"The Hebrew Hammer"
Philistia, 5000 years ago (give or take)
They joked and jeered about how he needed the same manacles usually reserved for the concubine's small wrists. He was a bony, wiry, lean little shadow of a man who might have weighed 100 lbs if his clothes were wet from cannonballing into the Tigris river.
Nevertheless, they had made sure that the best blacksmith in the land had fastened those manacles with a hot iron rivet hammered flat as it cooled. He wasn't going anywhere unless he forgot to take his small hands.
The place where they led him to be chained was a large stone hall strewn with naked bodies writhing together. It was fragrant with the musk of sex, the sour of spilled wine, and the snowy ash from fires. In the midst of all this, they fastened him with iron chains despite the fact he could barely even move one of them by himself
The brave men that chained him tugged the iron links until he shouted in pain against his will. They laughed at him, slapped his face with meaty calloused hands, mocked him in their tongue as a weakling and a coward, and stood jeering at him daring him to loose himself. Knowing he could barely stand after the beating the inquisitors had given him that had left his body tattooed with blue and black spots, his nose twisted and swollen, his teeth cracked and missing, his eyes swollen nearly shut, and his back striped with deep red gashes, it was not the acme of courage to mock this sun-baked shell of a man chained by his wrists.
Like any coward, they were emboldened by the company of other cowards, and so they did.
Outside the big stone palace, a man stood on a nearby hill. He was far enough away for the noise of the celebration to be dimmed by distance. In the dark he peered from a slit in the white cloth wrapped around his head and face. His icy blue eyes stayed fixed on the palace.
"So, when do we hit them?" A voice asked from his left.
"We don't." He said quietly. "We wait for something."
"What?"
"I don't know yet." The blue eyed man said. "But, he said we'd know it when we see it."
Inside, the scrawny little man hung from the manacles as blood seeped from his wrists down his arms and dripped off his elbows. His head hung heavily, his knees bent, and the bloody soles of his feet showed dirt filled gouges while the arches rested on the rough cold stone of the floor.
"Favored of God?" A deep voice said over the sound of snores, ecstasy, and drunken ramblings not far away. "He doesn't look so favored now, does he?"
"Most certainly, he does not." Another baritone voice answered.
The heavy head slowly raised. He peered through the swollen eyelids to see the two standing in front of him. The blood dribbling from his mouth began to run down his chin and drip into the pool that was forming below him. His former brown complexion was now a pasty white. His heavy eyes struggled to open under the bruising, but he peered at the men in front of him now.
One of the men, a powerfully built shadow colored man, stepped toward him.
"There was no magic in your vow. You were just an experiment. You were an anomaly." He said, hissing the words at the broken figure. "You were a pet monkey and now we're bored with you."
A bit of blood sprayed from his mouth as he tried to say "no."
The other man stepped forward to him and peered at him, cocking his head a bit.
"You know," He began in a nasally tone "When the sun comes up, they're going to kill you."
He reached out and grabbed the man's jaw, jerking his head up so he could see his face.
"And then, you're going to be all mine."
Tears began to drip from the swollen eyes and a choking sound came from his throat.
"Oh, that's right. You're not going to heaven, child. You're coming to my home."
The tears mixed with the blood on his face and fell into the small crimson puddle below him.
"But, I say why wait til tomorrow when you can start today?"
The man produced a small blade with his right hand and started digging into the eye sockets, popping each eye out with expert precision, then slicing the nerve and catching them with the hand that had been holding the man's head still.
All the while the man's throat gasped and gurgled as he tried to scream and protest in terror.
"So, I suppose I will see you bright and early after these savages have gutted you, and then it will be my turn." He said in that nasally laughing voice.
The skinny man dropped his head and let out a wail from his broken mouth that trailed off into sobbing.
The man with the knife walked away. The dark man with the deep voice stepped toward him.
"There never was a God. There is only us." He hissed at him.
The dark man disappeared in a flutter leaving the slight man hanging from his wrists over a pool of blood that was growing drop by drop now that his eyes were seeping red.
A hoarse cry broke from his throat and trailed off into labored breathing. Blood dripped from his hollow eye sockets.
"It's not true." He mouthed.
Words made no sound anymore and a dozen stabbing pains radiated through his ribs when he breathed, so he simply mouthed his last words.
"Let me show them with my last breaths your hand guides my hands."
He sank back down, his head lolling now in the sightless plane.
He could feel the blood forming on his elbows and his lips.
"The sun is rising!" A man said from a few feet away.
He felt the blood stop running and absently thought that maybe he finally had no more to drip. Maybe he would finally bleed to death before these savages could torture him into death. But, then the blood began to run backward up his arm and back into his cuts. It streamed from the floor and back into his mouth and the cuts in his back and on his feet. The bruises under his skin began to disperse, and his ribs stopped hurting so much.
He began to be able to breathe easily again and his throat ceased hurting.
A still small voice inside his head whispered in the lilting voice of his Mother.
"Kill them. Kill them all."
He stood on his feet that were now smooth and spotless. Small delicate hands, crushed by the torture of his enemies into bony lumps, closed easily into tight fists that sent the iron rivets welded into the manacles shooting out like bullets.
The iron chains attached to the manacles fell to the side with a rough clank. Though he couldn't see for want of his eyes, he knew somehow where everything was and he knew what he had to do.
He ran full speed feeling the stone of the floor pused out by his feet as if it were sand. With his right arm outstretched, he severed each column that held the roof and walls up as easily as you or I might run through a rainstorm. He moved so fast and with such unerring accuracy that the entire roof seemed to fall together at once as the columns exploded.
When the weight of the stones fell on him, a malevolent grin was pasted across his face. He perished like a hero with his enemies.
From the nearby hillside as the sun rose, the blue eyes of the man on the hill spotted the movement of the roof and the collapse.
"Is that our sign?" The other one asked.
"If it isn't our sign, I don't know what could be."
After the roof came down, he felt the stone crushing him and then everything was pain for a moment until it all went quiet. Then, he was falling fast. Everything flashed and he was in chains again sitting in another dark stinking place that smelled like rotting meat, bile, and dried blood.
He heard shouts and running, then heard a familiar nasally voice.
"What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here."
A deep voice boomed. "Be silent, butcher."
A loud boom sounded and the smell of ozone overpowered the rancid aroma around him. He heard the nasally voice scream in pain and heard a body hit the floor.
"There he is. Let's get him and get out of here."
"But, it's so lovely here. Don't you love the décor? It's psycho chic."
He felt a pair of hands grab him and tried to fight them off but was too weak to do anything but swat weakly at them.
Then, they were moving up and they were moving fast.
"They pursue us." one of them said in a sarcastic sing song.
"Let them. We're nearly to the bridge."
He could hear the screams of vile beings never intended for the world into which he'd been born all around him.
"Looks like we're surrounded." The sarcastic voice said again.
"They should be more careful who they surround." The deep voice said.
Another boom, this one long and full of a loud sizzling sound broke his ears and made them bleed.
The world drifted away from him as he lost conciousness.
When he awakened, he could hear again but still could not see.
"He is awake." The deep voice said matter of factly and footsteps advanced toward him.
"Who are you? Where am I?" The skinny man asked desperately.
"Well, it's not your Hell." The sarcastic voice laughed. "But, if the rescue wasn't appreciated we can always throw you back in there."
"You died the death of a warrior, so you are now here in Valhalla at the request of the All-Father." The deep voice said flatly.
"My eyes." He said reaching up to cover the holes in his face with his hands. "I can't see."
"The demon took them." The deep voice said to him. "I suppose you will never see again."
"What good am I to anyone now without eyes?" He said.
"Better a free blind man than seeing everything in hell." The sarcastic voice said again.
"It's fair to say that you did more without sight against your enemies than when you could see. Many thousand were killed who had gathered to celebrate your death." The deep voice said again. "May I have an army of blind men like you."
"What is this place?" He asked.
"This is where the All-Father lives and where we assemble an army of fallen warriors to fight against the forces that wish to bring about Ragnarok or the end of days." The deep voice said.
"But, why am I here?"
"Well, the All-Father couldn't let a warrior like you fall into the hands of the demons, and apparently your friends in paradise have barred you passage.
"Do you have a name?"
"How rude of us!" The sarcastic voice broke in again. "I am Loki and this is my brother Thor. We're very famous. Perhaps you have heard of us?"
"I am Samson." He said with some pride. "I am sorry but I don't recall ever hearing your name."
"Samson, welcome to Valhalla." The deep voice said.
A strong hand gripped Samson's arm and pulled him to his feet.
"It's time to get started on your training."