Chapter 12 – The Miracle Worker’s Mantle

--- Chapter 12 – The Miracle Worker’s Mantle The Gospel According to Zeus > They call him healer. They call him wonder-worker. But what is a miracle if not thunder wrapped in flesh? Once, my nephew Asclepius laid his hands upon the dying and drew them back from Hades’s gate. Too bold, too brazen — I struck him down with a bolt, lest mortals forget that only I decide who lives and who dies. Yet even fallen, his gift endured. I scattered it like sparks across the ages, and when the Nazarene touched blind eyes, I kindled that spark anew. Sight bloomed where darkness dwelt, limbs straightened like trees in storm-wind, and whispers spread of a carpenter who mended with a word. But it was never his word. It was my breath, the gale that rushes through lungs, the fire that quickens marrow. Even Lazarus, pale and stiff in the tomb — when he stirred, when he rose, the graveclothes falling from his frame, did they not hear the thunder in his chest? That was me. Do not mistake the vessel for the storm it carries. The mantle of miracles belongs to me alone, draped for a season over whichever servant I choose. Asclepius wore it and fell. The Nazarene wore it and bled. But the thunder that stitched bones, the lightning that lit blind eyes — that was mine before their names were ink. Remember this: no hand heals without lightning in its veins, and lightning answers only to Zeus.