Transcripts

Episode 4: Lay Down Your Lives

When I got back to the city, people were throwing themselves into the sea.

I heard about it on the radio in Jacob's old car. The reporter was young, confused, clearly not a professional; most of the professionals had fled to higher ground. Her voice broke as she described the situation and begged them to stop, begged them to understand that no amount of sacrifice would appease the sea; and I knew immediately that she was speaking to someone she loved, someone she desperately hoped she could reach.

An act of faith - perhaps foolish, perhaps hopeless, but so human that for a moment, I felt her agony as if it were my own.

I wanted to help her... but who was I to take such a task upon myself? I couldn't even solve my own problems.

But I realized something, then: I still thought life was precious. The universe we lived in terrified me, the society we'd built repulsed me, and I could no longer see the border between faith and delusion - but the idea of throwing it all away was unbearable. That was why I found death so frightening, an end to my existence so impossible to accept: because to live, even like this, was the very best thing, the most valuable thing I could conceive of.

And if there was something hollow about my desire to help? If I felt more fear than conviction, if I lacked the fire that I used to have when I believed that God was on my side? If I could never stop feeling like an observer, like even my own life happened at a distance, and I was never truly invested in anything?

Well... what difference did it make? Someone had to try, and it might as well be me. So I went looking for the people who thought that they deserved to die.

Hundreds of them had gathered at the university. Half the campus was already underwater, and massive waves crashed against the main building, shattering windows and flooding the halls. On the roof, young people dressed in bright garments were dancing in a haze.

I thought I would find a procession of despairing souls ready to abandon this life; instead, I found a celebration. Here, on this rooftop, there was more colour, more joy, more hope than anywhere else in this sinking world.

They were singing and clapping as they danced, smiling, holding hands. Faith shone bright in their eyes, young and old alike, as they united in this sacred ceremony.

And then, one by one, they stepped off the edge.

If any of them screamed as they fell, the sound was lost under the music and the waves.

I had come here to stop them, but I found myself dazzled by the truth and honesty of their belief. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And here they were, dying so others could live. Giving themselves to the waters so that somewhere, someone else might stay alive. A supreme act of love, bravery, and generosity.

It was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen.

Amidst the dancers stood a man I recognized, and surely this was fate: how else was it possible to explain that after Thomas and Jacob and Bartholomew, I had just run into Simon? He could have been anywhere, but he was here; and he was their leader. Could this really be another coincidence?

I knew that the answer to that question was yes - yes, of course it could be, the world is full of coincidences, and none of them mean anything. But in that moment, I chose to make that coincidence mean something. I acted as if it had meaning, as if God had given me a mission, and suddenly I found the strength to keep going.

Was I lying to myself? A God who only exists in verbal trickery, in embracing hypocrisy and self-delusion, is no God at all. But what about the surge of strength that I felt? If it was real, where did it come from?

Simon remembered me, but he felt like a stranger. The Simon I'd known had been innocent and full of enthusiasm; clumsy, prone to mistakes, but always ready to try anything. More than any of us, he had been driven by the morality of the Gospels, rather than their theology; he believed because he felt.

And now? This Simon was different. The enthusiasm was still there, but underneath there was something harsh and brittle, a deep bitterness not far removed from hate.

He told me he had travelled the world to spread God's word; had given everything he possessed to show people the righteous path. For years he'd wandered, trying to lead by example, trying to make them understand that every human being contained the potential for goodness.

He laughed at his own foolishness. How many years had he wasted, thinking it was possible for humans to renounce sin? For decades he had tried and tried again, but they had always disappointed him. Even when they found God, they clung to their flaws. They repeated their mistakes, and all the horrors of the world continued unabated.

He'd been out there, he said, in one of the war zones, where soldiers who were born long after the war began were sent to fight armed children who had never known peace. He had tried to teach them to be better; to let God into their lives and to accept his mercy. 

But the killing hadn't stopped. Nothing could stop it, he said, because it came from the human heart.

One by one, they kept jumping. An old, trembling man. A young girl holding a book against her chest. A boy no older than ten. A woman in a suit, smiling and crying at once. There was something about all of them, something in their eyes.

It had taken him such a long time to understand, Simon told me. He'd resisted the truth because he thought it would break him. But then, one day, he had found himself in a village high in the mountains. He’d gone there to preach, but all the people were dead. So he walked out into the wilderness, and there, at the edge of the clouds, he had a revelation.

There were never meant to be so many of us, he said. God had only created two, because he had intended for his creation be balanced. But we, in our arrogance, had eaten the forbidden fruit; had tried to understand, to conquer the mysteries that were never meant for us.

We were only a fraction of God's creation, and that is how it was meant to be. The trees and the birds and the fishes in the sea, all these things were as valuable as humankind; more valuable, even, because they were truly innocent. They did not know; they could not know.

A young man hesitated, then threw himself over the edge. An old woman followed him, singing as she fell. I tried to imagine the rich tapestry of details that their lives contained: friends, enemies, lovers, hated relatives, favourite books, moments of weakness, moments of joy... all of them precious, all of them infinitely valuable when measured against the meaningless emptiness of death. 

We had to recognize what we were, Simon told me. We were God's greatest failure. We were born sinners and with our every breath, we destroyed the beauty of Creation. The continents were sinking beneath our weight; the Earth needed to cleanse itself of our stain.

He took me to the edge of the building, to see the people falling. He pointed at the waves. This is our path to redemption, he said. If we can recognize our arrogance, our sinfulness, our inferiority to those creatures that are still pure, then we can save the world through sacrifice.

I looked at the waves. They were grey, dirty, filled with corpses and mud. If this was God's will, then I rejected it. And if it saved a single life, I would reject his entire creation. The trees and the birds and the fishes in the sea were nothing before the beauty of a single human being. Here, now, seeing them die, I understood what I had seen in their eyes: guilt. Guilt at existing. Guilt at being human. And now the force that had woken up within me blazed with fury.

Simon smiled and blessed them as they jumped. He had brought them here, twisted their good intentions to self-destruction, sold them a new version of the oldest lie: everything is your fault, and you should be ashamed.

But I was not ashamed.

So I pushed him.

—

Narrated by Peter Wingfield
Written & Directed by Jonas Kyratzes
Music & Sound by Chris Christodoulou

Jamie-Lyn Markos as a Voice in the Wilderness
David Barnwell as the Voice of the Paradox

Violin - Kalliopi Mitropoulou
Violoncello - Zoé Saubat

Cover art - Daniele Giardini