Augustus: The new kinsman majesty was crowned in the palace of grandeur and spontaneity. People in his dominion prepared a gaiety in this manifesto. From the banquet of divulging social bonds, wearing vibrant clothes of the aristocrats, resounding music of the marching conjunction, to rivalries like chariot races and the virtuoso fighters in the empire’s organized games – where people like us would serve them a feast of merriment.
I stumbled on my more than a decade-old memory when I used to give pamphlets in the Imperial Capital for fights in the Colosseum. The most popular would be gladiators gathered with packed crowds that shook the place in the magnitude of loud human screams. Worst is, days of non-stop games would happen along with the music. Rumors have it; my term at that age, that these battles are weapons for “mass distraction”. Games have continued through centuries in an attempt to keep common people as workers of the man-made circus.
The same continental country tailors the same thread.
Estevan: A thumping on the tarnished ground came meters away and our headman signaled me to do my work.
Raised were the red flags and worn are the capes you wouldn’t know if the crimson is the fabric’s shade or the natural dye. The bull enters the arena and approaches the matador. “Two lances then this will be over for a day. Best case if it behaved well for a pardoned finish. A slaughterhouse would be more kind than a slow death per se.”
Aggressively, as the steeled gate unlocked, the keeper closed it again in anticipation of a lion’s den in the eyes of the matador baffled by the raging horns of a co-captive.
“I miscalculated, that was three lashes.”
Illustration: Ana Mae V. Gonzales
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