all. The teeth jutted
straight out of bone, the lower jaw hanging slack, the eyes empty
sockets beneath the shadow of the brow.
The skull turned towards him grinning with the fixed expressionof
a mask. He closed his eyes to rid himself of the image, but when he
opened them again the skull was still there, staring at him. Then the
skull spoke: 'I could tell her all about you,' it said.'I could tell
her everything.' He closed hiseyes again and pressed his hands to his
ears and this time when he lookedagain the skull was gone.He rose
unsteadily, pushing the girl aside. People watched him uncertainly.
When he gotoutside he was shaking and was violently sick.
The effect of the visionon his subsequent conduct was marked. He
tried over the next few weeks to stay sober, wrestling with the
agonising need for drink.He tried to eat though it made him ill. Then
by a piece of sheer chance he was offered a job on a farm north of the
city. He worked in the dusty fields pruning vines and olive trees, the
rough branches cutting his hands. He earned enoughfor his keep, living
on vegetables and bread, which were cooked and served collectively to
the labourers.
He had now stopped drinking but his mental condition continued to
deteriorate. He had visions regularly. Often the birds would talk to
him, or devils in the form of birds, taunting him with their
accusations. On one occasion the roots of an olive tree he was tending
became a nest of vipers writhing around his feet. In the midst of the
snakes was awoman's brooch. He reached down to pick it up but as he
touched the glinting object it turned into a stone and the snakes
vanished. After a month of labouring in the fields he was moved to the
position of swineherd. He fed the pigs, cleaned out their enclosure
and herded them up the hillside where they rooted in the shade of the
olive groves.At night he slept with them for warmth.