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A Day In The Arena

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thehangingtree said:
Nice post Mort...

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Thankyou. From past experiences, I have learned to back all my images, photos, and media files into disc so as to not have my hard drive too full and prevent a possible crash. This means I have several discs with stuff, but can't access it all at once and not everything is neatly cataloged so when I find something like this I have not seen in a while I'm surprised myself.
 
Mortadelo said:
Here is something I recently re-discovered in one of my backup disc and I think this would be the right thread to post it.
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Mortadelo said:
Thankyou. From past experiences, I have learned to back all my images, photos, and media files into disc so as to not have my hard drive too full and prevent a possible crash. This means I have several discs with stuff, but can't access it all at once and not everything is neatly cataloged so when I find something like this I have not seen in a while I'm surprised myself.
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great M:D
 
One of the best crux stories ever !!!

Barbaria1 said:
A DAY IN THE ARENA​
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Part IX. The Nailing​

Siss and I hang by our wrists from the scourging post for what seems like hours. Our hands have turned purple and my shoulders ache from the strain of bearing my weight. Our hips are still touching. I feel her warm and clammy skin against mine; and from time to time Siss manages a smile, reassured that we are still near one another, still in this together.

All around us, as we hang dazed and bleeding, the spectacle is moving toward its long-awaited climactic event. Up and down the length of the arena, the victims of the brutal tortures of the early entertainments are being gathered up, scourged and dragged to the rows of waiting crosses, where they are ruthlessly nailed and raised up, one after another, until the arena is covered by a dense forest of crosses, each bearing a writhing, struggling soul – men, women, girls and boys, slaves and patricians – all condemned in their hundreds to die together in naked agony before the tens of thousands who have come so eagerly to watch.

Eventually, they release Siss and me from the shackles holding us to our post, letting our bodies fall limply to the ground. We lay side by side in the sand, unable to move, still in a state of shock from our brutal scourging.

I slowly and painfully raise my head to look around, taking note of the many different variations in the way that those around me have been affixed to their crosses. Some hang from their wrists; some have their arms bent back over the patibulum and nailed behind them, others have been nailed upside down, and a few – mostly older women – have been nailed facing the cross. The placement of their feet and the way their feet are nailed varies too, depending on the desired effect. Care has been taken to stage and manage every detail of the proceedings, to meet every whim of the crowd.

It was then that I notice our fathers being raised up, and hear the dull thuds of their crosses as they fall into place. The positioning of their crosses is different than the others, in that they are facing sideways rather than facing into the crowds; carefully positioned so that the suffering of these two men – the leaders of the rebellion – can be seen by the audience, but so that the two men must also witness the suffering of others – their families, friends and followers.

And there, directly in front of them, only thirty Roman pedes (feet) or so away lay two empty crosses, still on the ground and awaiting their victims.

I suddenly am fully aware of the choreographed drama of the proceedings… Siss and I have purposely been left to last. We – the ones singled out by the flowers in our hair – will be the last to be nailed and raised, and it will happen with the full attention of everyone in the arena: before the watchful eyes of our own fathers, the eyes of the emperor and his senatorial party seated in the imperial box directly in front of our crosses; in front of the packed stands of spectators, in front of our own friends and families already hanging from their crosses, as well as the many strangers condemned to die with us. Our crucifixion is meant to be the crowning performance of the emperor’s spectacle.

I try to reach over and hold Siss’ hand, but my arms feel like lead; it is so difficult to move them. Slowly, I slide my left hand across the ground until I can touch her fingers. She raises her head, looks my way, and whispers my name.

But at just that moment, I am grabbed by the forearms and dragged away, like a fallen tree limb. As my heels drag, leaving a trail in the sand, I lift my head to see that Siss is being pulled along – in the same manner – in my direction.

My body is dragged to my waiting cross, hauled up over and along the long stipe of the cross, and then abruptly dropped – shoulders aligned with the patibulum, my head banging against the hard wood with a thump.

My heart begins to pound, racing out of my chest. It’s going to happen. I’m beaten and bleeding and so very tired, and it has only begun. I’m sweating like I have never before, and feeling so very hot. The sun beats down. I can feel my skin burning, waves of heat flowing in the still air over the arena floor.

Siss is dragged up alongside me and dumped carelessly on to her stipe, like a hog ready to be butchered. Our executioners seem to take little interest in us, standing around and laughing, while others that have not yet been raised are attended to.

Panic is building inside me. There is no more pretending. I am filled with fear. I lay still, too weak to move. My arms splayed out where they fell; my legs on either side of the stipe, heels in the sand.

For the first time since Siss and I stepped out on to the Arena floor, I feel naked, so very naked. Where would I run if I even had the strength to move? My life is gone! It is only my love for Siss that holds me to this reality.

Why don't they just do it??

I look over at Siss. Her chest is heaving. She has one knee bent, and her leg rocks slowly from side to side. I call out to her, but she does not answer. Have I lost her already? Has her mind slipped away?

I feel the coarseness of the wood beneath my body, pushing the grains of sand that cling to my torn and bloody back deeper into my wounds.

Suddenly, there are men all around me. I hear the clinking of metal.

Two of them take my arms and extend them out along the length of the patibulum. Another runs his hand from my shoulder to my elbow, and using the point of a nail, scribes a mark on the surface of the patibulum about six unciae down from my elbow. Then he does the same with my other arm.

A chill runs down my spine. I know that in a matter of seconds, they will be driving those nails through my wrists. I begin to cry. I am so helpless. There is nothing I can do but lay here and wait for it to happen.

Looking over at Siss, I see that she is being prepared in much the same manner. Her feet now rest flat on the ground and closer to her hips. I call out to her again, in hopes that she has not disappeared within herself. She seems so distant, but then she turns her head and calls out my name as though she has just realized what is going on around her.

But before I can even answer, the executioner’s hammer lands firmly on the head of a nail, driving the thick heavy spike cleanly through Siss’ right wrist. She screams my name so loudly that I instinctively try to get up – to somehow come to her rescue – but I am pushed back down and held firmly in place. Siss’ blood curdling screams continue as a second cold rusty iron is driven through her left wrist. Her body arches up and her feet slip in the sand, sending her hips down hard on the stipe.

Now, they turn their attention towards me. The man holding my shoulders down, pushes even harder, while two others position my wrists over the marks scratched on the patibulum. I can feel a thumb being pressed hard against each wrist, followed by a cold stinging feeling just before two spikes tear though my wrists. I feel something pop in my right as the second hammer blow is struck. My back arches, but my legs are still weak, so in my agony I am able only to helplessly twist and squirm from side to side. My screams are low and deep, sounding more like orgasmic groans, although there is nothing orgasmic about what I am experiencing. Fire is shooting through my arms and courses through my hands like a thousand needles fighting to break through my skin from the inside.

Again it seems there is no rush to finish this; our executioners seem sated with their work.

I am left lying there as the pain consumes me. I divert my attention to Siss – my new found love, my soul mate. She seems to be saying something, talking to herself as she rocks her head from side to side.

My eyes trace the pain-wracked contours of her body, the flowing movement of her mounded breasts and the sharply defined outlining of her ribs against her skin as her chest rises and falls with quick short, hurried breaths. My gaze continues on across the depression of her flat tummy, and then to her hips, half turned away from me and then back toward me again as she gently writhes on top of her stipe, constantly bending and straightening her legs, first one then the other.

I call out to her, but no response now, like before the first nails were struck. She seems lost in her own world again.

It pains me to see her suffer; I am anguished by the sight of blood flowing from her nearby wrist and along her arm, and the ugly thick shaft of the heavy spike penetrating her tender flesh and bone so cruelly.

I avert my eyes. Despite the pain and fog that cloud my head; I refocus for a moment on the crosses bearing our fathers… my father stares down at me, deep sorrow and pity in his eyes. Siss’ father has turned his head toward mine. He wishes not to watch her suffer. The look on his face is that of both anguish for the fate his daughter must endure and hatred of my father.

Someone in the nearby imperial box has grown impatient and calls loudly for our executioners to get on with it. His call is seconded by a deafening roar from the crowd, eager now to see us nailed and raised. I hear again the sound of nails clinking together.

They surround me. My shoulders rest on the patibulum. My arms are bent at the elbows and their weight pulls on the wounds in my wrists. The executioners look down on my naked sweat-soaked body. I fear they will take me in one final degrading act but thankfully this does not happen.

One of them is holding the spikes that will join my feet with the wood for my final hours on this earth.

I am grabbed by both ankles and my legs are lifted as high as the men’s waists. In the same motion, I am pulled down along the stripe, my back and shoulders scraping painfully against the coarse timber. They stop when my arms are fully extended.

Just the slightest movement or change in position sends new spasms of fresh pain down my arms. My left foot is placed with my heel next to my right knee. Then it is centered about mid-calf. A rope is slid into position and my foot is tied tightly to the stripe. Two of them pull my right leg to the side and push it into the sand.

I know what is coming next! No need to look. The point of the nail touches my instep and I am sent into a hysterical panic. I feel the contrast between the warmth of the executioners hand and the cold piece of metal he holds to steady its journey as it tears through my muscles and bones. I begin to thrash about widely in anticipation of the first hammer strike.

I raise my head and open my eyes just in time to see the hammer on its way down. I throw my head back against the stipe and let out the loudest high-pitched scream of my life.

My back arches and I nearly pull my right leg free of the grasp of the two that are holding it. The pain from the nails going through my wrists is nearly unbearable, but my foot burns white hot. Every blow of the hammer releases another screaming inferno, consuming me. My body shudders in spasms as they prepare to do the same to my right foot.

The rope is removed and slid down below my bleeding left foot. My right foot is placed with the heel just touching the big toe of my left and tied securely.

With this one, they waste no time. The spike slams through my foot and into the wood without warning. I try to scream but I can barely catch my breath. I fight just to remain sane. The pain is everywhere. The sweat from my forehead runs down into my eyes and burns.

I cannot wipe my eyes … I cannot move. A feeling I had not considered. That simple feeling of being able to touch, to feel, to wipe a tear from my eye has also been taken away from me. I am truly helpless.

They have moved on to Siss. Turning my head to the side, I can see them pulling her down the stipe as they had done to me just moments before. I call out to her but I’m sure she can’t hear me. I know it would be best not to look – easier not to look – but I must. I fight to lift my head up. I am so weak and so much in pain, but I promised her I would be with her.

I watch as they take her right foot placing the heel next to her left knee and then move it down about six unciae. Then they do the same with her other foot, so that her feet are positioned on either side of the stipe; they tie them ever so tightly in place. Siss is shaking in fear, pulling desperately at the ropes, trying futilely to free her ankles from the impending nailing.

The first spike is positioned just below her ankle, and then brutally driven though her left heel. She screams, calls out my name, as she lifts her hips high and arches her back. She holds herself up as the nail is driven home with three strikes of the hammer, and then falls to the stipe, her body contacting the wood with a thud.

Siss’ breathing is rapid and her body shudders with pain. The next nail is pounded squarely through her left heel. She screams for me again, but does not lift herself up this time. She is simply too weak. The rope is cut away leaving her feet nailed evenly, and bloodily, to the sides of the stipe.

I rest my shoulders and head. I am crying again; I am lost. I cannot bear to watch her agony any longer. I can do nothing for my beloved Siss but hang by her side until death comes to take us.

I lay there quietly, alone in my pain and sorrow. I listen to the roar of the crowd. To the cries, the screams, the moans, and the dark mutterings of those who hang on crosses all around us, aware of their anguish, of the utter hopelessness of those nailed so cruelly to their crosses for the enjoyment of the thousands.

The men gather behind us. I feel my cross begin to shake. Turning my head from side to side, I can see them try to find the right grip to lift both crosses. Siss and I are lifted a pes or so off the ground, both at the same time; our heavy crosses pushed forward towards the hole that awaits them.
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LittleSiss said:
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Puts me in mind of this


True but completely irrelevant fact I did once have a quite ordinary al fresco lunch with Arthur Brown in the back garden of my mother's house. He was dating one of my sister's at the time...my mum had a slightly (but politely) shell shocked expression due to being of an age to be a fan of his the first time round.

Still am looking forwards to chp X :D
 
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