Hammer and nail. His arm was poised above his head, ready to strike, and yet...for a moment...he paused.

Somewhere in his mind, a door was opening. Not a vision...he'd heard about people who had visions, but he had never really believed in them. It was more a moment of clarity.

Odd, really. All his life had been spent in service to duty. Growing up, when it came to teaching him the lessons of life, his father had been a brutal taskmaster. Under his father's rod, he had learned the basic skills of his trade, carpentry, while also being taught how to be tough, unequivocal. To hold quarter to no one. It was little surprise that he came, in the end, to this job: a blend of both soldier and carpenter, an unquestioning servant and master of the disciplines that defined his life.

But now he knelt over the bloodied figure of a man, nail dimpled into the flesh where hand and wrist came together, and the door opened a little more. For a moment, he could see clearly. And, uncharacteristically, the questions came.

Who was this man? Why was he different?

Already, the soldier had finished with two others. They towered skeletally above him, moaning in their agonies. In his life, his hammer had risen and fallen over a countless parade of thieves, murderers, criminals of state. Why, then, should this man give him pause?

He looked at the prisoner again. Just another rebel brigand with delusions of greatness. The soldier had heard the talk. The man was supposed to be some kind of teacher, a leader for the masses. The people called him a prophet. His followers called him king. He fancied himself a god. How does such a great man find himself under the nail, awaiting the hammer? He was nothing.

Wasn't he?

The soldier made a noise of impatience with himself. In that instant, he almost brought the hammer down, but something stayed his hand. A question. Burning like a fire through his thoughts.

What if he was a great teacher? Or a prophet?

What if he was a mighty king? Or a god?

What if he was the God his people kept talking about, come to test the fates against the crucible of humanity? Come to visit his wrath, his glory, his power on those who would stand against him? On those who would raise arms against him?

The soldier's grip on the hammer loosened slightly. He was unsettled by the thought.

What would happen when the hammer fell? When the nail pierced the flesh and buried itself into the wood below? What would happen when the man was hoisted up to die a slow, suffocating death?

Would the God strike down soldier before the hammer could find its mark and return, victorious, to his followers? Would the man on the cross die an ignoble death, a fallen leader of yet another misguided sect? What kind of God would allow himself to be treated in this way?

And what of the soldier...what was his role in all of this? Was he the executioner, forever to be stained as the killer of God? Or was he simply a tool of some greater purpose. Was he little more than the cross, the hammer and the nail? Was he, along with the other soldiers and the jeering crowds, mindless implements, bound in service to the designs of their masters? Were they all simple pawns of fate, held to the path of destiny, without choice or control over their actions?

Unbidden, an image came clearly through the doorway in his mind. An image of sacrifice. Of love. Of duty. It seemed so simple, yet filled with such an infinite depth of meaning so foreign to the discipline and duty that had governed the soldier's life, that its comprehension danced just beyond his grasp.

The door opened completely now and through it he saw himself, poised at the ready, hammer in one hand, nail in another, and for the first time, he saw the world of possibilities that existed in between.

He could see himself turning away from the man before him. Setting down the hammer and nail, slowly rising, and turning to walk away. He would ignore the calls from the other soldiers...the raucous voices of the crowds as he pushed his way to the bottom of the hill. Such bold disobedience would likely mean death for him, but it would be death in the service of a greater duty...a higher discipline than he had ever known.

All of that, he could see though the doorway...a course set beyond the narrow vision of his life.

The soldier looked at the man. To his surprise, the man was regarding him curiously, with eyes full of awareness and gentle compassion. In those eyes, in that last moment, he understood. He saw the inevitability of the lifetime of choices, stacked end to end, that had led him to this place.

Destiny.

The door was closing and as it did, the clarity and comprehension began to slip from the soldier's thoughts. The man below him was fading. No longer looking at the soldier, his eyes now steeled against a haze of pain. He was simply a man.

Discipline.

He was neither god nor king, prophet nor teacher. He was nothing.

Duty.

The door was shut. The hammer fell. Its first stroke rang true, echoing across the hilltop as the nail drove home. Hammer and nail, one and the same, the soldier followed his path.