His Last Supper

The room is low near the entrance, and the enclosed space makes me dizzy, so I move to the furthest corner of the room, near a window with no light. Darkness fell hours ago as we made our cut-rate preparations, and all that was left was to endure the meal, our last. That is, our last if I go through with it.

I have had enough of this charade, and I feel eager to do something. He's powerful, but he's not the Messiah. I haven't seen one prisoner set free. Not one. God isn't a pansy-ass, hymn-singing, destitute weirdo. He's strong. He's going to set us free from the Romans so we can be His People again. Fa! I'm actually sick of this.

He overturned those tables today like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. His contempt for businessmen shames me: they have families, you know. They find a way to get ahead, and he comes by, forcing them out. What are they going to do now?

In a few days, this nonsense will be over, and I'll at least be rich. Okay, I'll be set up to get rich. I'll buy the land near my father's field. With his oxen I'll start to cut out a corner of the farmland and build houses to rent. Then, with skilled increases, the land nearby will eventually benefit from the renters' work, and I'll take my cut.

It's not hard to become rich and have a place to stay and food to eat that you aren't handed like beggars. Thirteen able-bodied men living on handouts. It's embarrassing. It's not responsible, and I won't keep it up.

No. We have to pay for what we get, and nothing comes cheap. Except this bread. It was pretty cheap. The leftover money I took, my fee for finding a bargain.

...

We all eat the bargain bread, and I notice that I am finished first. What else is there to do here? I want to find an inn, wash up, and sleep past dawn. In the morning, maybe I will send the guards.

The Rabbi is the oddest man I have ever known. That much I might miss... He never ceases embarrassing himself, and it shames us, to have our rabbi doing strange and unclean things. The others usually just watch, hiding their shame, but I can't get over it: like he was raised in a cave with animals.

Now is no exception: he has taken off his robe, and begun to wash our feet like a slave. I watch him do it—is he shaming us for not having thought to hire another servant for this night? Well, I won't be ashamed: servants are expensive, and we don't need clean feet to eat a meal.