disciple (ch. 14)

by Tom Stuckey

14

Olivia’s mum lived on the other side of Rome, and that meant I would have to pass through the protestors in order to get there. There was no other way. It seemed as though the whole of Rome had decided to take to the streets, and I struggled to breath; if I moved to the left there was a face of teeth and to the right a wall of arms raised with a slogan I did not understand. I tried a sideroad, but it was blocked by a line of police, so I hugged the wall along the narrowing corridor of the main road. Fireworks cracked, banged and whizzed, it was already a war zone, and nothing could be done. I threw my Cornetto ice-cream into the road and tried to message Olivia, but my phone was knocked out of my hands and lost underfoot of rioters. 

I tried another side road. I knew by the twitch of my face and the blurring dizziness that I was close to death; it was in the streets, in the eyes, and it would soon get what it wanted. I found a small, open door that appeared, as if out of nowhere, like the outstretched arms of a friend. It led into a church that was tucked behind the altered facade of the modern shop fronts, seeming like a cave with just a few colourful windows with simple designs of little dashes of multi-coloured light. It was quiet again. Salvation. We needed to breath, needed to have our delicate bones as cages, un-crushed. We needed our eyes to remain un-gouged. I sat at the front of the pews and looked up at the delicate, simple structure of the Chancel. It remained me instantly of the small church on Mont St-Michel de Braspart in France. I had been hiking there—yes, I remember–with Jim a friend, and we had gotten lost, and the weather had become vicious; we could not see or hear for the rain and wind. We walked for hours until—out of no-where—a small red door appeared in the clouds. It was small inside but instantly quiet compared to outside; it gave the feeling of being held, of someone saying—like a big brother—you are ok now. I remember thinking, what is out there does not care for me? It wants me dead, in fact, and that is ok. The wolf who also inhabits these moors and Montagne’s does not cry if he starves, or falls to his death, but in here there can be relief and care, something that I laughed at and shunned as weakness for so many years. Fight fight fight, all the way, but you cannot, and will not, ever win. So. it was a small building, a bit like this one, where I first learnt about my mortality, and the little slate tiles and stones that could house its fragile state against nature. Mortality, come to think of it, may just be the very thing that keeps us alive, so we can run to pillow fortress's, high castles, and then women’s bosoms. Libido may dictate which way we are running, but mortality is the reason why we are. So here, like in St-Micheal, I don’t feel the need to fear death. It is not that the crowd or the storm will not kill me, that I won’t be crushed, but that these ancient structures watched all the people bye-gone, must of been millions, in utter sympathy of greeting the same fear within its walls. Now, a sort of collective spirit has been built up, and it continues to peacefully listen to the death-throws of man's struggle with mortality. There is no removing this structure now, to try to fight fight fight. It simply is GOD, and that is the only constant that remains. “I have to go back to England! It is clear now that I am a gravely ill man.” The words hummed around the walls of the little church for a few moments after they left me, giving the feeling of not being alone; it was comforting.

I walked out onto the busy street with a fresh sense of my place in the universe and, therefore, less fear, as if the crowds were a joke of a play. I thought I saw Thomas being lifted high up onto the shoulders of the crowd. I thought I saw Olivia blowing kisses to him and crying such tears of happiness. I thought I saw the pope being ousted, and the mob carrying Thomas to the heart of The Vatican. It was a very silly play, I realised now.

*Read the next instqallment of Tom Stuckey’s new novella Disciple coming on April 28, 2026, at 6PM CST.

Photo of Tom Stuckey

BIO: Tom is a writer from Devon in England.  His work can be found at A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bristol Noir, Nut House Press, and Pulp Magazine. He is the author of The Canary in the Dream is Dead and The Sun Marches upon Us All. Learn more about Tom Stuckey at www.tomstuckey.com.