ABRAHAM

They robbed a liquor store, and drove off in a car. Every few yards, the driver would slam on the brakes, they would look at one another, laugh hilariously with great exaggerated laughs, and drive on. This went on and on. They were never caught.

This was the short film that won the short film festival’s Best of Festival prize. But now the filmmaker is wandering high stone steps, high in the air. He carries a rat with him; it is his pet rat. It is very cold and the rat is freezing to death. He tells the others to go on without him; he is going to crouch here on these stone steps and cradle the rat against his chest for the night, hoping the rat won’t freeze to death that way. Is this the absurd little tale that the angel told to Abraham, the man who prayed for children? Did the angel just start saying nonsense such as this, and did the man who prayed for children try vainly to comprehend the angel’s meaning?

And now the walls of this temple have collapsed; its roof has caved; the worshipers have fled; the temple is rubble. Don’t harm her: she is all I have left. We shall hamstring a camel: we shall load the beast of burden with our sin, and cripple it, then leave it to die. This is your holy communion; this is your ritual of vice; this is your ritual of resurrection; this is your death ritual. And the monks lined up in the tent; one by one they were inspected by the army (for the army believed they were guerrillas).

But now he’s broken the glass vase: this is all becoming somewhat like a shattered mirror. This is your golden bowl; this is your silver cord; this is your temple: destroy them all, make them rubble: nothing shall remain, and no one shall build them up again.

But this story is the story of a man who wanted a son, and prayed for a son. The angel came, but would only tell him nonsensical stories. He grabbed the angel’s tongue, and pulled on his tongue, hoping to get an answer; but the only thing that came from the angel’s mouth was nonsense, and the man was dismayed.

He had a dream he was destroying a temple. He went to the temple and tore it apart with his giant’s hands and kicked it to pieces with his giant’s legs. There was nothing left of the temple. Then he had a dream he was stealing gold and sliver images, melting them down into liquid—and look!—they became a son for him.

His son also came to him in a dream. His son was a giant, and was composed of various animals: he had lion’s paws, camel’s legs, a bear’s face. This giant stalked the land looking for his father: he broke gold and silver images to pieces, saying, "My father has made me into a monstrosity. I shall kill the spirits with which he made me." And so he went on smashing idols, destroying temples, looking for his father Abraham. Abraham grew very disturbed in the dream, and he hid out where there were no gold and silver images to attract his son.

After this series of dreams, after the angel had told him these nonsensical stories, Abraham said, "I cannot make idols into a son. I must destroy all gold and silver images, so that their powers shall never make a son for me." And so he went destroying idols, lest he make a son of them. And he prayed again to the angel, saying, "I shall never make a monstrosity of my son with idols."

A man once had many pet trout, in a very large tank. When he grew hungry he would eat his pet trout. This went on and on; he never ran out of pet trout to eat. Then he looked, and his pet trout were all brown and fat, and made of layer upon layer of flesh. He grew very afraid of these fish, and decided to stop eating them. They grew and grew until he had to put them in his swimming pool. He was so afraid of them he couldn’t pick them up with his hands or get them in a net: a neighbor helped him carry his fish tank to the pool, and he dumped it into the water. Finally, his giant trout in the swimming pool laid eggs, and a baby green snake came from each of the eggs. They overtook the man’s house until he huddled in a little corner, too terrified to drive out the green snakes.

This is the story the angel told Abraham after he had destroyed all the gold and silver images. Abraham said to himself, "What? What?" The angel was never very clear. He gripped the angel again by the tongue; he said to the angel: don’t say a thing, unless it is clear speech, and he released the angel’s tongue; but the angel only told him nonsensical stories, and Abraham grew very dismayed. Would he ever have a son?

And now your temple’s walls are collapsing; and now your temple’s roof is caving in; do you stay and worship your gods, do you die with your gods; knowing that the time of your gods is over, do you perish with them?

What is this long golden hair I see? What are these great red eyes and this mask over a mysterious red face? What is this mask over the waters and this mask over a pit and a cave? What is this sunken ravine, tangled with undergrowth and laden with mystery? Here we have the mystery of birth; here we have the mask rituals and the love rituals; in this place, you wear a great robe.

Here you have the mysterious hour before you were conceived: you were a tiny cherub flying through the skies, singing, "Here is my destruction, here is my destroying fire." And you knew that should you refuse to enter the womb, you would end up an incubus or a succubus, wandering the face of the earth, terrified of everything bright.

Now your fingers are bloody stumps; now your bowels are filled with fingers, hands, arms, faces, every part of the human body. Have you any hair on you? What is this terrible sadness you feel? Have you killed and eaten your father? Nonetheless, this is all something of a great house of mirrors, with distorting mirrors; and you wander the house of mirrors lost, and you begin to shatter the mirrors. Now your fists are nice and bloody, now you’ve smashed the temple, now you’ve smashed the idols; what are you, a meat-man? What’s this flesh you feel writhing in your intestines? Have you been eating cockroaches? Is your stomach filled with scrambling mice?

And the giant son came after his father, a great powerful giant whose legs were a thousand tree trunks tied together, whose arms were a hundred stone towers rolled into one: and the father went on cowering, terrified of his son, terrified of the gold and silver images that attracted this giant; and Abraham went on destroying gold and silver images along with his son, but he did it out of terror: for wherever gold and silver images lay yet to be destroyed, his son was soon to be there, looking for the father who had made him a monstrosity with these spirits. It was all so very absurd.

For Abraham had taken the gold and silver images from his father’s house; he had stolen them from his father. And he had melted them down into liquid, and they had become flesh: this flesh was his son. He had made his son of idols, and the power of the idols had entered his son. Thus his son was a great monstrosity, and a giant; and thus his son went looking for his father, destroying the idols that had fashioned him with their power; and thus the idols fled like Abraham, running about blindly in terror like mice, looking for some dark place in which to hide. This is your little dream: for you are the dreaming man, and your nights are filled with strangeness and glory. Thus did you see your mission before you, as you became filled with the angel’s nonsensical stories. You are Abraham, and you have giants in your loins.