Caravaggio's Flagellation of Christ

Maxentius Flavius Vespasian clumped wearily into work. He stared wearily at the low wooden benches and cabinets as they swam blearily in and out of focus.
“Mornin’ Max.” Maxentius blinked surprisedly as his colleague, Lucius Casius Maximus pulled himself out of the dirty background and struggled into focus. Lucius was a wiry man who could not be described, especially by Maxentius’ limited vocabulary, as anything but brown. Maxentius occasionally wondered, when he took the time to wonder anything, how he had managed to accumulate the layers of grime that seemed to be permanently stuck to his skin.
“Mornin’ Lushus.” The room swam even more as Maxentius swung his bag off his shoulder. He stared at his lunch for a moment, wondering why it was sprawled over the floor instead of in his cabinet as it was supposed to be before he collapsed on his bench.
“Bad night las’ night?” Lucius was also staring at the lunch on the floor, wondering how a man who always seemed to be so well fed managed to walk around in such a dazed stupor.
Maxentius strung his words together with care.
“Me wife set into me again.”
Didn’t seem to affect her baking, Lucius considered as he eyed the rolls and sliced cheese that was still sprawled under Maxentius’ bench. “Fer what now?”
“Seems she is havin trouble findin pork. Hell woman, I asks her, since when does we eat pork? But that don’t matter, she wants pork, an’ couldn find pork, an’ so here we are.” Maxentius nodded and instantly regretted it. He squinted as he focused on Lucius. “ ‘ey now, give tha’ here.”
Lucius resignedly handed the roll back to his inebriated colleague.
Maxentius brushed the roll off on his sleeve before letting it roll out of his hands back to the floor. “But so she tells me as she thinks we need pork and this hole’s too backwards to have pork so I needs to do somfin about it. An’ she don’t understand tha’ there aint pork to be found in t’middle of t’night, so she set me out of t’house till I finds her some.”
Lucius nodded in understanding. “It’s a good thing you have an understanding with the keeper of the Kosher Hog then, aint it?”
“Yea’t is. Didn’ even hev much trouble findin’ me way t’work this morning’.” He smiled blearily and pulled open his cupboard. He glared disgustedly at the cloth loincloth that served as their uniform. “When I lived in Rome…”
“People had decent uniforms, I know, jest get changed and stop yer moaning bout it.”
Maxentius gave the cloth another black look before pulling his leather tunic off and wrapping the hated garment around his middle. “N’wonder me wife is fre, frusrt.” He paused, staring at the knot he was tying. “What’s t’word?”
“Frustrated?”
“Frustrated! Yea, frustrated. Shes frustrated. Cause this whole place is backwards. No decent uniforms. No pork. When we lived in Rome I had a decent uniform, an’ she could find pork. In t’middle of t’night too! An’ people respected me. They didn’t spit at me in the streets fer bein’ Roman. Hell, we were all Roman!”
“Get movin’ and stop gripping. We’re gonna get behind. Lots to do today.”
“Lots t’do! I bet. Troublemakers, this whole town. Th’lot o’them. Especially this here week. I don’ know how, but they all invited their troublmaking relitives t’town fer a party, and big troublemakin’ party. Rabble, th’lot o’them.” Maxentius stumbled against a stool that hadn’t been there a moment before. “This is th’armpit of the Empire, le’ me tell you. An’ these pigs aint satisfied t’make trouble jest fer us, no, they make it amon themselves. Like tha’ one, th’other day, ruined their temple, didn’ he? I wonder when he will be payin’ us a visit, aye Lucius?”
“He’s our ferst on our list, lad. Bruno’s already softening ‘im up, so stop philosophizing and move your ass!”
Maxentius heaved himself towards the end of the room. “Our first customer, aye? I bet I’ll get me some respect, once I be through with’im. N’like the rest of these pigs. Ha! Won’ eat pigs th’dirty louts, theys better than the Roman’s aint they? Well we’ll see whose better than who when I’m holding the whip!”
Lucius shook his head. He didn’t mind his job, it kept him housed and fed. But Maxentius actually enjoyed his work. When he took a hold of his whip he was in control of the world, and the screaming criminal who had fallen afoul of Pontius Pilate’s good graces was the perfect vent for his frustrations. Even at the end of days when Lucius longed to wash the blood off his body and fall into a tankard of beer Maxentius was surprised by the setting of the sun, and would probably continue his work by candle light if he were allowed to.
“Jest get your tools, Max, and lets go. Pontius Pilate wants this one out there right away.”
“What in the name of bloody hell is this!? First they move me out of Rome to this armpit of th’world full of dirty I’m holier than thou bloody wont eat pork cause our bleeding god told us it was dirty and you are a slime dwelling pagan and now they give me this! They call this a whip? This aint a whip, it’s a bloody bundle of bleeding twigs!”
Lucius had prudently hidden inside a nearby cabinet when Maxentius started to yell. Anyone who knew Maxentius would hide when he exploded, except perhaps his wife. But at the mention of the whip Lucius stuck his head out to evaluate the situation. Maxentius was towering in front of the cabinet where his beloved whip was usually kept. But instead of holding his beloved contraption of knotted rope, bits of broken stone and pottery stained black with the blood of thousands of men, he was brandishing a bundle of sticks in his angry fist.
“What‘n the name of hell is that thing?”
“A bleeding bundle of twigs, thats what! How am I t’do my job if they don’t e’en give me a whip? Forty lashes used t’kill a man, an’ now t’will barely tickle!”
“I do remember something about budget cuts…”
“I used t’be a soldier of Augustus himself! I was a member of th’emperor’s elite torturers! And now look at me!”
“Well we need to go, e’en if it is only a bundle of sticks, com’on Maxentius, Bruno’ll be waiting…”
Still fuming, Maxentius followed Lucius as he grabbed his own bundle of sticks out of the brown changing room. The desert sun had not yet risen above the palace battlements and the whipping yard was still wrapped in a forgiving gloom which momentarily hid the man Bruno was tying to the post in the middle of the courtyard. Maxentius fumed towards him, raised his arm and caught the man’s eye. It was the most piercing gaze he had ever been caught in. It made him forgot his rage, his bitterness, his pride. Slowly he felt this man tied to the whipping post in front of him look through him, see all of him and all he had ever done and, strangely, love him. He felt an invitation in that moment, an invitation to he didn’t know what. The bundle of sticks slipped from his fingers and landed on the stone as Max stood there, lost in the intensity of the man’s eyes. But then Lucius struck the man in the middle of the chest and blood dripped into his eyes from, are those thorns wrapped around his head? Shaking with emotion, Maxentius leaned over to pick up his bundle of sticks.