Of the father's love begotten,
Ere the world began to be,
He, the Alpha and Omega,
He the source, the ending He
Of all things that are, that have been,
And the future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.
Darkness was approaching. Shadows were gathering thick and fast around her. In the distance they were singing carols, now and then the same words from the same songs drifted over to her as they rose heavenward.
Silent night, holy night;
All is calm, all is bright.
She thought of them, suffocating a feeble fire of hope, singing about events that only conscience told them happened, whispering the words which are repeated year after year. Adding neither thought nor feeling, barely understanding, placid faced hiding their true selves, seas of identical masks, a painted image of their soul.
Below her was a valley of light, but it was dark where she was. Only the moon and the starts made a polite gesture towards to the gawdy replica of daytime.
In the heavenly country bright
Need they no created light;
Thou its light, its joy, its crown,
Thou its sun which goes not down.
Threads of wind whistled between the chimneys sending the wrangled clouds scudding across the dirty sky.
Words are all we have, sacrifice them and you have nothing, rendered incapable of expressing yourself and you are nothing. She shivered at the realisation, and looked towards the morning which at the moment was nothing more than a greyish blueness on the horizon - a distinct division between earth and sky, a purposeful division. Never more was anything so deliberately severed and so positively one.
Strains of music still sought her ears and played their sweet bitterness in her hearing.
Holy child, whose human years
Span like our delight and pain,
One in human joys and tears,
One in all but sin and stain.
It didn't take away the pain or mend her open wound. That which the mind informs the body soon shall the body inform the mind. Hard, cruel, bitter, like frost upon a stone that time has mistreated was the thought which softly filled the cavity of her mind.
How cold the world around her suddenly seemed, how want of hope and love. They could sing their feeble hearts out, yet neither remember nor believe a word they've said; and breath is better wasted on idle gossip and useless chatter than in the chant of disused hymns.
In the bleak mid winter
Frosty windy made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone.
How aptly it described her dismal surroundings that drowned all goodness and beauty that may once have existed there. Now there was nothing left, only the few memories with which misery chose to illuminate her mind.
...the world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven clouds they come
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats,
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lonely plains
They bend on hovering wing ...
She looked up, half expecting to distinguish angels wings amongst the clouds. But there was nothing to be seen there, except miles of dreary emptiness.
O ye beneath life's crushing load
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow.
The moon, hidden by clouds, appeared to be a torch in the sky, searching for faces on the earth below, picking up the movement of whatever was caught in its path. The rays of silver light tumbled out of the sky to this unworthy planet below.
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Now it all seemed so far away, the reasons, the questions. And yet when she stopped to think about it, it was all still there, just behind her, laughing over her shoulder like a mocking devil. Every move she made someone was there, watching, laughing, hoping, waiting, anticipating. Whilst outside she seemed so peaceful, within her soul were raging storms of anger.
And below her the lights still shone.
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie.
Above they deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
Still all lay quiet, a whispering world with scratchy fragments of music filling the gaps. She glanced again below her.
Soon will come sorrow with the morning,
Soon will come bitter grief and weeping
Sing lullaby.
All it took was one slip, one false move, one unplanned step and it would all be over. Then they'd jeer no longer because then and only then would they realise that the subject of their mockery was indeed themselves. And then who would have the last laugh.
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
It came suddenly and unexpectedly, like sun after rain. She felt the wind rushing through her hair, life passing through her. She was only aware of the roof rising higher and higher above her, faster and faster. Then it disappeared into darkness. And still the singing went on, ceaseless chants, devout murmurs.
Abide with me,
Fast falls the eventide.
The darkness deepens,
Lord with me abide.
