Preparing for the public flogging

Abel left me in our hotel room to go to a work appointment. I stuck my head out of the window to watch him leave, and noticed that the hotel ballroom, directly underneath me, was being prepared for some kind of event: a red carpet unrolled, a couple of TV vans parked outside, barriers set up to keep the onlookers from spilling onto the reserved area.

I wondered if this would be how a town square would be prepared for a public flogging.

I didn’t foresee a red carpet for that occassion, of course, but there would be a temporary explosion of activity around the normally lonely whipping post.

A barrier would certainly be erected, leading all the way from the door of the jail opposite. The TV vans would be here early, trying to glimpse the arrival of the executioner for work, still in his street clothes and looking safe and normal.

And, I think, there would be a small contingent of long-time fans, the type of folks who make it their business to be present at every flogging, no matter how rare. They would bicker politely over the best spots in that sliver of space where not only can you see the lash land onto the exposed buttocks and back, but where you can catch a glimpse of the agony on the convict’s face.

The convict – me, of course – would be watching all this from a tiny barred window in the jail cell. There would be a clock on the wall, too, counting down the minutes until it’s time to make that walk along the path between the barriers, under the glare of TV lights. Towards the whipping post. Towards the executioner, no longer casual-looking in his sleeveless shirt with sweatbands and biceps exposed.

Towards the lash.