I clutched my dress as I looked at the crucified man above me. The man was bleeding, bleeding so profusely he seemed to have been dipped in a basin of blood. At that moment he looked really ugly, with his bloodshot eyes and dirty beard speckled with blood clots, the way he sweated and the way he stank. Rabbi Joshua once said sin was the ugliest thing in the world, and if that was the case this man must be sin made flesh. But there was something very peaceful about him, in the way he suffered, as if everything was purposeful. His face was twisted in agony, he was struggling to breathe, shallow breaths, mouth gaping wide like a fish out of water, like he was drowning but on land. And each time he tried to breathe you could hear the nails twist ever so slightly, you could hear his raw back rub against the cross, and it looked like it hurt to stay alive, and I wondered where his Papa was to let him die alone like this. For a moment I wondered if the man above me was indeed a man, because so much of his flesh was exposed, to be honest he looked more like a worm. And the bleeding, it kept going, it did not stop, plop plop plop his blood fell onto the ground, from his hands and his feet and the strange crown on his head, and soon there was this puddle of dirty dusty blood at the foot of the cross. A drop of blood fell onto the back of my hand, I immediately tried to wipe it off but realised that an old wound on it had mysteriously vanished, as if by some magical exchange his wounds healed mine. I began to feel sorry for the man and started to cry, and I prayed to God that on the final day this man’s soul will be resurrected among the righteous, for what good can possibly come from a Roman cross?
