FICTION
Just Short of the Mountain
I think I got it done. I’ve researched for years; I’ve read every book on the subject. I must admit that, in my desperation, I also sought some less reputable sources. There are rumors on the dark web about the men-in-black type G-men looking into a guy who actually managed to do it down in Texas. I don’t know if it’s true, but I hope it is. Did you know that the phone was invented three times, by three different people, in the span of thirty years? When inventions and discoveries happen, they tend to happen in waves. Several people doing the same thing at roughly the same time. If that guy in Texas did it, if he actually exists, then maybe I’m not crazy. Maybe this is actually going to work.
My reasons for pursuing time travel are not grandiose. I’m not trying to go back and kill baby Hitler, or fix all my life’s mistakes, or get the Powerball numbers and become a millionaire. I don’t want to change anything. I just want to bear witness. No, that’s not quite right. I need validation.
I’ve prepared. I made clothes common to the first century AD, grew my hair and beard out—I even tried to learn Aramaic. I knew a little, from my studies as a young Jewish boy, but it confused me. I was, however, fluent in Hebrew and hoped that would help me. I doubted I would need to say much, I just wanted to see Him. I wanted to validate my faith. I wanted to validate the choice that resulted in my family disowning me. I wanted to know that my pain was not for nought.
I just needed to see Him.
I strapped the bulky arms of my machine around my waist, then pulled the straps for the backpack-mounted power source over my shoulders and clasped those to the metallic belt I now wore. I thanked God for the loose flowing clothing common to the time. I may look like a hunchback, which was less than ideal in a time when people were ostracized for less, but it would hide my machine.
Finally, I attached the tracking, fine tuning, and return controls to the wrist of the long sleeve undershirt I wore. I had cut off the left sleeve to keep it from peeking out from my tunic, but I needed something to keep the controls close to my right hand. If I needed to leave in a hurry, I didn’t want to get stuck rummaging in my tunic. All this done, I slipped the tunic over my head, cinched the waist with a leather cord, and snuck into the backyard of the hotel where I was staying.
They say the mark of good technology is how intuitive its use is. If that’s true, I must say I’m quite proud of my machine. Marking the time was not difficult. I didn’t need to calculate the location of the Earth as it jetted through the cosmos. The machine would pull me back through the course of history, tracking the spot where I stood.
My hotel was a hop and a skip away from the Mount of Beatitudes. If all worked well, I could travel back, find the caravan going up to the mount to hear Him, and just see Him. Just see Him and know I would be okay. Know it was worth it.
I clicked the button hidden under the waist of my tunic.
There was nothing. I was nothing, and yet, I was dying. There was no space! How could I—something—fit in nothing?! I was crushed, I was dust, I was dead, I was …
I gasped for air and fell into the dirt. A man in a dark tunic with a long white beard tripped over my arm and almost fell. He looked back at me and uttered something I did not understand.
I stood slowly, noticing a pain throughout my entire body. My legs were wet noodles. The world seemed to shift under my sandals. I fell to the ground and realized, as icy needles of terror arched up and down my back, that I could not walk. I took slow inhalations through my nose and let the air out through pursed lips. I had done minor test jumps, but I only had enough power for one major jump and return. I had been shaky during those minor jumps, but it passed in a matter of a few minutes. I expected stronger side effects from a major jump, but this was far worse than I had imagined. This felt permanent.
I awoke, lips cracked, my face burning, propped up on the wall of a building. My mouth tasted like dirt, and my tongue clicked as I tried to will it to produce saliva. I tried to stand by pushing myself up the wall, but my arms felt miles away. I looked around, and the world teetered like a boat on choppy seas. I wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to produce. I tried to look up at the people, to plead to them with my eyes, but all I saw were feet. Person after person walking by, not a single one caring to help.
A ring of shadow encroached my vision and began to constrict my field of view. As darkness spread in, I croaked out the only word that seemed to matter. The Word I would never see.
“Yeshw …”
It was nighttime. The wind blew cold and strong, whipping my hair around my face. My knees bobbed as I struggled to maintain myself upright on the storm-whipped boat. I looked up and lightning flashed inside a massive menacing cloud. A childish section of my mind pointed out that it had looked like the x-ray of the cloud. Thunder boomed again, and rain began to pour down. I looked up to catch the rain, to relieve my thirst, and good Lord was I thirsty. Why was I so thirsty? I opened my mouth and water poured in, but it was too much, way too much. I was drowning. I was drowning! I was …
I woke up with a cough and a wretch. Atop my horror, I felt a wave of relief as I noticed my mouth was wet! I tried to drink more and only managed to cough again.
“Maya, maya,” a soft voice told me.
Maya? Water? I think that meant water …
The hand belonging to the voice took some of the water and cleaned up my face. The cool water felt nice on my sunburned skin. I opened my eyes, my head pounding, and saw a young man. He wore a shabby tunic, and there was sand in his wavy black hair. He sat next to me and propped me up.
He began speaking in Aramaic, so I only caught some of what he said. I understood it as something along the lines of “Healthy? Are you well?”
“Twr y’t,” I mumbled. I wanted to tell him I needed to go to the sermon on the mountain, but the best I could come up with was “mountain counsel.”
The man looked perplexed, and a tinge of frustration entered my thoughts. Imagine that: being frustrated with the man who had just saved my life.
“Yeshw,” I tried to clarify, “N b Yeshw.” It was supposed to be, “I’m looking for Jesus,” but I feared it may have come off as, “I demand Jesus.”
“Yeshu Natzara?” the man asked.
“Yes!” I shouted, or at least came to as close of a shout as I could muster. “Yn! Yn!”
The man said something and pointed towards the mountains. I didn’t catch exactly what he said, but part of it was almost surely, “shlm,” which I thought meant finished.
The Sermon of the Mount was over. I had missed my opportunity, and more, I was not well and stranded in a different nation and different time. I couldn’t travel back. It had almost killed me to get here. Going back would almost surely be suicide. The hopeless dread of the situation sank into me, and my eyes burned as they tried to produce tears.
“It’s time to go back, son,” the man said.
I looked up, still dazed but now further confused. I had understood that perfectly. Maybe he had switched over to Hebrew.
“Why are you here?” he inquired, and I understood why I could understand him.
He was speaking perfect English.
Now, through screamingly irate tear ducts, the tears flowed.
“I came to look for you. I had to see you. I had to know that you were real! I had to know that losing everyone was worth it.”
“You have seen and now believe, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
“I do believe, I do. It’s just, they all left. As soon as I began saying I thought you were the one sent for us, they began to turn their back on me.” I sobbed and felt pathetic.
“You’re not pathetic,” He said to me, pulling the concern and pain out of my mind, “but you do need to go home. This isn’t your time, son. I have you when I do for a reason. Do you not remember what was said to Esther? You were born for such a time as your own. Not this time.”
“But my Lord, you don’t understand. My father abandoned me. Turned his back on me!” I cried.
“You know that I will see the moment when that happens to me too, even if just for a moment. That moment that is still to come in this when, will guarantee that the True Father never turns his back on you. I will take your shame, your faults, your bitterness, all of it, and wear it on that day.”
“But it hurts, Lord. It hurts so much and I’m tired.”
“Come to me, you who are weary and heavily burdened and rest.” Yeshua smiled and warmth flooded me. “Seek me, in your own time. I’m still there. As for the trouble, consider it a joy whenever you fall into trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith produces endurance, leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace.” His finger tapped my chest in rhythm with the words “inner peace.”
I smiled weakly as yet another tear rolled down my cheek. “James said that.”
“No, son. James WILL say that.” He chuckled, and it was so human, so normal and yet the most amazing sight. “Go back, son. I’ll see you at home.”
I woke up on my bed. The pain was gone, the disorientation gone, I felt refreshed. It could have all been a dream, a fantasy, and then I saw it.
The machine was on the floor of my hotel bedroom.
It was destroyed.
The internal components were a melted heap. I opened my phone and checked my encrypted drive.
Nothing.
All the files, schematics, all of it was gone. I should have panicked, flown into a rage, or burst with frustration. Instead, I chuckled. My machine was never going to help me find Him or get to know Him. He would, because He wanted to, because He cared. I would seek Him, not with machines, but with the map He had left: His Word. And best of all, I would find Him, because He was waiting.
Ryan Gutierrez is a 33-year-old literature teacher, associate pastor, husband, and father. He lives in Texas with his wife, two daughters, and their five cats. Ryan has been writing for most of his life, and self-published a novel entitled Scars in Time in 2019.
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Photo Credit: “my vision is fading” by sciencesque, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed, via Flickr.com.
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