Broken Jar (Rewritten)

The cry of shattering clay…

The people of the dark city watched Lira as she fled down the stone path, their gazes threatening to cripple her. She knew what they saw—a demented girl pitching herself through the streets, a girl marked with sinister silver scars.

A witch-girl with red eyes.

She sputtered hushed words as she gasped for breath, what the people mistook for a stream of hexes trailing behind her. But the murmurs were only her frantic thoughts, the spillages of her overwhelming fear that could not be contained within her.

The tongue of black water…

Lira ran as fast as she could, her heart thundering in her chest like a drum. Panic made her feet fly across the ground at a speed she never dreamed she could master. She did not have the will to worry about cold glances or sharp tongues.

She was running from her reckoning: her father, Obadiah.

When the water jug had slipped from her small, trembling hands, her hell had unfolded in the form of a shadowy flash of water across the white stones. Her father’s scorching eyes, like those of a hyena, had discovered her when he was alerted by the shrill clap of the clay jug bursting.

The fire behind those eyes…

Lira slipped through a murky alleyway, nearly tripping over her fluttering skirts. She heard people laughing at her, their cackles prickling over her skin. She had lost her cloak, and now her flowing black hair poured over her shoulders. The light of torches cast scurrying shadows across the walls. Halting, she clutched her chest, breathless. She lifted her face to the visible portion of the sky above the alleyway. Squatting clouds were rushing in from the north to tear the sun from the sky. They were blue and green, swollen and bruised with thunder.

She thought she could see Obadiah’s fiery eyes everywhere, see his brutish form towering over the shaded people of the dark city that passed by either end of the alley.

The price for a broken jar was a beating.

A price she was trying to avoid paying.

She looked at her hands, traced the old cracks in her skin with her eyes. The white lines were like webs on her arms, patterns carved into the flesh. The fractures ran along the curves of her hips, the bow of her throat, the buds of her lips, and the arch of her brow. The pale threads were like cords of a lyre; they told a history of Obadiah’s cruelty. It was a pattern that painted a devastating picture of her torment.

Still, no one would listen to that lamenting song of hers.

But the devil danced to it.

Lira closed her eyes, not wanting to cry. That wasn’t allowed. Crying only tempted people like her father. It showed weakness. She had forgotten if there were scars on her eyelids.

She couldn’t keep her eyes closed for long. When she did, she saw the image of her father’s hands coming down upon her, his muscles bulging, his teeth clenched in rage.

The fire behind those eyes…

But she also saw something else—a distant dream even more terrifying, a nightmare that couldn’t be possible, yet was all too real. It was a vision of an event that took place more than sixteen years ago, a dream of a dark place that was so quiet. And then something had ruptured.

The screaming…

With all of her strength, she tried to keep away that memory. It circled within her skull, always searching for a way to penetrate her mind.

Lira strained to listen for the destroying voice of her father, or the saving words of her dead mother, Aya. But, all that answered her was the bane of crows. She looked over her shoulder down the alley, seeing nothing but the lifeless glares of the city’s people. She didn’t know where to go.

Mother.

Her whispering skirts swept up dust from the path. Holding out her hands, she grazed her fingers against the walls of the houses to guide her as she passed through thick shrouds of shadows in the confined passageway.

Lira slipped from the path into the heart of the dark city. She studied the people as she hurried by. Weeping whores with painted faces held themselves in the dark spaces between houses. The filthy poor lay in the streets, their skin leaking from sores, their eyes pale with weariness. The vain and the rich sauntered among the other people with their faces lifted high and their hands and throats heavy with jewels. Religious zealots screamed in the center of the courtyards, and lustful soldiers eyed passersby deviously.

Yet, still she could not hide here. Despite all of these wretched, broken souls, she would stand out among them.

She was the witch with red eyes.

Red eyes because they were stained with murder. Because she came from her slain mother’s blood. Because she was possessed, born to walk the way of darkness.

Obadiah’s lies echoed in her ears. Lira clawed her hands over her face in frustration, because she knew she was the one to blame. She was the one who had broken him. But, she didn’t want to remember how.

The screaming…

The air rang with the distant pulse of shouts, but when she lifted her face to the wind, she doubted herself. She could not determine if she was hearing voices or the choir of thunder in the sweeping clouds that were devouring the golden sun.

Lira followed the sounds, the trumpeting cries that were seemingly born from the thickening air. She knew her father was close behind her; she could feel it as an ache in her bones, a chill that tore over her skin like razors.

Lira stepped out from the shade of a narrow passage where she saw lines of men and women charting a writhing path beyond the dark city to a crag called The Skull. She peered over the thrashing crowd from a distance, disturbed by their black eyes and pale faces. The knowledge of the atrocity they were committing came unbidden to her mind.

An execution.

The dark city was stained with the people’s hunger for violence, their lust to fill the hollow places inside of them. She could see their savagery in the veins that bulged in their necks, the eyes that glinted in their sockets, the spit that spewed from clenched teeth, the fists that scourged the low-hanging skies.

Horror seized her when she heard the people screaming, “Kill the witch!” Their cries tore from their chests as they clawed at their hair with their fingernails. “Kill the devil!”

However, all of their eyes were focused on another. She realized they did not mean her. Though relief washed over her, she stood over the crowd knowing that some other soul was less fortunate.

Among the chorus of women weeping and the throng of men rioting, a glimmer of gold caught her eye. Within the shadowy crowd of persecutors, she saw a glimpse of a man tripping over himself.

A man made of light.

Some sort of glory had come to the dark city. And the people were trying to smother it.

Her heart skipped a beat when a clearing in the crowd revealed him.

The man had become the embodiment of the color red. He was completely naked, and the portions of his skin that were not crimson with blood or blue with bruises gleamed like bronze. Blood poured from torn, mangled welts across his arms, back, and thighs. He left a fiery trail of scarlet where he stumbled.

Lira was sickened by the sight and bile bubbled up in the back of her throat. All of the blood reminded her of the terrible outlying dream. The dream of the rupturing, the weeping.

The screaming…

The man’s name filled the air, borne from the mouths of torturers. It stood out from the thundering storm.

Jehoshua.

Lira had heard of this man. He was a healer.

A miracle worker now called the devil.

Persecuted for witchcraft.

Like herself.

Suddenly, Jehoshua’s gaze met hers from beneath his tangled midnight hair that dripped with blood and sweat. Despite the distance between them, Lira could feel the warmth of his piercing emerald stare.

She had been taught by her father from a young age that she was not beautiful. She had learned to cringe at the glance of a man and expect to be spat at. But in Jehoshua’s eyes, she did not see cruelty, nor judgment, nor pride. In his eyes she saw only the remnants of true compassion betrayed by the depravity of men. She saw sorrow and agony.

Bewildering, burning agony.

The fire behind those eyes…

This man had become prey to the broken people of the dark city. He had become the sacrifice to satisfy their bloodlust.

All her life Lira had been persecuted for lies, punished falsely for being a witch. No one had stood for her.

She knew she needed to defend Jehoshua, this man who had no one.

Yet, Lira knew she had never been brave.

There was a difference between strength and bravery. She had been strong enough to never cry in front of her father, to endure his abuse. Yet, she had never been brave enough to stand up to her father, to rise above her tormentors and lies.

Though fear clutched her mind, she could not bear to see these evil people preparing to devour a spark of goodness in the world.

Mother, give me your spirit…

To save this man somehow, she would need courage.

…So I can do what is right.

Aya had done what was right—she had given Lira life even when she knew it would cost her everything.

The screaming…

Her mother had been brave.

Lira watched Jehoshua’s legs begin to quiver, saw his eyes turn to the sky. When his knees buckled, he fell and the earth let out a trembling cry when he hit the ground.

Impulsively, Lira sprinted into the crowd, picking up her dress so that she would not stumble. She shoved men and women aside. Her breath came out in short bursts. Some of the people recoiled from her and her red gaze, drawing back as if she were contaminated by some disastrous plague. Others spat and flung their fists at her, tearing at her skirts and hair with their nails, snapping at her with their teeth. Terror threatened to crawl from the cracks in her skin, to consume her. But she continued to push through the people, keeping her attention on Jehoshua to avoid their black eyes.

Make me brave, Mother.

  “The witch!” The people of the city hissed and gasped. “She has come to see her devil!” The riot would certainly rend the world asunder; the thrashing limbs, the flashes of soldiers’ armor, the crack of thunder in the converging clouds.

At last, she reached Jehoshua and she fell beside him, looking over him with wide eyes. He was struggling to rise, to push himself up from the ground as he looked upon Lira.

The fire behind those eyes…

The beautiful face was crumpled in torture. His lips were swollen, his eyes bruised, and the square of his chin was raw from where they had ripped out his beard. She cautiously began to wipe the blood away from Jehoshua’s body, using the hem of her dress. His skin was slick with blood and sweat as she smeared it with her hands in an attempt to clean him. Her hands slipped across his shoulders and arms. So much blood.

The screaming…

Lira dabbed the front of her skirt on his chest and belly. She moved her fingers over his thighs and down his legs, cautious to avoid his ragged flesh. He watched her anxiously and silently thanked her for her gentleness.

“I’m so sorry.” She was crying now, weeping because she was so offended by his pain, by the destruction of something so pure. Her gaze flickered to her own hands when she could no longer peer into his haunting eyes. As she looked closely, she could not find the silver scars on her skin. Frantically, she examined her bloody arms, but the marks of abuse were not there.

Jehoshua’s blood had removed all of the cracks in her skin. Erased them.

 “Lira,” Jehoshua breathed as he tried to stand.

How do you know me?

She could barely hear him now among the rumble of the audience. He managed to lift himself to his knees and suddenly took her face in his hands. “Your eyes.”

Her red eyes.

He brushed his thumbs over her face with sweet tenderness, affection she had never felt from another. She felt his blood upon the thin skin of her eyelids. Suspense crowded her heart.

When she opened her eyes, she knew something had changed.

“What do they look like?” Lira asked him in a whisper. She noticed then that Jehoshua’s eyes had become a deep crimson, no longer the smoldering green they had once been. He had given her his eyes.

Jehoshua whispered back to her. “You are beautiful.” He placed a hand over her heart as he moaned, “A woman so young should not have this much guilt.” It was as if he could see it slithering inside of her, every ounce of her shame, crawling among the dark places within like a vile leech.

For years, she had been nothing but a witch-girl, tormented by pain, loss, and fear. But a fever had begun to spread. From her heart it bled down into her legs and rose up into her throat. The crowd of dark ones backed away, for they could not understand. They couldn’t know of the compassion, of the intense mercy and emotion, the waters of sadness and splendor that roared through her, bled through her like red ink on a pallid page. No one but this man and providence could understand her violent love.

This man was providence.

She could feel it in her bones.

Jehoshua’s blood would heal the whore’s heart, would make the poor man beautiful, would humble the proud, would pacify the zealots, and would restore honor to the soldier.

If his blood could heal these hearts, then it could restore the darkest of spirits.

Abruptly, Lira saw a great shadow approaching. It fell over her shoulders, eclipsed the crowd, and prepared to consume her world. Her blood went cold, her heart stopped beating.

Obadiah.

“You little wretch!” He barked at Lira. Obadiah’s wide frame left her in darkness. His shaved head throbbed, his beard quivered in the wind. Narrow and black, his eyes blazed with wrath. His hands were coming down again, down to strike her.

The price of a broken jar is a beating.

But Lira did not cower beneath him. She bolted upright and looked him straight in the eyes.

The fire…

She no longer saw the man who had destroyed her childhood. Instead, she recognized a father, a husband still grieving the wife he had lost.

The wife Lira had stolen from him.

When she closed her eyes—she did not know how it was possible—she remembered her own birth. It was her darkest dream. There had been the hollow place and then something shattered, something burst, and she was thrust into a world of noise, light, pain, and red, red blood.

Blood so red. Like her eyes.

The screaming…

She remembered her mother Aya’s bright face when she died. She had looked like an angel as Lira, born from blood, stared at her. Obadiah had fallen upon his wife, screaming when she stopped breathing, screaming as he clawed at his chest when he was struck with the ache of love entirely lost.

He had cursed God in that moment.

The devil had danced.

And then her father had turned to her.

The fire behind those eyes…

Now, Lira saw the loneliness Obadiah had suffered, the loss that had corrupted him. As her scars vanished, so did the evidence of Obadiah’s crimes—but not just from her flesh. From her heart as well.

She placed a hand upon his chest, a hand stained with Jehoshua’s blood. She murmured: “Abba.”

Papa.

She kissed Obadiah and pulled back to look at him. His face was frozen as if he had been stabbed in the heart. He fell to his knees and looked up at Lira, his daughter, eyes filled with unfathomable regret and longing.

The horde, like a heaving, storm-blackened sea, surged around Jehoshua, snarling for him to stand, shouting venomous threats. Soldiers cracked their whips and flourished their swords in the air.

“Jehoshua!” Lira reached for him, but a legionnaire pushed her away. She beat at the soldier’s armor, fought against his grip. She was being pulled into a deluge of strife, being drawn into the crowd of dark, broken people. Didn’t they see that they could be healed?

Didn’t they see they were killing God?

Jehoshua’s red eyes glowed with inconceivable despair. His glory, once visible to her, was now hidden beneath the clotted blood that clung to his strong back.

Lira wept for him.

“Remember that I am doing this for you,” he whimpered and continued on, his voice lost in the heated roar of hatred and strain. Jehoshua was a figure of pure red, centered amongst sweeping shadows that were devouring him. The mob whirled around him, stealing the image of the God-man from her sight.

She had not saved him. He had saved her.

As Lira sobbed in her father’s arms, drenched in blood, she realized a new, blushing scar had developed upon her heart.

Love had left its mark.

She cried out in grief and gratefulness. Awestruck, she looked on as Jehoshua struggled toward the edge of the dark city, bleeding like a broken jar.

The price for a broken jar is a beating.

The price to heal a broken world is a dead God.