Go Down into Darkness

Written by Kayla Rutledge

Designed by Julia Haynes

Author’s Note: After the ascension of Jesus Christ, 11 of the 12 apostles were martyred by the Roman government, until the only one who remained was John, the brother of James and speculatively, the youngest of the 12 original disciples. John was exiled by the Roman government to the isle of Patmos, where he received the vision of the book of Revelation.

By the thirtieth day of exile, I’ve hollowed out a shelter in the Patmos sand and memorized the notes of the Cisticola, who every day pierce the sun into rising with song. They stir the dust of the dawn with their notes, and I bend my aching knees to whisper, Our Father, who art in heaven, choked down daily bread that clogs my throat.

He comes to me on the thirtyfirst day. I’ve heard it said that the insanity shouldn’t come for sixty, but the language of exile comes easy to me, pulling itself from the folds of my mind the way fishing nets used to tug from my hands with the tide. Judas stands in the sea watching me, his tunic pooling and twisting with the water, the early morning sunlight blurring the edges of his shoulders like watery paint.

In a split second, the shoreline disappears into a memory I have tried for sixty years to forget. Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. In the torchlight, I see soldiers lead the rabbi away and James is shouting Betrayer and Judas will not look him in the eye. Who is it, Lord? It is not me. The world bottoms out and I hide behind James’ fiery anger so no one will see my relief. Who is it, Lord? It is not me. Judas turns his back, and it is not me.

But here, on the island, there is no James to hide behind, and I am afraid. The betrayer stands before me, taking shape in the saltwater, and I am all alone. Judas walks out of the water towards me and I stand up, hands behind my back so he can’t see them shaking.

What do you want?

He ignores me, pushes his curly hair back where it falls over his eyes, and walks down the beach. I scowl. What are you doing? I shout at his back.

He doesn’t turn around. I’m building a boat.

I am a statue on the shoreline. In seconds or years, Judas comes back and dumps a pile of driftwood at my feet. We’re building a boat. My hands shake as I grab the wood.

We build for six days. In the day, I smear clay and bend wood and sweat under the weight of everything I can’t put into words. At night, after the glowing coal of the sun has burnt and sputtered out into the sea, I toss and turn in the sand and wonder if I am constructing my own death. I wonder if after sixty years, we are not so different after all, the betrayer and I. The eleven are gone and in the end, I have been left all alone.

On the sixth day, Judas wakes me from a tense and dreamless sleep at dawn, shaking my shoulders. I jump back from his outstretched hand and he walks away from me, towards the boat. We’re going fishing.

Fishing? I am scrambling over the sand after him. The boat isn’t finished. You need to let it dry in the sun --

He ignores me and heaves the boat over, pushing it into the lapping tide. Get in.

I get in. The morning is misty and cool, light pulling at the corners of the horizon, the mist gathering in pillowing heaps on the water. Already the boat is shaking, but Judas is already pushing out. In the boat, there is nowhere to run, and my chest is cold and tight with fear. I want to ask him if I am dying, and if I am dying, does he know that I did not mourn him, that I was relieved it was not me? And if he knows, can I say it now that I am going insane? I understand holding on can make you so tired, but still I am afraid to let go.

I don’t say anything. I don’t know why. Judas is not looking at me, he is looking at the sea, which lies silver and still under the heavy mist of morning. Suddenly I want to close my eyes, lay down in this creaking, shifting tomb of a boat, stop caring about fear or secrets or sanity or death. More than this, I want to ask him if there is no mercy, how could he kiss the very face of God and not be struck down dead where he stood?

I don’t know how much time passes like this, only that I am too lost in thought to realize that we are sinking until the water is already covering my ankles. Wildly, I jump up, spreading huge, slapping ripples of saltwater. JUDAS. He turns to look at me, calm, his eyes darkened by all of these things we do not say, the brother that I lost, and the boat is cracking into a thousand pieces, my throat is burning with saltwater and the world bottoms out again --

I am tumbling beneath a sea of bluegreenwhitedark, and I think that

I am surely dying. I am relieved that soon I will not be alone, and I will not have to admit to Judas that all my life I have been afraid that it would be me, that I would be the betrayer, instead it will all be gone in a snap of gaping, freeing darkness --

And I relax, just as the ocean spits me drenched and gasping onto the beach.

No, no, please --

I bring myself to my knees and beat at the sand, because he is gone and free and I am alone on the shore with my wrung-out, saltwater heart beating in my ears, with the Cisticola singing in their hallowed melodies these groanings that I cannot put into words, with the silence of the grey and barren shore that will soon give way to the fullness of the dawn.

RUTLEDGE Class of 2021 Political Science and Journalism