The Gladiator

Outside these walls, over my head, the crowd roars, chants and cheers.  Dust spills down from between the planks and shines golden in errant shafts of afternoon sunlight; the dust spills in my hair, trickles down my back, rolls on my arms.

Mother; please do not be ashamed of me.

My hands are shackled in front of me, my tunic is battered and grey.

Father, I have failed in everything you have taught me.

My turn at the anvil; the blacksmith there taps the pin out of my shackles.  The next man waiting for me roughly shoves a boiled leather cuirass over my head.

Mother, forgive me.

A helmet is jammed onto my skull; the eyeholes don’t line up and I reach to adjust it.  As my hands come up the wicked bite of a whip explodes on my back and I drop to a knee. 

“Keep moving,” the jailer says.

Mother, the life you gave me was wasted. 

Mother, you bore me for nothing. 

The last step before the door; an armorer is there with a shoddy buckler.  He straps the heavy thing to my arm. 

I’ve never lifted one in my life.

Father, I never wanted to let you down. 

The armorer slaps a gladius into my free palm.  It’s dull and corroded.  For a second I see myself, I see my face, I see the tears and the lines and scars of a life long lost. 

Father, watch my sisters.  Watch my son. 

The door opens to the arena pit, the crowd surges and cheers and a man waits for me there.  He is painted black and wears the dried head of a bull over his own.  In each hand is a gladius already red with fresh blood.  And a foot lands roughly in my back, and I tumble onto the sand.  A thousand cheers, a thousand voices, they all scream to watch me die.

How did it come to this?