A Visit

“Who are you talking to?” Jesus! That desperate feeling again. I turned. “Is there someone out there? John and I could hear you talking in the kitchen. Is there someone out there?” It sounds like a question. But the tone always dictates the required answer. I looked again back over my shoulder. He’s just out of her view from the door. He doesn’t mind the interruption. He understands my predicament. Interruptions can run their course. “Who were you talking to?”
Say nothing. “No one.”
“There’s no one here.” Say nothing. “Who were you talking to? We heard you talking.”
“No one.” She gave me a look. I was caught off guard. I glared back, defiant, but desperation was rising like the antichrist within me. He was swelling up like a great big monster. He hit me in the eyes first but it was the mouth that reacted. I was on my feet. “John! It’s John. It’s John, ok?” I cast another wretched look over my shoulder, then back at her. You knew how to handle me, didn’t you, in this situation. Only I didn’t’ know how to handle me in this situation.
“John’s in the kitchen with Liz.” Say nothing. Clinically she began again. “John’s in the…”
“Not that John. Not that John.” I swiped at a cushion, like a flying saucer it launched off the couch, hit the fireplace and crash landed. I kicked the leg of the coffee table hard. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t see any John.”
I was ringing my hands. You caught me off guard. I should have stood up when you appeared at the door. I should have pushed out past your grotesqueness, gone to my room and closed the door calmly behind me. Movement was the best thing when cornered. I knew that. Remove myself. But, John caught me off guard.
John, you caught me off guard. Mostly, I’d know when someone was coming. Maybe I got that from my mother. Someone would phone and later she’d say, “You know, I knew they were going to call. I just knew.” It was like that with me too. Sometimes I’d just know. Then I’d be ready. Fast. Purge. You need to be ready, calm. Should unpleasantness arise, you need to be calm. I used to take something but she found it in my things.
"There’s nobody here. There’s no John here. You were talking to yourself.”
Say nothing. Say nothing. I tried to say nothing. But now rage was at large. I could feel his imminent descent and then he took hold of me. Rage reigned down like a tempest. I struck out violently again, at nothing. Oh, Jesus! Exasperated, I gestured toward the window. “You have ears, don’t you! Listen! Why don’t you listen? It’s not that John! It’s not that John. It’s John the Apostle. John the Apostle! And he didn’t come to see me.”
“He didn’t come to see you?”
“He came to see you. You think you’re pregnant. You’re barren. He says you’re barren and he says it’s all, everything, the whole thing, it’s all a mistake.”
“A mistake.”
“It’s a mistake. You’ve got everything all wrong. You’ve all got the whole thing all wrong. Jesus is the son of man. He’s the son of man, so John says, “Why don’t you take up your cross?” Listen! Listen! You have ears, why will you never listen?”

All content is copy right protected, all content on this site is sole property of Patricia Jones, any copying, downloading or other reproduction of this content is strictly forbidden by the author.