Judas, alone. He deals cards to himself; arranges them; drags his hand through them and spreads them over the bedspread again.

The last leaf of Judas' Bible reads, in careless script:

Nehorai --

I am among the other people; catch me if you like.

Unsigned and unopened, it lies on the desk in his room.

Midnight: Judas sits up, mouth open, hands at his throat -- a recurring dream, perhaps; moments ago, he was also dreaming adolescence, youth, the sweat and dust of being a little more than eleven years old, although months are counted carefully at that age.

As his eyes adjust to the dark, he begins to wake up.

Fifty-seven times . . . But if that ( Read more... )

I do not remember what Byrne said in particular about The Imitation of Christ, but I remember what he did not say about it. He did not say that since, according to the testimony of the Fathers of the Church, Jesus was never in any real sense a son of his father, or a brother, or a husband, or himself a father, or a worker, or a citizen, and since ( Read more... )