The Tale of Mary Magdalene - Short Fiction

By day Mary prayed. But, at night, she lay awake, enduring that great hollowness inside. Across the room slept the savior, lightly snoring, his seamless garment perfect and unruffled from shoulder to ankle. It was to him her yearning flowed, like a sensuous river, flowed and bathed him, tirelessly, until morning.
The disciples sprawled along walls, breathing in an odd cacophony of sound. Mary found to her shame she was coming more and more to regard these humble men as dumb brutes, the savior's oxen, harnessed, to pull the plow of his gospel. Beyond that, little intelligence glimmered behind their strange eyes. Among them were childish contradictions, conflicts...
It was only yesterday, Simon Peter had confronted Mary with uncharacteristic boasting. "Woman, you think I don't know the wonder of sensual flesh, warm, tender..."
His expression clouded. He looked vacantly around the room.
"But," he faltered, "our savior has changed my life. His word is my life."
Mary's hand sought Peter's.
"It is my life, too," she said.
Peter's eyes were evasive. He withdrew the hand. He seemed to not believe that a mere woman, or man, for that matter, could have the same affinity for Jesus he himself had. He stole from the room, quite in a daze. He failed to close the door after himself, so that Mary saw him blinking in the sunlight for a moment.
Mary sighed.
Someone else had failed to meet her gaze.
Mary's fingers moved lightly over her cheeks in remembrance of secret lotions and hard to come by exotic scents. Some permanent wrinkles, a heavier jowl, indicated loosening of once firm flesh.
The fingers slipped away.
So did candle-lighted memories, of nights, and men.
She returned to her pallet with the meager possessions on the floor beside it. Taking up a prized comb, she began to stroke away the tangles from her clouds of black hair.
Outside, approaching voices grew loud. Several followers of Jesus were coming. Mary identified the voices of Matthew, Andrew, and John. When the door opened there entered the three named and three more besides: Judas, Thomas, and, Thaddaeus. They were, perennially, puzzling over and re-interpreting the words of the savior, asking, "what does it mean?" and, "Is he to be King over the Jews, or, over Heaven?"
"The Lord has said to us, ?'I came to set the Earth on fire; how I wish it were already kindled.'
"On the one hand he speaks dissention -
"Yet, the Lord has told us, ?'You must love your enemies; ?'You must turn the other cheek.'
"What are we to think?"
Mary did not know. She did not care to try to understand so many words. The sweet sound of the savior's voice said everything to her. "Go away with your squabbling," she thought angrily. "Take your words with you and leave us alone."
But, the disciples rarely heeded Mary. They were an exclusive club to which no woman could belong. They gravitated beyond her, at this point carrying the conversation to sly hints of high office and distinction, half wishful, halfway convinced, meanwhile making preparations for the evening's humble meal of grain, gleaned from a nearby field. There would also be exotic drinking, as demonstrated by Thomas, who had taken the rare vintage wine as a gift from a far traveling merchant. Judas performed his tasks in silence. He bore the appearance of one more humble, wiser, than his fellows, save for, perhaps, Simon Peter. He endured the conversations stoically, now straining to hear, now sunk in a dark labyrinth. Just once had Mary seen him laugh. The cause of the laughter was forgotten, but the quickly faded glow on his face remained etched in her mind. Poor brute.
Poor brutes.
Presently, Jesus himself entered, flanked by Simon Peter, James, Philip, Bartholomew, the other James, and Simon. His inner look greeted everyone in the room, although his eyes sought no one.
"Lord," said Andrew, by way of greeting.
"Lord," said Matthew and John.
Jesus addressed himself to all.
"What questions do you have for me?"
"Master, we - all of us - wish to know which among us will be greatest in your kingdom?"
Jesus' smile was tolerant. To Mary, who looked on from the outer fringes, he appeared as one totally alone (so often he appeared alone, alone, and sad.). His powerful frame looked much smaller, almost emaciated. But, when he spoke, his voice was strong. He explained, endlessly, the ministry, the imminence of Judgement, the need for repentance of sin, etc., etc.
"In my kingdom," he said, "you will eat and drink at my table and you will sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel."
The brash, somewhat boorish, form of Thomas thrust forward.
"Lord," he said in a voice full of childish petulance, "is there nothing for us here? Are we to deny all earthliness? Why should the Romans and their lackeys have it all now, while we wait for something so far away?"
"It is not so far away. I say to you, Thomas, that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. You need not deny the Earth, for the faithful among you will be like kings over the Earth, in the name of my father through me. The signs are everywhere. How can one fail to perceive it? Thomas, you cannot feel without touching. You cannot believe without seeing. But, one day, I will touch you and you me and you shall see and you shall believe."
"Master?"
Jesus nodded, smiling. The smile was a flash of blue eyes and moon crescent lips.
"Master, is there a place for me?"
"Yes, there is a place for you, Mary Magdalene. You will be blessed above all women, save Mary, who is my mother."


Across the room the snoring faltered. The savior tossed restlessly a few moments. He finally settled on his back and the snoring resumed. Mary strained to see the seamless garment. She had to confirm that lay perfect and unruffled from shoulder to ankle. Yes. It flowed, in harmony with the savior's body, unpretentious, yet bold, just like every substance Jesus touched. The doting woman dwelled approvingly on the savior's new beard, already full, blacker than the hair that when he stood cascaded down his carpenter's shoulders. His hands were especially strong.
Almost two years ago, the long fingers had cupped her head very tightly and in that instant the seven demons had been expelled. Her life had begun a saint-like existence that very day. Yet, if the savior had been a wicked bandit, she would have followed him faithfully. If the savior had brutally ravaged her she could have asked for nothing more rewarding.
"I exist only for him," she said; and from that time lived the life of a nun. Eventually, miraculously, her body became whole again, became that of a virgin.
Still, the special need persisted.
The aching became stronger.
"A vessel of your will," she prayed, still groping to fathom the nature of God's plan for her.
She could not anticipate God's plan; it unfolded so quickly.
From the darkness gleamed a pinpoint of light. Its radius increased until it filled the room, a circular glow, with a blackened core. From that center a form came into being, taking on the visage of a boy of eighteen, with cherubic face, smooth, hairless in its nakedness, beautiful as an angel, smiling seductively.
It extended a hand.
Mary allowed their hands to be joined, so alluring, so sweet the smile. Too late she noticed the lumps at its temples, the odd curve of its legs. They were drawn through a mist into a hitherto unknown dark city by the sea. The low buildings were sleeping if not deserted. In them all there burned just a solitary light. They went in the chamber in which a lamp labored to produce that sickly glow; there the figure released her hand and with a tiny plip! was gone.
The chamber was stark, having but a table on which writhed a blackened form that seemed half demon, half man. She felt the air, thick and warm. Between somber curtains, in the black sky outside, icy stars twinkled in foreboding. In the mad stillness she waited, too numb, too frightened, to do ought but stare at the agonized soul on the table.
The air changed. It vibrated. Waves of heat washed over Mary, bathing her in sweat. Suddenly, something across the room became the vibrations' focus. Something lurched into being. She opened her mouth, but, the scream died in her throat.
It was a he, with flesh, red, tinged with black; eyes, lamps of fire. Wreathed in smoke, he advanced.
Who, except God, or Jesus, could be capable of such theater?
"You are not in his domain."
Voice a great rumble. She felt overcome with revulsion. The being came near, bringing the smoke with him. He was massive, corpulent, with black shadows continually crossing his flesh, negative impulses, rings of anti matter. One touch would bring instant death.
"Call me what you will. I am Lord over a kingdom as immutable as God's. My power is greatest because I demand more and I receive more. There is no free will because here is only I."
He had been coming closer. Just his will kept the woman standing.
"Mary, you are about to learn more about life in a single hour than most human beings ever learn. God is never the total answer to any question or prayer. Tonight, he needs me, for it is here and no place else his craving for you can be filled."
Mary's lips barely moved. A whisper escaped in the night.
"- Roman god. Roman god..."
The being laughed, causing smoke and brimstone to raise in a storm around him.
"Their gods are transitory. I have always existed. For myself there is no end."
He paused, looking out at the revolving spheres. He growled, literally, at God.
"Do you control the souls of the dead?"
The tyrant spoke at the sky with a voice at core unfeeling, uninvolved.
"The dead are, merely, dead."
"Elijah and Moses; this is true of them?"
"They are dust."
"Then - God has lied to everyone? Jesus too?"
"Oh, these two never lie. God gets misunderstood, gets correctly perceived only in bits and pieces. As for man: The unfolding universe is a drama in which he is a literal bystander. It is only in flashes, in extraordinary circumstances, he is able to participate at all."
Mary, a woman of unerring intuition, grasped the terrible one's meaning, in the main, but, one important feature eluded her. That was -
"Me/"
The terrible one consumed her with his lanterns for eyes. He casually seized, without looking, the writhing creature from the table and began to throttle it.
"This Jesus," he said, "this more-than-man being, draws in everyone and every thing, just like a magnet. You. You are of the driveling masses. You are low as dust. But, he feels otherwise. He needs you."
There ensued a pause, punctuated by rippling implications. The thing in the monster's hands ruptured and filled the air with horrible odors; Mary had gone beyond responding to such theatrical displays. She had begun to glimpse for the first time the cosmic scope of the turning universe. She could feel it rumbling, like a clockwork's gigantic wheels. The one wreathed in smoke seemed ready now to conclude the business.
"Come," he roared.
Mary stalled, not cooperating.
"A favor begets a favor. For serving him through me he gives you what in return?"
The breath upon Mary was like a furnace.
"Come!"
An unseen force grasped Mary by the wrist and drug her behind the terrible monster down a corridor and from it to the sea. She was walked onto the beach and stood upon a knoll.
"Wait for him. Concentrate on a time you two were close. Think; and, thinking, draw him here."
Against Mary's will, thoughts, memories, came flooding...



... He appeared to be walking in from upon the sea. The waning sun highlighted him, erect, in a white garment, black curls flying, standing on the crest of a blue-green wave. She thought distance might be playing tricks, for, next he was on the sand and plainly visible. Seeing Mary on the beach, he turned her way.
Mary had lingered to meet Jesus privately. He smiled as she fell in step with him. On this incredible day he laughed and tenderly joked with her. He even held her hand, briefly.
For a long time they loitered there.
When they went to the house , Jesus paused her near the door. Taking the two of Mary's hands, he gazed deep in her eyes.
"A prophet has no home, wife, or family. You are my angel of kindness. Good evening. Don't follow please."
He went quickly inside.




Mary's groaning became a wail, then a scream, as she fought to conjure a force to prevent his coming. It became a bellow so forceful it seemed she must turn inside out. He could not come. She fervently prayed he would not come.

end#