Doubting Thomas

by Adam Grinter

  Maria stood before I did and leant down so I could hear.

  “We must find John. That hasn’t gone down well.”

  Proverbs

  John climbed the stairs to the pulpit on unsteady legs. He was aware all the eyes of the room were on him. He was used to that under normal circumstances, however the eyes always turned away when they’d seen what they wanted to see. These eyes watched every step. It was an unusual sensation to be studied so fully.

  He hadn’t read the words printed on the sheets that William had given him. Mother had told him she would help, so the paper felt superfluous to what he was about to do.

  He stood looking out at the field of expectant faces. He saw no emotion, no happiness, no sadness, no fear, only need. They needed him to guide them, they needed his help.

  John gently placed the sheets in front of himself, there was a flat surface conveniently placed so he smoothed them so as better to read.

  The first paragraph was easy. He told them his name and that he had a message. William had told him the video of the priests would play. He needed to wait for that. He waited patiently.

  He glanced back at the crowd and caught sight of Thomas and Maria. They were looking at him not the screen. Maria smiled at him and Mother told him, ‘see they are here for you’. He relaxed slightly and a warm glow filled his body. It started at the top of his head and slowly engulfed every cell and fibre of him. The sensation was comforting, he welcomed it.

  The video stopped playing and he spoke to the assembled crowd. From his position slightly above them he could make out all their rapt faces. His mouth moved and the words flowed but he was not conscious of what he was saying. He tried to stop himself. The words continued to cascade freely onto the gathered throng.

  Mother’s voice whispered softly to him. ‘Let me do this for you.’

  He resigned himself to Her.

  The words flowed. The words were beautiful to his ears. In his mind Mother’s voice floated above the crowd. They heard what he had been listening to all his life.

  He smiled to himself.

  Too quickly it was over. The euphoria of delivering Her words to the world was finished.

  He stumbled briefly from the release but recovered quickly and looked at Thomas and Maria. They seemed to be smiling but he couldn’t quite read them properly.

  William started speaking but John ignored him choosing to focus on the afterglow of Mother’s possession. Charles grabbed him and pulled him down the steps.

  He was dragged to the vestibule where he was forcefully pushed down into a chair.

  Charles looked down menacingly at him. He wasn’t quite sure what he had done wrong. He knew it was something.

  William walked in purposefully and nudged Charles to one side.

  “What was that?” He asked accusingly. “That wasn’t what we wrote for you. We’ve been planning for this for years and you come in and blow everything.”

  John didn’t know what he was talking about. Mother had done it not him. She had told him She would look after him. She had spoken the words through him.

  “This was the moment when we took back our power. You were to be the new face of the modern church. We wrote you the words that would have put us back in control. You should have been the answer to our prayers.” There was anger in his tone.

  John sat mute not sure what he could say to diffuse the situation. He wished Thomas and Maria were with him. They would know what to do.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Maria and I rushed towards the vestibule having seen Charles push John through the small door. William had followed as soon as he’d closed out the service. There was a look of thunder on his face. Things hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. I just hoped we’d get to John before Charles and William did something too extreme.

  We fought through the crowd scrabbling in front of the altar. More and more of the congregation seemed to be flowing against us as we moved. I pushed people out of the way rudely. John was my priority. At this moment he was all that mattered. People’s feelings would heal from my rudeness, but John was in immediate danger.

  Charles was not blocking our way this time, we bundled into the tiny room and locked the door behind us to keep out the seething mass. Charles was leaning against the right-hand wall, William was looming over a seated John. He was angrily telling John he should have been the answer to his prayers, whatever that meant.

  Maria ignored William and knelt by the side of John’s chair. I stepped between William and John in an attempt to diffuse the situation. To try to put a physical barrier between them. Charles moved quickly, as well, and stood at William’s side.

  “I’m not here to fight you.” I stated. “I just want to help John.”

  “So did we.” William said.

  “You wanted to help yourself.” I said accusingly. “We’re going and we’re taking John with us.”

  Maria helped John to his feet, with me between them and William and Charles she led him out of the room. I backed out staring at them both as I went, in a way that conveyed more confidence than I felt.

  We entered the main body of the Cathedral and found it almost empty. We’d only been in the vestibule a few minutes but the congregation had cleared out quickly. They realised they had been called out as hypocrites. Their way of life was not the way their loving God expected them to live. Their excitement and righteousness given way to embarrassment and shame, I hoped, as they made their way home.

  I was glad of the emptiness for once. A few reporters were doing their final links to camera to describe the reaction that greeted John’s words. I wondered if the words being used were hope, acceptance and new direction but I assumed they probably weren’t.

  Charles and William weren’t following us.

  They didn’t need to. They knew where we were going.

  John

  John sat on Thomas’ sofa in the same spot he had been in the day before. It had been a long, strange twenty-four hours.

  Mother had spoken to the world.

  The church was angry with him because She had.

  Thomas and Maria had saved him.

  And now he was back here.

  The only difference today was the TV was off. Thomas and Maria hadn’t spoken since they’d come in. Thomas paced the living room and Maria made them all a cup of coffee. It seemed to be their answer for life’s worries. A cup of coffee, a plaster for life.

  Thomas left the room and John heard the front door shut. Maria sat next to him on the couch, he was comforted by her proximity. She put a soothing arm around his shoulder, he nestled into her. He could feel her warmth and enjoy the smell of soap from her neck.

  They were still huddled together when Thomas walked back in carrying a supermarket bag heavy with food.

  Thomas went into the kitchen and there was a chinking of plates as he tried to lay out the assortment of bits he had bought. He walked back in with a couple of plates with pre-packaged sandwiches on them. He returned to the kitchen and brought back a couple more packets. There was also a multi-pack assortment of crisps. Ultimately he emptied the supermarket bag onto the table and seven or eight bars of chocolate landed with a thud.

  John’s eyes widened. This was his type of feast. No airs. No graces. Just basic. Easy to eat.

  Quick.

  Tasty.

  Filling.

  John ate his chicken salad sandwich and cheese and onion crisps. He couldn’t decide which bar of chocolate to have so he took two. He enjoyed them both.

  Maria nibbled a prawn cocktail sandwich which she didn’t finish.

  Thomas didn’t eat anything.

  They sat quietly not discussing what had happened or what was going to happen. John didn’t mind the peace and quiet; but it had been going on too long. He wanted to say something to make it alright, to fill the void growing between the three of them. What word was big enough for that?

  “Sorry.” He said.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “You have
nothing be sorry for.” Maria soothed.

  “But William got mad and said I’d ruined everything.” John continued.

  “William was wrong.” I said simply, there was no anger, no emotion in my tone. I kept it flat as a statement of fact.

  Silence descended again but this time because it had been broken once, the room felt like it needed noise. I turned the TV on again to fill the void. I threw the remote to John and he let it plop onto his lap. He picked it up and flicked through the available channels. There were fewer choices than he wanted but he eventually settled on something. He sat watching some celebrity I didn’t recognise, try to do something, to impress another who I recognised but couldn’t name.

  I took out my phone and looked at the screen. Five missed calls and two text messages. I guessed they were all from the same person. The same person who was currently last on my list of people I wanted to speak to. I ignored them.

  I pulled up a news website and almost with one eye closed against what I was going to see I looked at a story about John’s performance.

  The words that caught my eye were not the ones I had expected.

  Inclusive.

  Impressive.

  Aspirational.

  Definitely good words. I tried another site.

  Inspirational.

  Peaceful.

  Loving.

  And another.

  Joyous.

  Moving.

  Life changing.

  A smile formed on my lips, my eyes brightened. I looked at John with a new found respect. He’d delivered a message the world needed to hear. For once, it didn’t appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

  I continued to scroll through the main news sites and all of them agreed it was the message the world needed. The time was right to heed the call for inclusion, for rejection of the material, the embracing of the different, and forgiveness of the opposition. We could all attempt, in some small part, to try to achieve that.

  I read article after article, I could find nothing negative in the coverage. How could William, a supposed man of God get it so wrong? This was the message he should have told John to deliver.

  I scrolled to the comments expecting them to be just as positive as the articles.

  How wrong I was.

  ‘Who does this bloke think he is?’

  ‘He doesn’t speak for God.’

  ‘Communist.’

  ‘Freak.’

  ‘Do-gooder.’

  The hatred and bile spewed forth.

  ‘How does this boy know anything. He’s barely out of school and he lectures me how to live. How dare he?’

  ‘He doesn’t know real life. He’s living in fantasy land if he thinks that’s realistic.’

  Why do people always need to attack? This was precisely what John told them not to do. Listen and accept, you don’t have to agree but at least accept the words. It appeared those in the comments just wanted to attack. They were exactly the audience the speech was aimed at. From their comments the message had missed its mark.

  The deeper I looked the more disgusting the abuse.

  ‘What is the liar but the one that denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the anti-Christ. 1 John 2:22’

  John didn’t deny that Jesus was Christ.

  ‘You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the Devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord. Acts 13:10’

  I didn’t understand what that meant but I assumed he thought John was twisting the teachings of the Lord therefore he was the son of the Devil.

  Other commenters had picked up on this theme and the thread had been hijacked. John was being cast as some sort of anti-Christ for preaching love and acceptance. The stabilising voices who tried to say this were ranted down with all capital replies telling them they were in league with the evil doer. The peaceful, accepting dissenting voices started as many. However, eventually the hate and venom won out, as if to confirm John’s words.

  I tried another site. The article was positive, the analysis was truthful and insightful. Again, the comments descended to hatred and hostility.

  I tried a third and a fourth, all the same. From the anonymity provided by their keyboard people were vomiting words of violence towards a man who had only told them to love one another.

  This was the base William had wanted to tap into. The vocal minority. The privileged oppressed; those that always believed they were right regardless of the facts. Whenever they were proved wrong, they just shouted louder to drown it out. Theirs was the only view that mattered. How dare you oppress them by disagreeing with them.

  I looked over at John. He was a gentle soul, he delivered a simple message and was being attacked for it. People could be so hateful.

  I didn’t want to wallow in the bile any longer. I went back to my missed calls. I had been right, all of them were from William. I moved onto the text messages. I opened the first one.

  Thomas,

  Where are you? We need to talk.

  William

  The second message was a surprise. It had been sent half an hour after the first. It was still from William but obviously after a bit of self reflection.

  Thomas,

  Tell John I’m sorry.

  William

  It was an olive branch. I needed to speak to him now. I pressed the button and listened to the ringing. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Thomas.” He sounded down, deflated, defeated.

  “William.” I replied and kept my silence. I waited for him to take the first step. This was a conversation I wanted him to take control of.

  “I was wrong.” He took it.

  “Go on.” I said.

  “John’s speech was what we should have been aiming for. His tone was right. His message was right. His words were the message we needed.”

  “Yeah, it was.” I agreed. I was keeping things brief like I normally did with William, but this was for a different purpose. I wanted this to be uncomfortable for him. I wanted him to suffer the shame of his own anger.

  “I see that now. The media reaction to his speech was incredible. We need to strike while the iron’s hot. We can make a massive success out of this.” William gushed.

  “That’s a bit cynical don’t you think?” I asked. “Have you seen the comments on these articles?” I added.

  “It may be cynical but it’s also realistic. John has captured something. He has tapped into something. I’ve been getting nothing but positivity since the broadcast. My phone hasn’t stopped, everyone telling me how wonderful it was to see such an uplifting message. We’ve missed that.” Maybe I was judging him too harshly. “Oh forget the comments. I read some of them. They’re just the extremists. They’re nuts. Every religion has them, we just let them get on with it, they’ll never be proper believers.”

  We were in agreement on that point.

  “Tell John I’m sorry. I overreacted. I had wanted it to be perfect. I misjudged everything.” There was real contrition in his tone. Genuine sorrow at his wrongdoing. That he’d actually, completely misjudged everything. I felt slightly sorry for him in a way. He’d built this up to be one thing and it had turned into something else.

  Something better, in my mind.

  “OK.” I said non-committally. I still thought I wanted him to suffer. For what he had put John through. For what he had made Maria and me do to John. However, my anger and disappointment had dissipated. I was prepared to move forward.

  “I want to speak to John face-to-face.” William said. “I want to apologise and find out the best way to help him, help us.”

  “That sounds do-able.” I replied. “When do you want us to come to you?” I stressed the ‘us’ so he was not in any doubt he wouldn’t be able to bully John again.

  “Tomorrow at ten. Come to the Cathedral and we’ll all come up with a plan to move forwards.”

  “OK.” I agreed.

  Hopefully, we could straighten this out and we would
be able to protect John.

  “Please Thomas, tell John I’m really sorry.” He pleaded.

  “I will.” I promised and hung up.

  John was still glued to the TV, he looked like he was enjoying whatever entertainment was showing. I felt slightly bad bringing him back to reality and making him relive William’s rant.

  However, I had promised.

  Therefore, I delivered.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Another Monday morning. A familiar journey. An unfamiliar feeling.

  Hope.

  There was a distinct pleasant feeling to the wait at the station. Whereas once there had been quiet, solitude and an unwillingness to engage with a fellow commuter. Now there were noticeable head nods of greeting. That person they had waited alongside for years, yet they never acknowledged; they were now greeting each other.

  Baby steps.

  Small gestures.

  We sat with the other commuters and I noticed our fellow travellers were not as engaged in their usual acts of isolation. Not as many phones were being stared at. Papers were folded in laps instead of unfurled and hidden behind.

  We made our changes and headed to the meeting. John pulled his cap down on his head we told him to keep his face lowered so he wouldn’t be recognised. He still attracted some unwanted stares but, no-one approached him or us. Maria and I nodded greetings to strangers. It felt good to smile at them and pass on positive vibes.

  We arrived at Victoria station and fought our way through the crowd. As we approached the Cathedral, we could see a mass of people gathered outside. A grumble of raised voices floated towards us. I couldn’t make out specific words, but the tone was unmistakeable.

  We approached cautiously and stood on the edge of the crowd. I listened to the words that were being directed at the edifice in front of us.

  ‘He doesn’t speak for me.’