The crowd shouted in an increasing tempo that pulsed into the tense air of the open floor of the Forum.
There had never been a gathering like this before- not even when Pointus Pilate was made king of Rome and Judea.
Humanity spanned from the thresholds to the outer extremities of the Forum, spilling over to the sides of Beth-lehem (the house of bread) up to the house of Jethro the recluse, king of hermits. Atop the podium where Pointus sat was a man, lean of frame, balding and bleeding from every pore. He was 'Plumbtifex Rantimus- the Son of no one' for he adjudged himself the progeny of the earth and the heavens. I strained to catch his face over the headscape that spanned from beneath my lenses to beyond the reach of focus. Even though I did not see him clearly, I felt his pain; like the first time I had encountered him.
It had been on the eve of the Passover. A man had entered into the synagogue to speak upon the altar of Moses where our old laws lay. That young man had been Plumbtifex Rantimus. Never had I seen anyone speak or write with so much passion and pain. Vitriol flowed from his ink’s end that day in the synagogue, telling of the injustice of the sanhendrin, the romanticism of Pilate we all mistook for truth and the plight of the Proles who filled the synagogues every week but never found the salvation they sought. The Sanhendrin had tried to cut him short and the people had reacted more violently than never before in Jerusalem. That day I felt his pain in a different way: not like now that I gaze upon his blood-smeared face listening to the chants of the same Proles he had fought for, screaming in syllabic duets of 'Ran-timus, Ran-timus', filling the open vastness of the Forum.
As I struggled to move closer to the dense pack of humanity to catch a better glimpse of a man I respected, Pontius rose to the podium and waved the noise away to the west- the destination of a dying sun.
‘Fellow citizens he spoke deep and clear and it carried far. I bring before thee Rantimus the priest of Proles, the son of no man’
‘No- roared the crowd in one voice so loud it unsat the heavens and poured rain from unclouded skies- We know him not!’
I kept mute for I knew him and I knew what he stood for. I kept mute for my voice could not submerge the will of the People. I watched on. I was bitter but I did not speak, I just watched on.
Pilate waited for the slight drizzle to quench the aggression of the Proles but little did the little droplets do to douse the fury. After a while, he waved his arms of power again and the crowd fell silent even though the rains did not cease.
‘Now that you claim not to know him, of what use is he? Shall I deliver him unto you to be judged by your own laws?
‘No!’ roared the crowd in one response.
‘Crucify him! Crucify him!'
‘So shall it be then’, responded Pilate.
‘You shall have your wish’.
When I heard the uproar that commenced upon the edict, my heart cried in the falling rain for the man on the podium who had spent his life fighting the fight of the Proles and now found his reward in death at their behest. I began to recount the many scrolls he produced from the parchment of reeds, the ones he read in the synagogue, which he carried everywhere with him. I thought of profound thoughts that he had discussed in the agora, I thought of his chants of ‘Peace and Equality’ and I thought upon the time men once followed him calling him the ‘Priest of Proles, sent to set us free’.
As the soldiers led him off the podium in whips of thorns and goads of brambles, I held myself closer for the tingling sensation of fear and anticipation had begun again in my armpits. The rain of whips from the distance felt unreal for I only saw it but did not hear it. As a club landed on his back and he fell to the ground, I could look no further for both tears and rain had clouded my eyes. I sorrowed that one of them- the voices; had been killed again; killed by the very people he had fought for.
The crowd flowed in turbid torrents towards Gethsemane and I followed them- not from compulsion but because the crowd just carried me in the flow just the same way they submerged my will in the forum.
I heard the voices of dissension all around me as we flowed on.
‘Rantimus is a sham. He has deceived us’
‘Did he not say Pilate is evil?’
‘Has Pilate not given us bread? What does Rantimus do but speak in the synagogue? What does he give?
‘H-O-P-E! I wanted to scream but lest I be labeled a disciple, I denied him in my silence. I did not know why the Proles failed to see than in numbers they were more than Pilates’ men and that they held the reigns to his fear.
‘Reigns to his fear’ those were Plumbitfexes own words. It was the way he described the power of the Proles.
The rain had waned now and the muddied earth threshed by our many feet had begun to mash into a consistent paste. Water flowed in gentle silence along the troughs in the mills, beneath the rooves in the ducts and in rivulets through the seams of our cloaks. Mine weighed heavily on my shoulders- a mockery of what the weight of the cross will be. Gethsemane the hill of death stood afar off with crosses like sticks dotting its bleak landscape of eternal silence. As we flowed, I longed for an escape because I did not want to see the death of Rantimus neither did I want to be with the crowd. As soon as I saw the mouth of an alley open into a cluster of kibbutz away from the tide, I squeezed off into the 'easy-way' shutting the voices of Proles behind me asking why I was not man enough to see the execution.
‘Maybe he is one of his disciples’, I heard one say as I proceeded down the alley, away from the exodus.
The alleys were silent and my feet made a clatter on the stone paving that sounded inordinately loud. Everywhere seemed like Gethsemane- a place of silence where life had deserted. I could hear the fetters swinging lazily in the after-rain winds and doves squawking in the high turrets where they built their nests. At the end of the alley, the paved path forked into four tributaries about which homesteads clustered in chaotic massing. I took the third tributary and a right turn. Beth Araba’s yard should be to the left, just ahead. I kept walking, doubling my strides to reach home but by the time I reached the end of the turning, the unfamiliar walls of an alien kibbutz greeted my welcome. It was not Beth Araba’s yard and the dirty brown awning over the entrance did not seem familiar at all. I had missed my way. Turning around to catch the sights of anything familiar, I spun around twice before I gave up. I had to find my way back. The crucifixion must be getting to me.
The noise felt nearer as I made my way back trying to re-trace my steps. I then chanced upon a narrow route through a bank of food vendor shops long-locked as they seemed, and walked until the route terminated at a wall. Turning again, back towards the food vendor stalls, a throng of people seemingly from nowhere squeezed into the intersecting alley and carried me off in the flow again. There seemed to be a rush about their demeanor as if they were in a hurry to see something. I struggled to break away but it was an exercise in futility- this time the flow spewed me out into the open among a gang of Roman soldiers.
Not more than a dozen cubits from me was the man I was running from.
Plumbtifex Rantimus, bearing his cross and sheltering a hail of whips as they struggled to claim his hide for their sating.
As I started to turn from the gory sight, he looked up and I caught his eye.
It was a moment lost in time as one eye looked to another, one 'unblighted', the other bloodied shut. A still suspense like life conserved in amber. Not words, nor voices, nor rant could describe the thoughts that streamed from one eye to another. Then a whipped cracked on Rantimus’ head and broke the swollen eye in a gush of blood. I merely stood still watching Rantimus lose his balance and the cross fall, tumbling down into the crowd and causing commotion. As I tried to push my way through the stampede, the cross came to a stop at my feet bearing blood stain and sweat. Fallen, across where I stood was a dying Rantimus too weak to stand.
‘Pick it up! I heard one of the soldiers say.
‘At least he claims to be your priest. Pick it up and help your savior.’
I bent down to heave the cross on my shoulders. It was heavy as lead and sent pain down my shoulder blades but the pain did not count. I was still perplexed at how Chance had sought me out.
As I rose to mid-height with the weight of the cross, a certain kind of peace washed through me knowing my sins would be forgiven now that I shared in his pain.
I heard the voices of dissension all around me as we flowed on.
‘Rantimus is a sham. He has deceived us’
‘Did he not say Pilate is evil?’
‘Has Pilate not given us bread? What does Rantimus do but speak in the synagogue? What does he give?
‘H-O-P-E! I wanted to scream but lest I be labeled a disciple, I denied him in my silence. I did not know why the Proles failed to see than in numbers they were more than Pilates’ men and that they held the reigns to his fear.
‘Reigns to his fear’ those were Plumbitfexes own words. It was the way he described the power of the Proles.
The rain had waned now and the muddied earth threshed by our many feet had begun to mash into a consistent paste. Water flowed in gentle silence along the troughs in the mills, beneath the rooves in the ducts and in rivulets through the seams of our cloaks. Mine weighed heavily on my shoulders- a mockery of what the weight of the cross will be. Gethsemane the hill of death stood afar off with crosses like sticks dotting its bleak landscape of eternal silence. As we flowed, I longed for an escape because I did not want to see the death of Rantimus neither did I want to be with the crowd. As soon as I saw the mouth of an alley open into a cluster of kibbutz away from the tide, I squeezed off into the 'easy-way' shutting the voices of Proles behind me asking why I was not man enough to see the execution.
‘Maybe he is one of his disciples’, I heard one say as I proceeded down the alley, away from the exodus.
The alleys were silent and my feet made a clatter on the stone paving that sounded inordinately loud. Everywhere seemed like Gethsemane- a place of silence where life had deserted. I could hear the fetters swinging lazily in the after-rain winds and doves squawking in the high turrets where they built their nests. At the end of the alley, the paved path forked into four tributaries about which homesteads clustered in chaotic massing. I took the third tributary and a right turn. Beth Araba’s yard should be to the left, just ahead. I kept walking, doubling my strides to reach home but by the time I reached the end of the turning, the unfamiliar walls of an alien kibbutz greeted my welcome. It was not Beth Araba’s yard and the dirty brown awning over the entrance did not seem familiar at all. I had missed my way. Turning around to catch the sights of anything familiar, I spun around twice before I gave up. I had to find my way back. The crucifixion must be getting to me.
The noise felt nearer as I made my way back trying to re-trace my steps. I then chanced upon a narrow route through a bank of food vendor shops long-locked as they seemed, and walked until the route terminated at a wall. Turning again, back towards the food vendor stalls, a throng of people seemingly from nowhere squeezed into the intersecting alley and carried me off in the flow again. There seemed to be a rush about their demeanor as if they were in a hurry to see something. I struggled to break away but it was an exercise in futility- this time the flow spewed me out into the open among a gang of Roman soldiers.
Not more than a dozen cubits from me was the man I was running from.
Plumbtifex Rantimus, bearing his cross and sheltering a hail of whips as they struggled to claim his hide for their sating.
As I started to turn from the gory sight, he looked up and I caught his eye.
It was a moment lost in time as one eye looked to another, one 'unblighted', the other bloodied shut. A still suspense like life conserved in amber. Not words, nor voices, nor rant could describe the thoughts that streamed from one eye to another. Then a whipped cracked on Rantimus’ head and broke the swollen eye in a gush of blood. I merely stood still watching Rantimus lose his balance and the cross fall, tumbling down into the crowd and causing commotion. As I tried to push my way through the stampede, the cross came to a stop at my feet bearing blood stain and sweat. Fallen, across where I stood was a dying Rantimus too weak to stand.
‘Pick it up! I heard one of the soldiers say.
‘At least he claims to be your priest. Pick it up and help your savior.’
I bent down to heave the cross on my shoulders. It was heavy as lead and sent pain down my shoulder blades but the pain did not count. I was still perplexed at how Chance had sought me out.
As I rose to mid-height with the weight of the cross, a certain kind of peace washed through me knowing my sins would be forgiven now that I shared in his pain.
OIO
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