Holy Wafer

by J. B. Hogan

conclusion

Though he didn’t really need to, Stephen found himself standing on tiptoes to get a clear view of the oncoming procession. As it passed by, he saw four men, all beaten severely, their backs a bloody, naked mess, being driven up the cobblestone path by a small contingent of soldiers, dressed in classic Roman legionary uniforms, their short swords at the side and each wielding either a whip or a cudgel-like stick of wood which they used to prod their often reluctantly moving prisoners.

“Which one is he?” the dark-haired man near Stephen asked. “Which one is the rebel teacher?”

“That’s him on the far side,” the light-haired man explained. “Beyond the two bigger men on this side.

Stephen looked out to see a rather smallish man, perhaps average-sized among these shorter peoples, with the ubiquitous dark, curly hair — so curly as to almost be in ringlets. The man looked tired, dirty, and not surprisingly, afraid.

“That’s Yeshua,” the light-haired man said, “that’s him.”

“They say he had many dangerous men in his band,” the dark-haired man opined.

“Oh, yes,” his companion agreed.

“Zealots and radicals, even Iscarii,” the dark-haired man said.

“Hush,” the other man said, “don’t even say those names. Not out loud.”

“He was a reformer,” someone else spoke out. “Nothing more.”

“See,” the light-haired man hissed to his friend, “they’ve heard you. Be quiet about it.”

“I was just saying,” the dark-haired man said.

“Enough,” his friend told him, “enough. There they go.”

The four condemned men passed by then, followed by a large oxen cart that contained four tall wooden beams cut from tree limbs. As the procession continued up the road to the ominous hill, part of the crowd fell in behind, keeping a safe distance from the whips, cudgels, and swords of the legionaries. Stephen tagged along, although his movements seemed to be attracting an occasional confused glance from members of the throng.

As the condemned men and the ones in the crowd who followed neared the killing hill, some morbidly curious, perhaps a handful who cared for one or other of the soon to be dead, they were suddenly overtaken by a larger unit of legionaries who came stomping up from behind, sending the crowd scattering for safety.

“Arrogant bastards,” the dark-haired man whispered to his friend when they were safely out of harm’s way from the probable Century of Legionaries. The soldiers formed a solid ring around the vertical beams before which the condemned men now stood.

The two men Stephen followed, unseen as he was at their side, had hurried off the path to the left center of the killing hill. Before them were the remains of several men previously sentenced to death. Parts of their decomposing bodies hung from the T-shaped vertical and horizontal beams upon which they had died and upon which they still hung. Mangy dogs, their own ribs sticking from starving sides, poked their heads over the backside of the hill, hoping for a quick bite when the legionaries didn’t bother to drive them off.

“Filthy Romans,” the light-haired man whispered.

“Why are there so many of them?” the dark-haired man asked

“Why do you think?” his friend replied.

“The outcountry rabbi?”

“Exactly. They’re afraid there’ll be trouble.”

“There aren’t enough people here to scare the animals off,” the dark-haired man laughed sardonically, “much less fight these bloody soldiers.”

“Show’s how powerful his band had become.”

“Hmm.”

Before them, the soldiers prepared the four condemned men to hang on the wood beams. First they did the biggest man among the four, a foul, evil-looking man with one protruding eye that looked dead of sight. They laid him on the ground with his arms on the crossbeam and drove thick hobnails through his hands just up his arm from the wrist. His cry was bloodcurdling and most in the crowd looked away in terror.

Then with a contraption made of rope and pulleys, which they hooked around the man’s shoulders and around his waist, the legionaries drug the man backwards to the vertical beam and then hoisted him, screaming, into place.

Once the crossbeam was nailed and tied solidly to the vertical beam to make a T, a thick-waisted legionary drove an even thicker hobnail into the man’s crossed legs just above the ankles. Again the cry was bloodcurdling. The procedure was repeated on the remaining three men with exactly the same results.

In their final configuration, the four men were not quite in a straight line, the small rebel teacher second in line from the left and slightly back from the others. Finally the legionaries added a sign for each of the criminals: one bore the inscription, EP; another FC; the big man — on the far right of the four — had the label HV; and the rebel leader YNHC.

“What are those signs?” the dark-haired man asked.

“Two of them are common thieves or robbers,” his friend explained, “the big man is a murderer.”

“Ooh,” the dark-haired man shivered.

“And the little one: enemy of the state.”

Staring at the horrendous display finally took its toll on Stephen; he closed his eyes and drifted away in his mind. It was all too terrible, too real. He wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. It was just too much. A wave of nausea swept over him and he had to fight an urge to vomit.

When it passed, he opened his eyes. Oddly, it seemed that several hours had passed. The two talkative men had gone, as well as most of the original crowd. The sun was well below noon height and far in the distance there was a desert thunderstorm blowing wind and rain across the barren land.

Looking up, Stephen saw that the four condemned men were in various stages of dying. Occasionally they would manage to stretch themselves to get a breath of air but it was obvious they were dying of asphyxiation. Then a legionary, a commander of some rank, signaled to the thick-bodied soldier who had nailed the men to the beams, and the big man stepped towards the condemned men. He wielded a heavy metal bar. Without a word, the soldier swung the bar at the legs of the big murderer and shattered them at mid-calf range. The man made a muffled groan and slumped heavily downward. In turn, the soldier repeated the procedure on the other three men with, once again, identical results.

In no more than a quarter of an hour, all of the condemned were dead. Stephen looked away from them and at the people remaining on the hill. Only a few were left, including some dark-clothed women nearby. They cried softly. Beyond them, Stephen saw yet another contingent of men arriving. They appeared to be high-ranking officials accompanied by a handful of what were surely priests. They saluted the legionary commander and he walked them over to the beam holding the rebel teacher. Stephen followed, praying not to be seen. As he drew nearer the rebel’s beam, one of the women looked up and seemed to see him, but she made no indication to the others that she had.

“This is him,” the Legionary commander said, pointing up to the little rabbi. “As you can see, he is dead.”

“Make sure they are all dead,” one of the officials, perhaps a representative of the Governor, ordered. The commander signaled to a lower ranking man who pointed to his men. Several soldiers grabbed spears and pierced the sides of the four already dead men just below the heart on the left side of their bodies. Blood and fluids poured out of the wounds onto the beams and onto the sandy soil below. The starving dogs just off the side of the killing hill howled their hunger.

“Sir?” the commander asked, as if there were anything else to be done to the men.

“Your rebellion is over,” the governor’s representative said to the priests. “Done.”

“Yes,” one of the priests said tight-jawed. “Yes, it is.”

With a salute, the Governor’s representative and his party turned and walked away. The legionary commander signaled his unit and the large contingent of soldiers marched off as well. Stephen was left alone with the dead, the dark-clothed ladies, and the original contingent of soldiers.

Nearly dizzy from viewing the harsh brutality of local justice, Stephen wobbled forward, finding himself very near to the base of the dead rabbi’s beam. He reached out a hand and leaned against the beam. A nearby legionary swung his head over as if he’d seen something.

“What is it?” asked one of his comrades, the big soldier who had broken the prisoners’ legs. Stephen froze where he stood.

“I thought I saw something move at the base of that beam there,” the first Legionary said.

“You’re just jittery,” the big soldier said. “You’re new out here. You’ll get used to these little shows.”

“I don’t know,” the first soldier said, shaking his head. “It’s pretty rough. I sure wouldn’t want to die like this.”

“You wouldn’t,” a third soldier said, as the three troops gathered a few feet away from the beam holding the dead body of the rebel teacher. “Unless you were a traitor. These types of executions are only for non-Romans.”

“Oh,” the first soldier said, as if relieved.

“It’s a message to these barbarians,” the big soldier explained. “Rome to the provinces: we’re in control. We rule. Our laws. Don’t break them.”

“What did this man do?” the first soldier asked, pointing at the teacher on the beam.

“Who cares,” the big soldier said. “These people are goat herders. Desert rats. They’re backwards and filthy. In case you haven’t noticed yet, this is the worst posting in the entire army. You think anybody wants to be here in this Godforsaken place.”

“I don’t know,” the first soldier said.

“Hell,” the big man said, “our governor can’t even stand the place. I’m telling you it is the crappiest place in the empire. Horrible.”

“Easy on him,” the third soldier interjected, “he’s new here. Give him some time.”

“Hmph,” the big soldier grunted.

“To answer your question about this one,” the third soldier explained to the first, “he was the leader of some sort of out country rebellion. It was getting out of control. We stopped it.”

“Oh,” the first soldier said.

He and the third soldier walked away then, the more experienced man putting his arm around the new man’s shoulders and explaining to him the facts of life in this occupied land at the very furthest edges of the great empire. The big soldier remained by the beam that held the dead body of the radical teacher.

Having held still as long as he could, Stephen could not resist an urge to reach up and touch the dead man above him. The man looked so small, so alone in his death. Stephen felt a great wave of sadness and compassion sweep over him. For the man, for all the men dead on that horrible hill.

Slowly he lifted his right arm towards the beam, towards the large hobnail driven through the dead man’s feet. Giving in to a strange impulse, then, he suddenly grabbed for the nail and pulled on it. The big soldier, spying the movement, cried out. Despite that, Stephen kept pulling on the nail. The big soldier bolted towards the beam, grabbing a nearby cudgel. Stephen turned just in time to see the cudgel coming straight at his forehead. Then everything went dark.

* * *

Stephen woke to the declining sun in his eyes. It was late in the afternoon. The park was completely empty except for him and the ducks swimming around in the pond below.

What a strange thing to have dreamed about, he thought, sitting up and shaking the cobwebs out of his head. I’ve been having a lot of these lately. Very odd.

As he started to stand up, Stephen felt something on his shirt near his waist. Looking down he saw that it was a two or three inch strip of some rough-hewn, dark metal. Taking the object in his fingers, he examined it, saw to his shock that it was a thin piece of a nail. A break off, a flake, from one side of a very primitive-looking hobnail.

Stephen quickly finished standing, almost jumping up, and looked around for other people in the park, but there were none. Taking a deep breath, he looked the nail over again. It looked exactly like a piece of the nail he had touched just before he had blacked out in his dream, just as he was about to touch the nail on the feet of the....

Impossible, he told himself. Could not have happened. Checking for other people again, he quickly pocketed the nail flake. He took another deep breath to calm himself down, releasing it in an audible, tired, even sad-sounding sigh. Slowly, stiff-legged, he walked down the hill to the parking space and his Bronco.

Sliding in behind the wheel he wondered if he dared tell anyone of what seemed to have happened. Lisa? Tom? The confession priest?

The confession priest? Not likely. Oh, no, he wouldn’t do that. How could you tell such a story to anyone else? How would he be able to tell the priest about the emptiness he had felt looking up at the sad little man forever dead on the Roman T-beam? That little man, so dead. His lifeless body no more than a cold husk or shell for the human vitality it had once housed.

No, Stephen would keep all this to himself. He would not go back to the church, nor to the priests, and he wouldn’t tell Tom or Lisa either. Some experiences were too personal, too individual to share. This one was one he would have to keep to himself — to himself alone.