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The object of the Traveler’s ridicule was dying, slowly.  Blood was dripping into this man’s eyes, not that he could have noticed.  His face, savaged, no longer revealed if he even had eyes.  Or arms.   Or Legs.  A stomach.  Chest.  He appeared as nothing more than a mass of skin, blood and hair.  They dying man could neither open his mouth to speak nor focus enough to think.  All he could feel was a tingle in what he thought was his wrists and feet, a stabbing pain in his side, and an enormous weight-A gravity pushing (maybe pulling?) him down from his elevated position.

 

“No?  I’ve always loved apples” the traveler went on, ”right since the Beginning.  I remember (ha, you’re going to love this) I met these two lovebirds once, long time ago.  You know the kind of couple that you can barely tell apart?  Look alike, walk alike, finish each other’s sentences-the whole shebang.  There they were, just out for a stroll, acting like…” he paused, clearly lost in his memory.

 

“…like they were the only two people in the world…”   The traveler stared off into the sky at the coming clouds.  He was silent for a while, taking another snap at the apple before continuing.

 

“So we start talking,” he said, his mouth full of chewed apple, “turns out they’d never had one before.  Imagine that!  Never had an apple!”  He looked up at the dying man, smiling to himself as he spoke.  “So I went and grabbed the very best apple I could find, plucked it right off this gorgeous tree and offered it to the young lady.  They were so nervous at first, it was almost comical.  I had to coax them, like babes, into trying something new.  People, set in their ways-all comfortable with what they know and afraid of what they don’t. 

 

“Once they had a bite though, well, the look on their faces!  It was-”  he paused searching for the perfect words, staring into the pool of the dying man’s blood forming at his feet, hoping he’d find them there. 

 

“It was as if their eyes were open for the first time.  As if they awoke to the whole world ending, completely unprepared; naked before it all.  And, it’s just an apple, right?  Oh here, let me get that.”

 

Excrement had escaped the dying man’s body.  The brown substance, more liquid than not, had been noiselessly dripping the length of wood the beaten man was pressed against.  Neither man had noticed this until the now dying man’s body began to spasm, alerting the other to his condition with a spurt.  The Traveler moved the modest bit of cloth covering the beaten man’s body to make sure the soil would travel the full length of his leg.  “Got to make sure you get the whole experience, don’t we?   Blood, Shit and Piss, quite the Trinity, no?” 

 

The dying man’s head shifted.  His long hair clung to the blood seeping down his cheeks into his beard.  A tress of hair covered his lips; even if he hadn’t been restrained, he was too weak to push it from his face.

 

“I don’t care so much for Trinities myself.  Not really representative of reality, are they?  It’s not ‘this, that, and the other’ so much as it is ‘you and I.’  Us against them.  Have and have not.  Duality!  I am a bit partial, of course.  Not that I like to brag,” the Traveler bragged “but when you see something through from the beginning, well, it does elicit a sense of pride.” 

 

The Traveler was smiling outright now, turning his back on the dying man.  He looked out upon the world before him.  “It is not just the fatherly love of a creator that I have for duality though, but it is everything duality has to offer us!  You couldn’t do anything without it, could you?  Nothing makes sense without its opposite.  How could you describe ‘up’ with out ‘down?’  How could you go ‘out’ if you didn’t have the option to ’stay in?’”  The traveler was circling around his captive audience now.  The dying man could hear the change in pitch of his voice as the other walked around him, even if he could not comprehend all the words in his current state. 

 

There was the sound of leather against the wind right before the Traveler whispered into his ear “How could I offer what I will to you, how could you want it, unless you did not have it?”  The breath was heavy on his neck; they dying man felt the Traveler inhale long and deep-taking in the salt of his sweat and blood.

 

The Traveler took a long look at the apple he held before taking another bite.  “That’s the my favorite part of apples you know, the duality.” he held up the green apple to him again.   If the dying man could have opened his eyes, he might have been baffled for the apple looked perfect, unbitten, in the Traveler’s hand.  “The texture consists of a hard outside, balanced by a soft, mushy center.   The apple encounters the front of your mouth, revealing a sweet taste until it gets to the side of your mouth-then it tastes sour.”

 

“A trinity-what is that even about?” he scoffed, almost to himself.  “You never have three choices for anything, not really anyway.  It always comes down to one, or something else in the end.”

 

“We used to argue about that, you know.  The Old Man and I.”  The Traveler was back on the ground now.  “Well I would argue; he never says anything unless he wants you to do something, does he?  ‘What do you expect them to do?’ I would ask!  ‘What good is free will if they don’t have a choice?’  He never answered, but then, he never had to. 

 

“I like to think we have an understanding; a wink and nod.”  The Traveler turned back to the object of his ridicule, and looked directly into his swollen, defeated face.  “He may have given them the will, but I set them free.  He knew I was right, since before we began, and that is why He has never stopped me.”   The Traveler stood and smiled at the crucified, beaten, dying man before him the way a child looks upon a new toy.  “That is why He put you here.” 

 

“He sent you to acknowledge this world. My world.  The world duality!  He could never experience it himself-not directly.  He would have broken it all apart.  But you… You can be here.  His concession.  His gift to the world-to me.” 

“It had been so long.  You…you were the first I’d heard from him in such a long, long time.  I don’t suppose he’s spoken to you, has he?”    The Traveler had turned from the dying man, perhaps to hide how the contours of his face had changed when asking the question. 

 

There was no answer though, except a small spasm of blood that unexpectedly came from his mouth.

 

“Yes, well, given your situation, I doubt you would much care for what he has to say anyway.  Didn’t make this pleasant for you-not at all.  But that is Fathers for you-always trying to toughen their Sons up, building character, make them ‘new men.’  Send them into the wild, off to war, with nothing more than a pat on the back and some half-baked moral code to live by.  Be brave in the face of danger, of pain, of death.  So on and so forth.”

 

“And here you are!  Just as he asked you to be.  Is he proud?  Now, on the verge of doing everything he’s asked you to do?  All on your own for so long-can he spare no pity for his sire?  Will he not help-has he no pity or compassion for his own Son?  Call to him!  See what he has to say?  See if he will come for you now, in your time of need-you and your ultimate fealty and faith.  No?  Well let me help you then!”

 

The Traveler took for the sky, hovering just above the beaten man’s head and cried to the sky “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”  The people who surrounded those being executed looked and laughed, but none could see the flying man who spoke the words.  They could only imagine it had come as the last protest of a man dying on a cross.

  

“Typical.  No response” the Traveler-this Adversary-said, feigning outrage.  “That is what your faith and fealty and devotion has earned you!  You come amongst ‘His’ people to spread ‘His’ message, offer love and health and life to all around you, just as He asks you to, and he treats you as he treats me!  Worse!  For all that you have shown, all that you have done in His name, he has made you suffer more than I ever have!  ‘One and the Other,’ are all the same to Him!”

 

“And yet” he said, calming his tone “this need not be.  I told you I had an offer for you, and so I do.  I am of my word, and I present it thus:  This world was spread from the seed of an apple, the produce of a tree long since uprooted, and grants each of us the freedom of choice.  ‘Choice’ is the secret heart of this world and He cannot stop me from revealing that to you.  You may do one thing or the other, but only you can choose which it will be.  You cannot be made to do anything in this world, not even by Him.  If you wish to be saved, then you must save yourself!  You can choose to die, or you can choose to live…forever.  You of all in this world have more power, more choice, than any other.”  The other man held the apple up, tempting him, one last time.  “This could be yours.  All of it.  What you are doing now, Who you are doing this for, it does not have to be this way.”

The man with the apple snickered to himself, hoping to contain his amusement at his own pun-but he could not.  He let out a tremendous laugh, arching back, howling at the sky.  The shape of his shadow changed, growing long on the earth in front of him tracing a strange outline of misshapen, wings, and protrusions from his head.  So lost in his own revelry was he that he almost missed the troubling whisper coming from behind him.

 

“…not a cr…”

 

The Traveler turned.  “What?”

 

The dying man swallowed hard, and opened his eyes to look at the man below him “You are wrong.  This is not a cross…”

 

“Oh dear, you have less time than I though” he cracked.  “Indeed, if this is not a cross you are nailed to-then what is it?” 

 

The dying man spoke with the last of what his body had to offer.  “A boy left home in anger, fighting with his father.  He came to a fork in the road.  To his left was a meadow, and to his right a dark forest.  He stood there for a long time, trying to decide which road would be the right one to ta….”

 

The Traveler, enraged seized the throat of the dying man-clutching tightly and stopping his words.  “I am not one your sheep,” the he said sharply.  “you will speak plainly to me or not at all…”

 

“Listen, Adversary, for one road was good and one road was bad.  The son had a choice.  But he had a choice above his choice.  Every fork in the road has a third road…the first road from whence he came…”  His head slumped to the side, and a last gasp wearily left his mouth.  The dying man was no more.

 

Enraged, the Traveler, called Adversary, grabbed the dead man’s head and shook it.  “What is it!  If it is not a cross what is it!”

 

There was no answer from the corpse before him.  He released a howl that shook the clouds, freeing a thunder unheard before in this world.  Lifting both fists in the air, he flung them both at the ground cracking it all around him and the body.  Flames leapt at the command of his voice “TELL ME!”

 

“It is a tree, Light Bringer.”  The voice came from behind him.  The Traveler, called Light Bringer, now revealed as monster, could not help but turn.  Eyes wide, pale, hair standing on the back of his neck, the monster looked upon a fully formed, unharmed man standing before him.  The man he had watched die stood now, speaking to him.  Close inspection would reveal that there were not even holes in his hands or feet.

 

Time had stopped for both of them as the One explained to the other “A tree…and its apple has finally been put back.” 

 

“So what are they to take from your story, O’ Son of Man?” said the Adversary, with a note of panic in his voice” This changes nothing!  You have created nothing but one more choice, one more duality, for them- one more temptation for me to use against them?  Their hearts, their minds-their souls-will still only ever see the ‘Good’ and ‘Evil’ I offer them.  When they fight and kill in your name; for your righteous love!  What will you do then?”

 

Walking towards the demon, the Son spoke:  “Before the Fall, were you not the satan? the obstructer? It was you who knew the best way to test anyone set before you, and yet you cannot see that which covers your own eyes.  Pride will blind many, as it has blinded you-it is true.  That is what the apple shows them; Good and Evil.  I have shown them a third way.  I point them to the road from which they came.  The prideful may only chose to go left or right, but those that can forgive, and can accept being forgiven, they will see the house of their Father open to them.”

 

He had taken the shiny green apple away and walked it over to the base of the cross-crouching to set it down.  Pausing briefly to look at the body he left upon the cross, he then turned to his tormentor:  “You can all go home again, if you want.  You may have given them choice, Serpent, but my Father has set them free.”

 

The Beast turned away with a chuckle, “We can all go home again?  I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that some of us…” he began to look at his feet “some things cannot be forgiven.”

 

“You already are forgiven Sammael, even if you will never accept it.”

 

“Yes, I suppose you will” was His only reply. 

There was nothing more to say, and so they left, walking into the deep of the Earth. 

 

When time resumed, two crying women and a man came to collect the body the two had left behind.  Pulling down the cross the man had been nailed to, the youngest of the three could not help but cry and embrace the body before they removed the nails.  After the ropes were cut, and the body separated from the pieces of wood it had carried there, they wrapped what was left in cloth and carried it away to be buried.  If any of them saw the brown, rotted apple core that lay on the ground, none mentioned it.