“Here! Here! I’m down here!” cried the man.
The Lord glanced down and saw the tiny man, arms waving and flailing to catch his attention.
“You are exceptionally small,” he observed.
“It’s confusing,” the man replied. “Most of my life I have been exceptionally large.”
“Yes.” The Lord waited.
“I have always consumed,” the man continued. “Food and drink above all. But other things too. Things to keep and things to throw away. Big and flashy things. Small and subtle things. Cheap things and expensive things.”
“Was there ever enough?”
“No, never. The more I had, the more I wanted. The satisfaction of the appetite inflamed it. I didn’t know it then. I’m not sure why I know it now.”
“Did you consume only things?” said the Lord.
The tiny man dropped his eyes. “No,” he confessed. “I consumed people as well.”
“That is why there is so little left of you,” commented the Lord. “You thought you were consuming things, but they were consuming you. You thought taking the humanity of others would make more of yours, but it only diminished you.”
“Then it is a miracle,” said the man, “that there is as much of me left as there is.”
“You are correct,” said the Lord. “It is a miracle.”
The tiny man said, “I would like to come in. But I think in there, amidst so many big people, I would be trampled.”
“There is a way to grow to your full stature,” said the Lord.
“Please show me the way,” said the man.
The Lord knelt down. He cupped his hands together. At once they were filled with wine. “Drink of it,” he said. The tiny man scrambled up the Lord’s fingers, leaned over the edge of his thumb, and drank.
He began to cough.
Out came the many things he had consumed over the course of his life. He coughed and coughed, ever more violently. A never-ending cascade of stuff tumbled out of his mouth.
With each cough, he grew a little in size.
After some time, the coughing stopped. The tiny man was now a half-sized man. He looked at himself. “I’m afraid I’m not done yet,” he said.
The Lord stood up, leaned forward, and held out his open palm. There was a piece of bread in it. “Eat this,” he commanded.
The mid-sized man heaved a great sigh, but he ate the bread.
At once his skin erupted in boils. In agony he fell to the ground. The boils were enormous: the length of his forearm, the width of his stomach, the breadth of his thigh. They festered; they popped. From the open wounds people climbed out, people he had consumed. Some were women. Some were men. Some were children. They shook themselves free of his blood and entrails. The Lord laid his hands on them, washed them clean, and guided them in through the open gate.
After all the people had walked free from the boils, the man’s skin knit itself back together. When he was whole, he stood up. He was able to look the Lord in the eye. He was full size once more.
“I am so large,” he said, “and yet so light.”
The Lord said, “You will be larger and lighter when you join the company of your sisters and brothers.”
“I would like that,” said the man, and he walked through the gate to find them.
Powerful!