A Leap of Faith

uck!" He's never said it before, never. Not him. Not Mr. Goody-two-shoes. The way he says it now, the first time, the sound is shaped like a torpedo. Insinuatingly sharp at its beginning; thick in the middle, blunt and brutal at its end. Sourced in the heart and intended to do damage. Held captive too long, its ugly noise streams thickly from the open mouth in his face to be absorbed by the immensity of the silent blue sea air around him. Nothing happens. There is no one to hear it but himself. The trees and rocks take no offence. The cliff face steeples away mutely below him, a tumbled mass of rocky ledges and sheer drops. Huge basalt boulders lie scattered at the water line, impeding the tireless onslaught of the rolling waves, bringing them up short and forcing them back to the briny deep. Inward and outward, the waves meet in an endless watery dance.

Beyond the swirling jig the waves roll rhythmically on, and where the fishes teem, birds hover and dive, wings folded and glinting in the sunlight, snatching fish and carrying them to distant eyries of young. Near the horizon is a smudge that could be a toy ship, and beyond that a cloudbank that could be mistaken for land where there can be none. Just thousands of kilometres of tossing water. He stands face to face with a relentless unheeding eternity.

North of the headland, on a low rock shelf, small brown birds bask in the sunshine, dozing on their igneous perches or bathing in the shallow puddles of clear salt water deposited by the ebbing tide. The waves receive a gentler welcome on the white sandy beach that lies to the south. The beach is empty now, as it usually is. Access is difficult and there are other beaches, less treacherous for surfing, and closer to established routes along the coast. Fishermen occasionally find their way there, although none have done so today. He chooses a small stone from those lying scattered at his feet and hurls it over the cliff with all his puny might. It bounces to the bottom, clattering once, twice, three times, and stops. Somewhere, far away, people are busy. His children are at school, his wife is in the kitchen. Cars and trucks travel along roads. Shops are open, customers are buying, business is done. Gardeners are digging their soil. Thousands of telephone conversations hum along the wires. People are happy, people are angry, people are sad. They laugh, shout or cry. Doctors heal, dentists drill, neighbours chat, lovers lie abed. But it is all so far away, so far away, like a vanishing train, a memory on the horizon. None of that busyness is evident here. Here there is only what there has always been, and the thin line of history that links him with that distant world is growing more tenuous by the moment. A patina of farewell beclouds it.

Behind him, a long walk back through the ti trees and native dune grasses, his car stands pointlessly sheltered in the shade of a small gum. The windows are wound down, equally pointlessly, he realised as he did it - but he did it anyway - to allow the hot air to escape. Adjusting your actions to a lack of future was a difficult business. Witness the keys lying on the rock beside him now, together with his wallet, where he can see them and reassure himself that he hasn't lost them. An old phobia from a distant past. But it also means he can still go back. If he wants to. If he lacks courage. Although this time he is more determined than ever to take the decisive step.

He opens his mouth again and the sounds come of their own accord. He is intoxicated with the power of uttering words that have never before crossed his lips. Obscenities and blasphemies come tumbling out. Execrations, imprecations, and maledictions trip over each other in their drunken haste to escape the black anger of his mind. Combinations of sounds his vocal cords have never made, a dark satanic glossolalia. Mere sounds, his other mind thinks. They vanish into the thin sunlit ether without even the trace of an echo, and without meaning, since no-one but himself has heard.

Exhausted at last, he stops. Nothing has changed. The sun shines, the sea sparkles in its light, the wet sand glistens on the beach, the rocks lie still. Even the birds are undisturbed. If he goes back now, and he knows it is only a matter of his own will, back to them, back there, nothing will have changed, nothing will have happened. Clipped lawns will still surround brick houses, metal cars will still traverse bitumen roads. Telephone conversations will still hum along the wires and he will add his voice to them. He could still go back. This incident, this vile river of invective, could, like so many previous incidents, be forgotten and disregarded. Until the tentacles of the past reached out and took him and crushed him, as he knew one day they must.

And that day had come. Not that anything in particular had happened. There had been no special drama, just a slow accumulation of dissatisfaction, like straws on a camel's back. A word here, a sigh there, a glimpse of concealed disappointment. An ant crawling across a pebble, a lizard darting through the rocks, and somewhere far away a seahawk circling in your mind. The only release from real life is real death.

He looks at his watch. Trish, back there in the brick house surrounded by clipped lawns has no reason yet to worry. In another half hour she will begin to anticipate his return. And she won't worry for a while after that. Even if she has been into the study it is hardly likely she will have noticed the empty space on the wall where once the testamur had proudly hung.

The testamur is here, with him, on this ancient clifftop. Sitting now, he gazes at it and sees himself reflected in the glass, looking back at himself with the troubled eyes of a caged beast. Across his shadowy forehead the pretentiously scrolled letters spell out the word bachelor, yes bachelor, as if they had been printed on his skin instead of the parchment behind the glass. The blackly printed word is the more solid and real, his face ineffectually imposed upon it, looking back at his real but unseen self from the shadowy realms of reflection. He slants the frame slightly and makes his face disappear, though the letters making words remain. The words, always the words. Bachelor? He is no bachelor. He is married. Double married. Double bound. Trish and the Church. The Church and Trish. Married to them both, for life. Bachelor of Divinity. Wedding ring. Physically, psychologically, morally, spiritually, financially, socially, intellectually. Bachelor? Yet if bachelor means unpartnered and alone, the word does yet speak an obscene truth.

Trish, his wife-for-life for better for worse to love and to cherish until death do us part so help me God, so help me God, so help me God, had stood beside him, her hand through his arm, as he had received his bachelor of divinity. Four long years of hard study and harder poverty, of self- and wife-denial, conjugating Hebrew verbs, declining Greek nouns, eating cheap cuts of meat, rehearsing lists of dates and catalogues of the heresies of long dead villains, wearing hand-me-down clothes, delving into unfathomable depths of incomprehensible mysteries of contradiction culminating always in the sola fide of the covenant of grace, working part-time jobs, equipped at last to be a worker in God's vineyard of mercy, his black gown billowing over his borrowed suit, his wife at hand, his bachelorhood official, so long ago. Bachelor of Divinity. Soli Deo Gloria, or something.

Look, he can marry the words to his face, just by changing the angle a little. There. You see? And he can divorce them again by just a twitch of the wrist, and they are independent again, himself gone. Just his name remains to indicate his involvement. His image is gone. The union is dissolved. A twitch marries them again. Another twitch dissolves them again. Twitch twitch. Married, divorced. United, dissolved.

Carefully he puts the testamur down and stands up again, erect on the edge of oblivion. He knows now he will make himself disappear with the flick of an ankle, as easily as he had made his alter ego disappear with the flick of a wrist. He will pass from existence as rapidly as his image had passed from the glass of the framed diploma. A small shift, an oblique change in the distribution of his weight, an irrevocable forward step through the chink in the reality of time and space, and the sentence will end not with a full stop or a question mark or even an exclamation mark, but with a dash. As if it matters. How do you punctuate the end of the world?

He glances down at the diploma captured in its sober black frame. A few grains of sand lie on it and already an insect is struggling to traverse its alien smooth surface, claiming territory, antennas searching for comprehension. He watches for a moment, then loses interest. The metaphor is inviting but tiresome. The glass now reflects glossy leaves and empty sky. The red embossed seal with the motto doctrina et vita ad gloriam dei and the signature of the principal given under seal this day of in the year of our Lord wait impassively for his next move, the weight of their history behind them, the empty sky showing through them.

Should he take it with him into oblivion as if it were his most cherished possession, or should he leave it at the point of his disembarkation from real life like a final abandoned accusation?

Potent rage at the impossibility of the choices surges through him and he raises his right foot and brings it down hard on the testamur. Instantly, the glass shatters, although the frame holds the shards in place. The words remain clearly visible but the reflection is fragmented. Segments of himself are juxtaposed with segments of the world around him. Sunlight glints disconnectedly from the splintered glass. The insect scurries away. A wave crashes into the rocks below him and a bird dives into the ocean.

Long hidden fury and despair mount in his trembling frame. He clenches his hands. He breathes heavily. He raises his foot again and smashes it into the broken glass. Again and again, relentlessly, recklessly now, he pounds the glass and timber and paper and letters and words with his feet. Inarticulate cries escape his lips. Waves crash onto the rocks below him. A glass splinter penetrates the thin sole of his shoe and stabs his foot. He cries out in pain and stumbles. Almost over the edge, he just manages to regain his balance in time.

He sits to examine his injury. The smashed frame lies on the rocky cliff top. He removes his shoe and sock. The glass has drawn blood. He winces as he searches for stray bits of glass that may have remained in his flesh, but he finds none. It's not a deep cut. He regards the diploma lying at his feet. The letters are still visible, although the glass has gouged holes in the parchment. Part of the B in bachelor has been excised so that it now resembles a P, and the first i in divinity has lost its dot. His name is still intact. He extends his foot over the testamur and allows three drops of blood to splash onto the parchment through the broken glass. The large red wax seal is now accompanied by three miniatures of blood, randomly placed.

The blood does not obliterate the letters and this enrages him. Why should the letters, which are only ink on paper and stand for nothing more than people want them to stand for, triumph always, even over the blood of his body? What indomitable will do they possess? He snatches at the broken remains of the diploma, and a wooden splinter penetrates his left forefinger, sliding in under the nail and snapping off. Immediately blood begins to flow but is trapped under the nail and his finger begins to throb.

He attempts to remove the splinter by gripping it with the bitten nails of his right forefinger and thumb, but this proves futile. He removes a shard of glass from the frame and uses it to prod at the wooden splinter, eventually snagging it and pulling it out. Holding the removed sliver of wood triumphantly aloft, he sneers at the cracked and fragmented testamur which lies beside him. He reads its letters again. He reads his name again. His reflection is no longer there and can never return. It is his past but will not be his future. His eyes unexpectedly fill with tears and he feels choked. It's only a symbol, he mutters between clenched teeth, only a symbol, a smashed and broken symbol.

Trish, oddly, had been proud of it and had insisted on having it framed immediately, despite their poverty. It was a small object to be the result of all those years of labour and sacrifice. Just some words on parchment. And when it was framed she had insisted that it hang in the study, against his more modest wishes. But it was her accomplishment too. Paradoxically, because she had never really wanted it. All she had ever wanted was oblivious normality, and this testamur sentenced her innocently to a life of prominent abnormality. She and it were incompatible. He knew that. Had always known it. But she had sacrificed herself for it, for him. Her duty. Her wedding ring gleamed in the afternoon sun at the graduation, but her heart was not in it, which made her struggle - and victory! - the more remarkable and worthy. The diploma was her joyless gift to him. A barren symbol. The smallness of his love could not refuse it, could not choose her over it.

Gently now he picks it up and cradles it in his lap. It is very broken. Through his hot tears he sees the pulverised glass ground into the parchment and the burst frame pointing its splinters accusingly in every direction. This, he knows, can never be repaired. The diploma can be reglazed and reframed, reimprisoned, but its holes, scratches, bloody and teary stains can never be removed. Nor can there ever be another quite like this one, with his name, his date, and her empty smile.

That day was sunny too, and full of promise, that day of the graduation, of the empty smile, the smile he tried not to see.

Outside, people were scurrying by on their way to the shopping centre or the football ground, or the thousand and one places that people scurry to on Saturday afternoons. Inside, the high vaulted ceilings captured the psalms of the faithful, who rejoiced to see themselves validated and their faith perpetuated in the young men giving their lives in service of the Master. They would go forth and proclaim, they would be labourers in the vineyard, they would comfort the afflicted, administer the sacraments, teach the young, and do a myriad of other things. But most of all they would carry the faith of their forefathers and the dreams of their parents.

She stood beside him then, as she had stood so often. She sang. She bowed her head in prayer. Sunday after Sunday she had stood beside him, wife-like and faithful, though she resented the status his position accorded them. She seethed against the congregation for prefiguring the context in which she would play her life-role, and against the other students and their wives who would forever be her unchosen colleagues and friends.

He did not understand, saw only a carping young wife unnecessarily and exasperatingly afraid of the future. Patience, encouragement and the assistance of wise counsellors were applied as remedy, but the problem could not be solved and spilled over into other domains of their lives. The arrival of children brought sporadic contentment, but the flaw, no matter how hard they tried to paper it over, remained.

He came close to giving it up, and once made enquiries about secular employment, but he couldn't bring himself to admit failure. He couldn't turn back after putting his hand to the plough, and he had no other metaphor. Nor had she. On the one occasion he had mooted the idea she had turned on him in hot fury, insisting that she could not allow all those years of poverty and hardship to be wasted. And so they continued along the desolate furrow, hand to the plough.

On graduation day, he - they - had come to the end of one furrow. His name was duly called and he stepped forward to receive his bachelorhood and he turned to her and she was smiling but he tried not to see it. It was the smile of an unwilling martyr turning defeat into victory with distorted lips.

Later there were triumphant hymns, congratulations, handshakes, hugs, kisses, photos, and tea and curried egg sandwiches in the hall. He felt it was his moment, but nothing had altered. The world went on regardless. He saw his father slip out for a quick smoke and to get the footy score from the car radio. His mother was chatting to an old friend, comparing child- notes. His favourite professor was in earnest discussion with an elder. His wife for life was attending to the children, somewhere, the empty smile lingering only in his unwilling memory. His sister asked to look at the testamur and he unfurled it for her and she read it, words full of promise. Trish took it from her, for safekeeping, till the words could be put behind a frame. The frame he now holds to his body.

A wave rolls into the rocks below him and recedes into the depths beyond as he hugs the broken empty thing to his breast and croons over it. "I did love you," he whispers. The sand on the beach is undisturbed and devoid of human tracks. The birds on the rock platform doze. The sky is oblivious and blue.

He feels a pain growing in his chest. At first it is minute and he is scarcely aware of it, but it grows so that he cannot ignore it. He realises that a fragment of glass has penetrated his shirt and pierced his skin and a trickle of thin blood has started down his torso. Calmly now, no point in panicking, he puts the frame down and pushes it away from him. He seems to look at it, but his eyes are focussed inwards, and he sees the empty smile, sees for the first time that it is his own smile too.

A thought forms in his mind, born of natural necessity. At first he resists it, but the idea takes root. It's persuasive, appropriate, and it wins him over. Slowly he rises to his feet, determined now to add the ultimate indignity. One foot brushes against the crumpled frame, pushing it closer to the edge. He bends down to position it to receive the full impact of his intended stream of amber abuse. He straightens again and glances around apprehensively. Then, realising that a man with no future has no need of apprehension, he unbuttons his trousers and allows them to fall around his feet. He drops his underpants as well and aims his sunlit penis at the frame. He shuffles forward but his fallen clothes entangle and impede him so that he almost stumbles and his foot kicks against the frame and it slides over the edge and tumbles crazily down the cliff face, coming to rest on a small rock ledge some two meters below him.

He stands there looking at it, feeling foolish with his jeans and underpants around his ankles. He pulls them up again and fastens them. He cannot make his exit now. He cannot leave it like this. The idea of a final act mesmerises him.

He searches for a rock and finds one the size of a golfball and hurls it at the frame. The force of the impact breaks its masonite backing. The stone rolls further down the cliff. He searches for another and hurls it but he loses his footing. The momentum of the throw carries him towards the edge and then over it.

He throws out his arms and seizes a small plant, uprooting it. His legs come up hard against the rocks whose jagged edges cut and bruise him. He slides down, almost somersaulting, and comes to rest on the same rocky perch as the dead testamur in its broken frame. His shoulder and arms hurt. His legs are grazed. Painfully he grunts and picks up the frame, flinging it back up to the clifftop. He finds some vegetation by which to pull himself up, testing it first to see if it will hold his weight. His feet and fingers search for holds on the rock.

The last part of the climb is sheer, and he waits for breath, panting. Looking up, he sees that an undamaged corner of the frame is visible, jutting out over the edge, appearing deceptively whole. There is a small crack in the rock face but he has to bring his knee almost to his chest to raise his foot high enough to get some leverage. He launches himself with his other foot, almost certain of death, but manages to get his fingers onto the clifftop, and then his elbows.

Sore and out of breath again, he rests, his weight on his upper arms and shoulders, his feet searching for irregularities in the rock face. The battered frame lies only centimetres from his puffing face, close enough for him to see the grain of the parchment and the slight embossing of the seal. Unable to find a foothold from which he might launch himself up onto the clifftop, he takes a deep breath and strains to pull himself up. The sun shines on the broken glass and reflects a flash of brightness into his eyes, causing him to cry out and almost lose his grip on the rock.

His body sags back down and his foot finds a small hold, permitting him to partially take the weight off his upper body for a few moments. He gulps air with his eyes closed, his chest heaving. He wishes he could see what is below him so that he could release his current hold and make a fresh assault, but going back down requires a step into the void, a leap of faith he dare not take.

Demanding a sudden effort from his already exhausted muscles, he hauls himself up, keeping his face turned away from the glass, closing his eyes to concentrate on the straining of his body. He is able to raise half his body over the lip and rests with the rock digging into his soft belly, his legs thrashing the void. He inches further forward and swings one lacerated leg onto the clifftop, then the other, and he scrambles away from the edge, disturbing the frame and almost dislodging it. A bird plummets into the ocean and emerges with its prey in its beak, the sun glistening on the silvery scales snatched from the sea. The bird flies heavily to the shore.

He sits with his head bowed, thinking about the leap of faith he could not take. He searches his soul for the courage to step into the utter darkness. Even now, especially now, he wants to pick up the fragmented remains of his past and bear them home with him, patch them up, tether himself to the post of duty, but he resists the temptation. Get Thee behind me God! The sun moves across the empty sky and the shadows lengthen to enfold him in their cold embrace, and a terrifying third way is born within him, a step into a darkness more foreign than death. An utter break with a past that sought to bind his future beckons.

He rises unsteadily to his feet, knowing that everything has changed. His muscles have grown cold and stiff. He stoops to gather the shattered diploma. He holds it in front of him and reads the sullied letters once more. Once more. Bachelor. Of Divinity. Dated this day. The year of our Lord. Blot, splotch, spot, smudge, smear. Crack, scratch, score, scrape, tear. Water, blood, salt, sand. Ink on paper. Splinters of wood. Slivers of glass. Empty smile.

He lays his childish dreams and hopes on the rocks. His decision is made. He leaps in faith. As he drives home, he begins to wonder what Trish will say, then realises he doesn't give a fuck.