Part 28 : AD 2073.
An abandoned railroad yard.
Julia was looking at her past.
Times ago, she had been dwelling around on the old railroad yard, down below there, lurking crucifixions. Sometimes she had wondered whether she was looking at her own future?
Julia saw the onlookers nearing, realizing that she was on the other side now.
They came to watch her. How she was naked and in pain.
Thoughts flashed through her head. There was no hiding. She had no choice but to take her exposed nudity for granted, despite her humiliating position, with her knees bent outward, exposing all her private parts. It was embarrassing but it was part of it. She would have to ignore mockery, taunting, humiliating and abusive language, sexual and other allusions on her body. She knew what she and her companions had to expect. She had witnessed many times before, as an onlooker.
Meanwhile, she was fighting pain. The partial anesthesia maybe had saved her from what is generally known as the ‘excruciating pain’, so typical for crucifixion. But even without, it was absolutely no walk in the park. The sedile, merely a metal rod between her legs, did not provide ‘comfortable’ sitting at all. The local, intense and constant pressure of the nails on her wrists and ankles was unbearable. The wrist nails felt as if they were ripping her wrists apart, and the scrubbing of nail, touching bone felt horrible.
Gravity constantly pulled her head and torso down, resulting in a hanging forward, the easiest way (correction : the least difficult) to cope with her body weight, but also a position that put all the strain on her arms and particularly on her wrist nails. Cramps terrorized her neck, arms and shoulders. She needed to rise her head and shoulders to ease the fatiguing strain on her arm muscles. But with her back and head upright against the wood, she had to do effort to ‘hold’ that position against the downward pull from her weight.
The sedile also took a lot of very local heavy pressure in her crotch. It was almost as if she was getting impaled. She could hardly stand up from it, due to the anesthesia still blocked the little liberty in motion that was left to her, and because attempts to pull on the wrist nails – and wrist bones - approached the state of excruciation. Gravity also pulled on her legs. Her sideward nailed legs were slightly bend, knees outward. The ankle nails took her lower body weight. Gravity wanted her legs to simply dangle down, resulting into constant heavy pressure of her legs on the ankle nails, even if the pressure was merely passive. There was cramp in her knees. She tried to relieve it by slightly trying to pull up her legs, painful and fatiguing as well, and with only little tolerance. She never had even considered that legs could weigh so heavily.
It was a continuous physical effort. By moments, she hated the sedile as it seemed to prevent her from seeking a more comfortable position, although her mind told her that such a position did not exist at all, that without sedile her exertion would even have been much harder.
She had to cope with the prospect of slowly degrading. Breathing slowly, heavily. Enduring continuously terrible pressure pain and cramps. She had to fight depressing despair, since she did not want to appear weak in front of the onlookers.
The only ‘advantage’ of the pains and despair she endured, was, that it drew her attention away from the onlookers, a hostile crowd, enjoying the agony and humiliation of those who had not joined what they stood for. Enjoying the fate of their defeated enemies.
She looked around, and saw her two companions. The woman on her left. About ten years older than Julia. Science faculty. She taught experimental mechanics. Very convenient, right? Curious!? Julia suddenly noticed she was still wearing her glasses. She was a heavily looking woman, mostly because of her tally and because, from her hips on, she had an almost straight, masculine waist, topped by disproportionally small and sagging breasts. Julia noticed she was not only visibly struggling with her weight and tally (her heavy long legs stood really wide open) but also with enduring foul mockery from the crowd about her bodily shape and her age. Julia wished she could have shouted ‘stop that!’, but her speech was still muted.
The man on her right. He rather seemed to undergo it all quietly. Maybe because he had been passionate all his life by practicing gymnastics. He looked very pensive and stoic. How would his personal medical experiment go, Julia wondered? Professor Malachius, anatomist, was reputed at The University for his extensive publication list. They said he was continuously editing his next paper in his head. And although in much of his papers, he rather acted as co-author, being the promotor or coordinator of the research, he was very performant in producing them. Publishing to avoid perishing, the concern of every academic. Ultimately in vain, since, despite his career long effort, perishing had caught him up now, in a way he probably never had expected.
His ultimate academic research was about to become personal and practical.
Author : Professor Malachius, Ph D, M.D.
Title of the paper : ‘An empirical study of crucifixion under cervical anesthesia. A legal, engineering, medical, historical and mechanical viewpoint.’
Introduction: literature search (to be carried out by a junior researcher).
Materials & Methods: life experience of five academic test persons, including author.
Results: accounts of the test persons.
Conclusions: "That even with cervical anesthesia, blocking excruciating pain, crucifixion was the most awful method of execution ever invented".
***
Outisde.
“Well Nico, what’s your impression?”
“I am impressed! The way they keep up courage!”
“Sure! But it could be appearance, at least in part! They are stiffened by pain killers. According to the philosophy of the authorities, the punishment is the hanging, not the nailing! Hanging nailed to a cross with no prospect to survive! Naked, deprived of modesty! Looking down from the cross how life goes on without them, while they must struggle on four nails!”
“Nevertheless, …. particularly since they have to face the humiliations from the crowd. These onlookers, they make me sick!”
“I told you, they are not the kind of people to argue with!”
“I am supposed to be forgiving, but… some of them are real scum! I am sorry to say so!”
“Nico, this Is not the first crucifixion you are attending?”
“No! But the other occasions were real criminals! People who, from the judicial point of view, deserved it! That was different!”
“Nico! Do not make Dismas’ mistake!”
“What mistake?”
“Dura lex, sed lex, Nico! On his cross, Dismas, the good thief, said that he and Gestas deserved their punishment, but Christ did not, remember?”
“Sure I do, but..”
“On the cross, ‘deserved or not’ does not count anymore! Justice is done! Both the criminals you have seen, as these five, knew exactly what they risked! Crucifixions are public events, no concealed executions, right?”
“But don’t these onlookers understand that these five people were standing up for their rights and their freedoms too?”
“Nico! There is a saying, that those who want to trade rights for security, deserve neither rights nor security. These onlookers consider themselves immune, but they are digging the grave of their own liberties! Now something else, Nico! It is already two pm! I am hungry!”
“Me too! Let’s buy something in that shop there. They got sandwiches!”
“Nico, the sandwiches they are selling there are small, limited choice, of bad quality, and expensive. That shop keeper takes profit from his location in front of the execution site. I suggest you go to the Coffee Shop, at the corner of Gallows Street. They got the best sandwiches in town, with homemade ingredients. And delicious coffee too. I will write down my order, you get it while I stay on watch here! If you come back immediately, the coffee will still be warm, so do not waste time by chatting with those attractive young waitresses there!”
“Hey! I am an ordained priest, remember?”
“Right, Nico! You are in every inch a man of God!”
(to be continued)
I guess you could say that mass crucifixions, where each person had a specific job prefigured Henry Ford by a couple of millennia.
Remember Julia has never been court, leave that she got a fair trial.... Coming up soon!
