THE ABSOLVER
Tobi Abraham (c) 2019
He sits on the wet grass.
Blood is pouring out of the wound on his head and running down the dip of his elbow, even as his quivering fingers fight hard to keep the blood in. Whether from the frigid night wind seeping in through his tunic or the life stream ebbing from him, the man thinks he getting cold.
One peculiar drop of blood falls onto a wet blade of glass. The blade staggers under its weight, as the fluid diffuses throughout its length and soon green becomes red. But this will not be seen until morning because all eyes are on the man they have come to arrest who is now kneeling before the man with a bloody gash on the side of the face.
The captors had not expected a fight, although they had come armed, as soldiers are expected to be armed. When they approached the convict, he did not resist, neither did his bunch of puny peasants.
All had gone well until one of the seemingly defenseless peasants produced a sword and chopped off the ear of his nearest assailant—the man who is now sitting on the grass wishing he had never agreed to tag along with his cousin.
The neatness with which this procedure was performed is arguable as many have tagged the peasant a knife-wielding expert. Yet, the fact remains that the only precision this man knew how was to swing a net and gut a fish. Perhaps, his fish-gutting experience is at play here.
The piece of flesh lying in the grass was oddly skewed, and depending on how you looked at it, it resembled a flat jagged piece of wool slipped in ketchup or just one odd distasteful looking thing—and is now being lovingly picked up by the convict whose hand moves to the side of the man’s face.
At this moment, other than the gumminess of blood, you will find if you enclose your hand around the gash, that the ear is intact even as the victim has now rather shockingly discovered. He glares into the eyes of the convict and discovers that something other than the dancing flames of torches are flickering. He wonders what it is.
The convict rises slowly, draws in a deep breath and walks into the waiting arms of the dazed crowd. The man sitting on the wet grass, now healed and still dazed wonders what has just happened.
He finally learns what it is, half a century later, when that same man stands at the head of his bed, only in a regal appearance and none of the dozen others around the bed can see him. He says nothing, but the dying man understands.
He smiles, closes his eyes, and the last thought that crosses his mind is him sitting there in the wet grass, dazed.
