What Will You Say?

There is coming a time, possibly tomorrow, possibly before you are finished reading this sentence, or possibly in another decade or more, but the time is coming when you yourself, free from all of the structures and systems that you have built and lived within in this life, will have to stand before an all-knowing Judge.

There will be no one at your side as you approach His holy throne. Your footsteps, echoing as they fall, one after the other, across the cosmic road leading to His throne room, will sing their song in defiance of your fear and anxiety. Ever forward you will be walking, the angels, standing at attention abreast of the road you now tread, with fire in their eyes, will watch as you go before the unapproachable God of all reality.

His robe fills the heavens, sprawling in unassuming majesty across thousands upon thousands of planets, shrouding them each in darkness. The galaxies He wears as rings, upon His holy fingers, sparkle in the light that He himself creates. The light catches your eyes, and for a minute, you think of running. Of escaping. Of turning and fleeing to hide beneath a mountain, and beg for it to fall upon you. All to avoid the gaze of Him who knows you.

As the thought enters your mind, and lingers for more than a moment, He upon the throne gently shakes His head from side to side, already knowing in advance that your thoughts of escape were coming.

With shaking legs and bile fighting to stay behind your clenched teeth, you approach His throne. Flashes and cracks of lighting swirl and crawl across the fabric of reality that you are standing within, as Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, looks to you, and speaks.

“You have sinned.” His voice splinters your heart.

No response is found in your heart as you fight to maintain existence in His presence.

“What did you do to protect the young?” He asks. “By your complacency, by your sloth, by your...vote...children were led away to slaughter. What do you have to say for yourself?”

You fall to your knees, tears and snot flowing from your face as you attempt to hide behind the hands that the God who now condemns you, made. Your breath grows deeper, lifting and dropping your chest with each breath, as His holy gaze never waivers or lessens.

“Answer me human.”

With this, the glassen road below you, plunging you into a river of blood. Pieces of bodies, too numerous to count, boil and churn within the monstrous current, as the sound of the crashing waves grows in your ears. Louder and louder it grows, until it becomes clear. The sound you are hearing is not the rushing of waters or the breaking of waves.

It is the sound of screaming.

Crying.

The piercing shrieks of the death of a generation, fill your ears as you continue to writhe and sob. Though the sound becomes a welcome escape from the voice of Him who continually gazes upon you, demanding of you an answer, you can’t escape the crushing weight of the sounds of sorrow that soak into your heart and mind. The remnants of the unborn, each piece crying for justice, swirl in a torrent of death around you, all the while you hope that one would push you away from His undauntable eyeline.

“What did you do to stop this from happening?”

Jacob Marchitell