The Man of Clay

A man awoke, lying face-up on a cold, damp floor. His eyes opened slowly as his head tilted to one side. Arms stretched outward, his fingers grazed the ground—it was soft, almost tender to the touch. Slowly, he raised his arms and rested them across his torso, tracing the same strange, yielding texture across his chest.

A sudden gasp filled his lungs. He rolled to his side, groaning as his back peeled from the sticky floor beneath him. Forcing himself upright, he stood on shaking legs and surveyed the space. The room was small and dimly lit, though no source of light was visible. No windows, no lamps, no candles—nothing. The glow was sourceless, ambient. Not a single shadow moved.

Everything was terracotta in color—the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Seamless. Unchanging. He looked down and froze. His skin matched the room. Anxiety surged through him. His breathing quickened, shallow and sharp. He stumbled around the room, dragging his feet as if they were rooted in clay. He pressed his hands against the walls, desperate to find an escape. But with every step, his feet clung tighter. He moved as though wading through thick mud. Then it hit him. He wasn’t just in a clay room. He was clay.

Terror gripped him. He screamed—a raw, animal sound that bounced uselessly around the chamber. “What’s happening to me?” he whispered as tears slid down his cheeks and vanished into the floor. He fell to his knees, shuddering. His body—foreign. His voice—useless. His world—silent.

In a burst of rage, he leapt up and pounded the wall. Over and over. But the more he struck it, the more his fists fused with it. His arms became harder to withdraw each time. Frantic now, he clawed at the wall, trying to dig his way out. With every desperate scrape, bits of his fingers stuck and stayed. Soon, his right hand was worn down to the second knuckle—ragged, stubbed, shapeless. And yet... no pain. There was only numb wonder.

Curious, he peeled the clay remnants of his fingers from the wall. With trembling care, he pressed them back into place, molding them with his good hand into something that resembled fingers. They didn’t look right—thicker, uneven, clumsy—but when he curled them into a shaky fist, he smiled. He wept again. Not in fear—this time, from hope.

There was no way to measure time. The light never shifted. The silence never broke. Hunger didn’t gnaw at him. Thirst never came. He didn’t need sleep. But time passed—he felt it in his bones, or what remained of them.

He had begun to scrape clay from the walls, collecting enough to fashion a crude pick. Thick-handled, rough-edged, fragile—but it gave him purpose. If the pick dried, maybe it would harden. Maybe he could carve his way out. That thought gave him something the walls never could: a reason to try. But each creation cost him. With every repair, every reshaped limb, he looked less and less like the man he once was—if he had ever been one at all. As he waited for his tool to harden, he passed time building statues from the clay floor. He shaped five. The largest, he called Lord. Two smaller ones—Mom and Dad. Another—Brother. The last—Sister. He spoke to them. He prayed to the largest. And he begged—over and over—for a way out.

One day, the pick hardened just enough to scrape. His heart leapt. Joy overtook him. But the walls had changed. They were harder now, more resistant. So was the ceiling. So was the floor. And so was he. His body was stiffer. Paler. Cracks now traced faint lines along his arms. Still, he pushed forward, certain escape was near. When he reached for the pick again, two cracks tore across his shoulders and down his biceps. He ignored them. He struck the wall—and the pick snapped in half. A deep fracture split his hand. He collapsed. Not in anger this time, but quiet surrender. He sat still, hollow and ashamed. No tears came. None were left.

Faced with the choice to either repair himself again or try once more to escape, he chose both. He scraped what clay he could from the resistant wall and rolled it into worm-like strips. He laid them over his wounds, patting them into place. But it didn’t mold the same. It was drying. Everything was drying. The more he tried to fix himself, the more he unraveled. Eventually, he looked nothing like the figure that had first stood in that room. And something in him snapped. He turned to the largest statue. This time, his prayer came out in ragged fury. “Why can’t you fix me!?” His scream echoed louder than before. And with every ounce of strength he had left, he charged the statue. His leg smashed through it. The statue shattered—and so did he. His foot split apart, crumbling on impact. He collapsed onto the floor, surrounded by pieces of himself. And he gave up.

He lay there, listening to the faint rasp of his own breath. There was no way out. The walls were too hard. The clay was too dry. He couldn’t even end himself—he wasn’t sharp enough, strong enough, human enough. So he did the only thing left to do. He fused himself into the floor. He pressed down, back and forth, grinding himself into the cold earth until his body stuck. He continued until he could no longer move. He positioned himself in front of the family statues—Mother, Father, Brother, Sister. They didn’t speak. They didn’t move. But they were all he had left. In their presence, he felt a strange mix of comfort and resentment. They were like him. And they had done nothing.

Then a thought came—not from him, but to him. A whisper in the ruins of his mind. And he said aloud: “I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t know who you are. But somebody made me. Somebody formed me and put me here. Whoever you are... I want to know you. I want to know what you want from me. I want you to save me. I am broken, and I’ve been unable to save myself. If you rescue me, I will serve you all the days of my life.” He paused. “Please. Just help me.” The room trembled. A crack split the ceiling, and light—blinding, holy light—poured through. The man closed his eyes. He could not bear to look. Water began to fall.

With every drop, his body softened. The ceiling sagged and broke open wide. A deluge followed. The room collapsed and pieces from the ceiling and walls were strewn around him. And then—the hands came. Two great hands, larger than he had ever imagined, reached down and lifted him from the floor. A voice like thunder echoed: “Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. Today, you are a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold—the new has come.” The hands reshaped him—stronger, softer, real. A heart of flesh beat within him. A mind awakened with love for the One who made him. He was no longer in a room.

He stood in a garden—vibrant, alive. Rivers flowed. Colors danced. Creatures moved with joy. And all around him were others—people like him. Whole. Radiant. Alive. He was clothed in white from head to toe. And the voice returned, not loud this time—but warm. “Here, there is no crying. No mourning. No death.” And so, the man walked among his living brothers and sisters, and worshiped the Lord forever after.

Written by: Matthew McMeekin