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Some people believe there is a special kind of hell for traitors. However, before then, there was an in-between period. For about three days, the heavens and hells were still under construction, being finalized so mankind could truly be saved. An in-between where there was everything and nothing. It was a garden and a void. Plants and flowers grew, but no blue skies greeted them. A world of contradictions that was so close to being just right. It just needed one final push.
Judas was stuck in that strange land for days. Near him were wilted red poppies and purple hyacinths and black dahlias. Days passed like mere minutes as he remained crouched at a brook, washing his hands. They were stained silver, a color that matched his clothes. A color that matched the coins he’d thrown at the Pharisees. A color that mocked him. No matter how hard he scrubbed, how much water he used, it never went away.
Maybe Judas has plenty of time to reflect on his actions. To feel sorry. He did. He wanted to remove all trace of it. But the silver just spread through the water like a disease, his hands likely unable to ever be washed clean. All it did was make the water impure. His main thoughts were: I am sick. I am unclean. I have sinned. I’ve been used. I’m a puppet.
The flowers slowly started to regain their color and their petals unfurled, as if given a second life. There was a glow that radiated off of them, as if each one were crowned with a delicate halo of light. They had previously looked down into the water, but now they faced something else.
In the murky, silver brook, Judas could see the shadow, the glow, really, of someone else behind him. For the first time in days, he ceased his scrubbing, letting his hands rest in the water. He didn’t need to look behind him. He knew who was there. Clipped, he said his name, “Jesus.”
Jesus’s reflection in the water tainted the silver with his holy gold. Mixing metals. His reflection looked different than how he physically was. In the stream he was pure, untouched, clothed in white and holy and beautiful. When Judas looked upon him, he was frail and bloodied. His lip was split. His head crowned with thorns. His clothes torn and stained with dirt and blood and golden glitter. “Judas,” he smiled.
Judas stayed crouched down, staring up at him, drinking in the sight, shocked. “You… you’re… oh, God-”
Jesus knelt down to meet Judas at his level. He said, “I Am.”
He shook his head, “What happened to…”
He reached a hand out to touch Jesus’s face, to see if he was real, but he stopped himself. His hand curled in on itself. Jesus gently took it. It was cold and pruny, and Jesus’s hand was rough and bloodied. There were two large holes in his palms. He pressed Judas’s hand against his face. “I’m real, Judas.”
Judas was starting to hyperventilate. Jesus’s presence had caused him to actually consider his surroundings, and he looked around him. The lack of sky. Patches of grass scattered about. Red poppies. Black dahlias. Purple hyacinths. The brook was flowing in opposite directions, spiraling, creating a vortex tainted with silver. Spiraling.
Oh, God, that silver was touching the son of God. Judas drew his hand away, slowly standing, “Where is…”
“We’re both dead, Judas.” Now it was Jesus looking up at him.
“This is Hell?”
“If you believe it to be, it is. Do you think you belong there?”
“Yes, the deepest depths of it,” he took a breath. “I don’t know why you’ve come to see me, but you need to leave.”
Jesus smiled, “I missed you. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.”
Judas scowled, “Then why waste your time? Go. Leave me to my misery.”
“I have all the time in the world. Three days and forty and then eternity.”
“What are you?” Judas asked what he had been wondering for so long. “God? A man? A king? A mirage?”
“What do you think?”
“I have no right to an opinion. I ask you.”
Now Jesus stood, “Why do you think so low of yourself?”
“Look at your hands and there the answer is. Look at mine and there it is. You think yourself God, and if you’re omnipotent, you already know.”
Jesus did look at his hands. Considered them. Slowly, he took Judas’s hands in his own, Judas didn’t protest as he held them. Silver and gold. Mixing metals. He smiled, “Look at that. We match.”
Judas then ripped his hands away, “You knew the whole time, didn’t you? Before that supper. Before we met. Before any of it. Every feeling I felt about you, every look we shared, every conversation we shared, you knew. I didn’t know until it happened, until the silver was in my hands, and I realized what I had done. And you knew. So why do you smile at me?”
Jesus had this blank look in his eyes. It soon softened into something Judas had seen before. And Judas began to see that, oh, he was beautiful. His hair was greasy and there was a gash in his side that still oozed blood and his clothes were filthy and his nose was broken, but that look in his eyes, it was something no other man could replicate. “I love you, Judas.”
His breath hitched in his throat, “Did the lamb love the wolf that killed him?”
“I love you, Judas.”
“Did Abel love Cain after his head had been bashed in with a rock?”
“I love you.”
Judas yelled, “Did John love Herod after his head was served upon a golden platter?!”
“Judas.”
“Did… you… Do you-”
Jesus silenced him with a kiss. Short, yet powerful. Judas kept his eyes open the entire time. Wide. Because of that split lip, he could taste the blood of the divine. Coppery. When Jesus broke away he was smiling, “I love you.”
So many conflicting thoughts ran through Judas’s mind. “As God or as a man.”
“Can it not be both?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think you killed me?”
“I know I did.”
“You saved everyone, Judas.”
“They hate me. I killed you.”
“Mankind killed me.”
“I could’ve stopped it.”
“I love you.”
This back and forth was getting on Judas’s last nerve, “Stop saying that! You think it still means something. Maybe it did, once. When I thought you were just a man, it could’ve meant something. You keep talking like you’re something divine.”
“Am I?” Jesus asked.
“I don’t know anymore. You’ve only answered my questions with more questions. I hate it. I hate you.”
For a moment, Jesus’s aura of perfection seemed to falter. With a bitterness not normally found in him, he said, “Maybe I don’t know the meaning of any of this either. My death’s supposed to have saved the world, everyone, but I don’t know if it worked. I’ve had three days in this… wherever we may be, and do you know how I’ve spent them?”
Judas smiled, a sick sense of satisfaction, “There you are. That Jesus I knew at our final supper. How?”
“A day of reflection. Of sitting there and wondering if the pain I felt was worth it. The second day, I tried to find my Father, to ask him all the questions he never answered. Nothing. This ineffable, perfect plan, and I still don't know a thing except that it's done. And on the third day, here I am. I come to you. I couldn’t find Heaven, but I found you. And you tell me you hate me. Do you hate me, Judas, or do you hate yourself?!” Ah. There were tears in Jesus’s eyes.
With his sinful hands, Judas wiped away Jesus’s tears. He cupped Jesus’s face in his hands. “Why do you waste your time here?”
Once again, he smiled, holy tears like a waterfall, “I forgive you. That’s what I want you to know. It wasn’t your fault all of this was written in the stars long before any of us knew. Since Eden, this was meant to happen. I didn’t want it to happen like this. I didn’t want to see you hurt.”
As he wiped away his tears, the silver began to clear from his thumb. “I wish you were more selfish.”
“My being here is an act of selfishness. You want more?”
Judas responded with a nod, and Jesus obliged, pulling him in for another kiss. A proper one, this time. Right there, in that void-like field, Jesus proved that maybe he was the same man Judas had come to love so passionately. With his arms wrapped around him, Jesus proved that he was more than a divine, holy being. He could die, he could bleed, he could hurt, he could love, he could feel. Judas could feel it all in that simple kiss. In that instant. He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy it. No one waited in shadow to pounce on them. No threat. They were already dead. I was over
And after, Judas admitted, “I could never stop thinking about you. Ever. Even when I was dying, it was that thought of you, bloodied and beaten, that ran through my mind. And even here I… all of this silver is what makes me impure. That blood money. And you are pure. And I’m-”
Jesus, without question, sat down by the brook and gestured for Judas to join him. “Here. Let me help you wash your hands.”
Judas hesitated a moment before he obliged, sitting with him, and giving up his hands. Jesus took just one, dipped it in the water and he ran over it with his fingers. Gentle. Soft. Massaging. Judas had been frantically scrubbing for so long, but Jesus treating his hand so kindly seemed to do just the trick. That silver blight bled off, leaving it, for the first time, in a long time-
“It’s clean,” said Judas, looking at it forward and back.
Jesus nodded, “You were being too rough. You need to treat yourself more delicately.”
The silver came off his other hand just as easily with Jesus’s touch. Judas said, “It’s because you’re here. Because you washed it off.”
Jesus shook his head, “No. It’s because you’ve begun to forgive yourself.”
He was still admiring his cleansed hands, but he responded, “I don’t know if I ever can.”
“You can start.”
Judas didn’t speak. He looked to Jesus for just a moment before pulling him into a tight embrace. It was now his turn to shed tears. He held Jesus close, as if he could lose him any moment. He would have to leave soon, Judas knew that. But still, they could enjoy one more second.
“Please don’t leave me,” whispered Judas.
“I have to. I’m so sorry.”
And in a world devoid of sky, the Son was just beginning to rise. And the flowers bowed their heads in reverence. And Judas was left alone.