The nativity story
“Mary”, I called out as I dropped my tools, really
exhausted from my day at work. I would take a day off
one of these days because I have been working too hard
at my shop and earning too little. I know that I love
carpentry a lot but sometimes I just wish I had done
something else that fetched more money. These days
customers are no where to be found or maybe things are
also hard for them, I pondered. One good thing about
my life is my soon to be wife, Mary, I thought. I
called her earlier, she normally runs out to meet me
whenever I get home from work, “Mary!!!”, this time I
was almost yelling. This really is strange, had she gone
out? but she is always at home by this time. “Mary!!!”, I
shouted, still no reply. The house is a little hut and
anyone inside could hear the voice of anyone outside not
to talk of someone inside the house. Now I got worried,
had she injured herself. With thoughts of a thousand and
one things that could be wrong with her I rushed to the
backyard. On getting there I heard soft sobs coming
from someone at the backyard so I increased my strides.
“Mary?” I said with the softest voice ever, still no reply.
“Mary what is the problem”, I asked scared out of my
mind as I scanned her body to check if she had any
wounds but I found nothing. “Mary talk to me”
What could actually be wrong? Was Elizabeth ill? “Is
Elizabeth alright?”, she looked up at me for the 1st time
and shook her head slightly. “Then what is the
problem?”
“Nothing”
“Nothing?”
“Yes”
“How can nothing make one cry?”
“……”
I gave a frustrated sigh, I looked at her again, her eyes
were really teary, how do I handle this? She never acted
this way. She usually is very eager to talk to me about
everything that concerns her, thinking of this got me
more worried as my stomach churned.I was hungry but
that was the least of my worries right now. I gave
another sigh and resigned to sitting next to her. I sat
next to her for some few minutes in silence except for
her occasional sniffing, an evidence that she had done a
great deal of crying . It was getting dark and very soon
we will be assaulted by insects, so I stood up and
stretched my hands towards her and said, “Let’s go in”.
“I’m pregnant Joseph”, she said out of the blue,
shocking me with her voice as it sounded hoarse. I
didn’t really catch what she said “Who is pregnant?” She
covered her face with her palms and started sobbing
again. “Mary”, I now screamed, “Who is pregnant?”.
She looked up at me once again, tried to compose
herself as she looked into my eyes and said, “I am
pregnant Joseph, I am pregnant”. I went numb, she kept
talking but I could not hear her, I felt myself losing
balance as I grabbed the nearest seat and sat on it. She
kept trying to explain something about God and an angel
as I trailed off in thoughts. Now this is a problem
because I’ve never touched her before.