yeshua

Yeshua – prufrock451
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2zh3nf/what_would_jesus_actually_do/cpiuorn

Reappear in Jerusalem. Begin preaching. Quickly get pegged as another loon by city authorities, who've dealt with plenty of others like him. His insistence on speaking in ancient Aramaic gets him placed in a mental hospital. Eventually, just as he begins to crack, a sympathetic Christian Arab who speaks a dialect of Aramaic becomes fond of Yeshua ben Yusuf.
Dr. Bassam is increasingly intrigued by Yeshua. He's very unlike most of the other victims of "Jerusalem fever." His calloused hands and feet, his lined and tanned skin speaks of years in the sun - and yet he speaks flawless Aramaic, as well as rudiments of Latin and Greek. His idiom is rough, his vocabulary rude, but he speaks with gentle authority. He has charisma. The other patients gravitate to him, and the staff give him the run of the place.
Dr. Bassam observes Yeshua in the woodworking shop, delighted if terrified by the power tools, a firm competent hand with axe and plane and hammer. Yeshua crafts a stool. Its lines are graceful and strong. Yeshua works with the grain as if he can hear the wood whispering to him. It is unfinished, rough-edged, and yet it bears any load. Yeshua sits upon it, closing his eyes as he sits in a sunbeam, entering through a barred window. For the first time, Dr. Bassam lets himself hear the thought which has been murmuring inside his mind for months.
"This is Jesus Christ, King of Kings."
Yeshua looks over. His smile is easy, warm. It is the smile of a killer, and of a child. It contains and surpasses whatever emotion Dr. Bassam can summon. Behind it are motivations which Dr. Bassam cannot calculate or predict. He cannot get ahead of this patient. He is not insane. He is not a man. He is a god. He is God.
Yeshua lays his strong hand upon Dr. Bassam's shoulder. "You believe," he says, his tongue awkward around the modern Hebrew he has been learning. "But believe I am man. I am son of God, and son of Man. I show way." He switches back to Aramaic. "You are a man of this time. You will doubt. When the sun sets, in the cold-lit darkness of these days reason will whisper to you that I am mad. That you must... fix me."
"I will not, Lord."
Yeshua's smile becomes simpler, truer. The terrible joy and fierceness that shone through is hidden. "For now we are two brothers. Let us not talk of the future. Let us, as one heart, enjoy the fruit of the day."
Dr. Bassam stands in a locked room, with a madman. He leans into the beam of light and smiles.

The world is in one of its characteristic moments of hysteria. Gunshots and chanting can be heard near the hospital. The wails of mothers. The screams of angry young men. The silence is the worst; the silence in which children look on with wide eyes and learn. Yeshua stands, his hands against the smooth warm walls, and silent tears course down his dusty cheeks.
The reporter is annoyed. She came to the city to become famous, to find the center of the fire and carry a sputtering brand of it away, waving it in the air to write her name in fleeting corpse-smoke. Instead, her editor has given her this assignment, to graze on the more mundane insanities of this city, to find a weak safe metaphor between the men forgotten here and those burning and shooting in the streets.
She interviews the Russian professor, the Arab simpleton, the confused American, the weeping Frenchman. She tries to stab her thumb through her phone, angrily rereading her emails.
"I am not the Messiah."
"But... Pierre, I was told a week ago that-"
"No." The Frenchman smiles in bliss, his famous tears dry for once. "No, I am not Him. He is here."
She glances to the Russian again, who is himself sitting beneath a tree, calmly whispering a prayer. "But he said he-"
The Frenchman stands. "Come. I show you Messiah."
The reporter sees a crowd of patients, standing still, their heads bowed. The big orderly nods at her.
"Him, over there. The Director should have sent you to him first."
"Who?"
The orderly bends down until his head (glistening with sweat, reeking of aftershave) is level with hers. He points through the crowd to a man, long hair over broad shoulders, leaning on the whitewashed wall.
She walks through the silence. Her heart begins pounding. In second grade, she went to a Catholic church with a friend. She ran down the aisle during the service. She remembered the feeling of shame and awkwardness, and the gentleness of the old man who guided her without judgment back to her pew. She felt that now, with every step that sounded gunshot-loud.
The man turned.
"Hello. I'm Karen Green. I'm a journalist." Her voice was a whisper.
The man smiled. "I am Yeshua."
The Frenchman stands beside her. "He is the Messiah. I am cured." He smiles. "We are all cured."

Dr. Bassam wrings his hands. He paces outside the room.
Karen Green bursts out. She slams the door. Her face is pale, her eyes brimming with tears. She sees the look of concern on Dr. Bassam's face.
"Oh shit," she whispers. "Oh shit, you believe it. It's real."
She bends over and vomits. She busies herself coughing and spitting, and then angrily wiping flecks of the stuff off her shirt. Dr. Bassam has rushed back with a handful of paper towels. He hands her some and then kneels and begins wiping up the puddle.
"Are you kidding me, doctor?" Karen pushes him aside. "Don't start with the foot-washing thing. Okay? Stop - just stop." She can't stop crying. Dr. Bassam is grinning, and he is crying too.
"Oh God. Oh God, how do I do this?" Karen glances uneasily at the door. "He can't open that door."
"I don't know," says Dr. Bassam. "It's locked. But if He wanted-"
"Don't." Karen swipes at her face, throwing her tear-soaked paper towel down into the vomit. "Don't tell me you see miracles."
"I only see what my patients show me." Bassam holds out his hands. "They are cured. Tamed. They are lambs."
"Fuck," grunts Karen. "My editor is not going to like this."
Dr. Bassam looks at her, expectantly. She shakes her head.
"No. No way. I had to fight to get here and they gave me a third-rate writing exercise. I'm not handing in a piece about Jesus Christ come back from the dead."
"Why?"
"Because that is insane."
"This hospital is the sanest place on Earth now."
"You want me to destroy my career?"
"Your name on a piece of paper? Your name on the lips of idiots? Money, eh? Television interviews?" Dr. Bassam shrugs. "You see what I see."
Karen shakes her head, more firmly. "I can't see it."
Dr. Bassam smiles. "Come back tomorrow, hm? Think on it tonight. Come back tomorrow."
"You're not going to tell me to pray?"
Dr. Bassam's smile widens. "I don't think I have to."

Karen leans on her balcony. Her cigarette tastes terrible. She stubs it out. She looks over her shoulder at her laptop. One paragraph in Microsoft Word. She can't see the words from here. You shouldn't be able to read your own tombstone.
Her phone buzzes. She picks it up.
"Karen." It's not a question, not an invitation, not anything. She should know better by now than to try and figure out what Peter's thinking.
"You got my email?"
"I read your email. Getting it is, I think, something different."
"You're telling me."
"So you aren't going to give that to Lowitz. He's probably going to tell you to go back to that hospital and check yourself in."
"I don't think I am."
"Karen." She knows that tone, if nothing else. Paternal concern. It gets her pissed off. From a man six months older than her. She'd have his fucking bylines if she had a dick, and he shouldn't be so proud of his-
The anger washes up, and through, and over her. In a sudden wave, she sees the world through Peter's eyes. She sees his hard work, the white cold hands he hides in his TV interviews, the fear - the fear - that haunts him all his life. He looks at his Peabody and only sees the empty space beside it. Tears come back to her eyes, already raw and throbbing from the crying they've done today. They sting. She blinks them away.
"Oh, Peter," she whispers. "Peter, I forgive you."
"What?"
"I have tried to be professional, be a cool girl about it, but I've been so angry at you. So angry about how you ended things. So... jealous. And every time I thought about why you... I thought about how I was angry. Not about how you were scared. I never saw you. Until now."
The silence is long.
"Holy shit, Karen. I... I know? Did I know? I don't know." Peter laughs. He's nervous. She's never heard him nervous. Not even in that call from Libya. (Especially not in that call.) "Don't make any decisions tonight, okay? Because I think you're in a strange place. So don't make any decisions tonight."
Karen smiles. "It is a strange place. Talk to you soon, Peter."
"Karen?"
She turns off the phone. No distractions. There's something she has to write.

Karen is smiling in the SUV. She hasn't checked her phone. She knows Twitter is a surefire antidote to good feelings.
Not that she would need to look far for that. Smoke rising from a neighborhood in the east. Sirens. Helicopters roar overhead. She makes the cabbie stop.
"Not good to stop, eh? We go fast, get behind the walls. Today's not a day for tourists." Ben is a mainstay. He knows the city backwards and forwards. Lowitz paid extra to get her the best driver and interpreter he had on retainer. She knows there is a gesture of faith and respect there, underneath the insult of her piddly assignment. She was being groomed.
A moment of silence for her dead career, coffin nails pounding silently down across the Internet in the form of retweets and Facebook shares and upvotes. The moment is ended by the distant crack of automatic rifle fire.
"Okay, Ben," she says, and gets back in the Toyota.
They drive up to the hospital. The gates are open. There is no guard.
Ben stops cold. "This looks bad." He picks up his radio.
Karen slaps at his shoulder. "Keep going. Keep going!"
He turns to stare at her, to give a lecture to this crazy woman, but she's already out and running and she doesn't hear what he's shouting.
The hospital is empty. Everything is neat, tidy. The doors are all open, the desks all straight. Nothing is missing. Nothing is off. No one is here.
Ben runs in after her. He's panting. He's got a jacket on, despite the heat. He's got a gun, that means. Ben's a good man.
"Thank you," Karen whispers. "But I don't think we're in trouble here."
Ben shakes his head. "This is no good. We go back to the hotel, tell the police."
Karen frowns. "I don't think that's what I'm supposed to do."
Ben flings his hands up in a cartoon of a shrug. "Supposed to do? You don't think about what I'm supposed to do? I'm supposed to keep you safe. This place is giving me the creeps."
Karen smiles. "Really? Not me."
Ben blinks. He looks around. Karen can tell he's just realized he doesn't have the creeps at all. She goes back out into the sun. She sits on a bench, under an olive tree, clears her throat, and turns on her phone.

Yeshua is walking toward the sound of screaming. He is wearing a simple white collared shirt, a pair of khaki pants. He is barefoot.
Dr. Bassam is beside him, in his dark tie and suit. Daniel, the giant orderly, is at his other hand, and he is wearing his army reserve fatigues. Yuri wears his old professor's costume, vest and leather-patched elbows. Doctors in white coats and other nurses and orderlies in reservist uniforms, and they look like an impromptu parade mocking the idea of Authority.
Before them strides a man whose face is dark with concern, who walks with the bearing of a king, whose glance is enough to make policemen blush with shame as they pull aside barricades. Dr. Bassam had, for a moment, thought he might need to bluff these men. Ye of little faith, he said to himself.
Behind Yeshua marched all the staff and patients of the hospital, all practically glowing with calm. The curious, the fearful, followed them. A thief, a blogger, an informant. Two police motorcycles cruised alongside, lights blinking, trying unsuccessfully to stop the swelling march.
The sounds of fighting are louder here. The men at the checkpoints are stiffening. The smell of smoke and fear fills the air. Yeshua can tell the hour draws near. A few onlookers have slipped away.
Bassam reaches his hand out. "Should we go back? It is not safe."
Yeshua shrugs. "I'm not needed where it's safe."
One of the other orderlies, Dov, runs up. "The doctor is right, Messiah. Please don't. Please stay safe."
Daniel slaps the man on the back, just slightly too rough. "We go where He tells us to go."
A Humvee roars up before them. The man who bursts out wears a colonel's uniform. Dov and Daniel snap to attention. He regards them quietly, scratching at his impeccable short blond beard.
"Sergeant?"
Daniel draws himself up another inch, impossibly.
"Why are you escorting these civilians toward a firefight?"
"To stop it, sir."
The colonel blinks mildly. "I wasn't aware you had been ordered to stop any operations. Is this something I should be aware of?"
"Colonel, we must stop the fighting."
Colonel Eisenstadt shakes his head. "No, you'll go back two blocks to that last checkpoint where my men are replacing the police officers who let you through."
Yeshua steps forward. Colonel Eisenstadt moves smoothly to face him. He does not flinch. He does not cry. Yeshua nods.
"Soldier, I go now."
The colonel smiles. "Your Hebrew is not very good?"
"He speaks Aramaic," blurts out Dr. Bassam. Colonel Eisenstadt glances over, the merest twitch of an amused eyebrow at his Arabic-accented Hebrew.
"Of course he speaks Aramaic," says the Colonel. "We'll have someone interpret. Once you're all in custody."
Two more Humvees roll up. The gunners watch the crowd from behind dark sunglasses.
Yeshua shakes his head. "No." He takes a single step.

"Something's happening over there."
Muhammad squints through his scope.
"Something big, bro. Military convoy and a bunch of people marching. Like a demonstration."
"A distraction?" Salim sets down his crate of Molotovs, letting out the breath he's been holding. "Something we can use?"
"Don't know." Muhammad brings his head back up, thrusting his chin out. "It's up there. Couple of kilometers west. Officer, I think."
"Shoot?"
"Too far. I can't tell which direction they're moving." Muhammad smiles placidly. "Do I shoot that officer? Do I shoot into that crowd?"
"Why shoot the crowd? Could be our people."
"Strategy, homes." Muhammad goes back to his scope. "They want peace. Do we want peace? On their terms? Negotiated terms? We want the struggle. We want the war. Cause that's how you get the Jews out. I shoot that officer, we get a neighborhood. I shoot the marchers, we get jihad." He tweaks a dial. "Too much wind. Have to wait."
Salim crouches down. "Are they moving?"
After a long time, Muhammad grunts. "Take a look. Tell me what you think that means."

Jerusalem has a magnetic pull on those who wish to be healed. For far too long, this city whose very existence yearns for peace has drawn only strife and sadness. This is true for nations and religions, and also for many individuals of every land and creed. Wounded souls come here, and find only more pain waiting for them.
This bitch is crazy. Where does this Democrat tool get the
It even has a name - Jerusalem Syndrome. Seeing the ancient landmarks, hearing the prayers which go back in an unbroken chain to clerics of the Arab conquest, the priests of the Crusaders, the rabbis who whispered under Roman rule - it can drive a person into insanity. I was sent to a hospital to tell the stories of victims. But I didn't find victims. I found people who'd found the strength and the grace - a word I am not using lightly - to heal.
So if you've been on the Internet today, you've heard of Karen Green's piece. You hear about this, Quest? I don't know about you folks but uh if you're looking for a place to go nuts I know a great stop on the F train
His presence is undeniable. His strength is undeniable. I have tried, and I have surrendered. I cannot deny it.
It's already the most-retweeted story in the history of Medium.com after three hours and if the media frenzy is any indication
I have stood in the presence of Jesus Christ. He is returned, and He is walking in Jerusalem.
Douglas Lowitz reads the piece again, rubbing his head hard enough for the stubble to make his palm throb. His inbox is flooding. Email alerts. Twitter notifications. Facebook. He can't even keep up with goddamn Google+.
"Karen Green, answer your phone. Answer your goddamn phone."
Lowitz bends down and sends a look of fury into his phone. It rings and he jumps back.
"Oh my God," he growls, "He is answering prayers."

Eisenstadt places his hand on Yeshua's chest. The crowd shouts. The Humvee gunners shout back. Their barrels swivel and snap up. They should be loaded for riot control. But this is a tense day, and time and resources and men are all strained. This is a day for making do, for snap judgments. It is a hot, dangerous day.
A white SUV barrels over a hill, blaring its horn. A woman in the passenger seat, aviators and khaki vest, the uniform of the foreign press, waving a white shirt in the air. The soldiers sight down the barrel at her.
Eisenstadt steps forward, shouting orders. The crowd is already parting, and his men are on foot among them, rifles pointed at the ground, shoving hard to get people off the street. He holds up a hand in warning, and the driver slows rapidly, rapidly enough for the woman to drop her shirt and grab a handhold. A local, thought Eisenstadt, knows the drill.
The woman is shouting something. Something about the media and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At that same moment, one of Eisenstadt's soldiers is shouting for him that General Rothmann is on the radio. Eisenstadt is confused. He glances at the calm man.
That's the moment the bullet hits the driver of the SUV and crimson spatters through the spiderwebbed windshield.
The SUV swerves to the left and the woman inside is flung to the pavement. The crowd scatters in every direction, all the gawkers and opportunists screaming. The soldiers in the Humvees open up in the general direction of the sniper.
"CEASE FIRE!" Eisenstadt screams as he runs, keeping his head down. "Too far off, you'll never hit the bastard!" The distant crack of the sniper rifle. "You, radio it in! You, get all these damn civilians off the street!" Eisenstadt crouches behind his Humvee. "What was that, Mirsky, five seconds? About 1800 meters?"
"He's good."
Eisenstadt snorts. "Shit. Not hard to hit a crowd at that distance. Lucky shot." Another bullet smacks into a wall nearby, six meters off the ground. "See, told you. Okay, get-"
They are praying. Praying as they walk, their arms outstretched, directly toward the sniper.
"Peace I leave with you," says the doctor in the dark suit.
"Peace I leave with you," repeats those that follow him toward death.
"My peace I give unto you."
"My peace I give unto you."
The soldiers are dragging them off the street, but every time they get one to safety another one walks into danger. More bullets rain down, as new snipers join the first. The head of a man in a hospital gown blossoms in ropes of blood and he crumples, lifeless.
"Not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
"Not as the world giveth, give I unto you."
"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
"Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
The woman from the SUV is walking forward, weeping, blood on her cheek and arms, not all of it hers. Eisenstadt tackles her.
"NO!" she screams. "Let me go! I have to go to Him!"
It is at that moment they both realize they don't know where he is.

Salim and Muhammad are far down the alley, chests heaving, crouched behind a pile of sheet of rusty corrugated iron. Salim plucks a splinter of concrete out of his arm. I spent all my money on the gasoline for those Molotovs, he thinks distantly.
Muhammad gets down on his stomach and reaches into a crack in the wall. He curses before he pulls out an AK-74 and a small bag of clips.
"Are there two?"
Muhammad grunts and jerks his head at the sniper rifle. Salim picks it up. It's heavy. He's never fired anything using a scope.
"I don't know how to use this."
"It's a gun, homes. Point it. Shoot it."
"Muhammad, you're a-"
Muhammad is up and running. A very unpleasant feeling is rolling around in Salim's stomach. He stops and vomits. Muhammad sighs in disgust.
"Go ahead and shit too, you baby. Get it all out so we can fight."
"You don't want me to live. You don't care if I live."
Muhammad jabs Salim in the gut with the butt of his AK. Salim falls over. He does shit himself.
"I care if I live. Cause I'm gonna fight."
"We are martyrs."
Muhammad snarls and his face is full of hate. He is someone Salim has never met.
"My job is to kill. Your job is to die." He walks off, lighting a cigarette. "Enjoy your virgins, cuz."
The others went a different direction. Salim can hear them fighting to the north, sharp cracks as the Jews close in. Helicopters. Salim flattens himself against a wall. They say you don't hear them or see them until they already killed you. The drones are even worse, invisible way up in the sky. His heart is pounding. The shit is running hotly down his leg.
Salim cries. "Save me," he whispers to Allah as he edges along the wall. "Save me."
      10:33  Coming around.
      10:34  They split up, one's running.
      10:36  Okay, he's up. Are we cleared yet?
      10:41  Come on-
      10:42  Chalon, Lavi Four, Chalon, Lavi Four.
      10:46  Chalon, go ahead, Lavi Four.
      10:49  He's got the sniper rifle. Moving. Request permission to engage.
      10:55  Fuck fuck fuck.
      10:59  Chalon, request permission to engage.
      11:07  Okay, engage.
      11:10  Clear.
      11:15  He's moving?
      11:17  Clear.
      11:30  Chalon, Lavi Four, target is down.
      11:33  Roger that, Lavi Four.

Eisenstadt throws Dr. Bassam to the ground. His motley parade waits patiently.
"I can't let you go forward!" Eisenstadt is losing his cool. "You have to stop! This is a battle, do you understand? They're not going to stop shooting! They're not going to do anything but kill you!"
Bassam shrugs. "Then I die."
Eisenstadt's eyes bulge out. "We can't protect you! You're forcing me to risk the lives of all my soldiers!"
"I'm not." Dr. Bassam is smiling placidly. "Please, stay safe. Let us go forward."
Eisenstadt stares into his eyes. "You're crazy. You're all crazy."
Bassam laughs. "It certainly looks that way."
"Who are you following?" Eisenstadt looks around. "Where is he?"
"He is where He must be," says Bassam, "and I must go to where I must be."
Mirsky is screaming about General Rothmann again.
Eisenstadt looks around at Yeshua's followers. He looks at his soldiers. He scratches at his beard.
"God forgive me," he says. "Go. Go."
Bassam stands and the parade marches forward, chanting in Hebrew and Arabic. Another dies.
Eisenstadt orders his men to cover. He grabs the radio.
"General," he says. He listens.

The New York Times Middle East bureau chief reports Karen Green is missing, as media are converging on the firefight in East Jerusalem.
It reports that Karen Green, in turn, had just called editor Douglas Lowitz to report that "Yeshua," the mysterious subject of the viral "Asylum Messiah" sensation, was also missing.
The Prime Minister is informed of this as he oversees the military response, and rolls his eyes.
It is trickling through the media now that the Messiah is missing, and more than a few reporters connect the dots with the growing firefight. A stringer for Reuters is on a rooftop, and he gets a shot of a follower falling through his telephoto. "Yes," he thinks, and the self-disgust that rushes through him he forces down out of sight until his job is done.
A pair of journalists for Jerusalem Post is running past the troops pulling Ben's body out of the overturned SUV.
Al Jazeera, NBC, and CNN all have teams closing in as well.
"Get this under control," snarls the Prime Minister. "I am not going to have this press conference be about some idiot Messiah when soldiers are under fire."

Muhammad stubs out his cigarette. Too close now, the smoke's a giveaway. He raises his AK. He hears chanting.
Muhammad pokes his head around a corner. The idiots are getting close now. The other mujahideen are holding their fire. Soft idiots. They don't get it. They aren't strategic thinkers like Muhammad. Muhammad fires a quick burst, dropping three. The tall one in the uniform makes a funny groaning sound when he goes down.
Muhammad looks up. The helicopters are too close. Time to get out of there. Muhammad has to escape. He has to report on the strategic errors of the other fighters.
The man's right there when he turns around. Muhammad jumps, whips up his AK, fires on reflex.
The man smiles. He pulls his shirt aside.
The wound in his side is bleeding, badly. Muhammad brings the AK up again.
"Who are you?" he says in Arabic. The man says nothing. "A Jew!" The man smiles sadly. Muhammad puts his finger back on the trigger. He looks into the man's eyes.
He looks into the man's eyes.
His legs start to tremble. He frowns, realizes he's pointed his rifle at the ground, snaps it back up. He hurt the man. Muhammad can see the pain in his eyes, the sweat that's broken out on his brow, the ashiness of his color. But the eyes are sad for him. His eyes show that sadness and they know the sudden stabbing guilt in his heart. And the eyes forgive him.
"Stop," whispers Muhammad. He steps back. "Stop." He chokes back a sob and runs.

Karen is running. She doesn't see Him anywhere. The shooting is quiet now. All she hears are the songs of the marchers. She runs to them.
"Dr. Bassam!" she shouts. Bassam turns and smiles.
A burst of gunfire snaps out and Bassam falls. Daniel the orderly falls, and another. Karen screams. She runs to Bassam and kneels.
Yes, thinks the Reuters stringer. He fights down a burp and brings his camera back up.
"No!" Karen grabs Bassam's hand. He groans and tries to focus on her. He smiles.
"You have to tell them," he whispers. "Tell them."
"I did," she gasps. "I will."
Bassam smiles and closes his eyes. The smile fades and his breath rattles out of him.
A single shot snaps, around the corner.

     18:22  More shots.
     18:25  Saw that, Lavi Two, coming around.
     18:30  More dead civilians.
     18:35  Damn idiots.
     18:40  Running. Got him? Got him?
     18:45  No. Wait. I got someone in that alley. Wounded. Engage?
     18:47  Chalon, Lavi Two. Permission to engage.
     18:51  Lavi Four, I see him. No weapon.
     18:55  Chalon. Is there a weapon?
     19:01  Fuck.

Muhammad is running. Nawaz grabs him.
"Stop!" Nawaz pulls Muhammad under cover. "There's two APCs down that way. Too hard a target. Who's got the RPGs?"
Muhammad stares unhappily at his feet. Nawaz blinks.
"Muhammad."
Nawaz slaps him across the face.
"Muhammad!"
Muhammad inhales, as if a spell had broken. He blinks and looks at Nawaz.
"Muhammad, where are the RPGs?"
"They had them in the pharmacy," mumbles Muhammad. "They were hit."
"Then let's go back. Let's get them or we won't make it out."
Muhammad nods. They run back the direction he came.

Eisenstadt shouts.
"STOP!"
He pokes his head out of the window. The firing has stopped. He looks back.
"You!" He waves his men back. "Fall back!" He scrambles over to the gunner and pulls out the ammo belt.
"Colonel, what-"
"Shut up. I'm an idiot, I'm being an idiot, I'm sorry."
He looks at his men. "You two, get out." They stare. "OUT!"
While they're scrambling, he rips open the first aid kit and gets out a length of gauze. Waving it out the window, a makeshift white flag, he floors it and drives alone toward the marchers. As he gets closer, a burst of AK fire rings out and some of them drop. Another single shot.
Eisenstadt slams on the brakes. He gets out and runs.

Muhammad sees the man, limping. Even hunched over, even from behind, Muhammad is terrified of seeing those eyes again.
Nawaz brings up his AK.
"NO!" screams Muhammad. The man begins to turn. "You're a hostage! You're a hostage! Don't look at us! Turn around!"
Nawaz takes his finger off the trigger. Muhammad grabs the man, stops him from turning around. Muhammad stares intently at the back of the man's head.
"Don't. Don't turn around." He's begging, not commanding. Nawaz stares at him curiously, shrugs. They walk. Waves of sensation roll up Muhammad's arm from where he's touching the man. He feels the forgiveness again. His face is burning with shame.
They round the corner. The marchers are right there, right on top of them. Nawaz has his AK up, fires at random. Someone moans as they fall over, clutching an arm. There's an Israeli soldier, an officer, and he's holding a woman. Nawaz shoulders the man out of the way, screaming, pointing his rifle at the Israeli. The Israeli is stern, defiant. Unarmed.
Muhammad holds the man. He cradles him. The man is getting cold. Shock.
"I'm sorry," murmurs Muhammad. "It will be okay. It will be okay."
"Eli," whispers the man. "Eli, Eli lemana shabakthani."
Muhammad doesn't know Hebrew. He can only hold the man.

     19:44  They're coming back.
     19:48  See them. Two armed.
     19:55  Looks like a hostage.
     19:57  Lavi Two, Lavi Four, Chalon, hold your fire.
     20:00  Chalon, Lavi Four, ground forces engaging.
     20:04  Wait.
     20:09  Chalon, Lavi Four, ground forces under threat. Permission to engage.
     20:15  Lavi Four, Lavi Two, there are hostages.
     20:20  Lavi Four, Chalon, permission to engage.
     20:22  Hostages!
     20:25  Clear.
     20:28  No!
The Prime Minister frowns.
"I thought I made myself perfectly clear. I'm not going to talk about one deluded individual when the lives of our citizens, our soldiers, are at risk. If he walks into a freefire zone, we will do our level best to protect him from attack by Palestinian extremists. This is a mentally - deranged - escapee. And I'm not going to, to minimize the danger our soldiers are in any more by talking about some viral sensation of the day."
The cameras whir and snap and flash.
Karen jumps as the man shouts. He's pointing an AK-74 at her. Colonel Eisenstadt's grip is painful on her arm as he pulls her down. Eisenstadt is shouting.
She sees Him. He is looking up into the sky, his eyes full of pain. Blood is pouring out of His side.
Dust explodes out of the street in spurts. Eisenstadt is swearing in three languages. A sound of distant machinery. Oh, thinks Karen, that's a gun.
The shouting man turns, and more dust explodes. Karen loses sight of him, most of him, but she sees a head tumbling through the air, landing, spinning absurdly as blood drains out the torn and mangled end of it. She can't look away. The head's looking the other direction, thank God.
God.
The dust is swirling. A helicopter's coming in low, blowing the dust all around. Karen is screaming, and twisting, and Eisenstadt is up and running, and she's right behind him.

The dust is settling. Karen is walking, her legs rubber.
"Aasif," she hears. "Aasif, ana aasif. Yam lakun..."
He is sprawled out, gasping. His skin is shockingly pale. His feet and hands are mangled. The wound in His side is still bleeding. The Arab is cradling him, tears streaming down his face. The Arab is trying to wash the dust from His eyes.
Eisenstadt hurls himself forward. "You'll live," he says urgently as he starts ripping up his uniform for tourniquets. "General Rothmann told me you have to live, okay? Say it. Stay with me."
Yeshua smiles. He looks up and despite the urgency of the moment, everyone turns to the hovering helicopter.
"Forgive them, Father," He whispers.
He closes his eyes, and is still.

The stringer for Reuters trembles as he holds his camera.
"I'm rich," he whispers to himself, his heart pounding.
Penny Grant trembles as she looks over at her cameraman. She's going to go on the Today Show, she thinks. She's going to get a Pulitzer.
Someone leans over and whispers in the Prime Minister's ear and he grimaces. "No more questions." He bolts from the podium.
An ambitious reporter and a hardened soldier and a boy who thought himself the face of revolution join hands, and they bawl like children, and the followers of a dead man kneel down around them, their march over and just beginning.

The authorities come in. Muhammad is tackled, and handcuffed, and interrogated. The escapees are moved to a high-security unit in a mental hospital. Colonel Eisenstadt is quietly placed on leave. Karen Green is hustled onto an airplane and lands in New York with blood still under her fingernails. Penny Grant is staring into a camera as Karen is taken away.
She gives Karen a wink. This scoop is going to do wonders for her career.
The Israeli government turns the incident to their advantage. More fever-stricken victims of a city that breeds hysteria. A sign that things must change. The Palestinians make great hay out of the Israeli gunship's attack on a civilian. The Israelis counter that the Palestinians were threatening a group of unarmed protestors.
More people die. More people scheme.
Karen Green is besieged by interview requests. She waits a day too long, and the mood shifts. When she goes on 60 Minutes, she's met with skepticism and her "dreamy, disengaged" performance doesn't poll well. Women with sweaty palms seize her hands in CVS, asking her to pray for a grandson with leukemia, a husband with diabetes. The rape threats come on cue. She moves, and she suspends her Twitter account, and she gets a book advance which she spends on a quiet house in a community with guards. Her neighbors are bankers and lawyers and she is not immediately popular.
Peter comes back into her life. And out.
Three years pass. Aaron Eisenstadt (Col, IDF, ret) sends her updates from his new nonprofit. He urges her to move to Paris, where he's opened a European bureau. (She's a long way from getting a visa to Israel approved.) The appeals come, polite, not hurrying.
"I'll visit," she says once, in a weak moment. "I haven't been to Paris in a decade. No promises."
Muhammad is there. Released early at French request; good behavior, notorious in a way titillating to the French mind, perhaps a good influence as a reformed extremist. Israel was only too happy to strip him of a passport and send him away. His English is hilarious, but improving.
The three of them sit at a table. Outside, activists and young people in keffiyahs and burqas and yarmulkes sit and talk and plan eagerly.
"What happened?" Karen clasped her hands together. She looked at the portraits of Daniel and Bassam and all the others. The portrait of Yeshua... the only photograph they had was from the hospital bed where he lay dead. She couldn't bring herself to look at that yet.
"Isn't it obvious?" Eisenstadt grinned. "Exactly what had to happen."
"And what comes next?"
Muhammad smiles. "What must."
Across the ocean, the Prime Minister wakes from a mournful dream. He sobs. He is forgiven.
END