Nineveh
First the dolphins arrive: vague grey shapes that can hardly be distinguished from the waves. The foot of my bed changes into a far dune. The ceiling dissolves. Above me, sea-gulls fly through the mist. I can hear the creaking of the ship that slowly moves away, leaving me behind. The headache is almost unbearable now.
The dolphins call after the ships that are hidden beyond the horizon - not my ships, not my burden. The seagulls screech, invisibly high. The smell of salt and decomposition fills the room. It is time.
Beside me, on the other cushion, lies the Bible. A kitchen knife serves as bookmark. I open the Book, then put it on my breast, like a roof. I lick the knife and watch a drop of blood slowly travel along the blade. The sounds of dolphins and seagulls fade away. Now, it smells like autumn in an early, deserted park. When I close my eyes I see a hill; I see low mist. I put the knife against my temple. The pain seems to move about slowly.
The mist has travelled halfway up the hill. Vague, grey shapes move through the mist, walk slowly up the hill. I open my eyes. The sea is now mere supposition: a transitory smell - the death of seasons; the smell of rotting leaves in a sluggishly dying wood. I put the knife back on the cushion. I pick up the Bible:
I’m sitting under a tree and watch the city below. The roofs sparkle in the morning sun. Beneath me the path meanders. A man on a donkey becomes smaller and smaller. He’s eating bread and occasionally sips from a stone bottle. He sings with his mouth full. The smell of olives and sour wine rises like a prayer. The man and the donkey pass a well, where young women do the laundry, exchanging gossip. The women fall silent when the man greets them and then rides on. I think of the ship and the storm and the stinking stomach of the fish. I look at the town below.
Enough. I clean the knife on the sheet. I close the Bible. While I dress the sea moves further back. The dolphins have gone. When I close the bedroom door behind me, the last seagull falls silent. I walk down the stairs, walk out of the door. Outside, it’s spring again. Cars pass by in many bright colours. Bikes flash by like exotic dragon flies. I carry the Book, with both hands against my breast.
I walk through my own silence, as under the shadow of old, dying trees. In my head the hammers sing. Each step is a bolt of pain, a paean, a blue and blinding light, a deeply held trust. The sunlight is reflected on the roofs of cars, in the spokes of the wheels of the bikes, in the reeking, wet surface of the road. Everything’s a song. Everything hurts. Everything is a waiting for deliverance.
I cross the road. A car horn honks; a biker shouts something profane. I press the Bible against me. My fingertips rest against the protruding knife point. I am safe. I am called. I am named. The road is a sea, where monsters wait in the deep. I know the sea. I was the ship. I was the storm. I was the belly of the beast that spat me out. The street closes behind me. I close my eyes and see the hill, now completely surrounded by the mist. In the mist I see grey waves that slowly reach for the top of the hill. Above the hill a voice floats. The word awaits like a summer rain.
The park lies before me, like an offering, lazy and vast; warm and welcome in the spring sun. The pounding inside my head is now the pounding of my blood. The pounding is the closing, the waiting of a door, a stone threshold, an altar on the misty hill. Pain is the key, the mercy. Pain is the shadow of the tree. The roots are the city - the glitter on roofs in the bright sun.
I am the man on the donkey, the young women at the well. I am the well. I am the stomach. The city awaits the word.
In this silence, this deep silence, I lick the knife. The blood flows slowly down the tree. Her flesh is white, her dress now white with red. I am the tree and the branches that carry her. Her body lies open. Her hair rustles down, along my wrists. Her neck, her throat is silent. One last tremor moves through the arms that reach out to me.
I kiss her open mouth. She lies still in my arms. The monster sleeps beneath the waves. The tree blossoms. The hill prays to Heaven. A warm mist rises from the heart I hold in my hands.
Nineveh, oh Nineveh.