Self-deliverance—he ran fast over the cobblestone streets, passing the courtyards of the rich, and the shanty environs of the poor. He was a man at wit’s end, and soon to be at rope’s end. He soon avoided the main streets for the back alleys, and then the dusty paths leading to the forest. Tears of humiliation blurred his vision, distorting shapes of trees and houses into an eerie architecture of hellish nightmare. He zigzagged in and out of saplings and rigid rocks. He felt the slap of limbs and the sting of sweat in the scrapes of night. Fingers of mist slithered among the trunks of cypress trees like snakes.  He kept rubbing his neck in anticipation of his destiny.

            Soon, Judas found nature’s gallows. He unloosed his belt. He twisted the belt into a noose and threw the other end over the limb. He tugged on the new hangman’s noose testing the resistance. He breathed heavily and his heart pounded not in fear, but in finality. He studied the silvery gleam of moonbeam ribbons coming through the tops of the trees, and he thought it an avenging voice of his own conscience, a condemning reminder of the thirty pieces of silver. He looked down at his stark white garment, glowing like an angel’s raiment in the contrasting darkness. He thought he heard whispers from the shadows but realized he was mumbling to himself about the day’s events.

            He hugged the tree, inching his way up the massive trunk, and set himself in position for the fall. His hands were clammy. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He took one last glance at the stars, luminous bubbles of hope in the night sky soon to burst from his sight forever. This was the way out. There was no other alternative. Forgiveness, he felt, was out of the question. The only deliverance possible dangled before his eyes. He had betrayed his best friend. Somewhere outside the Damascus gate Jesus would die on a cross, but tonight while a nearby owl hooted a warning of hell, Judas would hang from his own tree of deliverance. And with that last thought he lunged into an abyss of eternal regret.

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