FIFTY

“GOLGOTHA.” BILL SAID the word aloud. “Golgotha,” he said it again, as if he didn’t believe it the first time.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Bill thought back, retracing his actions and the course of events that led up to the countdown.

All systems were a go. There were no warning signals. All fail-safes were green and working. The crew had been locked in and the capsule was set.

He clearly remembered hearing the end of the countdown through the small speaker mounted inside the capsule. Seven...six...five...four...three...two. Odd, he thought. He couldn’t recall hearing the countdown to one. But he must have as he was here, near the rock at Golgotha, he considered. Not where he was supposed to be in the desert of New Mexico, but here.

He rubbed his hands over his face and shook his head and body. But the result was the same. He could not deny that he was standing outside of the Damascus Gate of old Jerusalem, some two thousand years in the past. And he was now witnessing the procession that would bring a man to the cross. As the reality of the time and place hit him, he whispered, “Oh my God. Oh my God. What have we done?” And for an instant, he thought he saw the man burdened by the heavy wooden beam, mocked and spat upon, bleeding and tired, pause in his steps.

No one else. Not a Roman centurion, not a priest or peasant or pilgrim or child had taken notice of Bill standing upon a desert embankment beyond the ridge from the path that led in and out of the gate. Not one in the crowd had noticed him, except the one man that all others’ eyes were upon. This one man, who could not have heard the words that Bill spoke above the chanting, scolding rants of the crowd, and the distance, yet he turned. He raised his head and this one man those in the crowd were calling Jesus Christ, looked directly in Bill’s direction.