A SOLDIER
Dear Alex,
My friend, what a night I am having. I just can’t get to sleep. It’s four in the morning and I’m still wide awake. All I can think about is what happened on my shift today.
I know I’ve got a job to do and orders to obey, but yesterday was really crazy. I mean really mental.
This poor guy was doing miracles one day and getting crucified the next.
Trying to control the crowd was a nightmare. They were really hostile and kept throwing rotting fruit and heckling.
Then, as this guy was heading up the hill, he collapsed under the weight of the cross and had to go and get this other guy from the crowd to carry the cross for him. I felt terrible, the guy was there with his kids and I’m sure he didn’t want any part in what was going on but I had no choice.
Then when we got to the top of Golgotha, they nailed him to the cross and he didn’t resist. The two other guys were cursing and screaming, but not him.
Then we were standing around, waiting for him to die, and these soldiers started dividing up his clothes and gambling at the foot of the cross. Imagine, the poor guy hanging there dropping blood on the ground and they are gambling for his robe.
Then to crown it all, when he died, I was standing beside my boss, when this Jesus cries out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” That shook me to the core. He said a couple of other things and then breathed his last.
Just then there was a massive earthquake and my boss cries out, “Sure he was the Son of God!”
Son of God! I think we might have crucified God’s son.
No wonder I can’t get to sleep.
I’ll keep you posted on any other developments, for now I need to get some shut eye. I’m on duty again in two hours.
(By G, a prisoner in HMP Shotts, 2018)
MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS
My dear Elizabeth,
Why am I writing to you? I can barely hold the pen, but the room is silent, I am alone with my thoughts, and who can I write to other than you?
Oh, cousin, remember those days when we held each other in happy embrace. When our lives seemed full of angels, and the baby in your womb danced for joy, how can it be that we are now so full of sorrow. I have screamed and cried all day, but now I am numb. Our children are dead, what hope is left? I find myself asking if those times long ago were merely mirage and delusion, as the gossips so often scorned? I am at a loss for understanding, reassure me, I’m losing my mind!
They nailed him to a cross, Elizabeth. I was watching from afar, but near enough to hear his agony and cry, ‘God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Those words cut deep, deep into me. When he was a child it was I who had told him of how the angel came and how God had a special plan for him, but as he died I heard the accusation that I had lied to him, or filled his head with my own delusions, and there was no purpose, no rescue, or even, and I fear to write it, a God to hear his prayer. Just pain and the abyss, and if we have no hope for anything more than that, where is the point in living?
Elizabeth, how have you carried on after they killed your boy? We have grown distant over the last few years, I know, and now I see it is no wonder. Your son was gone, whilst mine was still living, still walked and laughed, and put his arms around me. His smile still reflected in my eyes whilst yours were raw with weeping. No wonder you could not bear to be around me, in grief happiness is such banality, but now it makes us sisters again. I long to be next to you to share in our sadness.
They said our sons were many things, my dear Elizabeth. Elijahs, Messiahs, heretics and frauds, but to you and me, they were our boys. Our little tiny boys, whose hands we had gripped in the market, whose skinned knees we had rubbed better as the fat tears rolled down their cheeks. Take me back to that time, I pray, when I knew nothing of what was to come. Let me treasure each moment a thousand-fold more as I lived it, for I did not know their value then. Let some miracle occur that will allow me to once again trust in the promises that were made. Let me not give up on God.
Write to me if you are able. Your words will be a comfort to me.
Your cousin,
Mary
The Bugle 