One Moment of Rage

 

It was one moment of rage like a fire in a life spent burning. It was a moment of blazing heat when the learned Orientals came into his royal chamber. One moment of panic. But the grey faced librarians had found the information that had sent the magi on their way to the slumbering Bethlehem suburb. One more moment of uncontrollable passion. Now he was wide awake in his darkened hideaway. Safe in his private recluse.

“Find the woman,” he told them. “Find the child.” And he’d sent them on their way. One moment of rage, the next was extinguished and quiet. Silent. Jaws clenched, shoulders tense. Fists balled into tightly curled fists. Nervous and fearful. Angry. But now he was relaxed. He could breathe.

The moment was broken by a knock on the door as he sat in his rocking chair drinking gin and mulled wine by the fireplace. Self-satisfied as any king should be. A king of courage by Roman appointment. Captured culture and captured loyalty were his by right, by rule. A knock on the door and all the hurt and horror rushed back. Memories of all the murdered. He looked stunned and confused towards Bethlehem and saw the flames in the distance. He smiled when he smelled the smoke. Visible vapors and heavy smoke and the smell of burning wood and tar and plastic. He could feel the heat from his balcony. And the screams. He could hear the screams. His men of might would handle the rest.

Another knock at the door and his face puckered. Soured with fear. He preferred his own company. Others were unfailingly irksome. Out there in the rural canyons and crowded urban streets were people who deserved nothing better than the lash and the wire. They deserved what they would get. Mortify the flesh of everyone, he thought. Everyone.

The knock came again, more insistent now. One of the fools hammering on the boards. Incompetent irritation. A voice came through the panels. “Sir, they have not returned. They have gone another way.” Herod pulled his privacy curtain closed and pulled at his beard. One moment of renewed rage like fire anew.