The Wrath of Jeremy

by Stephen Andrew Salamon

  Jeremy’s mother stopped and hugged her husband in his ignorance tightly in her arms, while staring at the great pit of an ocean, and saying quietly, “I don’t care how amazing this is, I just want my baby back. Something’s wrong, Frank. It’s as if I know Jeremy has something to do with this. I just want him home, in my arms, feeling his heartbeat. Please, God, bring him home.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jeremy watched the old woman, still sitting in her chair in the same place, the same position, with an inexplicable glare that stretched throughout the murky room, and Jeremy paused, maintaining his eyes on hers. Then, with his sight still sharply aimed at her eyes filled with unknown prophecies, Jeremy hurled the two parts of the Kerchief on the table alongside her. Her aged, ripened hand elevated from its resting place on her lap and slammed down on the two parts, stopping their momentum before they fell to the floor from Jeremy’s thrust.

  “Here, we have them all now, what next?”

  The woman smiled at him. She placed the pieces together to form one, doing it slowly, as if she knew they wanted to see the man’s image on the cloth. Through her teasing of their eyes, an excitement mixed with speculation went through their minds, seeing that the old woman was taking her time in placing such a simple puzzle together, made up of only two pieces with the image being the greatest puzzle of all. Finally, she placed all three pieces together completely, and they all slowly surrounded the table, seeing the one mystery that the whole world was born to see, would love to see and to solve: the revealing of the Lord’s image.

  Enthusiasm. Wonder. All of them opened their mouths in admiration, staring at a light brown face with blue eyes. This image had long, black, silky hair with a smile that showed pain in its cloth-captured grin.

  “Oh my God,” said Jeremy. He looked at the image more closely, adding, “I had no idea he looked like that!”

  “Wait a second, the Jesus I saw at my house, when he came out of the painting, has no resemblance to this man,” Gabriel stated with bafflement.

  “How come?”

  The old woman leisurely turned her face toward Gabriel while keeping her hands on all three parts of the Kerchief. “Because, Gabriel, the image that you saw before was what Man thought the Lord looked, and should look like. This whole time, different races were fighting over the color of Jesus’s skin, when this whole time they were all wrong. The color of the skin that you see before you has no resemblance to any color you see on a human being. This image has a different type of color to his face, a type of brown that you would only see on the bark of a young tree,” the old woman said with tears in her eyes.

  “The sun tanned his innocent skin perfectly, like a melody that a sparrow sings, a snowflake’s beauty that can never be duplicated. The story has it that his blue eyes were so special, whenever he would stare at you, it was as if he was staring at a single grain of sand out of billions, making everything he looked at feel like it was the only one in the reflection of his eyes. He was special, and now, since you’ve seen him, my mission has to begin; the mission of retrieving the reason why you all are here, and why you all were chosen,” she explained, pulling out a needle with thread already intact.

  “He’s beautiful,” Sam mumbled, seeing her tears falling onto the cloth. “He’s so very beautiful. He’s like a–a–a gentle feather, who has been painted in this color I see as almond brown, but it’s not almond brown.” More of her tears fell upon Christ’s image, even as the old woman sewed each of the three pieces together. When she sewed the first piece together, they all heard a bolt of lightning in the distance, but it didn’t cause their eyes to leave the image they longed to see. When she sewed the other piece to form one great Kerchief, the lightning ceased, and rain began to fall, hard rain, like ice, that pounded against the roof. Mary turned around and noticed wind blowing against the old woman’s house, a type of current that grew stronger every time she inhaled deeper. Mary turned back, and saw that the old woman held the holy cloth up in the air, like a torch ready to light the lives of many. But when she held it up high for them to see, the candles which lit her house blew out, leaving them in darkness. Michael and David rushed around to find some matches, or else some other means of light, when suddenly the candles lit themselves, and in their sight was the garment with Jesus upon it.

  “Now, before I allow you to regain your memories, I have to ask one of you to leave, not because your eyes aren’t worthy of this memory, but because the Lord told me to do so,” said the old woman before she put the garment face-down on the table. “Before I ask the one to leave, I must tell you that you all are only going to receive the memory of why you’re here, and how you were chosen for this specific mission. Your full memories will be regained once the eighth sign has begun. Now, each one has to touch the Kerchief separately, and that’s how I and you will know who is the chosen for this memory, and who has to wait for it,” she explained very carefully, with her voice shaking like a hummingbird’s wing.

  They looked at each other with trepidation in their stares, hearing the old woman add, “Mary and Sam, you are not the chosen. It’s between the four young men whom I see before me, the ones who came here, to my understanding, for a cure to their supposed sickness.” The old woman giggled a bit at the young men, and saw Gabriel, Michael, David and Jeremy look at each other in a shocked fashion; it was as if the one who was not chosen would be some sort of an outcast to them all. “Gabriel, you touch it first,” she said just as Gabriel noticed Sam’s tear marks were engraved right under Jesus’s eyes. He approached the cloth slowly, and stuck his right hand out, placing his index finger on the Kerchief with his eyes widening toward its texture. Suddenly a light began shining on the garment. He shot his hand away immediately. “Now it’s Michael’s turn.” Michael slowly put his right hand up to the garment, and the same light appeared, but this time it was brighter. “David, now you touch it,” she said as Michael pulled his hand away from it and glanced at David.

  “But I already know why we’re here, and why we were chosen,” David stated, looking at the Kerchief, and then turning his head to look at the old woman. “My Lord already gave me the powers also!”

  The old woman gave David a look of evil, demanding, “David, I said touch it. Now!” So David complied with her wishes, and touched the Kerchief with the ice-like rain still knocking against the roof. The cloth gave out an even brighter light than Michael’s, and he took his hand away from it immediately.

  “Alright, Jeremy, your turn,” the old woman instructed, having Gabriel, Michael and David feeling strange, like the garment gave them some sort of power that they didn’t know would come to them. Even David felt something he couldn’t explain, knowing now that he might be equaled to Michael and Gabriel when it came to powers and the mission at hand.

  “Does this mean that Michael and I have the same powers as David?” Gabriel questioned with a face of intrigue.

  “No, not until your memory has returned, that’s when your powers will come. But you will have the power to read and understand Hebrew. You see, the reason why David has regained his full powers is because Jesus touched him and gave them to him himself,” the old woman explained.

  The girls watched Jeremy, seeing that he slowly put his hand out toward the image. He heard the wind beginning to grow even stronger as the rain, mixed with hard ice, fell harder against the house. Before Jeremy could touch it, Jesus’s eyes miraculously closed shut on the cloth, causing the girls to scream with abrupt fear. He pulled his hand away at once, hearing the old woman say, “Jeremy, you have to leave for awhile, just until I call you back in.”

  “That’s impossible, did you see that? His eyes just closed!” Sam shouted in amazement. She watched Jesus’s eyelids open again and reveal his blue eyes once more. They all then looked at Jeremy and he stuck his hand out again, seeing the eyes of Jesus close once more, allowing his own eyes to close in disappointment, wanting not to be the one who has to wait for the memory of who he really is. He pulled his hand away a
nd watched Christ’s eyes open a second time.

  “What does this mean? Why can’t I hear the message that will regain some kind of memory for me also? I don’t understand this,” Jeremy spoke in a frantic tone. He felt like an outcast, out of place; he thought it was unfair for them to retrieve the memory, and for him to wait.

  “Jeremy, you have to understand the Testament, that is the Unbounded Testament, goes in a sort of order. Whatever you do, you do because the Testament is going to be written like that. At this very second, the Unbounded Testament has been written to say that you have to leave now. You will understand as soon as your memory comes back to you. It is sort of like a book, you can’t start reading from the middle and go to the end, and at the end go to the beginning. You have to start reading a book from the beginning to the end,” the woman explained. Jeremy shrugged his shoulders and walked toward the door, hearing her add, “Just like with the eight signs, you have to do them in order!”

  “What Testament? I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” Jeremy yelled out. “I don’t understand any of this! We were supposed to come here to be healed, that’s what Jesus told us. I mean, you talk to us about eight signs, and then you told us about Judgment Day. Listen, for right now, the only thing that I think I understand is that this has something to do with Judgment Day, or some sort of Wrath,” Jeremy yelled before he opened the door to her house.

  “Jeremy, everything that happens, happens for a cause. You’re correct about you all being here for Judgment Day, or else a Judgment Day, that is what I was allowed to tell you, but I can’t tell you anymore,” the old woman tried to explain before Jeremy walked outside in the freezing rain. The harsh wind and icy hail blew his body to the ground.

  Meanwhile, the old woman told the girls not to look at the image on the cloth while they all gathered around at the table more closely. “Gabriel, Michael and David, look at his blue eyes and concentrate,” the old woman spoke. The boys’ eyes stared at Christ’s eyes while Mary and Sam looked the other way. Suddenly the eyes began glowing from the Kerchief and made a bright light throughout the room, shooting its heat in every direction, the rays frolicking throughout the room like fireballs. The girls wanted so badly to turn and look at what the boys were seeing, but the light made them fear what would happen to them if they did look.

  “Now, remember the promise,” the old woman said. Her words echoed in their minds and eyes, when suddenly the boys saw six child angels dancing around in a circle, seeing that the ground below their feet turned to clouds of white.

  Meanwhile, Jeremy sat outside, huddled under a small roof that hung over the old woman’s doorway. He was cold, noticing the weather was freezing even more, but somehow was livable, even without the sun’s body visible. “I guess the sun is still there, just hiding, or else we would all be dead from the cold,” he laughed out in a crazy manner. “What are you trying to do, God, scare us? Well it’s not working!” he shouted toward the dark heavens, feeling the air was warming up a bit and the hail turn to cold rain. “Well thank you for that, I didn’t know how we were able to finish your secretive mission with hail falling on my ass,” Jeremy laughed out, this time yelling at the heavens like an insane Neanderthal. But then his laughter died quickly as he noticed light shining through the window of the old woman’s home. He fought with the wind to get up from the ground and get a closer view. As soon as he walked up to the window, his sanity returned, and he questioned in a low tone, “What the hell is happening in there?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Gabriel, David, Michael and the girls exited the old woman’s home to what seemed like morning to them, but no one could tell if it was, since the sun didn’t show. The rain stopped, and the air was warm, even with the sun no longer showing its wonder through its glow, or the moon hiding its mystery through its silver sheen. The only thing that gave light to their eyes was the glow from the city, as well as lanterns that hung in front of houses. They walked out into the black morning and saw Jeremy crunched up in a corner by the house, sleeping like a little child. So they all sat down by him as Michael said out loud, “I had no idea I was this, no idea at all.” They felt heat in the air even more; a kind of heat that could only be brought on by the sun, and the confusion grew as to where the warmth was advancing and growing from. There were no stars or moon, just black that covered the heavens.

  “Me neither,” said Gabriel with a smile.

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” asked Mary. The two girls looked at them in great perplexity, since they weren’t able to stare at the Kerchief when the boys received their mysterious memory.

  “You were sleeping through it all Mary: you and Sam weren’t supposed to see anything, just yet,” Gabriel replied, seeing Jeremy slowly move his cold body, stretching, his eyes open, trying to wake up after a deep sleep.

  They shook Jeremy and he opened his eyes wide to the sight of five people sitting in front of him. He also felt the sun’s heat coming down on him through the wind, but there was no sun in his sight. “What happened in there?” Jeremy questioned before he got up from the cold, wet ground.

  “Come on, Jeremy, we have to go see Luke now,” Michael noted.

  “Well, why can’t we get a quick bite to eat first? I’m starving.” After Jeremy’s words, they agreed and started walking against the hard winds. “Besides, we have until December tenth, that’s when he told us to go see him,” he added, looking around the dark town in search of some kind of a restaurant.

  “Jeremy, it is December tenth,” shouted David, trying to be heard through the great winds that suddenly blew Jeremy’s head toward the old woman’s house. He looked at it in amazement, not conceiving that he had been asleep that long. David then continued, “Jeremy, we have to call out to Luke now!”

  “Wait just a darn second: yesterday it was the third of November! How could it be December tenth now?” Jeremy demanded with confusion and anger in his tone. He walked toward the old woman’s door, waiting for an answer to his question.

  “Well, let’s just say the Lord works in mysterious ways,” replied Michael. Jeremy motioned his left hand slowly toward the silver doorknob and began turning it, opening it up and seeing the old woman sitting at the table in the dark room. The only light that shined her reflection was the light from the Kerchief that was placed on the table. He walked up to her slowly just as Sam and Mary entered behind him. Michael entered also and said, “She told us all, why we’re here and why we were chosen. Jeremy, today you will find out the same….” Michael then walked up to Jeremy, changed his character to that of evil, and shouted with a sinister tone to his voice, “Now, come on, we have to get going. Your slow ass is going to make us late, you always did that to us in the past!”

  Jeremy turned around to face Michael, not knowing why he yelled that out, and asked, “Why are you yelling at me?”

  Michael turned toward the Kerchief and slowly picked up its bright image from off the table. He brought it over to Jeremy quickly. “Because I know who I am, but my memory hasn’t come to me all the way. You see, it’s sort of like a coma patient, Jeremy, who wakes up and doesn’t remember anything, but slowly as the days progress, their memory comes to them. All of us came out of the coma, Jeremy, all of us are on our way to fully remembering our past life, but you’re still in the coma. This cloth that you see before you allowed me to come out from the dark sleep that blinded my eyes. It allowed me to regain a small part of the powers I once had, and on the final day, the day of December twenty-fifth, that will be the day that we all regain our full memory and powers!”

  “I don’t understand. If you, David and Gabriel came out of this so-called ‘coma’, then why aren’t I out of it?” he begged in bewilderment, gaping at the glowing Kerchief and squinting at it. “Also, you yelled at me just because you remember who you are? Are you trying to tell me that you yelled at me in this past life that you are beginning to remember?” he begged as well, holding even more confusion in his words, seeing that Davi
d and Gabriel entered the house and stared at him and only him.

  “Don’t answer him, it isn’t our place to answer such a question, that’s not how the Testament wants it,” David explained in an angry tone toward Michael. “You, Michael, you have no right to yell at Jeremy like you did. Just because you’ve seen a picture of what you once were, doesn’t mean you have the right to act like that person. Just because you and Gabriel regained a small part of your powers you once had, the powers to read Hebrew, and the memory of why you’re here, doesn’t give you, or even me, the right to act out our past life. The day we all regain our full memory is the day we’re allowed to act like we once did. But, for the time being, we all act the way God intended us to act on this earth; like the human names we were given. Do you understand, Michael?” he shouted with anger as Sam grabbed the glowing Kerchief away from Michael’s hands.

  “Yes, David, I do understand.” Michael slowly returned to his own self and looked at Jeremy in sympathy.

  Meanwhile, Mary took out the cross from her pocket and walked up to Sam with it, saying, “I guess we should both touch it again.”

  Sam handed the glowing Kerchief to Gabriel and then looked at Mary, answering with great nervousness, “Yeah, I guess we should.” Sam’s nervous and shaking hands went upon the cross and touched it, having Mary’s grip on its body as well. A sudden light shot out from its body, allowing a straight, glowing line to go straight toward the Kerchief. Mary, Sam and Jeremy looked in puzzlement as the Kerchief began floating away from Gabriel’s hands, levitating in the dark air like a feather.

  Jeremy turned away from the floating Kerchief and looked toward the old woman. He placed his hand on the old woman’s hand and asked, “Please, could you tell me what’s going on? Could you tell me who I am?” Suddenly the old woman’s wrinkles went away, vanishing in the dark air that had a small chill to its invisible breath, and his eyes, as well as the rest, saw wings forming on her back. She started to get up from her seat and Jeremy watched in amazement how the old woman’s wrinkles completely vanished from her face and hands, turning her to a youth. Jeremy demanded again, without allowing this bizarre occurrence to jeopardize his quest: “Who am I?”