The Speaking Christ of Oostende

In Oostende, by the North Sea where waves eternally crash against the rocks, there lived a man who made his way to the cemetery every night. He was not a gruesome man, not a vengeful spirit, no — it was merely a nightly habit he had developed out of daily necessity. Every evening, after his card games at the café, he walked past the cemetery on his way home. It was a shortcut, and it saved him many minutes of walking.

In the cemetery stood an old statue of Christ — presumably made in the Middle Ages or Renaissance — with his arms outstretched in blessing. The face of the statue was dignified and mild. The man had respect for this statue, a pious man despite his fondness for beer and wine.

Every time he passed, he greeted the statue: “Good evening, Our Lord.” This was no mockery, no blasphemy — it was merely a simple, friendly greeting. Night after night, year after year, he spoke the same words. The statue never answered, of course. It was stone — only stone. But the man found comfort in this silent dialogue.

On a certain night, two youths hid in the cemetery. They were friends of the man, or rather, they believed themselves to be his friends. These two youths were cruel by nature, delighting in jokes that caused others pain. They had heard of the man’s habit and wanted to catch him out, wanted to humiliate him before their companions.

As the man approached — between eleven and midnight, at the moment when sounds from the café grew silent and night enfolded the world — the youths sprang forward. One of them positioned himself behind the statue of Christ and whispered through the stone, his voice disguised.

The man drew near, his heart at peace, his feet familiar with the cemetery path. As always, he greeted: “Good evening, Our Lord.” But what happened was not what he expected. From the darkness came a voice — a terrible, mocking voice: “Good evening, drunkard!”

The man was so frightened that he nearly collapsed on the spot. His blood turned to ice. His heart hammered like a drum against his ribs. Without a word, he ran home, his feet wildly striking the cobblestones, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

Sick with fear, the man crawled into bed and could not sleep. All night he lay sweating, his mind tormenting him with the thought that Our Lord himself had spoken to him, that perhaps he was cursed. Only at the end of the next day, after much urging from his wife, did he tell her what had happened.

The next day, his younger friends came to visit him. “It was me!” they said, laughing. “It was I who deceived you. It was just a joke, nothing else!” They considered it a great prank, a triumph of their cunning. But the man — the man could not accept it. Deep in his soul, he felt that something greater was at work.

He tried to explain to them that mockery of the sacred could not end well, that every person who mocked the holy must pay a terrible price. But they laughed at him. “It was just a joke, old man!” they said. “You’re just a drunkard anyway.”

But the man felt that the evil had already been sown. Weeks passed. The man grew weaker and weaker, sicker and sicker. He could not eat, he could not sleep. Fear ate at his soul. In short, not long after, he died — not of disease, not of wound, but of fright and despair.

The two youths — his so-called friends — lived on for many more years, without remorse in their hearts. But in Oostende, the elders knew better. They knew that mocking the sacred was always punished, that the gods — or God himself — never tolerated jokes. The story of the man and the statue was told and retold, passed from parents to children, as a warning against disrespect.