There was no point in looking back. Three crosses etched against the sky, brutal, violent, bloody. Scars in the memory.

 The two travellers were wrapped within themselves, encircled by pain and despair, so didn't notice the man waiting at the side. He made them start, appearing as he did from the quickening shadows.

"May I journey with you?"

They nodded silently, barely glancing at him. And so he fell in step with them, yet it seemed a struggle for him to check his stride to theirs, so full of life and vitality and exuberance was he. 

Conversation was stilted and disjointed, until in the exasperation the bigger of the men looked at the stranger.

"Look! We don't want to talk."

He put his hand on the side of his head.

"We've had it up to here, do you understand?"

"Leave off will you?"

The stranger nodded slowly yet did not withdraw from them. And they walked on and the silence seemed heavy. But it was impossible for him to be silenced and in the end he had to ask,

"Why do you grieve so much?"

The other traveller needed to talk and with a deep breath he turned to the stranger,

"We watched our friend die," he began, and in the dusk he saw again, in the face of the stranger, the look of the man he loved and his grief caught him and his voice broke and he turned away to smother down the pain.

"He was more than our friend," the first traveller rapped out furiously.

"More than that. Bigger, stronger."

He felt the rage growing inside him.

"We had such dreams, such hopes, such belief that we would change the world, feelings and thoughts bigger than words can ever describe."

But as he spoke, the rage started to erupt into an angry tide within, obscuring sense or reason.

"But he's dead!" He shouted at the stranger.

"D'you understand? Dead and cold and empty, just like our hopes and dreams. D'you know what it's like to be like that? To really believe in someone and then he's gone? And you think he'll walk back in through the door or it's his voice in the crowd or he's just round the corner. And then you remember - he's dead. It's finished and nothing's left."

The traveller stopped, dimly aware that he was towering over the stranger, pushing him back with the force of his rage. And he felt very cold, and his eyes were filled with death and his voice was very quiet,

"And worse than all the anger, all the hate, all the guilt, is the pain. Because at the heart of it, we loved him so very much."

The traveller slowly dropped his hands and turned back to the road.

"You could never understand this hell."

And because the light had dropped and their hearts were not seeking, they did not see the look on the face of the stranger or they would have recognised one who had lived through hell, through pain at its most searing, through human grief at its deepest.

But the light had dropped. And the moment passed and the stranger fell back in step with them. And this time, somehow, it was different. This time, they all talked - of the past and the present, of dying and living, of God and themselves. And the journey flew by and they forgot their weary hearts and Emmaus was before them.

They hesitated at the crossroads, suddenly awkward at parting. Didn't want to let go.

"Come with us," they said. And then the man whose sorrow was caught with rage, held out his hand in welcome.

"Please! Come home with us." 

Simple words, simply offered, simply received. And the house of the mourning lit the lamps, and the families gathered round the table and watched the stranger with respect. And the stranger took the bread and blessed it, and as his strong fingers tore it in two he bowed his head and it was as if he could no longer bear their lack of seeing, for when he looked up his eyes shone with a truth and with arms flung open, he offered broken bread.

"Jesus!! "

This imaginative insight into the walk to Emmaus was found by our editor among his papers. We do not know its source, but we would like to thank the unknown author, and hope our readers will have enjoyed it.