Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Tel Aviv Airport

The first time I saw him, I was in the airport in Tel Aviv. He was sitting all alone in the corner of the baggage claim area. He stared straight ahead, ignoring all the rushing frequent fliers who passed by with long, hurried strides. Short, and a bit stout, he was wearing a shabby suit coat that was both too long and too narrow for him. His pants were dirty and torn from being caught repeatedly under his heels.

He had widely set eyes with irises so large I could barely see the whites that surrounded them. His cheeks were plump and his lips were fat and pale under a long, crooked nose. The lower half of his face jutted out beneath his eyes in a manner that was positively bovine.

He puzzled me, this bovine man, sitting motionless and bored in the baggage claim area. I've been in enough airports to recognize the behaviors of arriving passengers, departing passengers, and the impatient loiterers who are waiting to say "Goodbye" or "Hello" to friends and loved ones. This man was none of these - neither an arriver nor a departer, neither a passenger nor a loved one. He was simply there, indifferent, uncaring, bored.

The throngs of eager, impatient travelers ignored him entirely as they rushed by in a hurry. Not a one of them so much as glanced in his direction, yet even so, they all seemed to be very much aware of him. I watched as, again and again, people rushing from one end of the airport to the other suddenly veered off their straight-line paths to make a wide arc around him - like two North magnetic poles that repelled each other with a force that grew stronger as they drew closer together. And still he sat there silent and still at the center of a clearly defined circle, a strange vortex of emptiness.

After I collected my luggage - one large suitcase with enough cool, light clothing to last me through a week in the middle of the Israeli desert - I had to walk past him on my way out of the airport. I found it nearly impossible to resist the pull of the crowd dragging me into its wide arc around the bovine man, but I am as stubborn as they come, and I pushed forward in a straight line. It was an eerie feeling, in the midst of these massed throngs of people, to suddenly find myself in that no-man's land, that peculiar vortex where no foot but my own was treading. I felt exposed and frightened, as though I had suddenly disappeared from the view of all the world, and had entered an alternate reality which included nothing but myself, the bovine man, and a small chunk of the Tel Aviv airport, twenty feet in diameter.

As I passed by him, I turned to look squarely at that strange, shabby man, and in that moment there was a quick flicker of movement, and of recognition, His wide set, droopy eyes turned toward me, and those black irises glinted with the harsh reflection of the overhead lights. I stumbled and nearly fell, but caught my balance by grabbing the back of an empty chair. My hand brushed against his shoulder, and I felt a damp and frightening sort of dread that coursed from his body directly into mine. My arm jolted back with the same involuntary motion that comes from touching an electrified fence. I muttered an almost inaudible apology and quickly pressed forward to rejoin the crowds on the other side of the empty circle.

As I walked out of the airport into the dry heat of a Mediterranean afternoon, the warm sunlight did nothing to stop the cold chill that crept up my spine and down my arms, and I could not help but think: He was there waiting for someone after all...

Dead Sea Interlude

If you ever visit the eastern part of Israel, you won't want to miss the Dead Sea. Like every other tourist you will "ooh" and "ah," and perhaps even let out a giggle or two as you float without a bit of effort in the uniquely dense waters of that vast sea.

But if you are not like every other tourist, if you are a bit more perceptive, you may notice some other things as well. You may sense the utter desolation of the place as you drive downward into that deep bowl of rock and earth. Depending on your temperament, you may feel as though you are falling downward into the bowels of the earth, or you might feel instead as though the mountains around you are growing at a terrifying rate, surrounding you utterly with a sense of your own insignificance and fragility.

You will pass by a sign that says "En Gedi," and if you were one of those children who spent many quiet Sunday mornings attending Sunday School, the name may cause you to think of David and Saul and Joshua. In the stirrings of those old memories you may find yourself wondering what could have caused those ancient warriors to battle so fiercely over this piece of barren desolation.

As you travel closer and closer to that strange, salty sea, you will begin to notice peculiar rock formations lining the road, rock formations that are not made of rock at all, but are the accumulation of centuries of salty residue, rising out of the ground in - as you may realize - oddly human-like forms. In that moment of startled recognition, you might very well think of Lot's wife, and feel a twinge of horror, and wonder...

Then, after all that, you will reach the southernmost tip of the Dead Sea - the heel of that enormous, watery footprint upon the earth. There you will find massive distilleries where modern man draws the minerals out of the sea and packages them into soaps and shampoos and beauty treatments. If you have an imaginative eye and a mind for ancient history, you might very well see the heel of the Dead Sea, not as it is now, but as it was millenniums ago - when sadistic, predatory, and violent men lived there in the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, unaware of the sulfurous doom that approached...

In all of this you will find enough to spark your sense of wonder and astonishment for weeks to come, and you might be tempted to call it a day. Don't. Along the road you have already traveled you passed by a place which, while less known, is of equal historical import. A place of great courage, and a place of great tragedy.

A place known as Masada.

Masada

Masada is the ruins of an ancient fortress, located on a high plateau overlooking the Dead Sea to the east and the barren Negev to the south and the west. For those who are in good physical condition, and don't mind the heat and dryness of the trek, it is possible to climb the rhomboid plateau by way of the Snake Path, or the ancient Roman ramp. Others, like myself, choose to take the aerial tram, a cable car that lifts you high above the desert floor as it makes its way to the summit.

As I peered out through the tram windows, looking at the expanse of the Dead Sea below, I recalled the many times I have hiked in the Bigelow mountain range and looked out at Flagstaff Lake to the North, astonished by the lush, green and blue beauty. This gray and brown landscape was so extraordinarily different that I felt I had stepped into an alien world. It was a dry and dusty landscape filled with history that was ancient even before my own land was settled.

In 66 A.D., Jewish rebels who refused to submit to the Roman government made their final stand on this plateau, barricaded inside the fortress. It was a sensible location; with nearly vertical walls on every side of the plateau, Masada seemed impenetrable and completely safe. And safe it was, for seven years.

In 72 A.D., the Romans began the long and tedious process of building a siege ramp up the side of the plateau, conscripting laborers from all over the empire, and even forcing Jewish slaves to help build the ramp, thereby working toward the destruction of their own people. Then, in the spring of 73, when the ramp was complete...

"You're looking in the wrong place."

Every muscle in my body went suddenly rigid. Though the words came from behind me, I knew exactly who that voice belonged to. Even the tones of his voice seemed bovine - deep and slow, and filled with rumbling bass overtones. I turned around slowly and stared in astonishment at the man I had last seen at Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv.

"What?" I said, stupidly.

"You're looking in the wrong place," he repeated. His black, brooding irises filled his wide eyes almost completely, and I shuddered at the sight of them. "Come," he added. "I'll show you."

I followed a few steps behind him as he crossed the plateau, climbing over broken foundations and through the doorways built into crumbling rock walls. I was so startled by the man's sudden and unexpected appearance that I couldn't even find the words to ask him who he was. Instead I blurted out, "Why did you follow me here?"

"Follow you?" he scoffed. "Follow you? This is my home." Then he added, as an afterthought, "One of them anyway." Indeed, the certainty of his unhesitating steps over the rubble made it clear that he had been here many times before.

"Here, here, and here," he said, pointing at the ground. He stood where two partially demolished walls came to a point near an arched doorway. "Here is where the children lay. One after another in straight rows. Terrified, the older ones were. Dripping with sweat, shuddering with fear, trying so hard not to wail and scream, trying so hard to be brave for the younger ones. But even the little children, the ones who did not understand what was happening, even they were terrified. They could smell the fear of their older brothers and sisters, and that fear caused their bowels to loosen. Even the infants knew something was wrong and wailed as loudly as their little lungs would allow."

A warm breeze spun up the mountainside, lifting the dust and swirling it around my feet. For just a moment I imagined I saw within the subtle movements of the dust a multitude of terrified faces, mouths opened wide in soundless screams of horror. The wide, frightened eyes of those ghostly children pleaded with me for help, but there was nothing I could do for them; they had died so many years ago, and I was helpless to change their past. Then the breeze died, and the strange apparitions died with it.

The bovine man appeared not to have noticed the ephemeral vision, but an irrational part of my mind suspected that he had somehow orchestrated the waking nightmare. "Here," he continued, unphased. "Here is where the women lay. They were strong, I'll give you that. There was no trembling, no weeping, just silent, stoic mothers laying next to their children with eyes closed, waiting for the end to come."

He laughed, and the laugh was innocent and delighted - the laugh of a little child chasing a butterfly. I could not comprehend the sort of twisted personality that could produce that sort of laugh in response to the tragic events of Masada. I shuddered again, but said nothing.

A part of my mind was imagining the plight of the women and children lying in rows, waiting for death, while another, more analytical part of my brain was wondering how the bovine man could know such specific details. The most detailed account of this tragic story was in the writings of Josephus, and even he hadn't been so specific. I wanted to ask my strange companion how he could know so much about what had happened, but I was afraid his answer would be, "I was there," and in my current mental state, I feared that I would actually believe him. So I said nothing at all.

"Then there were the men. Slowly, deliberately, they passed through those rows, killing their wives, their sisters, their children, their grandchildren, their nephews and nieces. Then, when all the little ones, all the wives were dead, they lay down themselves, and waited for the chosen one - the one who had drawn the short straw - to finish them all off, and finally to kill himself."

I nodded. It was the story I had heard and read many times. "They couldn't bear to live under the rule of a foreign government, so they killed themselves before the Romans could break through the gates," I said. "Give me liberty, or give me death."

The bovine man laughed again, but this time his laugh was derisive. "You Americans," he scoffed. "You Americans are all alike. Everything is about freedom. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness - all that sort of thing. Do you really think they did it for freedom?"

I didn't know what to say.

"Have you even read the Hebrew scriptures?" he demanded, his black eyes flashing.

"Of course. They are the Old Testament of my Bible, you know."

"So tell me then, when were the Israelites ever free? Under David? Solomon? Don't make me laugh. They were never free even under the greatest of their pathetic kings. That old geezer Samuel, he knew what he was talking about when he warned the people about kings. David tore sons from fathers, husbands from wives, to fight his wars of conquest and expansion. Solomon was even worse - he taxed the people to the breaking point and took children from their fathers, all for the sake of building his precious temple for his precious Hebrew god. Do you think the people were free under Solomon? Then you need to go back and read the story of Rehoboam again - that might clue you in. No, the Jews were never free. These rebels didn't lay down their lives, the lives of their women and children, for freedom. They didn't even know what freedom was."

I wanted to argue, to protest that David was a good king, that Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, but the confident certainty of this cow-eyed man made me doubt my own knowledge and my own understanding. So instead I said, "Freedom comes from Truth."

"Oh, good. Quote your Christian god in the middle of a discussion about ancient Judaism. That'll score you some points for sure.

"You want truth? I'll give you truth. Truth that no one wants to hear. These poor, miserable rebels called on their god - your god - to save them, and either he was on vacation, or he just didn't care, because he ignored every one of their desperate pleas. So in their final extremity, they prayed to retain the one thing that they still could call their own: their pride. Plain and simple.

"Tell me, what was the one thing those butchering, selfish Israelite kings had that made them different from the Roman overlords who followed in their footsteps? Only one thing, my friend. They were Jews. Freedom was never the issue - only pride of race. For this they slaughtered their wives and children, so they could die with their heads held high, bowing before no foreign master. Not for freedom. For pride alone they deprived their children of life."

He paused - for dramatic effect, I suppose - and then whispered, "And for this we make a monument of their fortress, and sing their praises throughout all the generations."

He stopped talking then, and stared at me with those horrid black eyes, as though waiting for me to argue with him. I could think of nothing to say. A hot, searing wind swept across the plain and up the sheer cliffs of Masada, stirring a whirlwind of dust and sand all around us. My eyes blurred momentarily, and when they cleared, the bovine man had vanished, leaving me alone at the top of a haunted mountain with my very troubled thoughts.

Bethlehem

Bethlehem. It is nothing like what you have seen on your postcards and your Christmas cards. There is none of the stillness and sweetness you have come to expect after singing O Little Town of Bethlehem for so many years of Christmas caroling on quiet and cold moonlit evenings. The city, in all its modern glory, sprawls out in every direction from the ancient town you have envisioned for so long. The steady congestion of city traffic, the loud blaring of horns, the shouting of vendors selling souvenirs, all these combine to destroy any sense of Christmas spirit.

And then there is the church itself - the Church of the Nativity. As I approached the courtyard of that famous structure, I was appalled by the number of vendors there at the court, selling food, trinkets, clothing, and olive wood statuettes of wise men, shepherds, and the infant Christ. I was reminded of Christ entering the temple of Jerusalem with anger and a whip, overturning the tables. For a brief, panicked moment, I felt a strong urge to do the same here.

But inside! Oh, what magnificence! There were high, domed ceilings with enormous wooden beams, and hanging lanterns that lit the aisles with a cheerful, flickering glow. Along the way there were magnificent columns of limestone decorated with murals and mosaics that stretched from floor to ceiling, marking a sort of royal pathway to the front of the nave. Here the insane and inane babbling of the crowds was not permitted, and the silence that Phillips Brooks wrote about reigned over everything.

Then there was the cave, the grotto in which many believe the Christ child was born. Candles and lanterns gave a soft glow to the pilgrims who knelt to kiss the silver star that marked the birthplace of the Lord. I stood in silent awe as I imagined that very first Christmas scene. Then, in that holiest of places, a deep, rumbling voice whispered into my ear, "You feel the power of it, don't you?"

Angry, rather than surprised, I turned to face the man who stood beside me, his wide set eyes staring at me above his bestial jaw. I should have been surprised, but even though his presence here seemed unnatural, it also seemed almost inevitable. I said nothing, but gave a jerk of my head, as though to say, "Not in here." I turned away from that holy grotto and walked out of the church, not looking to see if my strange stalker was following me.

Once we were outside, among the shouting and laughing vendors, I spun around and snapped, "Who are you, and why do you keep following me everywhere?"

The bovine man was unperturbed. "Who am I? I think it would spoil the fun for me to tell you that. You're a bright boy; you figure it out. And as I said before, I'm not following you. This is my home. I can't help it if you keep showing up where I live. Now, what were we talking about?"

"Nothing," I said, turning to walk away, irritated at the condescending "bright boy" comment, and hoping that he would not follow me.

"Oh, yes!" he said. "The power of this place. That's what we were talking about. The power of Bethlehem. The power of lies."

I stopped suddenly and said over my shoulder, "What?"

"Lies. The power of Bethlehem. It's the power of lies. I call Bethlehem the City of Lies."

"Is that why you call it your home?" I said, turning to face him.

He grinned at me. "I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not the Father of Lies - more like the Second Cousin Once Removed of Lies, if I'm anything. But anyway, there's no reason to be snide about it. Even Reverend Brooks called Bethlehem a place of lies." I stared in disbelief. In a mocking, sing-song voice, he declared, "O Little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!" Then he added, with a wink, "Not much that's still around here, but the lies are as thick underfoot as desert sand!"

Without realizing it, I had fallen into step with the bovine man, and now we were walking - like best of friends - down the street that faced the church. I stepped around a pile of dung left by a pack animal and demanded, "What lies exactly are you talking about?"

He motioned to the church. "The lies of that church. The lie that your Savior was born in a place as holy and glittering and peaceful as that absurd little gilded grotto." He said the word savior with a demeaning condescension that irritated and offended me. He continued, "The lies of all your Christmas cards and your Christmas carols. Do you really think Mary and Joseph had glowing halos around their heads? Do you think the baby didn't cry out with the pains of new birth? And the animals - you think they kept silent all night out of reverence, just so little baby Jesus could get a good night's sleep? You want to know the truth?"

I resisted the temptation to respond, "The truth shall set you free." That comment would have impressed him even less the second time around. Instead, I said nothing.

"The truth," he continued more loudly, waving his arms about at all the crowds thronging the streets, yelling at one another, tripping over one another, exchanging money, and cursing loudly, "The truth is this." Then, with deliberation, he stomped his foot down into a pile of new dung, and repeated, "The truth is this." The fresh manure splattered up onto both his pant leg and mine, and its sickly aroma surrounded both of us. "But you can't put this on a Christmas card, can you? The terrible, revolting squalor, the stench, the horrific noise - you can't put any of that on a Christmas card. And if you could, you wouldn't because nobody would buy those cards.

"Come here," he said, grabbing me by the forearm and leading me toward a vendor's stand where carved sheep, camels, shepherds, wise men and holy families were sold at exorbitant rates. "Do you know what is missing from this array of statues?"

I studied the figures briefly, then shrugged.

"What's missing here is the same thing that's missing from all of your Christmas cards. The image of a Roman soldier picking up a baby by his cute little feet and putting a sword through him."

"What?" I exploded, both horrified and enraged.

"You stupid Christians," he said as he purchased an overpriced baby Jesus and casually stuffed him in his pocket, "You don't get it, do you? You want to remember the birth of your Christ as a moment of supreme beauty in the history of the world, so you ignore everything about the story. When was the last time you heard a Christmas sermon preached about King Herod ordering the slaughter of thousands of helpless infants? Are you afraid that people will give up on your Jesus if you try to put 'peace on earth' side by side with wholesale slaughter? 'Goodwill toward men,' you brag, but will anyone believe you if the symbol of your Savior is not a star, but a dead baby?"

Then, in a low but startlingly pure, clear voice, the bovine man began to sing a mournful dirge. All around us the din of the crowds turned into ever widening waves of silence, and the people paused to listen in hushed amazement as one solitary bass voice cried out, "That woe is me, poor child for thee; how shall I preserve this day, thou poor youngling, for whom I sing: bye bye lulay lulay."

The dirge went on for what seemed like an hour, and we all stood transfixed for that space of time. As the melancholy sounds died away into silence, I realized that tears were streaming down my cheeks - tears of sorrow for poor younglings, and tears of shame at my own inability to reconcile the birth of my Christ with the horrible deaths of untold innocents.

I barely noticed the crowds as they began to stir again from their silence. Within minutes, the clamor of the market had returned to the street as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Just like me, I thought, so eager to forget the things that seem inconvenient or emotionally uncomfortable.

I realized that, once again, the bovine man had disappeared, leaving me to feel utterly alone in the midst of a noisy throng.

I turned to look one last time at the Church of the Nativity, knowing that I would never complete my tour of that spectacular building. I would never again stoop to enter the Door of Humility. I would never return to kneel and leave my pilgrim's kiss on the silver star of the grotto. I walked away, alone and dismayed, toward my waiting hotel room.

Home Again - Another Interlude

After I returned home from my trip to Israel, I didn't see the bovine man again for several years. That doesn't mean I didn't think about him from time to time; he came uneasily to mind every time I thought about the people and places of ancient Middle Eastern history. By which I mean to say, I thought of him every time I read from my Bible. After a while I began avoiding large chunks of the scriptures, simply because I didn't like being reminded of that creepy little man with the shabby clothes and the wide set eyes that looked like they were staring in two directions at once.

I'm embarrassed to say it, but I half expected to bump into him every time I turned a corner or entered a room. At times I was sure I could feel his dry, hot, gravelly breath on the back of my neck. Then I would turn around abruptly, only to find no one there at all.

At other times, I would be walking down a street, or through a crowded shopping mall, and I would notice a strange vortex of emptiness, a circular no-man's land which the crowds avoided without realizing they were doing so. I would stop abruptly and stare into that no-man's land, looking for a short, stout little man with a bestial face and a deep mewling voice, but there was never anyone - or anything - there. I would push through the crowds, just to see if I could enter that vortex as I had in Tel Aviv, but in crossing the invisible boundary of the circle, it would collapse around me, and the crowds would rush in, like air rushing into a vacuum. Then I would tell myself I was imagining things, and I would hurry on to complete my business and get back to the safety of my own home.

Even the church was not safe from his haunting. On Sundays I would stand with the congregation to sing such cheerful, happy-go-lucky hymns as In My Heart There Rings a Melody, and all the while I would be afraid to hear his mournful, mocking voice rising above the choir of congregants in minor dissonance, singing of death and pain and horror. In the moments of silent meditation and prayer, I was almost certain I could hear the soft, painful echoes of "Lulay Lulay" bouncing endlessly from rafter to rafter above me.

Perhaps you know this: if you're constantly looking over your shoulder, or frantically scanning rooms for faces no one else knows to look for, or stopping to stare at a point of strange emptiness which no one else seems to notice, these are not traits that make you the life of any party. As time went on I found myself gradually easing out of more and more social engagements. What if, I would think to myself, What if I'm out with my friends and he shows up? How do I explain him? Even worse, what if he shows up and I'm the only one who can see him?

When I had those kinds of thoughts, I would remind myself of that moment on the streets of Bethlehem, in front of the Church of the Nativity, when the bovine man broke into mournful song, and all the street paused to listen. Surely he was visible - or at least audible - to them! Yet, the more I thought back to that strange afternoon, the more I thought, I never noticed anyone so much as glancing in his direction as we stood there listening to him sing - is it possible that they were simply in a hypnotic trance, and never knew what was happening to them?

These questions, and many others, troubled me - no, they haunted me - for several years. Until, at last, the traveling bug bit me again, and I set out for distant lands once more.

Roman Amphitheater

In the middle of a long rectangular meadow stands the ruins of an ancient Roman amphitheater. Ruins are ruins, but the natural course of decay is very different here on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. In Israel, ancient structures turn to a dry and irritating dust that is swept by hot winds, but here in North Africa, ancient buildings decay into a dark, heavy sod from which lush green grass and vines spring, coating the dead ruins with a layer of teeming life.

As I looked on the barely recognizable structure, I recalled the words of Augustine, who wrote in his Confessions of the "whirlpool of Carthaginian bad habits" and the "empty enthusiasm for shows in the Circus." I cannot help but wonder if Augustine himself once sat in these very seats and cheered for one gladiator or another as combatants circled warily under the African sun.

All the walls have fallen in, leaving only a foundation, and one lone pillar that juts upward toward the sky, supporting nothing. Even that lonely, brave pillar has not escaped the destruction of time; scrawled across its surface with a reddish-purple spray paint there is a lopsided heart - a pathetic symbol of some silly teenage romance that will not last more than a few weeks, yet has been immortalized on a centuries old landmark. The irony of it irritates me more than I care to admit.

But that single pillar helps to give a sense of magnitude to the structure. It helps me to imagine what this place was like with hundreds of spectators seated around the meadow, cheering fanatically for every entertainment that passed before their eyes. It helps me to get a sense for the tragic last days of Perpetua and Felicity.

Perpetua, a woman of well respected and noble family in the city of Carthage, converted to Christianity, though her father was a pagan, and Christianity was actively discouraged by the government. She, along with four other men and women, were imprisoned for their faith, and threatened with death in the gladiatorial arena if they should choose not to recant their faith. Felicity was Perpetua's slave, but more importantly, she was also a Christian, and so became one of Perpetua's cell mates. Between the two grew a bond of sisterhood and devotion that denied any meaning to the words master and slave. Strengthened and encouraged by one another throughout their captivity, they stayed true to their faith, right to the very end, when the wild bull tore into their bodies.

As I started down the steps that led to the subterranean caves where prisoners and wild animals had once been imprisoned in preparation for the games, I saw the short and stocky figure that had haunted me for so long. I saw him before he saw me, and I was tempted to return the way I had come. But I could not leave without seeing the plaque commemorating the brave deaths of these Christian martyrs. Perhaps the bovine man knew that about me.

He turned to look at me as I approached, but said nothing. I thought he looked tired and old, as though a great weight had been placed on his shoulders. After a moment, his dark and brooding gaze returned to the bronze plaque I had been looking for. It declared - in French - Here were martyred Perpetua and Felicity, March 6, 203.

After mentally translating the rest of the sign's message, I said - without looking at my silent and unwanted companion, "You're a long way from home."

He shrugged. "Not so far as you might think. I am at home in many places."

I'm not sure why I said it - perhaps because he looked so tired and haggard - but I hazarded a guess, "I don't think you are at home here, though."

He was silent for a long time, then with a sigh he said, "No. This place is no home to me."

"Yet you are here."

"Sometimes," he said, "You need to leave home in order to appreciate home."

I thought he was lying to me, but I didn't feel like engaging in conversation with him, so I made no response, except for a short grunt. I continued staring at the monument on the wall, thinking about the brave women who had lost their lives here. According to some versions of the story, the wild bull had not succeeded in killing them, so soldiers had to be dispatched to finish them off. The story continues that the soldiers were so troubled by the brave stand of these faithful matrons that they could not bring themselves to deliver the fatal blow. The martyrs, legend tells us, fearlessly guided the swords for them, in order to help them complete their monstrous task.

"I have never understood you Christians," the bovine man said with a tired sigh.

"Oh?"

"This death was senseless. Pointless."

Remembering past conversations with this strange man, I replied, "More pointless than the deaths of innocent babes in the time of Herod, or the deaths of Jewish rebels at Masada?"

He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Irrelevant. Don't you see? The babies had no choice."

"The Jews at Masada had a choice," I argued.

He nodded. "Yes. Some of them. Not all." I thought of the terrified children lying in rows waiting for death, and I could not argue with him. "But these women. They died for nothing."

"Not for nothing," I protested. "For their faith."

"And what does that mean? For their faith?"

"Well," I said, grasping for an explanation, "They did it for the rewards of heaven and eternal life."

"Nonsense. You don't believe that any more than I do. Their reward was already secured before they marched into this arena. They could have taken the easy way out."

I remembered something Jesus had said that seemed to relate to taking the easy way out. "If you deny me before men..." I began quoting, but was interrupted in mid quotation.

"Don't quote that verse to me," the bovine man snapped, "This isn't what he was talking about, and you know it."

I didn't know it, actually; I couldn't remember the context well enough to be sure what the quotation meant. I held my peace.

"No," he said. I couldn't understand it, but from the tone of his voice he seemed angry - almost bitter - toward these two martyrs who had died centuries ago. "These women didn't gain anything by their martyrdom. They could have recanted, then gone on to live peaceful lives. Perhaps even remain secret Christians and spread their faith throughout North Africa."

"But others gained by it," I said passionately, as I realized I had some ground on which to argue with the him. "Don't you see? This monument has stood for centuries as an inspiration and encouragement to others. Do you think that hasn't spread their faith? And not just in North Africa, but around the world!"

He shrugged. "But to what end? Why would anyone want to be inspired by a brave death? So they too could be brave in death? Is that the sum total of your faith? An unending, unbroken line of brave people throughout history - starting with your Christ - marching courageously to their deaths? What purpose does that serve? Who wants a church filled with people eager to die? Isn't living much better than a tortured death? Isn't your entire faith just one horrible fixation on torture and death?"

In retrospect I thought of so many answers I could have given. I could have told him that to live is Christ, but to die is gain, that they - like Paul - were not eager to die, but eager to taste the joys of heaven. I could have told him that only those with courage enough to face death have the courage to face life. I could have told him that those who endure the fellowship of Christ's suffering also enjoy the fellowship of His glory. I could have told him...

But I waited too long, and the bovine man tired of waiting for a response. He yawned. That was something I hadn't yet seen him do, up to this point in our interactions. "I'm bored of this place," he said. His anger had turned in a moment to indifference. "It is tedious and tiring. I want to go home." Then, with a nasty grin, he said, "Would you like to see my home here in Carthage?"

I was discouraged and frustrated; for just a moment I had thought I was getting through to him, but now that moment was gone. I wanted to say "No." At least, I thought that was what I wanted to say. The truth is, though, that I always say exactly what I want to say; sometimes my mouth is the first thing to reveal to me what I really want. Maybe it was simple curiosity, or maybe it was my desire to convince him of my view of things, but for whatever reason, I found myself agreeing to follow him to his home.

What I saw next has haunted me ever since.

Necropolis

"Carthage was one of those rare cities so conveniently located along well traveled land and sea routes that not even the ravages of war and time could fully destroy it. Carthage has been inhabited by Muslims, by Germanic tribes, by Christians, and by Romans. But before any of that it was, under the Phoenicians, a grand empire that stretched across North Africa and even reached out across the Mediterranean to the southern parts of ancient Iberia. Carthage has never been so powerful as it was under those ancient Punics."

As the bovine man spoke, he walked confidently down a hillside toward a valley filled with oddly shaped hillocks and rocky promontories. The ground beneath us was disrupted by a myriad of holes, some as small as gopher homes, others large enough for a child to crawl into with little difficulty. Cut slabs of crumbling rock stood at unpredictable and improbable angles, like gravestones in a cemetery that had been shaken by an earthquake.

I followed behind him, carefully avoiding the holes that were scattered along the path. I didn't know what to make of this valley - it wasn't like the dusty dryness of Israel's ancient ruins, nor like the grass and vine covered ruins we had just left. It was as though the entire area had been through many cycles of growth and decay, piling layer upon layer of debris into the valley, and then had been excavated, leaving ancient stones, layered embankments and untouched sod in unlikely proximity.

"What is this place?" I demanded.

The bovine man ignored my question and continued his lecture. The lassitude I had seen in him at the amphitheater was clearly gone; he was animated, almost spastic in his eagerness to continue his instruction in ancient history. "One of the most terrible times for Phoenician Carthage came in the third century before your Christ. The Carthaginian Empire extended at that time into western Sicily, which made conflict with the Greek city state of Syracuse almost inevitable. For a hundred years that conflict remained entirely on the island of Sicily, and eventually there came an uncomfortable and uneasy peace.

"The peace didn't last, however; King Agathocles ignored the fragile peace treaties his predecessors had formed and reopened hostilities with Carthage. Now, for the first time, the war moved from the Mediterranean islands to African soil, and the city of Carthage found itself at the center of great battles. It was a terrible time." He paused in his speech to climb nimbly over a rock outcropping that looked like it might have been - long ago - a wide, low wall.

Once again, as at Masada, I sensed that this strange man was speaking from memory, and not from history books. Such a thing was impossible, of course, but sometimes our minds persuade us of things we know cannot be true. "What is this place?" I repeated.

"What does it look like?" he countered.

Looking around me, I noticed again the oddly skewed standing stones that reminded me of gravestones. "Looks like a cemetery," I said.

"See now? You're a bright boy, able to figure things out for yourself. A cemetery it is. Necropolis is the official term. Not the Roman one, but the much older Punic Necropolis." He said the word Roman with the same disdain he had once used when speaking the word American to me.

Remembering what he had said back at the amphitheater about going home, I said with a smirk, "Your home is in a cemetery?"

He ignored the jab and continued his lecture, "Most people have at least heard of the Punic wars - the wars between the Phoenicians and the Roman Empire - but not so many know how close to annihilation the Phoenicians were in 310 B.C. when the armies of Syracuse marched on Carthage. Ah. Here we are."

I saw that we were approaching a small rectangular area which had been roped off from public traffic, and was populated by men and women who were scraping at the ground with picks, trowels, and scoops, or sifting soil that had been lifted from beneath the ground's surface with hand-operated augers. I looked at the bovine man. "Your home is in an archaeological dig?"

Again he ignored me and said, "Stay close to me."

"I don't think we're allowed in there," I warned as he continued toward the barricaded area.

Sounding irritated, he repeated, "Stay close to me."

Up until this point I had managed to persuade myself that the strange vortex of repulsion around the bovine man was a figment of my imagination. Now I was forced to reconsider, as I watched him approach the ropes. One by one, workers in that area paused from their work, looked about curiously, and then with expressions ranging from mild confusion to outright puzzlement, wandered off to take a break, or complete some inexplicable and unassigned task. The departure of the confused archaeologists left a wide swath of unguarded ground through the barricade. The bovine man turned and smirked at me.

I stayed close to him.

I saw that the dig was uncovering a wide variety of clay pots and pitchers, some in excellent condition, some cracked, and some nearly dissolved to dust after their centuries under the layers of earth. I surmised that these urns contained the centuries-old remains of pre-Roman Punics.

The bovine man picked up one of the urns, and held it out for me to see. A picture had once been etched and painted into the side of the container, but time had eroded the sharp edges of the lines, and the pigment had long ago leeched out into the ground. Without specialized imaging tools, I had no way of knowing what scene was depicted on the rounded surface.

"Archeology," my companion said with a smile. "The art of stealing the last remnants of dignity from the long dead."

"But in studying these sites," I argued, "we gain insight into their culture. Don't we, in a sense, honor them by keeping them in memory? If the archaeologists can make sense of the story that was once etched into that clay pot, that will lead to a greater understanding of a magnificent culture that would otherwise be forgotten."

He laughed. "You misunderstood me," he said. "I have no problem with dishonoring the dead." Then, quicker than I could blink, he held the urn high over his head and hurled it onto the hard, dry ground. I let out a cry of dismay as the pot shattered into fragments too small to ever reconstruct. A small puff of gray dust rose into the air and slowly dissipated, blowing away and resettling in other parts of the valley. What remained was a handful of clay shards and a few tiny bone fragments which had survived the cremation of this long-dead corpse.

My companion poked at the debris with his foot, churning through the clay and bone until a recognizable fragment, an intact jawbone, rose to the surface. I felt sickened by his careless prodding of the remains, but couldn't help staring at the ancient bones. "That's not a human jawbone," I said.

"No?" he said. "What's the matter? Too small to be human?"

"Unless it's an infant," I said.

He nodded. "This is the infant necropolis. Hundreds and hundreds of child corpses. Most just a few months old when they died, back in the days of the Syracuse war. Follow me." He pressed forward across the dig, and I followed him. He barely glanced at the ground beneath him, yet somehow his feet seemed to find the most well preserved of urns, which were each crushed to dust as he trod on them with careless indifference. I felt a burning in my throat and abdomen, and waves of nausea passed through me as I watched cloud after cloud of ash swirling around his legs, and heard the repeated crunch of clay and bone under his feet.

"Was there an epidemic?" I asked, studiously avoiding his footsteps while trying to remain within his repulsive circle.

"I told you," he replied. "There was a war."

My nausea turned to horror as I imagined invading soldiers from Syracuse marching on the city of Carthage, like those Roman soldiers in ancient Bethlehem, going from door to door seeking out innocent children to destroy. That was what I imagined; I had no way of knowing that the truth was far, far worse.

"While those Hebrew people you admire so much were busy being dragged into captivity again and again, begging and pleading for deliverance from a god who proved himself incapable of keeping his people out of trouble for more than a decade at a time, everyone else - from Mesopotamia to Ammon and Moab, and from Egypt to Carthage - was busy discovering gods with real power. The power to take the adoration and sacrifice of their worshipers and use it to turn and twist and shape the world around him. The power to change the course of an entire war." He pointed at one of the stele, a stone slab rising out of the ground before us with a carved image on its surface. "See."

The image, like everything else around us, was worn and chipped, but the carving was well enough preserved to understand. It was a robed man - a priest, perhaps - carrying a small baby in his arms, stretching out, reaching toward...

Now, as I understood at last what I was looking at, the bile rose in my throat. Only my determination not to desecrate these infants' resting place any further kept me from dropping to the ground and vomiting. "The Phoenicians," I said after I found the strength to speak. "The Phoenicians. They slaughtered their own babies, then cremated them and buried them here."

"Not quite," the bovine man said, far too cheerfully. "The slaughtering and the cremating were all one step." I shuddered, and tried - to no avail - not to imagine that horrifying scene of fiery death.

Now we stood in the remains of what must have once been a building, though there was nothing left but a foundation and - in the center of the structure - a carefully carved statue which had tipped over - or had been pushed over - on its side, and was partially covered with rubble. One arm and part of a leg were missing. I approached the prostrate statue and saw that it was not entirely human; from the neck down it was an armored and strongly muscled male body, but from the neck up it was a fierce and angry bull staring off into the heavens with unblinking eyes.

To this shrine, to this cruel and detestable god, priests had long ago brought the infants of Carthage, hoping that the terrible sacrifice would bring peace, victory and prosperity to their war-torn land. As I looked at that horrid carved face, there was a sense of eerie recognition. I felt as though I knew this strange idol with its elongated, bestial face and wide set brooding eyes...

In that moment, caught between the image and the reality, between the mirror and the monster, I felt as though every muscle in my body had turned to soup, and everything spun dizzily around me. With an equal mix of horror and sickening curiosity, I whispered a name, the name that belonged to both the man behind me and the bovine statue before me. "Molech."

From behind me I heard the beginnings of a slow, cruel laugh, and I felt a burst of hot, dry breath on the back of my neck.

The Economy of the Soul

The laughter continued for quite some time, growing louder, more strident, fading to a cynical chuckle, then disappearing altogether. I turned to face him, this horrid man who was also a god. I realized that I had been mistaken about his appearance all along; he was not a man with a bestial face, but a beast who was wearing a human face. I also realized, standing here in this ancient shrine which was more his home than anywhere else, that his bestial qualities were becoming far more evident. No longer was he short and stout; he appeared to be as tall as me, and much more muscular. It was as though he was drawing power and strength from this site of child sacrifice, and that power was manifesting itself in a renewal of his physical form.

"Yes," he said, "That is one of my more popular names: Molech. That's what the Ammonites called me. And Milcom. The Moabites called me Chemoth. But I've had so many other names throughout history. Golden Calf. Ba'al Molech. The Apis Bull. Jeroboam's Folly. And my personal favorite: the detestable god. That's the name your Judeo-Christian god called me. I didn't take it personally, though; that was just his way of trying to keep his followers loyal to him.

"Not that he had much success with that. Those stupid descendants of Abraham couldn't make up their minds what they wanted out of a god, or who they wanted for a god. I think they changed deities as often as they changed their robes. It's no wonder though - it's tough to maintain respect and awe when you're as hypocritical as he is."

"Hypocritical?" I demanded.

"Of course. What does he tell his followers in the law? Don't make your children pass through the fire as sacrifice to Molech. He even threatens to kill them outright if they disobey that particular law. But who is it that tells Abraham to sacrifice his son on the altar? Who is it that conducts a wholesale slaughter of the first born children in Egypt? And for heaven's sake (if you'll pardon the pun) if he's so all-fired powerful as you Christians seem to think he is, why in the world didn't he stop Pharaoh, Herod, and every other baby killer throughout history? Hm?"

I wasn't sure my theology - or my debating skills - were up to the task of arguing the complex issues behind the Plagues, the Exodus and God's omnipotence as it relates to sin in the world, but I could answer his first argument. "Abraham was only tested," I said, feeling a bit foolish, since I was sure the bovine man already knew this. "God never intended for him to kill his son. At the last minute God showed him a ram in the thicket, and he sacrificed that instead."

"Precisely!" Molech replied, cheerfully unphased by my rebuttal. "And therein you will find the essential likeness between me and your god. We both require the sacrifice of the innocent on behalf of the guilty. A ram, a lamb, a Jewish carpenter, or a little child - what difference is there, really?"

"The difference," I replied, "is that the sacrifices of God were made for forgiveness of sins, not to win a pathetic human war like the one between Carthage and whatever that other place was."

"Syracuse. And I would most respectfully disagree, and point out once again the slaughter of the Egyptian children, which was, if you will forgive my saying so, to win a pathetic war between Egypt and Israel."

His eagerness to return to the subject of the plagues and the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn seemed to me a ploy to distract me from the real issue. But I was unsure what the real issue might be, so I floundered deeper into his argument. "In a war, the enemy is slain. But your worshipers slaughter their own in order to receive victory in battle."

"So dropping a bomb on Hiroshima, killing thousands of innocent non-combatants is okay, but sacrificing your own troops as part of a greater strategy is not? And what of your Christian god? Didn't he sacrifice his own son in order to win a battle against gods like myself? A battle which, I must say, I don't think is going so well for him. As you can see, I'm still here, and as powerful as ever." Indeed, he seemed more powerful now than he had just minutes before. He towered over me now, this bovine deity, and his face had become even more bestial in appearance. I half expected to see horns sprouting out of his head at any moment. No wonder they called him the Bull of Apis.

"The sacrifices of your worshipers give you your power," I said. Seeing how he had grown strong and tall in this place, I felt sure that this was true. "The sacrifice of Christ gives no power to God; it gives forgiveness to his worshipers."

"Nonsense," the bullish god replied. "You've already forgotten your Sunday School lessons. What did Jesus say to the man who was lowered through the roof to be healed?"

"Your sins are forgiven."

"Yes. And what else?"

"Get up and walk."

"Yes, yes. But you're missing the key point that's right in the middle of all that." He muttered under his breath about lazy Christians who didn't even know their own Bible, then continued, "Jesus only healed the man's body as a way of proving something. He did it to prove that he had the power to forgive sins. You say that the sacrifice of Christ gave no power to your god, but you're wrong. The sacrifice of Christ did give power, just as my worshipers' sacrifices give power to me. The only difference is that he squanders that power on something as useless and uninteresting as forgiveness, while I use it to shape the world as I see fit.

"This is what you Christians don't understand. Forgiveness is the most costly commodity in the universe. It costs more than all the gold in every mine, and every bank. The cost of forgiveness is life itself. Your god forgives you, and paid the price for that forgiveness. Those idiotic African women, Perpetua and Felicity, they forgave their tormentors, but they paid the price for it as well.

"Your Jesus, he tells his followers, love your enemies and forgive your persecutors. You all smile and nod and say what nice sweet words those are, but none of you actually dares do it. Deep down inside, you know the cost of forgiveness. Deep down, in the most secret places of your heart, you have no desire to squander the energy and the life of your soul on something as useless as forgiveness."

He smiled at me, and for just a moment it seemed like the affectionate smile of a father toward a son. "What you don't want to admit, what you fear most of all, is the secret which I'm about to tell you: Though your apostle Paul wrote most eloquently about reflecting the image of your god, you are, when it comes right down to it, far more a reflection of me than you are of that god of yours. Like me, you know economy of the soul, and you don't want to be the one to pay the price."

He chuckled. "That makes you one of the smart ones."

The frightening thing was, I knew he was right. Forgiveness is costly. To say the words, "I forgive you," costs nothing, but to wipe clean the stain of bitterness, of hurt, that requires a price few are willing to pay. I remembered then the story of the man who was forgiven a debt (and what a costly debt it was!) yet refused to forgive a much smaller debt. He was a man who understood the heavy cost of forgiveness, and I have no more desire than he to pay that price. Molech was right; I am that man.

And if I am that man, does that not mean I have doubted, at its very core, the truth of my faith?

I knew that somewhere, somehow, there must be answers to all these questions and arguments, but no matter what I said, he seemed to have just the right response to turn my words against my own beliefs. I felt as though we were engaged in a strange dance, and I was trying to get to the center of the dance floor, but he kept me skirting around the edges, in the shadows. My concern, which was quickly turning to fear, was that in his heightened state of power, he would persuade me to reject what I had held most precious. In the back of my mind I felt the prickling of a warning: You need to get away from here.

It occurred to me then that as long as I stayed within the radius of the god's repulsive circle, I would remain unnoticed by the many men and women working this archaeological dig. But step outside that circle, and I might be free of him. I took one step backward, away from him, and then another, expecting him to stop me, or follow me. He did neither.

He simply laughed again, and said, "Coward! What happened to Resist the devil and he will flee from you? Doesn't your Bible say that? Didn't your Jesus say something about that holy spirit of his giving you words to say? Has he left you? Forsaken you?" Then, with one more taunting, cynical laugh that echoed throughout the valley, he disappeared, leaving me alone in the shrine of Molech with no good way to explain my presence to a group of very irate archaeologists.

The Game

Perhaps it will seem strange to you that I did not run screaming from the necropolis and book the next available flight back home. Maybe you will think it odd that I didn't second guess the strange things I'd seen, imagine myself to be delusional, and check into the nearest clinic for evaluation.

To be honest, I sometimes wonder at that as well. Yet, as I wandered the streets of Carthage, aimless and lost, I realized that all my life I had prepared for this encounter. I grew up with science and spirituality side by side, with no assumption that one ought to exclude the other. I didn't doubt the existence of angels and demons any more than I doubted electromagnetism and gravitational forces. In short, I wasn't much like Horatio. The problem with Horatio was not that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy, but that he rejected the possibility of things in heaven and earth that were not spelled out in detail by his philosophy. So instead of running, instead of doubting, I simply looked for a place that was familiar and comfortable. Here in this foreign city, that could mean only one place.

I sat on a mossy rock at the edge of a meadow and stared blankly at a limestone pillar with a misshapen heart scrawled on its surface - a lone pillar of support for ancient ruins long destroyed. One by one, the visions of past encounters with the bovine man passed through my mind, like specters haunting my memory. As I replayed each memory, I tried to understand what I had seen, and what it might mean. I understood easily why the bovine man had felt at home at Masada, Bethlehem, and the Necropolis; in each of these places the lives of innocent children had been cruelly shortened. What I did not understand was why Molech felt so distinctly out of place here at the amphitheater. Like all the other ruins, this amphitheater had been the site of a horrid and violent death. True, there were no children involved, but at worst that should make the place neutral to him. I looked around at the broken walls, the stumpy pillars, the absurd graffiti, and wondered what was I was missing. Somewhere in this place, I was sure, I could find the answer to the mystery of Molech.

"I knew you'd come back here," a voice behind me said. Tired. So tired sounding.

"Yes, well, you're the god, you know all."

He sat on the rock next to me. He no longer looked as powerful and bestial as he had at the shrine. Here he looked just like another man - a little dumpy looking, but just a man. "Just because your god claims to be omniscient," he said, "doesn't mean the rest of us do. There's too much headache and hassle with all that omni-stuff. Your worshipers start complaining that their goat fell in the well, and you didn't see it coming, and didn't make the goat just fly on out of there. If they don't expect omniscience and omnipotence from you, life is much simpler."

"So," I said. "I want a straight answer from you. Why are you following me around? And don't tell me you don't know. You may not be omniscient, but you know that much, at least."

He didn't say anything for a long space of time. I wondered if he was stalling to make up a lie, or was simply ignoring me. Finally he said, "I'm tired of accidental worshipers."

"Accidental?"

"Mm. The Punics, they were intentional worshipers. Put their children to the fire as a deliberate act of worship. There's real power in that. But there've never been people like them since. Those Jews at Masada, they had no idea they were offering up their children to me, and would have been horrified if they'd known. Herod was the same, except if he had known he was offering those children to me he wouldn't have cared a speck one way or the other. Thing is, that kind of sacrifice, there's some power in it, but not as much."

"And you think...what? That you can convince me to become an intentional worshiper? In case you'd missed it, I've already got a God."

He just smiled and shrugged.

"So why me? Maybe you should do a bit of telemarketing; that seems a bit more efficient than traipsing all over the Mediterranean after one possible customer."

"You're the one who saw me," he said simply.

"What?" I said. "Are you telling me no one else can see you?"

"Can't see me, won't see me. Most people never notice me sitting there unless I want them to. Americans never see me, even if I want them to. That's why I followed you, and that's the truth."

"Why don't Americans see you?" I demanded.

"Hello! Did you forget that whole not omniscient thing? I don't know why they don't see me. But if I had to guess, I'd say that it's because your Americans have so completely deluded themselves with their science and technology that if they ever saw something that didn't fit their view of things, their brains would short circuit. If you'll pardon my use of a science and technology idiom to describe the situation."

"Whatever," I said. "So let me save you some hassle and headache here. I have no intention of starting a child sacrifice cult. So you can just move along."

"Silly boy," he said, "You think child sacrifice is a requirement to be one of my worshipers? You just don't get it, do you? Your god is the one who's got the fascination with innocence. I really couldn't care less how innocent or guilty my sacrifices are. You know what really gets my heart to racing? Helplessness. A ninety-five year old man works just as well for me as ninety-five hour old infant." He cackled, and for just a moment the bull took on the appearance of a ravenous wolf. "And, just for the record," he added, "I don't require death, either. Death is a nice bonus, of course, but I'll take less...final...sacrifices as well."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, tell your boss a lie about a co-worker, so he loses his job. It ain't as good as killing him, but the great thing is, he's still alive, so you can hit him when he's down all over again."

"That's sick."

"Not sick. Just human nature. That's what kills me about your Judeo-Christian god - he says he made humans out of the dust of the earth, and then he puts these unrealistic expectations on them about how they ought to behave. Not me. I just ask 'em to do what comes naturally to them. I gain power from it. They gain power from it. Everyone wins."

"Except the fellow that loses his job," I countered.

"Sure. Except him. But don't you see? He's got the same chance as everyone else does to join the game." He leaned in close to me and said, "That's why I've got so many temples in your country, even though none of your people can even see me."

"Temples?" I said.

"Oh yes. Every board room in every major corporation where the wealthy increase their wealth on the backs of the poor. Every D.C. office where the powerful increase their own power through lies and treachery and blackmail. Every school playground where a bully increases his own prestige at the expense of the class nerd. Every church where 'god fearing' people think they can improve their own status and self-image through gossip and back-biting." He winked at me. "I've even got a corner of your church set up as a little shrine. And don't even think about what it's going to take to get me out of there, because it's not going to happen."

He stood and stretched his short arms over his head, like someone waking up from a long nap. "So," he said through a yawn, "now you know the rules of the game. The question is: you've been playing my game unwittingly your whole life; you want to sign onto the team and really play?"

I stayed seated on the rock and continued staring at the lone, graffiti-covered pillar at the center of the amphitheater. It occurred to me that the pillar was not unlike Molech himself; it was only a shadow of what it once was, just a glimmer of its former glory - yet it still stood. And there too was Molech, who barely seemed more than a man any more, yet even through all these centuries, he still stood, he still retained his power and his audacity and his pride.

I imagined then what it would be like to be one of his intentional worshipers: to serve a god who promises wealth and power and prestige instead of persecution; to follow in a way of life that allows me to strike back at those who injure me instead of forgiving and turning the other cheek so they can strike again; to worship a god who allows me to engage and celebrate my basest, most natural inclinations, instead of a god who requires me to reject and turn from those qualities that are so distinctly human; to be allowed the privilege of hating my enemies instead of submitting to that absurdly impossible task of loving them. I imagined what it would be like to serve a god who not only says he accepts me as I am, but doesn't then turn around and demand that I change.

And I liked what I was imagining.

Afflicted and Forsaken

The bovine man was walking toward the center of the amphitheater now, toward the solitary column with its graffiti valentine, and toward the stairs leading down to the cavern where Perpetua and Felicity were honored. I followed behind him and came to a stop at his side when he paused at the limestone pillar.

Standing there in the middle of the arena, I imagined myself as one of the gladiatorial combatants - or, to be more precise - one of the martyred victims; these North African women were given no swords, no armor, not a single weapon of any sort with which to defend themselves against the raging bull that attacked them while hundreds of sadistic fans jeered and laughed. "It must have been a quite a sight," I said.

"It was," Molech replied, then turned away furtively, as though he had said more than he intended.

"You were here?"

"Yes."

"Is it true that they sang hymns as they entered the arena?"

His reply was nothing more than a grunt.

I imagined myself, a martyr, singing songs of praise and adoration to God while a wild bull bore down on me, snorting, tossing its horns, the red fire of rage in its eyes. I doubted that I could have that kind of courage, yet I imagined myself singing right up to the end, when the bull pierced me through with his long curved horns and tossed me into the air to land, broken and twisted on the ground ten feet away. Except, as I imagined the scene, I realized that I was not imagining a bull at all, but a man with a bull's face - or perhaps a bull with a man's body. Either way, in my imagination it was a beast that was neither one nor the other.

"What did the audience see?" I asked, as I connected the dots mentally.

"What?"

"Did they see a wild bull? Or a man with a bull's head? Or something else entirely?"

The bovine man turned away again, looked out toward the seating, as though he too was imagining those seats filled with spectators. "They saw what they wanted to see. Most saw a bull. A handful - those who stilled followed the ancient cult of Apis - they saw something more."

"So you had worshipers in this place," I said, not questioning, but realizing.

"Yes."

I remembered the story of Perpetua and Felicity, how the wild bull tossed them on its horns again and again, battering and tearing and gouging their bodies, yet unable to deliver a fatal blow. "Why couldn't you kill them?" I asked.

Molech laughed, a self deprecating sort of laugh - the kind of laugh you don't expect to hear from a god - and said, "If I knew that, I wouldn't need to keep coming back here."

I was sure the self-deprecation was a lie, and because I suspected a lie there, I also suspected that his words were not true either. He knew the answer to my question - he knew the truth of his own weakness. And then, with a bit of thought, I knew it too.

"They weren't helpless. That's what you said you want in a sacrifice, isn't it? Helplessness. The destruction of people who are unable to prevent their own death. But Perpetua and Felicity - they weren't helpless, were they? You said it yourself: they could have stopped it, put an end to the whole thing. They could have recanted. They could have promised not to proselytize. Perpetua had wealth to bribe her captors. Any number of ways out. They chose this. You said they wanted to die, but I don't think that's exactly right; they may not have wanted to die, but they were content to die. They were like lambs to the slaughter, except..."

Then, with my unthinking repetition of that often quoted phrase, more of my puzzle fell into place. "That's the difference," I said. I laughed, a loud and mocking laugh - wondering even as I did so whether it was right to mock a god, no matter how evil - and continued, "The sacrifices of God are willing sacrifices. You take your power from an unwilling, helpless sacrifice, but the power of God, the power of forgiveness, that is the power of a sacrifice that walks willingly, knowingly to the altar and lays down its life. No greater love than this," I quoted, "that a man would lay down his life for his friends."

As I spoke, I thought - and perhaps I imagined it - that the bovine man became even smaller, less bestial, perhaps even frightened. "What about the firstborn of Egypt? Were they willing?" he demanded.

But here, in this place of great sacrifice and great power, I had both the courage and strength to press my advantage. "That had nothing to do with sacrifice, and you know it." I laughed again. "No wonder I never saw you in Jerusalem. I visited Gethsemane, and you were not there. I visited Golgotha, and you were nowhere to be seen. What is Jerusalem like for you? I'll bet you can't get within miles of the city without being reduced to crawling on your hands and knees, gasping for air. You were there, weren't you, on that wonderful, terrible day? Just as you were here, hoping for your pound of flesh..."

Then, though I could not imagine how or why I could recall the verses to memory, I began quoting from the Old Testament Psalms: "Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me. Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing." Then, with words that were an accusation, I said, "You were there."

Cruel Molech said nothing, and by his silence I was sure I was correct. More confident now, more sure of my conclusions, I pointed at the pillar. "When I first walked into this amphitheater, I was disgusted by that crudely painted heart on the pillar. It seemed to me a reprehensible act to desecrate this monument. It was an act of vandalism and irreverence. But I realize now the irony of it - that even this act of immaturity and disrespect is a testament to the power of this place."

What a supreme irony that was; even in attempting to desecrate this place, the vandals had only served to express, in its simplest, most familiar form, the power behind the sacrifice of the saints - it was the power of a God who neither disdained nor despised the suffering of His children. It was the power of sacrificial love, the love that surrendered all for another. And Molech could neither comprehend nor tap into that power. I thought of how Molech had despised and desecrated the graves of the infants in the Necropolis, I remembered the disdain with which he had spoken of even his followers, and I finally understood that the power of this false god was doomed, eventually, to implode, cannibalizing itself with desperate and ravenous hunger until it was utterly consumed.

I spoke again, and my quiet words were the answer to Molech's hunger for a new worshiper. "You walk among the corpses of your sacrifices, trampling them underfoot, but your disrespect for their sacrifice can do nothing to harm them now, so it is a meaningless gesture, satisfying nothing but your own hate. But here, in this place, there can be no meaningless gestures; both honor and dishonor give power to the sacrifice. Spit on the graves of the saints, if you will, but your disdain only serves to bring them greater honor. For they, both in life and in death, were loved by the one they served."

I looked again at the pillar, crumbling at the edges, stained with a clumsy and careless symbol of love. I stared, unblinking at that heart-shaped graffiti as I spoke, having no desire to look any more on the face of the bovine god. My words were, once again, a quotation from the psalm of the afflicted and forsaken. "You who fear the LORD, praise him; all you descendants of Jacob, honor him. Revere him, all you descendants of Israel, for He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one."

Without another word, without waiting for or listening for a reply, I turned and walked away.

Ten Years Later

It has been nearly a decade since I last saw the bovine man. I haven't had the courage since then to take any overseas journeys, and when I do finally set foot on foreign shores, I pray I do not see him there. In the last decade I've had plenty of time to think about the things that he said to me, and to try - in my own mind - to understand which things he said were true, and which were false. He had a remarkable ability to mix truth and fiction together in a way that left me uncertain where the truth could be found. He told me he wasn't the "Father of Lies," but I don't know whether to believe that or not; I can't help but recall that we have always pictured the supreme demon with a farm implement in his hands and horns on his head. Perhaps it is just a coincidence.

I've realized some other things about Molech, things that I'm sure he didn't want me to deduce. In the end he spent too much time talking to me, and gave away too much information. The clues were all there: the strength he gains from unwilling sacrifice, the weakness brought by willing sacrifice, and the final clue: the possibility of smaller sacrifices not leading to death. If doing an act of cruelty toward a helpless person gives strength to this evil god, I thought, then surely, sacrificing of myself in order to help a helpless person would weaken him?

Alas, I have no way of testing this hypothesis, but I believe it with my whole heart. I have come to believe that every time I stop to give aid to a stranded motorist, every time I give up an evening to help a student with his math homework, every time I speak words of encouragement to someone brokenhearted and discouraged, by that much sacrifice, by that much willing submission of my desires to the needs of someone else, Molech is beaten back. I believe that every time I make the supreme sacrifice to forgive and to love my enemies (yes, I have come to believe true forgiveness really is possible after all) I create my own little vortex of repulsion which drives back the bovine man.

Perhaps it is not much; perhaps my vortex is only a little twitch of irritation to him...but then I think, If only we all - every one of us - could live the lives of Perpetua and Felicity, the life of Christ, rejecting the need to fulfill our own wants and desires in order to care for the victims of life; if only we all could have the courage to face the raging of the bull, the thrust of the sword, the lash of the whip, the crown of thorns, and the spear to the side, in order to make the ultimate sacrifice of love and forgiveness; if only we all could do these things, then by that much, by the power of these great sacrifices we would resist him and he would flee from us.

But even after all these years have gone by, I cannot help thinking that I will see him at every street corner. I am like the characters in Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe who glance furtively up and down the streets hoping to see the return of Christ, but for me there is no anticipation, and it is not the Christ I am expecting to see. When I walk into church I cannot stop myself from peering into every nook and cranny of the place, wondering where his hidden shrine might be; when the hymns of praise are coming to an end, I tremble for fear that I will once again hear the quiet, mournful strains of "Lulay Lulay" bouncing off the rafters in elegiac refrain; and every time I listen to a bit of juicy gossip or cruel backbiting - at moments like these, though I see nothing, though I hear nothing, still I can feel once again that terrible burst of hot, dry breath on the back of my neck, and I know I am not alone.

The Author's Comments

During the 2007-2008 school year I taught an Old Testament survey in my church youth group. As I prepared for this series of lessons, I was surprised to discover how frequently the "detestable god" Molech appeared in the story of the nation of Israel. So I began doing a bit of research into this idolatrous religion that the nation of Israel kept bumping into. My research produced some surprising results. I learned that the worship of Molech was far more widespread than I initially supposed; it dated back to ancient Mesopotamia, and stretched all over the Middle East and even down into Egypt and the Carthaginian Empire.

I was even more surprised to discover that the traditional representation of Molech was a calf or an ox. This tidbit of information cast the story of Mount Sinai in a whole new light; Aaron's golden calf suggests that the Israelites were crossing paths with the worship of Molech way back in the days of Moses. Upon doing some more research, I realized that it was not so surprising after all; the cult of the Apis Bull was an ancient Egyptian cult...and where had the Israelites just come from? Egypt, of course. (This cult lasted until the time of Rome, and was borrowed by the Roman culture. Thus, it was still in existence until about 200 years after the time of Perpetua and Felicity)

Molech played a far greater part in the history of Israel than most people realize. Though we speak of Solomon as one of the last great kings of Israel, what is rarely mentioned is the fact that Solomon was directly responsible for the splitting of the kingdom. Why? It was God's punishment on him for introducing the worship of Milcom, Chemoth, and Molech into the nation. Milcom? Chemoth? These were merely different names for the same god, as he was known in different nations.

And what is the last thing that is said about the nation of Israel (the northern tribes) before its final destruction? "Then they made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, and practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him." That is the last word on the kingdom of Israel, found in 2 Kings 17:25.

Thinking of all these things made me decide I wanted to create a story in which Molech was a main character. My idea was to use myself (or, at least, a character based on my own views, my own doubts and uncertainties, and my own travels) as the protagonist, and to give Molech a human form so he could talk to me.

In modern religious circles people generally say that the worship of Molech these days is primarily found in abortion clinics, where unborn children are sacrificed. I didn't want to go in that direction, because I wanted to explore less charted waters. My initial idea was to make Molech care very little about whether his sacrifices were children or not, as long as they were helpless. It turns out, that's not an unreasonable interpretation of the religions of Molech; in the Apis cult, grown men and women were just as likely as infants to be the sacrifices.

Fortunately, the practice of human sacrifice (adult or child) is no longer a common practice in our world. I say fortunate, but it was unfortunate for my story, for if Molech gains strength from sacrifice, then how would he even survive to this day? I dealt with that by the idea that sacrifices were acceptable to him as long as they involved cruelty, even if they didn't involve death. But even that wasn't enough; I needed to introduce the idea that Molech had "unintentional worshipers." All of these were my ideas, and probably are not even close to the ancient worship of Molech.

Speaking of things that were my ideas, as I mentioned in a comment somewhere, I have not visited all the places I described in the travelogue portion of the story. In fact, if you count the Tel Aviv airport as one of the places described, I've only visited half of the places I wrote about. Thus, you should take my descriptions with a grain of salt. Which ones have I actually visited? I'll leave you to try guessing that, based on the strength of my descriptions.

Which brings me to the necropolis in Carthage. The infant necropolis was discovered nearly a hundred years ago, and has been very thoroughly excavated and explored. There is a standing stone with an image of a priest carrying an infant, and there is an inscription to Molech. There is not, however, a shrine or a statue. I added that in because I wanted to have a clear moment in which the main character recognizes who the bovine man is, and a statue of him was the perfect way to make that connection. I added in the archaelogists so we can imagine to ourselves that this shrine is a recent discovery, or a discovery yet to be made, hiding under ancient layers of debris.

Regarding Masada, my view of that mass suicide as an act of worship to Molech will be, I am sure, extremely offensive to Israelis, who view Masada as a moment of courage and bravery against all odds. I believe that the argument against the view I've presented is that the children were likely to be abused, tortured and killed by the Romans, and therefore it was an act of mercy to save them that ignominious and painful end. Whether or not that is true, I don't think that excuses us from asking the question: Does that give us the right to kill helpless children?

If I was writing this story again, I would do some things differently. One of the difficulties I find is that, when I'm writing, things I want to put in new scenes require me to go back and make changes to old scenes. But since people are reading as I'm writing, it's really not fair to do that. I understand a little better how difficult it must have been for Dumas to write stories like The Three Musketeers as serial stories.

If I was writing it again, I would consider adding an "outside" story - developing the protagonist's character more, and providing him with things to do outside of his encounters with the bovine man. I think the story suffers from the fact that there are no outside events which help lead him to his eventual conclusions.

Also, I think I would change the Tel Aviv story a bit, so there was no hint that this man was any more than a homeless bum that everyone was avoiding, and then, bit by bit, adding in more supernatural elements, leading to a moment of epiphany in which the main character realizes that the man he is dealing with is not simply a stalker, but something far more frightening. As it is, my main character recognizes from the beginning that there is something unnatural about this man, and yet there isn't really a strong sense of fear or confusion, trying to figure out exactly what he might be.

I wanted to create the sense that my protagonist was completely incapable of arguing with Molech when Molech was on his own ground (Masada, Bethlehem, the Necropolis), but was much more adept at arguing when they were at the Amphitheater - where Molech was at his weakest. I'm not sure how well I succeeded with that.

Toward the end of the story there are some transitions that I don't think I handled well, and some leaps in logic which I didn't fully explain or tie back to previous discussions in the story - this was primarily due to me being in a hurry to finish the story before leaving for the summer...I was afraid I would forget where I was going with the story if I left it unfinished until the fall. I may go back and tweak some of those issues at some future point.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the bovine man raises a lot of interesting theological questions, and challenges to traditional views of God and Christianity. Some of his views I agree with, some I do not. I deliberately avoided addressing all of his comments and ideas, because I think part of faith is discovering answers, and another part of faith is continuing to trust based on what you do know, even if you have no answers.

So I leave those questions in your hands. Do with them what you will.

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