Javert Can Swim

Along a river, I swim
Into the mouth of Heaven

Tossed back out
Funny contraption
Heaven, I mean
Seems to be
A mechanism

How interesting

And by that, I mean
No interest
In judgement
None at all

So what has been my life then?
A waste?

Some will look and say--

This or that
Was thrown out
Cast off
Into the murky, dark water

'Well, no,' I say
'No, it is not so'
For I am a very good swimmer, you see
And so I go down to the bottom of the water
And pop back up again
Like so much flotsam
Not at all harmed
Not at all distressed

But while down there
I spy a few things

An old gentleman talking to a whale
An even older gentleman laying against a mighty fallen giant
Two women riding in some sort of horseless carriage looking cheap and costumed
At the same time

And I think to myself--

This must be a place of ends
And so Heaven
Here it is

But nobody is happy
Smiling, or--

Satisfied, really

Certainly not I

So bob, bob, bob
Back up I go
Back to the surface
And what now
I wonder

For I distinctly heard a voice curse me
Saying I was doomed
Damned

Doomed or damned?

Oh, what does it matter?

Apparently, I have been blood-thirsty
And has displeased
My Lord in Heaven

What a pity

What more can be said besides that?

So I swim and I swim
Off and away from Heaven
Past Purgatory
And the warm fires
I was sure my enemy
Was destined to end up in

And I keep swimming
Until I reach the end of the Earth
Where the water drops off
Into the big black nothingness

There I find a man fishing
And he tells me he is Magellan
And would I like to have a seat?

I certainly would
I think to myself
I most certainly would

So onto a rock I go
And take up a pole I do
And fairly soon after this
I have a pile of fish
That Magellan instructs me to throw back

'Throw back,' I say, 'But I caught them, Magellan.  They're mine!'

Magellan puts his hand over mine
An action that normally would vex me
But something about his demeanor
Calms me, and I feel at peace

He says but one word
And that word is--'Mercy'

Mercy, Javert
Do you know that word?

It nudges at me
Like a starving dog
Eager to be fed

Do I not have an appetite for mercy?

No, I do not

And yet I pick up a fish
Stare at it in its cold, unknowing eyes

...And toss it back

Watch it swim away from the edge
From the nothing, nothing, nothingness
And then let my face fall onto Magellan's shoulders
And cry the tears
Of a foolish man
Who would not recognize his own foolishness
Were it handed to him
Like so many roses

'It's all right,' says Magellan
Tossing his own fish
Back into the sea

'You have shown mercy, Javert,' he says
'And by doing so, you are now the closest you have ever been
To God'