Miguela's Passion Play
"Well, let's do a dress rehearsal!", the director proposed when the contract was finally signed.
Miguela nodded and with no delay she took off her shoes and jeans and pulled her blouse over her head, leaving her in just her panties.
"Rather >no dress< rehearsal to be strict, sir", she murmured, lying down on the wood. Then the director assistants made the final measures and the reenactors of the executors received instructions from the doctor where to hammer in the nails during the performance.
"Will the public stand around the cross?", she asked the director.
"Only on this side. In front of you. They will only be able to get closer and to talk to you and touch you when you play out all the scenes and we finish filming".
"Okay, so they will see me from... from the bottom during the nailing?"
"Exactly. So, try to act shy and with dignity, at least at first, until you can handle it", answered Mr Santos.
"Of course, sir, I will!" stated Miguela with deep conviction.
"A brave girl!", he said with appreciation but inwardly he thought to himself: was she so naive as to believe such a nonsense? Self-control during crucifixion? Forget it...!
And, of course, he was right.
The next morning, when four actors dressed as Roman soldiers dragged Miguela to the execution site, the actress almost fainted with emotion as she was stripped naked in front of a huge crowd. And when placed on a cross and the hammering of nails began, her blood pressure rose like never before. Blood gushed out from under the nails, she screamed desperately, kicking her legs, and the audience laughed and applauded. Miguela cried, jumped and writhed in pain, spreading her legs wide like for a tabloid porn cover, although she swore to herself to behave with dignity, restraint and grace. But she forgot that this torture was designed to destroy all the victim's dignity and pride, in which the Romans were real masters.
When her cross was fixed vertically and the opressors, high priests and supporting actors playing roles of ancient citizens begun to mock and humiliate her, Miguela found herself barely able to breathe and soon she lost all the control of her voice and reflexes. When given the posca to drink, she wasn't able to swallow the liquid, but she pissed herself instead, and when "pierced" with a fake spear she really fainted and hanged nearly motionlessly half-conscious and feeling crushed and debased, imagining she was really sentenced to death and lost all hope and pride and dignity.
It took few weeks for Miguela to recover physically and more than half a year to regain her self-esteem and a mental composition.
But when the director Juan Maria Santos started recruiting for next year's passion, she signed up at once as one of the first volunteers.
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