Story: For the Pope's eyes only

There once was a man who pulled stones in his cart. This man, named John, worked hard and travelled far each day. He had a lot of work to do, and his tried his hardest to do it well.

One day, while pulling the cart, the cart stopped. John pulled and yelled for his horse to walk on but the cart would not budge. He looked under his cart and noticed the ground started the give way, leaving his cart stuck in a hole. He ran to the nearest farm begging the men to come help him. Three men followed John to the cart and together they worked into the evening moving the cart. Finally, after of hours of work, the cart budged. The men cheered and soon saw that there was a deep hole where the cart had gotten stuck.

They looked into it and talked about what could be down there. John, being a rather brave man, volunteered to go down and investigate. The other men grabbed the rope they had used for the cart and lowered John down into the hole. It was pitch black but john soon hit the bottom. Standing up he felt around for things since he could not see. He felt what he thought was a door handle, which seemed impossible in this hole, but he turned it anyway. Pulling it to him, he opened the door. Behind the door was a man reading a paper, as though it was the most normal thing to do. John said hello hoping to spur the man into some kind of action, but he continued to sit at his desk reading a piece of paper.

Finally, John asked the right question of “who are you?” and the man stood up, still not looking away from the paper.

“You want to know who I am?”

“Of course,” replied John.

“Well turn around and I will write in on your back, but you must not let anyone but the pope read it or you will face dire consequences.”

John turned around, took off his shirt, and felt the man write on his back. He quickly redressed and left the room. He found the rope tugging on it to let the men know he was ready to return. Back on the street, the men questioned what he saw, but John said nothing except he had to see the pope.

John made his way to the pope and when he arrived, he told the pope they must speak in private. The pope agreed and so John told of what had happened. He showed the pope his back and asked who the man was. The pope explained that his back said “I am Pilate” and John was very wise not to show anyone his back, because if he had let anyone else read it, they both would have turned to stone.

Author's note: This is a straight retelling of the original. I wanted to add more imagery and character to the story so I retold the events in my own words. There is a twist at the end though, because the cart man actually turns to stone even though the pope read the words and so I changed that because it felt unfair.


Bibliography: Italian Popular Tales by Thomas Frederick Crane (1885)

Image Info: Pope hat, Good Free Photos