murderous rage. I stood with his mother as she watched him die. I stood with my friends. With the women, when most of the men had already fallen away or fled. I felt my body shut down and try to tear itself apart as grief worked its way through every capillary and every nerve end and every breath. I watched the impossible, as the light in his beautiful eyes went out and he cried out in anguish to God. To his Father. And when he stopped breathing, so did I. I literally could not breathe. It was as if my brain had ceased to function, even at the most basic of levels. It was then that his mother turned to me and shook me and spoke words that brought me back to myself. She said, “He still needs us. Nothing has ended. Nothing is finished. Believe.” I’ll never be sure of the exact sequence of events after that. Everyone has a story and they’re all a bit different. What I know is this. We refused to leave the body. They tried to get rid of us but we weren’t going anywhere without him. Without Him. And they were all scared. It hadn’t gone as they’d hoped. Even the soldiers weren’t going to touch him after what had happened. The eclipse, the news from the Temple. Some of them were kneeling at the tree and shedding tears with us. One of our secret backers, Joseph, who’d kept out of the headlines and maintained a high-profile job, went to the Governor and begged for Jesus’ body. I have no idea why he chose that moment to blow his cover, but I know that it worked. The Governor gave him permission to take Jesus down. He and Nick must have known that they could never go back to their normal lives after what they did, but they came to us and they brought ladders and they – as gently as they could – brought him down to us. They laid his body in his mother’s arms. And still she believed. Then Jo and Nick took him and Jo put him in his own tomb. Me, I looked at the face of my best friend. It was covered in blood and lacerations. His eyes, those eyes that had looked into mine and seen someone no-one else had even imagined was there, were closed. I placed a hand on his chest, but there was no movement. No breath. He was gone. 121
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI3ODI1