Thinking

By: L Jones

John slumps down on the bleacher. Still wet from his shower, he has only the white rental bath towel to cover his naked body. “Thank you.” he whispers in the phone as he drops it to the floor. He puts his head in his hands and sobs lightly. “She was too young” he moans to himself, trying to come to grips with the news. After a few moments, he lets out a loud sigh, wipes his face and looks to retrieve his phone.  

“What’s this?” John considers. He scans the aisles of the quiet locker room and sees no one. He turns back to the tiny object lying on the floor in front of the locker next to his phone. Readjusting his towel, John reaches down to secure the lost item. He bends down to examine it closely. He murmurs obscenities as his knees pop. It’s some sort of locket. The weight of the object does not correspond with its size or shape. It’s quite heavy. Tiny illuminated jewels line the outside of the small silver-faced trinket.  John turns the locket over to examine its back. He notices some characters etched on its smooth reflective surface. John rubs his eyes. “It looks like a G”, he reasons with himself. He moves the object away from his face and refocuses. “G-3-2-2. What does that mean?”

   “If I tell you, you’re gonna have to die.”

John leaps up, grabs his towel and drops the pendant, all in one awkward motion.

   “Be careful son. That there is priceless.”

John’s eyes attempt to escape the confines of their sockets. His breaths are short, nearly hyper-ventilating. Slowly, John cranks his neck until he faces the uninvited stranger. His icy blue pupils meet John’s bulging orbs. John’s neck twitches. He attempts to gather his composure. Through clattering teeth, he manages, “What?” A look of inquisitiveness shadows John’s face as fear freezes him. The stranger continues to eye him coldly. The room contracts on them. John begins recalling happier days in his life. These thoughts comfort him as he awaits his fate.

The stranger smiles. “My daddy used to say that, you know. He’d always say ‘if I tell ya, I’m gonna have to kill ya’.” The stranger holds his stomach with one hand and slaps his knee with the other. He laughs an awful laugh.

Freshly thawed, but still feeling the effects of fear, John musters up enough gall to ask the next sequence of logical questions. “Is it yours?” and “What is it, a locket or something?”

The stranger’s laughing stops abruptly. With one finger over his mouth he reaches down and retrieves the small treasure. He moves his face directly in front of John’s, while curling up his lips and makeng a loud shhhing sound. Small speckles of saliva sprinkle John’s startled face. The stranger takes the locket and places it back in John’s hand. “Don’t you go askin’ questions about things you know nothin’ about.”  He slowly backs away from John, never releasing his stare. “What you have there is a secret. A damn mystery solved if you ask me.” The stranger monitors John face for a reaction. “There are only a few true secrets” the stranger continues “and this is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t type secrets, if you know what I mean.” John did not, but his curiosity was peaked. He tears his eyes away from the stranger’s mesmerizing stare and once again examines the trinket. He notices a small clasp.

“I wouldn’t open that if I were you”.

   “Why not?” John replied.

“Because then, it wouldn’t be a secret, now would it?”

John straightens his posture. “Who are you and how do you know about this locket?” His fears flee as curiosity fuels his new found courage.

“Some call me Cherub and I am what you might call a historian. My particular area of interest is biblical artifacts.”

   “Biblical artifacts?” John reiterated. “This is a biblical artifact?”

“Yup. That little trinket holds the secret to what most men seek.”

John sits back down on the wooden bleacher. “What do most men seek? Power? Fame? Money?” John responded like a school kid trying to guess the right answers to a pop quiz he never studied for.  

“No. Those are illusions; distractions to control man’s fate. These distractions keep man from truly understanding reality.” The stranger pauses, making sure he has John’s attention. “This here little trinket exposes a secret that has been kept since the days of Adam and Eve. What is it that Adam and Eve lost and man has been seeking ever since?”

John looks at him with disbelief. “Immortality.”

“That’s right. This little locket has the answer to the secret of life eternal.” The stranger says slyly. “You will be as God, existing outside the confines of time.”

John’s mind suddenly flashes back to the phone conversation he had just moments ago. The news of his mother’s untimely death looms in his thoughts. If he knew the secret of life, could he bring his mother back? Will this knowledge only work on the living? He had to know. He had to know the secret of life. John looks at the clasp on the trinket, then at the stranger. The stranger shakes his head back and forth, but John fingers were already feeling for the clasp. He opens the locket and all that was not known became clear. Flames in the form of a sword appeared and the stranger transformed into winged majestic creature. The fiery sword flung through the air like a boomerang and sliced John’s body in two, killing him instantly.

“The inscription G-3-2-2 is a warning John. This secret will remain a secret. No living soul will know this secret and remain living. Genesis 3:22 has empowered me with the authority to use any means to keep this secret from man.