"The hunger moves first. They follow."
"They wear their suffering the way the crucified wears nails."
"The Age of Man is ending. The Reign of Flesh Eaters has come."
The air was heavy with the scent of hot stone, unwashed bodies, and the promise of public death. Mattiyahu wiped sweat from his bearded face and squinted up at the sun. His worn robes swayed in a breeze that did nothing to ease the hate coiled in his gut. Starvation gnawed at his belly, a constant reminder that decent coin had not touched his palm in months.
A sharp crack of wood distracted him from darker thoughts. A merchant's cart listed near his tent, one wheel shattered. Mattiyahu approached, not from charity, but for the promise of bread and coin.
"Ho there," he called, long hair whipping across his face. "Need help with that?"
The merchant looked up from the wreckage. His round face, weathered by sun and worry, his coarse tunic and frayed mantle streaked with dust. Frustration stiffened his stance and then sagged into gratitude. "What does it look like?" he snapped, before waving a hand in apology and wiping his brow. "Yes. I need help. Unless you can make this thing roll on three wheels?"
Mattiyahu knelt and ran a hand along the fractured spokes, peering at the point where wheel met cart. "You bent the shaft," he said. "It's stressing the hub until the wood fails. I can brace it, but it won't carry you far."
"You hear any news out of Jerusalem?" the merchant asked as Mattiyahu worked. "About that prophet from Galilee? The one who gives away his work?"
Mattiyahu's hands froze on the wood. He did not look up. "He twists craft into a snare. He builds frames and carves tables for allegiance, not coin. He draws crowds with his miracles, a mockery of the trade that once filled our bowls." His tent stood nearby, once flawless, sewn by his hands. Now it sagged with neglect, its canvas torn and left unpatched. No crowd would ever gather for his craft.
"Well, friend, your worries are over," the merchant said, voice thick with gossip. "The Sanhedrin and high priests finally had enough. They arrested him last night and dragged him straight to Pilate." It was half lie, half-truth. Everyone knew the Galilean had gone without struggle. A better story demanded shouting and struggle. The merchant had a reputation to protect.
The news struck Mattiyahu like a physical blow. He gripped the wheel harder, knuckles whitening. Before Pilate. Roman justice, the kind that ended on a cross. "And Pilate?" he asked, voice tighter now. "What did he do?"
The merchant shrugged, mantle slipping from bony shoulders. "Washed his hands of it. The priests worked the crowd into a frenzy. 'Crucify him! Release Barabbas!' Pilate caved. The procession to Golgotha would begin soon. You should watch. Let it lift the weight from your heart."
Mattiyahu nodded and finished the work in silence. He accepted the meager loaf, its crust hard as stone, and turned back toward his tent. Inside the gloom, his gaze found Hannah, his wife. She had once been beautiful. Now her black hair stuck to her skull-like face from sweat, eyes dull, cheekbones sharp enough to cut. Her belly swelled with the child neither of them dared name. His? He no longer knew for certain.
A memory cut deeper than any nail of Roman guards pressing copper coins into his palm. Hannah stood beside him with betrayal in her gaze. Soldiers laughed as they led her away to the barracks. Her skeletal frame vanished between several soldiers gathering around.
He stilled himself with the meager stale loaf of bread in hand and felt nothing but the old familiar shame burning in his chest. "It's done." Mattiyahu spoke, voice flat. "The Romans have him. The Galilean. They will crucify him."
Hannah's eyes, empty for so long, flared with sudden, terrifying life. She pushed herself upright, frantic. "Now? Now?"
He nodded; jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped. "To Golgotha."
A sound tore out of her, not a laugh, not a sob, something rawer. "Good." Her fingers dug into his arm like claws. "They'll make a show of it. They always do. We have to be there, Matti." Her voice dropped to a fevered whisper. "We have to see it."
He looked at her burning face, then at the swell of her belly. "Hannah… the walk, the crowd. Your condition."
Her breath rasped. Her chest heaved. The unborn stirred beneath her ribs, driven by her frenzy. "My condition?" She spat the word; hand splayed over the curve. "This is his condition. This is what his silence cost us." Her chest heaved again. "I want to see the beam on his back. I want to watch his suffering. I need to hear him scream. I need to know his pain is worse than ours." She dragged herself closer, eyes wild. "Please."
Mattiyahu looked from her face to the tent flap and the city walls beyond. He hesitated. Shame weighed on him. Her passion to see the man suffer might, for one afternoon, drown the failures that haunted him. They would not be spectators. They would be accusers. He laid his rough hand over hers. Not as a loving husband. A gesture wanting forgiveness from the past. "We will go," he said, low and final. "We'll stay close every step of the way. We will make sure his eyes find us." He brushed dry lips against her forehead. "Gather your shawl, love. We have to hurry."
***
The road to Golgotha became a river of bodies surging toward the same dying man. Hannah leaned hard on Mattiyahu's arm. Her fingers, once strong from the loom, felt like dry twigs inside his hand. "He watched," she rasped, voice scraping like flint. "That day under the fig tree. Two Roman soldiers had their arms around me, laughing, and he watched. Said nothing. When I staggered past again, he offered me a stool."
She laughed once, a sound like breaking pottery. "If I had the strength, I would have rammed its leg through his throat."
Mattiyahu's sunburned face stayed half hidden behind his ragged beard. He heard every word but said nothing. His jaw ached from clenching. His stomach turned, but not from hunger. He kept his eyes fixed on the figure ahead. To him, this man was a savior to no one.
They moved faster than the procession, staying ahead of the crowd. Keeping close enough to hear the wood creak and the stink of fear. The press of bodies shoved against their backs, breath hot and foul, dust rising in choking clouds. They were filthy, hair crusted with old sweat and lice, skin stretched tight over bone. Their appearance was nothing short of death. Their curses rose above the crowd, obscene and animal, stripped of any righteousness.
The noise of the mob dulled to a low hum. The world narrowed to the stumbling prophet and the ravenous void burning in their chests. A sharp sting lanced Mattiyahu's foot. He stopped only long enough to pull a long thorn from his sole, one of the same thorns driven into Christ's brow. He stared at it, and then flicked it away. He did not feel the thorns. He felt only the heat behind his eyes.
"Let him feel every stone," he muttered. He knotted the hem of his robe into a pouch and filled it with rocks from the roadside. Hannah's hand darted in without a word, took one, and weighed it. She drew back and hurled the first stone. It struck between the man's shoulder blades with a dull thud.