The Ghosts of Ugarit

I turned away from the coast with a hollow feeling in my stomach. I could not walk fast enough to escape the troubling thoughts tugging at my soul. Why I didn't accompany my fellow travelers on their journey across the Mediterranean, I cannot say. But the notion that I acted cowardly haunts me.

When word reached me soon after I left them that a storm had capsized the boat they'd boarded, I was overcome with foreboding. As I turned and headed back toward the water, I sensed a stirring in the ground beneath my feet. Confused and disorientated, I witnessed a horde of ethereal spirits rise up from the stone ruins where a once vibrant city had stood. To the shoreline these phantasms headed, where after gathering at the water's edge, they adopted the form of a swirling mist and swept out over the sea.

"They go to collect your dead."
Anger shot through me at the sound of the old woman's voice, for her words were heavy with reproach, as though she spoke as a messenger of Iblis.
"If Jesus hadn't left them, they'd be alive."
Before I could turn and refute her ignorance, the old woman—black robe swirling about her hunched frame—was a score of meters away.
"What nonsense do you cast?" I muttered to myself as I watched her disappear from view. "What could Jesus have done if he were here?"

But the thought had been planted. And I dwelled upon the notion that Jesus was to blame for the storm and all that would transpire afterward as I waited for word of survivors. Hours later, I knew there were none. The incoming tide washed the bodies of the hundreds that had drowned upon the beach. As I pulled my hair and sobbed at the sight of so many dead, I watched the mist roll back in from the sea and gather upon the land. The ghosts of Ugarit had returned. To my great sorrow, as I beheld the ethereal beings seep back into the ruins from which they came, I recognized the faces of my twelve companions amongst them. With the burden of guilt weighing heavy on my shoulders, I turned and fled.

Sometime near nightfall I found myself at the mouth of a lush valley carved between two mountains. The sound of a violent storm rumbled at my back. A sudden gust of wind brought black clouds rushing past me high above my head. Lightening shot down from these clouds and set fire to the valley. Stricken with fear, I sought refuge under an outcrop of stone. Huddling in the dark with the storm raging all around me, I thought the world was coming to an end.

I awoke the next morning to the sound of a braying ass and the sight of a score of travelers passing by me. Some carried bundles and baskets of what I guessed were their possessions, others held nothing but the hand of those they walked beside. A man at the end of the group clutched the tether of a donkey. Upon the animal's back sat a woman heavy with child.

"Where are you going?" I called out to the man.
"To the coast," he replied. "To Ugarit, to find passage to a new life."
Stunned by his statement, I stood and gestured for him to stop.
"No!" I shouted. "You mustn't go! The ghosts of the dead inhabit that place!"
"We go to find a better life," he responded with little hesitation. "A man named Jesus told us there are men there that will ferry us across the sea."
"No!" I yelled in disbelief. "He sends you to your deaths! The sea will swallow you!"
The man stopped and looked at me as though I were a fool.
"There is little choice for us," he said. And then he looked back towards the mountains and pointed to the sky. "War has leveled my village, killed my kin, destroyed what food we had, and fouled our water." Following his gaze, I saw plumes of swirling smoke and clouds of black ash rising above the mountains. "Ahead, there is hope," he told me. "Behind us, nothing."
Before I could reply, he moved on.
"Damn you, Jesus," I cursed under my breath.
And without a second thought, I went to find him, to tell him what misery he'd caused.

The sun was low in the sky by the time I found Jesus. He was several meters off a well-traveled road kneeling next to a child who looked to be near death.
"What happened?" I asked as I approached.
Jesus's face was haggard, his eyes puffy and red when he replied, "A land mine has taken both her legs. I . . . " He hung his head and brought the child's hand to his lips. "She will be gone by day's end."
I looked toward the sun and then looked at Jesus.
"She has little time then," I told him.
Jesus kissed the girl's hand and then placed it to his heart.
"Blessed are the innocent," he said.
Death came for the girl in the form of a subtle tremble; her eyes opened wide, her body went still, her skin turned the color of a pale moon. I couldn't help but glance behind me to see what ghosts might be coming for her spirit just as Jesus placed his palm over her eyes and gently closed them.
"Will you help me?" I heard him ask.
"Help you do what?" I sharply replied. "Bury another dead body?" Jesus seemed stung by my tone, but said nothing. "That's all I have done since I met you."
Jesus nodded his head and then began digging in the soil with his bare hands.
"Did you know the twelve we helped are dead? Do you know they drowned?"
I heard Jesus whimper but I ignored it.
"And now you send a man and his pregnant wife to meet the same fate?" Incredulous, I asked, "Why do I listen to you? Why do I follow you? You bring nothing but misery!"
I stood there shaking with anger as I waited for Jesus to answer. But it was as though he hadn't heard a word I said. He just kept digging. Frustrated by his silence, I turned my back to him and walked away.

As my anger waned, I felt the chill of the night air upon my skin. Obstinate, I would not look toward Jesus as I gathered wood and built a small fire. Certain he would come to warm himself when he was done burying the girl, I lied down and went to sleep with my back to the flames. I awakened the next morning to the cry of a hawk circling high above me in a sky so blue I blinked several times to make certain that what I was seeing was real. Regretting my thoughtlessness toward Jesus, I rolled over to offer my apology. But Jesus was not where I expected to find him. Alarmed, I rose and walked to where he'd been digging. The grave was finished; mounded and layered with stones so the scavengers could not get at the body. But Jesus was gone. I was alone.