By early afternoon, the crowd had thinned, but there were still plenty of spectators. Alice had been crucified for about five hours, and by now she could barely remember life as a normal human. Her agonised existence spiked to wood high above the rest of humanity filled her every conscious thought, and had driven memories from her mind. She could not even remember why she was here, just that she was here.
“Hello Alice.”
For a moment Alice could not locate the source of the voice. She looked to her left and her right, but the chicken rustlers were, like her, suffering in silent misery.
“Alice, I’m here, in front of you.”
She focussed on a lone figure standing in the long grass at the top of the slope. Dimly she recalled that there had been life before the cross, and he had been part of it. He was….
Her father.
“Dad!” It was a croak, her mouth was parched. “What…are you…doing…. here?”
“I’ve been here for hours, but the centurion has only just allowed me up here for a few moments.”
Alice struggled with the thought. Had that bastard centurion actually allowed her an iota of consideration?
“How’s…. Mum?”
“Her sister is with her. Deborah. Your mother hasn’t stopped crying since you were arrested. We haven’t told her that you’ve been….” His voice tailed off.
“Tell her…. I love her…. and… I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Alice. These,” he waved his hand “Roman bastards, they have plenty they should be sorry about. Look at you! How could they do this to…” his voice broke “my lovely daughter?”
The real world came back to her.
“Ruth… she’ll be…. wondering?”
“Don’t worry about her. We sent her a message. She’s down there in the crowd, watching. She says she’s very sorry about what’s happened.”
Ruth, her boss, looking up at her naked, suffering body. Her father, too. The shame of it. The nudity was all part of the pain.
“Dad?”
“What?”
“I’m…. thirsty.”
Joseph addressed the centurion. “Can’t one of your goons give my daughter a drink?”
The centurion considered, then he nodded to one of the soldiers, who sighed deeply, and then took a ladder and leaned it against Alice’s cross with a bump.
“Owwww!” Alice shuddered with the pain.
He soaked a sponge in the bloody water they’d used to wash their hands after the crucifixions. He took it up to Alice who sucked deeply from it, and then he wrung it out over her head.
“Thanks,” said Alice. It wasn’t much, but it had very slightly improved her life. And she was grateful for anything.
The soldier grunted, and took the ladder away. As Joseph watched, Alice struggled up onto her nailed heels for a moment or two, to relieve her upper body, her agonised cries as she did so cutting through him like a knife. As he watched her, Joseph’s mind with filled with memories, regrets, and cold fury towards the Romans. With both Alice and Elizabeth gone, he would have nobody left. He resolved to kill as many Romans as he could, and if he finished up on a cross himself, so be it. He would kill for Alice, and maybe die like Alice.
“Dad?” Alice, hanging from her wrists again, broke into his thoughts.
“What, Alice?”
“It really hurts, Dad.”
Whenever she’d been hurt up to now, her father had made her feel better. Now he could do nothing. He looked up at his daughter, suspended high above him.
“I’m sorry, Alice….”
“No…. I mean, don’t blame the… Romans. I don’t want you… crucified… for my sake!”
He gawped at her. She’d read his mind.
“Forget me…… go back to….Mum…. love her to…. death. Find someone else…. Be happy!”
“I’ll never forget you, Alice.”
“Time to go! You’ve made your farewells!” The centurion brought visiting time to an abrupt end.
Joseph stepped forward, and gently kissed her foot. “Goodbye, Alice. I love you.”
“Love you…. too, Dad!”
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