Silvus strode out to check my progress. He found me sitting leaned against the stone. “On your feet!” I bolted upright. “Bring me the lash!” A servant appeared through the back door of the house and jogged to Silvus with a strip of leather as wide as my thumb and and long as my body. “Face the stone, Benjamin! So, your father hooked you to a plow, then let’s unlock the donkey in you.” The first blow of the lash sliced my garment from my back. I stumbled into the stone and gripped it to keep on my feet. Another strike smashed across my shoulders. “Fall to your four legs young donkey, or get to work on the stone!” As I took a breath to answer another blow fell and I cried out. Another slash fell and I ground me teeth under a surge of anger. I caught the last strike on my bare hands and held the leather firm. “Now, aim that anger at that stone.” Silvus turned and left.
The top of the stone lay unblinking as I pounded. One fist then the other struck with just the tiniest of scraping sounds against it. With all the pain and fire in my back, I beat down upon the boulder. My hands turned red, then white, then brown as bruises formed around my little fingers.
Silvus walked up. “Let me see.” He turned my hands over and opened them. “The rock is winning. Your anger is weak. You risk little to express it, so that even stones can defeat you. You only invest the softest part of your hand to the task, like a little boy afraid of his shadow! Continue.”
The throbbing of my bruises screamed, “Liar!” at Silvus. I set my teeth and poured fist after fist into the stone. Each swing brought a whimper from me. As I heard my own pain, a part inside me broke. Tears and sweat mingled and fell on the stone. My whimpers, and the broken emotions they dragged to the surface, called up a fearsome anger in me. I swiped at the boulder with my knuckles. Keen clear pain shot up my arm. I met the stone with another swing. It bounced back my blood. Now he was an enemy. Stroke after stroke I lay on the beast. Both hands rose and landed against the stone. Flyspeck chips rolled down its edge. Great gulps of air hissed through my nose to feed the rage. The roar raised in my ears and drowned out everything. I was in a black rage and my vision shrunk to nothing.
I woke in a puddle of my own blood at the foot of the stone. Silvus had returned and gently shook me awake. “So, you have met the monster within, eh lad? Carry him inside. He has had enough for today.” I was able to get my feet under me, but without Zebulun and Rebekah’s help I would have crumpled again. They eased me into the shade and began to tend my wounds. I must have passed out again and again. Each time I came back around Rebekah was singing her midday prayers. I didn’t really understand the ancient Hebrew, but I did hear her sing my name, I think.
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