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In the next few weeks, I can expect it will be even worse. The Emperor will give the order, and the church will call the faithful to leave their homes and their families to be with the others at the temple of Zeus, and there await the will of the gods. And they will wait, in the heat of the summer, with no hope of shelter. But who am I to question the will of the emperor, and why should he care if a few of us die of thirst, or are trampled in the chaos while we gather, or if the old and infirm die on the roads as we flee our homes? But I refuse. I will not go. I will not expose my family. I will not be there when they fall. And yet… should I be caught, should they find me hiding, I am not sure what they will do to me. I could lose my position in the church, or worse. Sooner or later, they will find me.
The knock that I fear comes on our door in the early morning, I am already awake, and have been for hours, pacing the floor with worry. I wait for the sound, knowing that it is coming, but hoping not to hear it. It comes, I hear it, feel it against the skin of my feet, through the wooden grain, like a sudden thump in my chest that I can see with each pulse. I turn, there is a man there in the doorway. He looks at me, he knows my face. I know his. It is Polykarp, a leader of the church in our town.
I see him nod, and then he is gone. That was it, the knock, and it was Polykarp. No canes, no body guards, just Polykarp. I know that we are in trouble. I leap from our bed, grab a robe from the floor, and better to be seen in this one that is stitched with crosses so that I will not have to explain them later if seen without, and rush down stairs to our living room.
I am at the door before I hear, hear the sounds of crying. A child is crying, crying so loudly, so painfully. From the room upstairs my wife is screaming, calling for me, and the sound of her voice, the sound of her fear is worse than that of the child. I can hear the commotion from my daughter and son as they rush out of their bedroom, and into the children's room to check on their sister. Nothing. For the first time in my life, I feel impotent, unable to help in any way. I can not help my wife, the children are not hurt, my daughter now calms her brother, and even calms my wife, with her voice. Even if I wanted to go to them, I should not.
The sounds come again, this time from the front of the house, and I run, I bolt out of the door. I don't see him, I think I can hear him. I burst out into the street, there he is! He hides behind the corner, taunting me, trying to get me to follow him. He does not say a word, but the message is clear. He is to my left as I run towards him, and I know, I am sure he is down, and against the wall. I am faster than he expects, I am upon him. In a single moment he is upon me. He is hard and strong, and his body dodges my fists. I can not reach him. I begin to look around, and for the first time I see the others. There are people in the street, well over a dozen, and they are armed. I know that they are after me.
I am not enough. He has them to protect him.
I spin around, I run, I run as fast as I can, and away from my home, from my family. I run for my life. That is what I do for all of them. I run, and hope that one of them doesn't get a hold of me. I don't want to be caught, and I don't want to stop. I can not. If I stop, I will not be able to go on, and they will catch me. I keep running.
I steal a horse. We have a horse. I take the one from my neighbors, the ones we rent the land to. I take the horse from a man worthy of such disgrace, for who would want to steal a horse, and I am paying him for his land, the horse is an act of violence. Just last week I complained to him about his level of care for the horse, and now I have stolen it just days before. I didn't mean to have done so, it just happened. I was forced to do so, in order to escape my own home, and get away from the people that had come after me. And yet I feel shame, and I feel guilt. Guilt in taking the horse, and guilt in taking another's horse. I had given money to help buy the horse. I had given the money that was intended for the horse. It was not my right to take it, and I know. And yet I am forced to by them, and in that taking there is the failure, and the guilt.
I ride away, I do not want to be caught, and I do not know where to go. So I ride, and I let my horse take me to the river, to our river that is just in front of our home. We used to ride on the river before, now it is forbidden, and yet the waters are fast. I think about that, the water. The water is fast. I think about the others. The others who are still in their homes, still safe as long as they stay there. I don't know what to do, and yet I can't stay still, I have almost a hundred miles of horrid road ahead of me. I know the road, the land, the water, and I know what to expect.
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