The Last Stoic

by Morgan Wade

  There was no hint of anger or exasperation in his face.

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t shoot me Patrick. I have many things to do. But I’m not afraid and I must leave now.”

  Mark’s mother and his grandfather left the safe haven of their homes to travel two thousand miles in search of their kin. As soon as they knew he was missing. Patrick left New Ravenna under cover of darkness. A refugee from home for more than two years. He was unaware of any attempt to find him in all that time. He had left hints. Unsigned postcards suggesting his general location. Phone calls to the house in which he, masking his voice, asked about his own whereabouts. He’d reported seeing himself here and there. He’d checked police missing persons lists. He wasn’t on any. For the last year he had been listed under his full name in the phone book. No-one had searched. They weren’t coming for him.

  Patrick raised the gun.

  “Stay,” he said.

  Vincent turned the knob and opened the door.

  The report from the pistol echoed throughout the dormitory halls of the Super Shepherd Ministries.

  THIRTY

  “Do you love the emperor?” asked the magistrate.

  “Yes!”

  “How deep is your love?”

  “Without limit!”

  “Is it unconditional?”

  “Yes!”

  “Is it absolute?”

  “Yes!”

  The magistrate patted Marcus’ buttocks.

  “Good boy. Tell me more about Paul Cornelius. How close were you?”

  “Not very.”

  “We’ve heard rumours that he held parties for one of the Emperor’s rivals. Do you know anything about that?”

  “No sir.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No sir.”

  Marcus was plunged back into the water tank, held there until stark panic seized his struggling limbs and he bucked violently against the restraints. He was lifted out, as usual, spluttering, seconds from death.

  One time, very soon, he thought, I will not struggle.

  The interrogation proceeded in much the same way as the first, with the same questions, same answers. The magistrate remained unmoved.

  “Your friend the Parthian had some interesting things to say. He told us everything about the plot. He sang like a drunken minstrel. He had a lot to say about you. Save yourself, and me, a lot of time and grief. Confess.”

  Marcus panicked. What did Nasir say? He hardly knew me.

  “You’d better think of something boy,” the magistrate whispered fiercely. “Getting dunked in this cesspool will be a day at the baths compared to the other tools at our disposal. Make yourself useful.”

  “Sextus Condianus!”

  “What?”

  “Sextus Condianus! He’s in the cage next to me. Surely he knows more about plots against the emperor than I do.”

  The guardsmen laughed. “He’s mocking you again, magistrate. Sextus Condianus! What next, the ghost of Aurelius? The king of Atlantis?”

  “Silence!”

  “Is that the best you can do?” the magistrate whispered, out of earshot of the soldiers muffling their laughter. “Don’t you think I know we have Sextus Condianus? You’d better remember something else.”

  The magistrate stood up.

  “Prepare the smoker again. The prisoner still has some thinking to do.”

  Marcus was returned to his cage. “Don’t get too comfortable,” the soldiers said, “we’ll be back for you soon.”

  He stared bitterly into the next pen. The old man was still there, snoozing. Sextus Condianus? The guards certainly didn’t seem to think so. It doesn’t really matter. Even if it was Sextus, he is nothing but a harmless old man now.

  “Don’t they interrogate you?” Marcus asked loudly.

  The man woke and gazed back with sleepy eyes.

  “Hello again.”

  “I asked if they ever interrogate you.”

  “Oh, I see. You were with the magistrate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Occasionally, but not too often now. I’m a barren field to them.”

  “So am I, but they don’t seem to realize it.”

  “I suppose you need to impress it upon them.”

  Marcus stared sullenly into the corner of his cage where the roach colony bustled. He pondered the old man. Here is a scion from one of the leading noble families of Rome, with roots stretching well back to the Republic. Look at him now. Rotting and forgotten in his mouldy cell, the last of his line. And yet he looks less of a tattered convict bent into a cage. Reading discreetly from his small scroll he resembled someone reclining pleasantly on a couch in their private library.

  “What’s the book?” Marcus asked morosely.

  Sextus smiled a tolerant smile. He passed the diminutive parchment roll through the bars. “Take a look.”

  Marcus accepted the book from Sextus. He opened it to the first small page. It read:

  To Myself

  Marcus Annius Verus Aurelius

  The Meditations. It was the emperor’s journal. He held it in his hands, weighing it, measuring it, like it was an ingot, not a compact bundle of parchments.

  The clanging of keys and the clattering of greaves announced the approaching legionaries. Marcus nearly wept. All he wanted to do was to read the book which had come suddenly into his hands. It meant more to him than a square meal of roast boar and potatoes, more than an extra large tankard of cool, tawny ale, more even than freedom itself. He pressed his face against the bars.

  “Please, I beg of you, may I borrow your book? They are going to return me to the smoker. I think I should die if I don’t bring it with me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” Marcus said, stuffing the book within his tunic, under his belt. The old man winked.

  Before Marcus could apologize for his earlier rudeness, the magistrate, flanked by two soldiers, appeared at the cage door. It was his first look at his interrogator. He was of medium build, with slightly thinning and greying hair, the hint of a paunch in the midriff of his tunic, neither muscular nor scrawny. Not at all how Marcus imagined him.

  “You’ll have another stay in the smoker to mull things over,” the magistrate said. “If you’re still useless, we’re going to crack you open.”

  “Savagery is the resort of simple minds, Martinus.” Sextus spoke with an even voice from the adjacent cage.

  “Silence, grandpa.”

  “You know better than anyone that the strong will resist your torture and the weak will say anything to end the pain.”

  Marcus shrank at the old man’s words. He wondered if Sextus heard him blubbering over the water tank, naming names and spilling every mundane detail. The magistrate ignored Sextus. He motioned toward Marcus, the legionaries extricated him from his cage, and marched him the across the compound.

  He was now glad to return to the smoker. He had the book and privacy and time. There was enough light slanting in from top of the smoker by which Marcus could discern the fine script. Immediately after the door was locked Marcus took a deep breath. He wiggled and shifted until he’d found a modicum of comfort, and began to read. He got no further than the first line:

  Avi Veri exemplo operam me dare oportet, ut suavibus sim moribus neque irae indulgeam.

  From my grandfather Verus I learned good morals and the government of my temper.

  Marcus remembered the brisk day years ago when he was preparing to leave home. Vincentius was gruff and formal, his expression so full of pride and expectation, presenting him with a rare, signed copy of Aurelius’ writings to take with him on his journey. Marcus recalled his own response, his lack of gratitude and attention, his intemperate dash to the toilet, the look of confusion on his grandfather’s earnest face. Hot tears now breached any remaining measure of self-control, tumbling down his face to the dirt below. His agitated honking filled the prison yard until the reservoir of his misery was drained. He pitched lightly back and forth holding the tightl
y rolled parchment against his cheek. Before long, he was asleep, and the book tumbled from his hands into the corner of the smoker. Marcus was roused again at twilight when a soldier opened the hatch to deliver his porridge.

  “Where is it!?”

  The guard was shocked by the outburst. “What?” he asked.

  Marcus regretted his imprudence. He snatched his dinner from the guard’s hands. The guard shook his head and closed the hatch. Marcus threw the dish down, scrambled through the straw and was relieved to find the book wedged in the corner of the smoker. To Marcus the journal represented far more than just the musings of a long dead philosopher king. It embodied the last touchstone to a world outside of the dim limbo he found himself in. He was determined never to let it out of his sight and was pleased when a soldier woke him up at daybreak. As soon as he received his ration of water and flatbread and they closed the hatch, he returned to his reading. Through the rest of the morning and the following days, he read the book cover to cover, forwards and backwards. Every day he spent immersed in the journal left him feeling stronger and more complete.

  When it was confiscated it was like losing a vital organ.

  THIRTY ONE

  Mark awoke to shouting. He opened his eyes to the hovering crimson face of the tribunal magistrate. The small paperback, the pocket edition of Marcus Aurelius’ The Meditations, lay conspicuously on his chest. The magistrate snatched it. Two soldiers pinned Mark before he could bring his arm forward. They dragged him from the smoker into the full light of the prison yard. The magistrate stood and leafed through his catch.

  “The Meditations? Marcus Aurelius. No Penthouse? No Grisham?”

  Mark’s bloodshot eyes strained after the slim paperback roughly handled in the man’s doughy fingers, its pages coarsely ruffled through, its spine doubled over and cracked. Mark wailed, begging for the book. The magistrate smacked him hard across the face with it.

  “Just what the fuck do you think this place is?” he asked. “A resort? A spa? It’s a god-damned prison! In the wasteland. No-one knows you’re here. You are nothing. Nowhere.”

  “So…,” the magistrate continued, striking him with the book by way of emphasizing each word, “what… you… want…doesn’t…fucking…matter!”

  The magistrate ripped the slender volume down the brittle spine and chucked the two halves across the yard. Mark lost his breath like he’d been kicked in the stomach. The magistrate paced the yard, looking at the torn book, looking at Mark. His expression changed from one of consternation to one of settled satisfaction.

  “The latrine needs shit tickets,” he said, finally. “Pick up the book and bring it with us to the latrine.”

  Mark stood up and hobbled to the two halves of the book, the shackles at his ankles preventing a normal gait. He knelt down and picked up the tattered pages.

  “To the latrine.”

  They escorted Mark to the stout concrete building on the edge of the prison yard, fifty feet from the smoker, where the inmates were permitted twice daily to urinate and defecate. The man ordered Mark to place the journal next to the nearly empty roll of toilet paper held in place by a steel rod.

  “It’s a bit a rough, but it will do. I hope our guests don’t mind.”

  Another prisoner in a standard grey jumpsuit, dark-skinned, tall and gaunt, approached the latrine, accompanied by a pair of soldiers. He, and his guards, looked perplexed when he saw the magistrate, Mark, and the others waiting.

  “Just in time. Shit?” the magistrate asked as they approached.

  The prisoner nodded warily.

  “Excellent!” The magistrate clapped his hands. “Go ahead.”

  The magistrate wouldn’t allow the door to be closed. The confused prisoner had an audience of six. At first, he had difficulty, unused to emptying his bowels in public. But the nature of the camp food soon prevailed and the prisoner was finished. Sheepishly, he leaned over to grab the last remaining scraps of toilet paper. The magistrate cut him short.

  “Hold it! Today is your lucky day. Today, sultan, you get your ass wiped by one of the subjects.”

  The magistrate glowered at Mark.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Use your favourite pages.”

  “You want me to…”

  “Yes. Bend over sultan.”

  The prisoner remained frozen, his confusion and fear growing.

  “It’s simple English!” the magistrate. “Restrain him,” he said, motioning to his subordinates.

  The guards twisted the prisoner’s arms up behind his back and bent him slightly at the waist. One of the others shouted and poked Mark with his baton. Mark shuffled into the latrine. He pulled a leaf of paper from the second-half of the paperback. He glanced at the first line at the top of the page:

  Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole…

  Tears began to stream from his eyes, stinging them, and he stopped reading.

  “Go ahead!”

  Mark could see his hand raising the sheet of printed paper up to the soiled buttocks of the other man. The hand drew the paper along the cleft of the buttocks, and out the other side, where it emerged smeared and stinking. The hand then cast the feculent leaf into the black hole of the toilet.

  “Another.”

  Again, the hand stripped another piece of paper from the shard of the book and followed through with the wiping motion. Another crumpled leaf fluttered from the hand down into the darkness of the bowl. The other prisoner, looked away as he held out his buttocks like a toddler, hoping the procedure would soon be over.

  “Ok, that’s enough. You,” the magistrate barked at the prisoner, “finish up. Get him out of here.”

  Mark was led back to the smoker and was wordlessly folded back in. The magistrate leaned through the hatch and studied him.

  “No more books.”

  The hatch closed, it was bolted, and darkness descended again.

  Mark put off requesting a trip to the latrine until it was almost midnight and he could no longer wait. When he arrived, the halves of the book were gone, and a fresh roll of toilet paper was in place on the steel rod. He lasted another two days in the smoker. On the night of the second day he pulled a large splinter of wood from the inside of the structure and jabbed it into each wrist until the blood began to flow.

  THIRTY TWO

  Marcus was pale and semi-conscious when they found him. A shard of wood protruded from the soft flesh on the inside of his wrist and a trail of blackened blood extended to his elbow. He was taken to the infirmary. Three days later he was returned to his cell.

  “Forgive me,” he said to Sextus, as soon as the soldiers departed. “I was so careful. But I read too much. I got tired. I fell asleep with the book on my chest. On my chest! They made me… destroy it. I’m sorry. If I had a good, sharp knife, I’d do the job properly.”

  Sextus was quiet. His expression didn’t change.

  “Sextus? Are you not upset?” Marcus gripped the bars and shook them feebly.

  “Marcus. What have you done?” the old man asked, eyeing the swollen, purple flesh at his wrists.

  “Pluto’s ass! Do you hear what I say? The book is lost. Destroyed!”

  “How much did you read?”

  “All of it. Three times over.”

  “Do you recall what Aurelius wrote at the end of his sixth chapter?”

  Marcus rubbed his temples and shook his head.

  “No man will hinder thee from living according to the reason of thy own nature. Nothing will happen to thee contrary to the reason of the universal nature.”

  Sextus continued when Marcus drew his knees to his chest.

  “These aren’t just pretty words. Use them to see the world as it really is. Nothing can be done to you without your consent. How about the forty eighth paragraph of the fourth chapter?”

  Marcus stared at his feet.

  “Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man,—yesterday in embryo, to-morrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hair’s-brea
dth of time assigned to thee live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.”

  Sextus looked again at Marcus’ wounds.

  “Life is an unexpected and unexplained gift. And it lasts only a hair’s-breadth of time. You do honour to the gift by not abusing it and by parting with it cheerfully.”

  Marcus trapped a roach under his sandal.

  “Paragraph twenty-five of chapter seven? When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him, and wilt neither wonder nor be angry. For either thou thyself thinkest the same thing to be good that he does or another thing of the same kind. It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if thou dost not think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be well disposed to him who is in error.”

  “Book ten, paragraph four?”

  Marcus pivoted.

  “Jupiter! Do you have the whole damn thing memorized?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?

  “Of course,” Sextus looked heavenward and he counted with his fingers, “and Seneca’s De vita beata, the discourses of Dio Chrysostom and Epictetus, Zeno of Citium’s Republic, a number of discourses by Chrysippus, though he wrote so many, some forgettable.”

  “You can recite the whole journal, from start to finish?”

  “In both directions.”

  They gazed at each other. No longer did Marcus see an eccentric, toothless gnome. He saw a tattered bundle of parchment, filled with dozens, hundreds, of yellowed, creased pages. He saw an ancient, stone library packed with volumes.

  “Would you recite it to me?”

  Sextus cast about his cage like he was looking for something.

  “I’m not sure I can. I’m a very busy man.”

  Marcus stared hard into the old man’s clear, bright eyes. They narrowed. The slack skin surrounding them wrinkled and his face broadened into a wide grin.