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Chapter One, Verses One Through Twenty-One
“A pale grave once held the corpse of God. Overturned in a fever was His earth – man’s protest against the death of hope which must never die. Exhumed, the people of God’s Promise descended upon the casket like frightened animals. With torch and steel they pried at the lid. No instrument of man, petition to the sky, or compulsion of prayer could bend the seal of the coffin.”
“Abandoned by their Creator, their heartache blinded them. Their spite drove them to wage war against the land in His name. Mankind sought to earn His love first by the sword, and then the iron fist of dominion.”
“But once all had crumbled to ash; once the forests and mountains boiled with flame; once permanence had been lashed upon that which cannot be undone, there came a bird into the midst of God’s broken children. There before the last of mankind walked a crow woman, dragging behind her a comet’s trail of old blood. Those who still burned for the Lord beheld the woman’s offering — a broken jar, its faults and imperfections mended together with liquid gold.”
“The people of God scorned and cursed the bird as she presented the casket with her offering. ‘What God of man answers to a heretic and a shattered jar?’ Their voices cried. So they gave her the name ‘heretic.’
“Yet, the pale grave trembled at the sight of the mended jar. All at once, the long night of penance became the pink dawn of absolution. A forgotten sun rose in the east, and to the west, the mountains sat traced in a flame.”
“From the casket a choir of His host gave proclamation:”
‘A blaze is set upon the hills. An open grave from which a great forest will rise. The fire collapses. The corpses I've made… this should not be.’
“The empty casket rumbled open. From His grave there sprang a tree with leaves of gold, whose roots bound together all things that grow across Purgatory. And those who watched the forests rise saw their salted earth become fertile and rich, the decaying body of the Lord nourishing our Purgatory. Great forests rose, prairies spread, and when all had come to pass, God spoke for the final time:”
‘Oh, how we curse the tongue of flame.
In My stead, My Promise to her I shall fulfill.
This one is reborn in Me, a name given Grace.’
Oliver Hart
Author of Foxing, Leaves of Fall, Liquid Courage, Beating the Heat, A Red Winter, Weber’s Gambit, and many other stories. He primarily writes hmofa, but dabbles in most genres. Interests include, writing, reading, technology, and music.
Stories: Foxing, The Leaves of Fall