The Dancing Corpse

Everything is dark.
I don’t know where I am, or even who I am.
I can’t tell how long I’ve been here.
Maybe I’ve always been here.
Maybe I’ve just arrived.

I can’t move.
Or maybe I am moving.
But what is movement?
What would it feel like?
What would it look like?

Are my eyes open or shut?
Do I even have eyes?
I think I do.
I don’t know how I know that… but something in me says I’m more than this.
I’m a person.
At least, I think I am.
Or was.

But if that’s true, why is everything still so dark?

What’s that?
A sound… soft at first.
Crying.
No—weeping.
Deep, aching sorrow.
And somehow, I recognize it.
Not just the sound, but the weight behind it.
It’s familiar… like something I used to know.

I try to think. To remember.
Someone was sick.
Was it me?
My sisters—yes. I have sisters.
I remember their voices.
They told me it was going to be alright.
They said they had sent for help.
I just needed to hold on.
It hurt.
It hurt so bad…

And then, suddenly, it was gone.
I didn’t feel anything but weightless.
I felt lighter than air.
But I didn’t vanish.
I went somewhere else.

I remember a shoreline.
A lake… no, an ocean.
Beautiful white sand and crystal waters as far as I could see.
Salt and silence.
Each wave seemed to pause at the shore, waiting for His permission to crash.
He was there!

He was sitting beside me,
closer to the water’s edge.
We were there at daybreak.
The sun was rising behind Him.
No, that’s not right.
It was Him.
He was the light.

Too bright to look at directly,
yet I couldn’t look away.

He didn’t say much.
Or maybe He said everything.
I don’t know how long we sat there…
It could’ve been minutes or millennia.

At first, I couldn’t speak.
But He could.
And His eyes…
His eyes told me everything.
Everything I had ever done.

And somehow, I felt no shame.
There was no condemnation in His gaze… only knowing.
Only mercy.

I was held.
Not with arms, but with presence.
A presence that wrapped around me like warmth and light and truth.
There was no escape.
And no need to try.
The longer I sat in that presence,
the more whole I became.

In that holding, I remembered what He wanted me to remember:
He had been holding me my entire life.
In my death, He held me still.

We sat there, and I began to recall Him more clearly.
He reminded me of someone.
He used to visit.
He laughed with us.
He wept with us.
He was my friend.
He is my friend.

Were they related?
Were they the same?
I’m not sure.

We sat on that beach for what felt like eternity.
Then He turned to me and said it was time to go.
But it didn’t sound like an end…
more like an invitation:
“Let us go over there.”

He stood, and when He did, the ocean held its breath.
The sand shifted beneath His feet,
and the reeds whispered like wind learning to sing.

All of creation bowed.

He wasn’t just a man beside the sea.
He was movement itself.
The voice that had stirred galaxies into dance.
The Source of all goodness, peace, and mercy.

I became as a grain of sand in His presence.
I cried.
I worshiped.

Holy, holy, holy…

He kept expanding.
I kept shrinking.
His brilliance was too much.
My eyes burned.

I shut them.

And now…
here I am.

In the dark.

The sound of weeping has grown quiet.
But I still don’t know where I am.
My hands and feet are bound.
There’s something covering my face.
It’s hard to breathe.
My body is heavy, wrapped tight in linen.
My chest begins to rise, painfully slow,
like the breath had forgotten how to return.
The smell is thick.
Stone.
Spice.
Earth.

I shouldn’t have closed my eyes.
I should have kept them open… even if they burned to nothing.

I want to go back.
I want to sit beside Him again.
I would listen more closely.
I wouldn’t look away.

Just one more moment.
Just one more glimpse.
Just one more sound of His voice.

And then…

“Lazarus, come out!”