1. Great philosophers may have pondered on the subject for many a long hour in their caves or their terracotta pythoi as their young and nubile SPECIAL friend fetched them a cool drink from the agora cafe. But one thing they didn’t do was subdivide the human emotions to the point where all was one and nothing was all - the global choices available to today’s modern man are surely nothing if not a distraction amongst the gee-gaws and gizmos from understanding one’s own mind and heart. How much time does anyone have any more during the long and lonely nights of oncoming winters when the ipod is a switch away and the plasma T.V with it 500 channels of unstoppable crap ready to inundate any little hiatus in our busy lives and if your a snob and don’t own a goggle box because your superior to everyone else who is being led buy the stupid box, or the stupid markets, or the whatever distraction then maybe your a culture freak with a million classical cd’s or the radio giving you high brow distractions like Mozart to take you out of any reflective silence but if you done with all that then perhaps you like me can immerse yourself in cheap on-line travel care of your super fast broad band connection that can send you whizzing to whatever part of the world you wish to settle yourself into. Or if your communication skills , ( which seem to have escaped application to your nearest and dearest for so long ), are developed to a point of clarity and focus then maybe you can talk with some newly made buddies from the four corners of the earth.

  * Nowadays we can introduce ourselves as we wish - reinvent ourselves like the first American immigrants into something we aspire to, we can assume a shape, take on a role, become actors and the lead players in our own self written drama and all of this - on line; at the flick of a lap top switch we are no longer the oppressed, obese, bulimic, we are no more the thin anaemic , self doubting thief, or the low achieving caddy at the golf club, gone is the uncoordinated self tripping dancer. Hello to the new Prima Ballerina;  bid welcome to the maestro, the Don Juan, the Catherine the great, the Byron that lurks in the shadows of our personality . We are poets, writers, we are artists, contributors to high culture, we are original thinkers of tropical hue, masculine or feminine paragons of virtue, sexuality, romance and aspiration. We are lovers and castigators, we are political refugees, freedom fighters, we are everything we are not in our dull, whimpish realities where we are cowed and challenged , where we carry our real memories like scars and where we limp about our daily business hobbled by economic realities, families who deride our dreams, lovers who treat us like shit, or husbands who take our commitment for granted. For more than a few the online world of the imagination is a wonderland of release. Where we are finally released to fly, where we assume and angelic countenance, grow wings and take to the cyber skies as free as the bird in the wild blue yonder.
  * I for one believe that real culture as we know it is changing , changing for the better and soon the elitist world of the musician, the printed poet , the novelist and the philosopher is coming to an end. The ivory towers of academia will be stormed by original thinkers drawn from the lower echelons of society normally associated with manual labour, or the service industries. Soon the people who fixed the plumbing, painted the walls, pointed the bricks and tiled the roof will challenge the Professor and the Historian, the soloist and the pop star and some will challenge the philosopher to bring dynamic , original thinking to the world and ask us to face questions that the ancients just never had the tools to even come close to answering because their world was as fold, pliable, multi-layered as our modern consumerists nightmare is. we live in a world so complicated that there are now special philosophers who have come to the fore in an attempt to forge new ethics, new values out of the mess of consumerist madness that we have unleashed upon ourselves.
  * For me one of the most pressing questions for the modern man is whether love, as we understand it, can really be true if we find it on line or are we deceiving ourselves and putting our hearts and souls in danger by allowing ourselves to be misled by our ancient brain wiring which is set to face to face loving being subverted into believing that love or more to the point Eros, can be real and deeply genuine. Or is this feeling of deep attraction to strangers thousands of miles away a mere distraction from our boring everyday existence . Can we really love a human being we have never seen in the flesh, tasted or smelt,caressed or touched? Can we really trust language or a few video conferences to inform us of something so potentially seismic or are we just fooling ourselves with that ancient self deceiving ruse of “The grass is greener..the language better, the opinions clearer, the beliefs closer.”
  * Some say yes, we can genuinely fall in love ( whatever that is) and that the depth of that commitment can bring true grace to a life and i am sure there examples of perfectly happy people who have discovered a partner on line who are happy and fulfilled via this medium but was that love before they met or was it desperation, a final ditched attempt to subvert the reality of their physicality, their inability to communicate, or plainly put their fatal and irreducible body odour .
  * When Plato and the other great philosophers decided to try and put love in to types and understand what it meant to love one’s country, one’s neighbour , one’s ward of education or one’s family they decided that sexual love was Eros , the love between a two partners was basically sexual and if it wasn’t that then it fell into one of the other categories like Storge or love of one’s family, Agape  or love for one’s community and neighbour - more than likely it was Philia , a deep abiding friendship. Now we have another to add Cyberlove - a place were love is sub-sectioned yet again into something approaching some if not all of the above classical definitions. Cyberlove can indeed be sexual, hence the online video world, it can be friendship explored via language and beliefs, it can be communal as between say a community of believers. But what it can’t be until the flesh is tasted and the body odour savoured is Eros.
1. Great philosophers may have pondered on the subject for many a long hour in their caves or their terracotta pythoi as their young and nubile SPECIAL friend fetched them a cool drink from the agora cafe. But one thing they didn’t do was subdivide the human emotions to the point where all was one and nothing was all - the global choices available to today’s modern man are surely nothing if not a distraction amongst the gee-gaws and gizmos from understanding one’s own mind and heart. How much time does anyone have any more during the long and lonely nights of oncoming winters when the ipod is a switch away and the plasma T.V with it 500 channels of unstoppable crap ready to inundate any little hiatus in our busy lives and if your a snob and don’t own a goggle box because your superior to everyone else who is being led buy the stupid box, or the stupid markets, or the whatever distraction then maybe your a culture freak with a million classical cd’s or the radio giving you high brow distractions like Mozart to take you out of any reflective silence but if you done with all that then perhaps you like me can immerse yourself in cheap on-line travel care of your super fast broad band connection that can send you whizzing to whatever part of the world you wish to settle yourself into. Or if your communication skills , ( which seem to have escaped application to your nearest and dearest for so long ), are developed to a point of clarity and focus then maybe you can talk with some newly made buddies from the four corners of the earth.

  * Nowadays we can introduce ourselves as we wish - reinvent ourselves like the first American immigrants into something we aspire to, we can assume a shape, take on a role, become actors and the lead players in our own self written drama and all of this - on line; at the flick of a lap top switch we are no longer the oppressed, obese, bulimic, we are no more the thin anaemic , self doubting thief, or the low achieving caddy at the golf club, gone is the uncoordinated self tripping dancer. Hello to the new Prima Ballerina;  bid welcome to the maestro, the Don Juan, the Catherine the great, the Byron that lurks in the shadows of our personality . We are poets, writers, we are artists, contributors to high culture, we are original thinkers of tropical hue, masculine or feminine paragons of virtue, sexuality, romance and aspiration. We are lovers and castigators, we are political refugees, freedom fighters, we are everything we are not in our dull, whimpish realities where we are cowed and challenged , where we carry our real memories like scars and where we limp about our daily business hobbled by economic realities, families who deride our dreams, lovers who treat us like shit, or husbands who take our commitment for granted. For more than a few the online world of the imagination is a wonderland of release. Where we are finally released to fly, where we assume and angelic countenance, grow wings and take to the cyber skies as free as the bird in the wild blue yonder.
  * I for one believe that real culture as we know it is changing , changing for the better and soon the elitist world of the musician, the printed poet , the novelist and the philosopher is coming to an end. The ivory towers of academia will be stormed by original thinkers drawn from the lower echelons of society normally associated with manual labour, or the service industries. Soon the people who fixed the plumbing, painted the walls, pointed the bricks and tiled the roof will challenge the Professor and the Historian, the soloist and the pop star and some will challenge the philosopher to bring dynamic , original thinking to the world and ask us to face questions that the ancients just never had the tools to even come close to answering because their world was as fold, pliable, multi-layered as our modern consumerists nightmare is. we live in a world so complicated that there are now special philosophers who have come to the fore in an attempt to forge new ethics, new values out of the mess of consumerist madness that we have unleashed upon ourselves.
  * For me one of the most pressing questions for the modern man is whether love, as we understand it, can really be true if we find it on line or are we deceiving ourselves and putting our hearts and souls in danger by allowing ourselves to be misled by our ancient brain wiring which is set to face to face loving being subverted into believing that love or more to the point Eros, can be real and deeply genuine. Or is this feeling of deep attraction to strangers thousands of miles away a mere distraction from our boring everyday existence . Can we really love a human being we have never seen in the flesh, tasted or smelt,caressed or touched? Can we really trust language or a few video conferences to inform us of something so potentially seismic or are we just fooling ourselves with that ancient self deceiving ruse of “The grass is greener..the language better, the opinions clearer, the beliefs closer.”
  * Some say yes, we can genuinely fall in love ( whatever that is) and that the depth of that commitment can bring true grace to a life and i am sure there examples of perfectly happy people who have discovered a partner on line who are happy and fulfilled via this medium but was that love before they met or was it desperation, a final ditched attempt to subvert the reality of their physicality, their inability to communicate, or plainly put their fatal and irreducible body odour .
  * When Plato and the other great philosophers decided to try and put love in to types and understand what it meant to love one’s country, one’s neighbour , one’s ward of education or one’s family they decided that sexual love was Eros , the love between a two partners was basically sexual and if it wasn’t that then it fell into one of the other categories like Storge or love of one’s family, Agape  or love for one’s community and neighbour - more than likely it was Philia , a deep abiding friendship. Now we have another to add Cyberlove - a place were love is sub-sectioned yet again into something approaching some if not all of the above classical definitions. Cyberlove can indeed be sexual, hence the online video world, it can be friendship explored via language and beliefs, it can be communal as between say a community of believers. But what it can’t be until the flesh is tasted and the body odour savoured is Eros.

The Master's Spirit

Jesus had been back for quite a while now when he unexpectedly came across the leopards in the centre of Jerusalem. They were  imprisoned in two separate cages that were placed beneath an awning attached to a shop selling flat bread and wheat soups. He stopped in surprise and sudden awe to look at the magnificent beasts which were quietly snoozing in the midday heat. He had seen lions and leopards before but these beast had an altogether different spirit about them almost as if they were emanating the essence of the desert from where he assumed they were from. Their wildness drifted lazily on the midday air like a thick wood smoke pungent with danger and untamed dignity. 
The Master had returned from India over two years ago now but he had never forgotten the Greeks  he had met there and these exotic animals brought those days  pleasantly back to his overactive mind diverting him momentarily from his sombre intentions . The Greeks lived the lives of princes and aristocrats even the most ordinary man seemed extraordinary in his way of seeing, they were soft and gentle people given to philosophy and art, invention and science and allowed no over serious intent to cloud their enjoyment of life, in short they were as unlike his fellow Jews as could be. They spent time contemplating life and lived in peace with their neighbours with whom many had intermarried and the one thing they enjoyed the most was the wonder of nature, treating animals and people with respect, leopards like these were treated like honoured pets a thing he rarely saw from the Romans here in Galilee. He chuckled to himself as the memories of his stay in that pleasant Hellenic world  tumbled like dancing acrobats through his mind.
He was strangely drawn to these remarkable animals that were  dressed like no other wild cat, splattered with deep splodges of beautiful crazed yellow and black mosaic as if God had painted them a little too quickly. He approached quietly for a closer look and one of them slowly opened its golden eyes, perhaps sensing the approach of something  “different” towards its prison and benignly eyed the Man as he came slowly closer. 
The leopard, the larger of the two probably the male, uncurled its body from the typical shape that a domestic cat assumes to snooze and tried to stretch it long sinuous limbs in the cramped space that it had been put into as it did so it perused The Man approaching it with a calmness that comes only from that  rare strength bestowed by nature herself, unconcerned for it safety. The other leopard sensing something also stood and stretched again like a lazy hunting dog worshipping the sun. Jesus smiled wryly as recognised the yoga position he still used to stretch his own body every morning.  
The animals contemplated  The Master as he stood before them both with a peaceful feline impenetrability and peeped from behind the wooden bars of their cage,  inching forward as close to him as they were able too, each viewing their human visitor in a silence bordering on fascination. Jesus gestured to one of his companions who sprung into action despite there being no  verbal communication between him and his Master, he filled the wooden bowls that were to the side of the cages with water from a jug and watched as the leopards bent their short strong necks and lapped at the lukewarm liquid . [/color]
The animals didn’t move but began making a low growling noise that prompted a smile from Him and drew Him even closer to the cages. He squatted at the first one and placed his hand on the beast’s head and patted it much like a man would pat his favourite dog,  ignoring the gasps of the crowd. The animal responded by lifted his head against the touch of hand as if to elicit a scratch and Jesus continued to pet the animal under the chin. Then He moved to the other cage and repeated the extraordinary gesture with the other animal to the increasing disbelief of the crowd that had now gathered. Then He stood and turning to them walked forward and began to speak gesturing with his hands and arms expansively. 
“ Even wild beasts clothed in teeth and claws have hearts  and though they feed like wolves on our cattle and our goats they do nothing more than what our Father has bid them do and like you they thirst for love and the simple needs of life – a little water and shade from the burning sun..A little freedom to stretch their tired limbs. They like us are children of this mother, the mother we all stand on ” . Jesus stamped his sandaled foot lightly as if to reinforce his words and smiled.
Jesus continued for a moment or two expounding his impromptu sermon outside of the shop drawing closer to the crowed and patting the head of one or two children as he walked amongst them  but behind him another scene unfolded. As he spoke a man,  tried to get closer to the incarcerated animals now quite a way behind the Rabbi. He drew close to the first cage and outstretched his hand towards the peaceful animal which was following his Benefactors movements in a rapt fascination not seeming to see the other approaching human.  The man drew closer and managed to place his hand on the animals head as if to repeat the Rabbi’s gentle pat but the cat sprang to life,  screaming  like only a cat can scream as it automatically and instinctively seized the man’s hand, pulling his arm through the bars instantaneously chewing  his fingers to stumps. Then he let go and with its claws ripped the man’s cloak to shreds together with the thin brown flesh on his arm. The crowd screamed In panic and shock as the man screams penetrated their daily life like a spear thrust to their buttocks. The victim of the enraged cat,  was writhing in agony,  but managed somehow to pull himself free before falling backwards down the steps into the street as the other leopard reached out pawing  delicately at his  outstretched foot. 
At the same time, from within the shop, three huge black men appeared and dragged the man out of the leopard’s reach. The animal was goaded with what appeared to be a pointless spear back into the corner of the cage and the moaning victim picked up and laid out on the pavement in the same shade of the food shop awning. 
The three black men were beside themselves in panic not knowing what to do as the crowd became more and more agitated. One tried to help the man who lay screaming on the while the other two ,  staffs or spears in hand, stood by the animals lest the crowd try to kill  them but the victim seemed as scared of the black man as he was of the leopard and kicked out at his would be helper.  They were in danger of being ripped apart by a mob.
Jesus turned from lecturing the crowd  and stood facing the animals and the strange exotic  men,  all of whom were dressed in multicoloured flowing cloaks, skins, beads and feathers , who guarded them. He approached the man on the pavement who was now moaning in shock and took him into his arms. From amongst the crowd one of Jesus’ friends came forward with a bottle of unguent and some cloth which he gave to his master and as He cleaned the man’s wound, He spoke again to the crowd. 
“ Yet that which is within us is like this wild animal, look unto yourselves now,  our nature is one of teeth and claws that only the spirit of My Father can teach you to master. This animal did nothing wrong and neither did this man. One was overcome by  its fear and the other by his fascination. Had they both prepared to face their fears  with forgiveness in their hearts then both would be safe in the heart of our Lord  enraptured by the oneness of His Love..”.
The crowed seemed not to hear the Master as He tended the wounded man. It seethed and pulsated as anonymous voices from within it cursed the animals as playthings of the Romans, other voices called out that the Africans must pay for the damages, others still that the black men were heathen devils with no right to be in the city of Jerusalem dressed like whore boys. The crowd grew more agitated and a stone flew over their heads and hit one of the African guarding the cages. 
Jesus let go of the wounded man, who seemed to have calmed down and was now silent. A few minutes earlier he was in tears and screaming in agony but now, washed and treated by the Rabbi he sat calmly perusing his wounds which seemed much less serious than he first thought. 
Jesus stood up and raised his hands shouting into the crowed in a gentle but forceful manner. “ Stop! This man is the victim of his own simple ignorance. He saw me approach these animals and thought he could emulate me, get close to the wild spirit of the earth, touch the strength  and majesty of these creatures. If anyone is to blame for his wounds , then it is me, not the innocent wild fury of the animal or his keepers or even of yourselves.”
The three Africans behind Jesus stood as if ready to repel an attack. Their sharp spears held at an angle ready to impale the first of the crowed  who dared attack them. Those martial gestures  and Jesus’ words seemed to split the crowed in to two camps. The one camp that wanted to attack the strange looking black men and  kill the animals was immediately halved in numbers and hesitated in the way mobs hesitate when they have no overwhelming chance of succeeding in their unconscious aim. They drew back as other’s turned on them and urged them to desist. The voice of reason soon took control and brought them all to their senses. 
In that moment, between murder and hesitation two Roman soldiers appeared and joined the Africans with their gladius’ drawn. They looked bemused but took stances with the black men besides the cages. The crowd had the sun In their eyes and it was midday, a disturbance now would be very uncomfortable for them all and so slowly and a little reluctantly they dispersed cleaving off down one of the many allys. 
The three Africans, approached the Master, spears still in hand as the Roman stood at ease scratching their heads totally bemused by what they had stumbled into. The wounded man stood up to and thanked the master for treating his wound. One of the Africans took out a gold nugget the size of a man’s thumb nail and gave it to him by way of compensation  leaving the man agog with the wealth he had just been handed while the other two came close to the Rabbi who they obviously felt had saved them from a stoning. No one could speak a language they both understood with any fluency but the African’s uttered a few words of thanks in broken Latin and The Master took their hands in a gesture of understanding. The black men seemed incredulous that someone was touching them and looked down at the Man’s hands as he clasped theirs. Jesus then noticed the tip of the spears which seemed to be made of a black Roman glass, he fingered the sharp point of one and neatly cut his finger on it. Immediately the African put a balm to the sharp nick after wiping the blood.  
For a moment all three African’s stood before the Master, bedecked in the fineries of their strange foreign world, magnificent men, strong and muscular, shaven clean down to their almost blue black skin and like the leopards they emanated a dignity that was drawn from the very earth itself.  Around their shoulders were cloaks of skin, antelope or gazelle, and through their ears were plugs of gold. All of them had heavy scars running across their chests and cheeks, chevrons that the Master contemplated by putting His hand to them and tenderly feeling their hard raised skin that seemed to feel like a knobbly leather. As he did so the men chatted amongst themselves in an indecipherable language and smiled at his innocent curiosity.  
Jesus’ friends stood milling around their Rabbi also silent and fascinated. They didn’t dare interrupt this strange meeting realising that something they didn’t understand was happening. Their master had much experience of travel , he had gone far and wide, spent time in exotic places, he was used to meeting people from outside the land of Israel  but they were not. They were simple people with a love for the Master that at times confused them but they knew he was  fascinated by the foreign and probably wanted to investigate them, so  they let him be without any of the incessant jabbering and examining they normally indulged in. 
To them ,the truth be said, the Black men were frightening foreign slaves of the Romans. Unpredictable vassals  at the behest of the Roman sword, the beck and call of their oppressors, who stood just a few cubits away; what could they teach the people of Israel about anything except death and pain, pagan indulgence and cruelty. 
The Africans each took out a gold nugget the size of a man’s thumb and tried to give them to the Master but to the astonishment of his friends , He turned them away, pushing back each of the proffered golden rocks with the emphatic open palmed gesture of a man unwilling to take rewards. Then to their utter shock all three men fell to their knees and Jesus placed his hand upon them one by one and uttered a Jewish prayer.  One took the Masters thumb and pressed the cut to his forehead  leaving the master imprint in the centre of it. 
With that they stood up and Jesus walked away from them bidding his acolytes to follow on. 
The friends trailed behind Him in utter silence, stricken dumb by their Master’s  refusal to take the gold and even more by His benediction of the non-Jewish heathen’s. Had anyone seen Him doing this, surely this was a blasphemy of the first magnitude. He had blessed three servants of the Romans, black men, dealing with death if not death itself then as close a representation of it. They were savages from the some Godless land bedecked in pagan symbols and scarred by unholy rites. The friends remained silent and followed as their Master made his way to the Temple. 
Within the hour Jesus had himself turned into one of those mesmerising animals that he had patted so gently a little earlier. He became a wild cat and rushed about the Temple Mount in a rage as fierce and as violent as the leopard that had shredded that man’s arm. He threw tables about, sent coinage flying down the steps, he set free animals that were tethered to the slaughter posts, kicked men up the backside and down the mount, railed and roared at the minor officials overseeing the daily routines of this the holiest centre of Judaic worship. It was  if he had poked Israel  herself in the very eye with a sharp stick blinding and then beating her over the head. Jesus’ was transformed in to something they had never seen or would ever see again. 
                                                                              ***
The Roman soldiers who had witnessed the blessing accompanied the animal wagon and the grumbling Africans to Pilate and described the tumult and disturbance of what had they had stumbled upon to an officer.  Brought before the Proconsul they explained the appearance of the rabbi , the accident and the treatment, the gold and the blessings but also the near riot that had occurred. Pilate was livid. The three men had deviated from coming straight to his residence to deliver the animals without  any further delay and instead had stopped to eat at a cheap inn somewhere they would inevitably have become a focus for the simple Jews of the city. 
The Africans incapable of communicating in Latin, Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew or any other language could not explain to the angry Governor that they had been left behind when their caravan had moved off because their camels had died on their trip across Sinai  and that they had to make their own way to Jerusalem as best they could. The real culprit was the man that had abandoned them. They were thrown into jail. 
Unknown to them their sentence was going to be quite short, merely a mild punishment for their inefficiency and tardiness but they shouted and cried in terror as they were led away.   Their gold wasn’t confiscated  but mischievously taken from them for safe keeping and they were thrown into prison but as is the case in all bureaucratic systems the wayward trio were forgotten about. 
The three Africani, as they became know over the months they languished in Jerusalem’s Roman jail, slowly but surely built up a reputation for fierceness and bravery that was incomparable to any other of its prisoners. The motley collection of rebels, madmen and swindlers that made up its population  learnt that it was a big mistake to cross them given as they were to pursuing their appetite for  revenge upon their enemies and detractors. They inspired a mixture of fear, fascination  and confusion amongst the inmates who had never seen a black man let alone  one who could rip you from limb from limb. On the other hand when a fierce bout of diarrhoea and fever spread through the prison the Africani  were the first help to alleviate the prisoners suffering by administering a series of potions they had on hand  from amongst the provisions that were allowed in with their possessions. ( Perhaps this was why they were “forgotten”). 
On the outside the political situation was becoming more and more tense. A new man had arrived on the scene apparently, one who had turned the world upside down with his sermons and lectures, a man that had even divided the population of the prison into two distinct groups. 
The rebels or Zealots amongst them stood firmly against him accusing him of  sanctioning the Roman occupation with mealy mouthed statements that amounted to nothing but collaboration while others, ordinary men, were adamant that he was the Messiah, a man who had been sent by God to rid Jerusalem of the real collaborators ; the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The prisoners began to bicker and fight amongst themselves coming to blows and even stabbing each other making the neutrality of the Africani difficult and forcing them to learn a simple form of Hebrew so as to communicate with the victims of the inter factional fighting. They took to treating all the fight victims without discrimination and gained a certain respect for their neutrality.
Too often now they were forced to sit and listen as someone or other would declaim their support or implacable hatred towards this strange unknown character who  everyone referred to as the “Rabbi”. Then one day as they sat in their usual corner cleaning someone’s infected stab wound one of the supporters of the “Rabbi” decided to declaim his support for the “Messiah”, who had come to turn the filth of the Judaic hierarchy out of the temple. He was a relative newcomer to the prison having only arrived a few week earlier after a disturbance he had been attending turned in to a full blown anti-Roman riot.  The result was that this newcomer had the ear of both camps and yet belonged to non.  
“ Listen my friends, all of you, all of you who would cut a brother and fellow Jew and you who would never raise a fist in anger at the Romans, one thing we share is not only that we are Jews but that we are brothers in a land under the oppression of imperial Rome ..”,He called them closer and lowered his voice. “ There are changes happening; we are growing in strength but also foolhardiness we see ourselves as righteous and strong but there is no escaping the truth, compared to Rome we are as kittens to the lion. Where we can  merely scratch,  the Roman lion can bite us in half with one roar and one snap of his jaws and all of us have seen. We know that the death of Israel is but one order off the lips of the Emperor. Unless we play his game and bend the knee, pay Ceaser what is Ceaser’s  and give to God what is God’s we will bring untold destruction down on to us...”
At this point one of the better educated rebels took to his feet and berated the newcomer for his collaborationist message. The Africani watched understanding  but little of what was being said as the rebel spat invective from his mouth faster than a Roman slingshot. Then once again as the rebel sat unexpectedly down allowing the newcomer to speak again. “ Look my friends, there are ways we can survive these oppressors, we can rise above them. They may dominate and oppress our earthly bodies but they will never control our souls.. We can achieve everlasting life, an immortality of spirit that outlives all semblance of their empire, we can step over death in to a heavenly world  from where we can be resurrected to a new life..“ The speaker seemed to using a new terminology of language . A new theological vocabulary that none of the prisoners had heard before and they sat in utter silence. Perhaps this is what had silenced the rebel too. 
The Aricani turned as one, leaving their patient waiting, to a fellow squatter in their corner who was leaning against the wall looking bored and with gestures asked what the man was say and elicited a halting translation in three languages from their bored camel driver neighbour.    
He had heard all this before when he was out and about a year or so earlier and explained to them that there was a new revolutionary leader who was challenging the Zealots with a soft form of politics, one that could easily be described as collaborationist but also anti-Temple a man of toleration. He spoke of eternal life and coming back from the dead..With that phrase the Africani took simultaneous sharp breaths and uttered a collective Ahhh! Which seemed to mean ..We understand.  
       
                                                                         ***
The Africans languished in the filthy jail for months, surviving as best they could by bartering they’re skills and medical knowledge for food. The jailers even became they’re friends and brought in herbs and spices from the market including a live chicken  which the prisoners thought would be a fine supper and soup but the Africans seemed less interested in eating the chicken  than seemingly playing with it. They nurtured the animal, protected it in their corner until the cold of winter would get no more bitter and then a week or so before the beginning of Passover, they held a long ceremony that seemed to go on for hours. 
The Africans recited what appeared to be mumbled or garbled prayers and separately one by one they fell into trances or living dreams as their friends looked after them. The effect on the prisoners was incredible. They seemed to forget their personal quarrels and inter-faction bickering, they fell to watching the strange men who in turn seemed to take over seamlessly from each other as one came out of their trances. 
Outside on the streets of the city, the politics of the nation were becoming more and more convoluted. Riots were breaking out, the Romans becoming more cruel and repressive, it was as if the battle for the nation was coming to a head and the Africans were themselves responsible for the increasingly febrile atmosphere. The more they danced , the more news would arrive with the arrival of another battered and tortured prisoner who would whisper his knowledge of the outside in hushed frightened tones agog as the strange heathens danced  away in the far corner and as his fellow Jews crowded  as far away from them as possible into the far side of the large room. 
The beat and rhythm of the African bodies and voices became a fixture throughout  the day ceasing only at night when all would lie down in a circle, with the chicken held lovingly by one of them cloaked for protection by a piece of cloth, hugged closely to his chest. 
The presence of the Africans became a test in itself for the prisoners and in spite of all the favours they had done them , the other prisoners began to conspire against the relentlessly  dancing  heathens more to relieve they’re boredom and assuage they’re fears than for any other reason but the Africans had become unassailable. Their ritual seemed to hypnotise the prisoners into a passivity that none could understand and they  reluctantly allowed them to continue they’re dance uninterrupted right up until the night the moon disappeared. 
That night the moon became red as blood and the African finally slaughtered they’re pet. But instead of eating it they wore it. They covered themselves in blood and wailed like ghosts or grieving women. They tore the animal into pieces and placed parts of it on their heads, and began to move like the animal itself almost as if the spirit of the animal inhabited them. The one who had the head of the animal swopped it for a wing and flapped his arms as if to fly, the one with the head crowed weakly and jumped about thrusting his large backside out and shaking it like a cock in a dust bath. Slowly as the night progressed the atmosphere grew stranger and stranger until the door opened suddenly and a man was hurriedly pushed in. He stood dazed held aloft by the stiffness of his legs rather than his own volition  as all three fell exhausted to the floor before Him and in unison uttered a strange guttural croak that rose up to what seemed to be a phrase in their language. “Abapo, apabo...apabo..”. 
They stopped as one as the man fell to the floor and for the first time in three lunar months they ceased their infernal moaning.  With the man’s prone body before them  and still down on their knees  they looked at him by the light of an oil lamp that someone had brought to them. 
Immediately two of the Africans stood up and picked up the strange new arrival, placing him on the other African who was still on his knees, laying him prostrate across their friends back, who began to move slowly like a horse, rocking the stranger back and forth as the other two stood above him fanning his face with the wings of the dismembered animal. It was as if they had Been waiting for this particular man to arrive for the past three months. 
The prisoners were aghast, most were frightened by the bizarre nature of the ritual but one was not. He stood up and came closer and searched the face of the newly arrived prisoner as he was being rocked back and forth, the Africans didn’t seem to mind him lifting the man’s head so he could get a closer look. Slowly through the matted hair and blood he recognised the  unconscious man. It was Jesus. The Preacher and Master who had been a pain the Roman’s neck for the past few months. 
By the morning the Africans  had become catatonic and as the sun rose to a golden dawn they  suddenly ceased their ritual and placed the broken man down onto the filthy ground. Diligently, they cleaned a square free of dung and urine, free of straw and rags and lay Him  gently down on a thin bed made of their cloaks. Immediately they began to cleanse his wounds which seemed to be of an incredible nature, deep triangular cuts and lacerations made with hooks, lashes and thorns. The prisoners drew around  the unconscious man gasping with horror at the extent of the damage inflicted on him. Not one portion of his battered and broken body seemed free of tears and cuts. It was as if the man had been used to sharpen or test every manner of weapon.  Some of the Zealots shouted and swore revenge and even tore at their clothes in anguish.
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Three days later after an intervention by the prison warders and the purchase of unguents and oils the Africans had revived their friend. He was still weak but had awakened sufficiently to eat a little barley gruel but he was not well, his wounds seemed to be festering and the mood of the prisoners was solemn and dark. He was obviously dying. The torture had taken him just over the hill and he was slowly but surely rolling inexorably towards his death. The Africans at this point were besides themselves with worry and begged the warders for water to give him and rags to clean his wounds with. Sure enough the requested supplies arrived together with a handful of salt and some honey but the warder also told them that they had been set free. They could go. Leave. 
The three men were besides themselves. They began to protest, pointing to the man who needed their help, they fought the warders who tried to evict them from the prison, the other prisoners even ejected the warders from the  detention room, allowing the ASfricans to continue with their care of the sick Rabbi but it didn’t last long. A few hours later several soldiers turned up and dragged the Africans out while others kept the Zealots and miscreants who were near riot away from them. 
As an oppressive, still and nervous silence fell over the prison once more, Jesus lay in the corner on the verge of death. This time he was nursed by one of the Zealots who seemed to be able to nothing but give the man water and wipe his brow. The temperatures were slowly rising as the summer heat approached and the wounded man seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousnesses without recovering. A day or two past then incredibly the Africans appeared again, this time with a whole raft of unguents and liquids, some oils and flowers as well as dry snake heads and other portions of animals in baskets. They gently moved Barabbas out of the way and began to treat their charge with a whole host of what appeared to be medicines but they could have been anything. While one man cleaned the limp and broken body of Jesus , the two others began mixing and cutting unguents and balms, then they swopped roles as if each of the men knew some other technique that the other was unfamiliar with. The prison warders brought hot water and the prisoners looked on in awe as the African exchanged huge amounts of gold for supplies which they shared out amongst their fellow ex- prisoners. For seven days they all ate meat and barley gruel, fruit and vegetables and then on the seventh day they began to dance again. 
Jesus was by this time cleansed of all filth to his body and the sustenance he had been fed had worked it intended effect. He was wide eyed, in pain, but awake, and  managed to speak a few words to them all but he was still very ill. 
The dance of the Africans was slow and deliberate, they sang a syllable and moved after they had uttered it. They went round and round the prone man who seemed suddenly to grow weaker and relapse into a fever. The men in the cell recognised this as the final stages of life. His seeming return to life was in fact his final  resurgence prior to death, the Zealots amongst them had often seen this with wounded men  who then fell into a death spiral. 
The Africans covered the prone Jesus in balms and pastes, they fed him dust mixed with wine and honey  at one point they even fed him gold and silver but it seemed useless and he slipped away from life like fishing boat losing its moorings in a light wind. It was  just a day or so before the month of Nisan late into the night and just before Passover when the master died. Strangely the Africans showed no grief and all those who did were gently told to desist from their noisy grieving because the master was not dead, he was now un-dead, eternal. The Africans seemed to be quite at ease with the message they were sharing and were backed up by one of the other Jewish prisoners who took it upon himself to explain them to the others. 
“It was His message,”,  he said, quietly, “He believed in eternal life, there is no death, do you understand, we live forever in the House of God. This mortal self , this body is merely a cloak, a cart to carry the soul and when this is done with we shed it and move to another realm , the realm of our Father...”. 
The men listened to the garbage their fellow prisoner spoke, incredulous and disbelieving. To them death was death and no one could live on after it but as they spoke amongst themselves, the Africans began to stir again. This time they knelt by their friends remains and whispered close to his ear.