The Breath Upon the Slain by Michael Wood

Name: The Breath Upon the Slain
Author: Michael Wood

Dennis Barra, Ralph Ingram, and the Anglican priest Cardew rest on an ancient barrow beside the southern sea, debating justice, sin, and spiritual renewal. Ingram, who works among those damaged by vice despite professing disbelief in God, insists that a just universe must make each person work out the consequences of his deeds. Cardew argues that grace, faith, and regeneration are real spiritual powers, and that human justice may be incomplete beside a larger spiritual reality. Barra suggests that Ingram’s belief describes the law governing the past and most of the present, while Cardew’s faith points toward the future possibility of transformation. To defend this claim, he tells of a former prisoner: angry, independent, and intermittently drunk after his release, the man enters a poorly attended mission service out of boredom. In the dreary church, an unseen presence seems to touch his head. He feels himself remade in mind, morals, and body by “The Fire of the Sacred Heart, the Fire of the Heart of the Ascended,” and becomes convinced that he must speak. Allowed to address the congregation from the altar steps, he openly confesses his criminal past and then speaks with overwhelming force. The listeners are shaken, weeping, and spiritually awakened; a revival follows, and some lives are permanently changed. Barra argues that this does not mean the man escaped punishment. Rather, he took into himself the sins and anguish of others, which became fuel for the spiritual fire passing through him. He compares this to secluded women who pray others’ temptations into their own bodies and suffer them so that Christ’s power may transmute and relieve them. When Ingram asks whether Barra truly knows the story, Barra reveals that he himself was the imprisoned criminal.

By Michael Wood · First published 2010 · Genre: Supernatural Fiction, Occult Fiction, Religious Fiction · 2,114 words

First lines

Shall these bones live? God knows. / The prophet saw such clothed with flesh and skin. / A wind blew on them, and Life entered in; / They shook and rose. / Shorten the time, O Lord! Blot out their sin! / Let Life begin! / CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

The wind was blowing through the heather, singing softly from the distant sea. The tiny tinkling sound of the purple bells was like faint music of faery.

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Genres

Supernatural Fiction — The narrative centers on miraculous spiritual intervention, unseen presences, bodily and moral transformation, and forces understood as genuinely supernatural.
Occult Fiction — Its language and concepts involve spiritual energies, magnetisms, transmutation, suffering absorbed on behalf of others, and an esoteric interpretation of Christian mysteries.
Religious Fiction — Christian theology, conversion, grace, sin, redemption, prayer, sacrifice, and the meaning of the Cross are central to both the plot and the characters' debates.
Spiritual Fiction — The work explores personal awakening, regeneration of body and soul, mystical experience, and the possibility of a transformed humanity.

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The Breath Upon the Slain is listed on Textopian as a short story by Michael Wood, dated 2010 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Michael Wood
Date: 2010 CE
Language: English
Genres: Supernatural Fiction, Occult Fiction, Religious Fiction, Spiritual Fiction, Gothic Fiction
Length: 2,114 words
Structure: 1 section, 33 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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