“Just one more step…”
“What about the one after that?” grunted Sammy.
“No, No, I meant to say one at a time,” laughed Celina as she glanced down and called out to Sammy again. “I’m not waiting for you, Sammy!”
“We are supposed to go together. It’s not my fault I hurt my knee on the bluff trail.” After a pause and a deep breath Sammy continued, “at least we won, it was our last year to try.”
“Sammy, if we hadn’t won I…I would have been furious. Hurry up, I am waiting for you.” Celina said as she looked down the steps at the still lumbering Sammy.
She never minded watching Sammy do just about anything. They had been friends for years, and it was only natural that they spent so much time together. The butcher’s daughter and the baker’s son - by the age of six they made all their deliveries together and ran for supplies at the market whenever their father and mother needed them. Their parents didn’t mind. They only needed one cart then and always knew Celina and Sammy would watch out for each other.
Sammy and Celina were both about in their fifteenth year. This was their last year to run the Neptune Trial. It was a team sport and only one team won. They had been competing every year since they were twelve. Celina quickly became a crowd favorite. She was tall, slender and fast. Her long black hair flowed behind her. Everyone told her to get a new partner or she would end up being a butcher like her dad.
All the older boys tried to partner with her. The strong and the handsome, they all threw themselves at her. Winning the Neptune Trial, claiming the high tower steps, and meeting the masters with Celina - it was every early publican boy’s dream in the whole town. Celina turned down every offer. Sammy was her best friend.
Sammy had carried her home when the cow broke her foot. When the ram slammed it’s horn into her side and broke her ribs, Sammy spent every day from sun up till sun down until his mom called him home at night nursing her back to health. She had faith. They would win, they would climb, and they would meet the masters together.
Year twelve, thirteen, and fourteen were all tough losses. In year twelve, Sammy almost drowned on the first leg as they tried to swim though the freezing water between the town dock and the lighthouse island. In year thirteen, Sammy was too fat to climb the cliffs once they made it to the island. In year fourteen, Sammy wasn’t strong enough to lift Celina, as slender as she was, to the top of the guard wall, so Celina could drop the rope down the smooth stone for him to climb up. Every year they failed to even complete the course. Everyone said they would never finish the course, let alone win the race. They never made it to the last stage where they had to race the bluff trail and be the first to the lighthouse door.
Sammy, for his part, lived in shame. All he wanted was for Celina to win the Neptune Trial. After year twelve, he begged her to pick another partner. He didn’t care about himself; he knew no another girl would accept him as a partner. Sammy just wanted Celina to have the honor of winning the trial and the acclaim and award that came with it.
They both turned fifteen in the spring and this was their last chance or they would have to become full apprentices of their fathers, be married, and work the same job till they died.
When Sammy turned fifteen, he began to grow and change. He lost his fat and he started lifting 50-pound bags of grain all day in the baker’s storehouse. He hardly saw Celina the whole summer. When it came time to start practicing for the challenge, he dwarfed all the other boys, his muscles bulged out of shirt, and he was sorely in need of bigger clothing. Sammy had become a hulking mass of muscle.
This year was a breeze. Dong….the bell rang and the race started. Sammy and Celina were in the water in a flash. They both swam like well-oiled machines. They hit the wall climbing with only three pairs of competitors in close proximity. They both climb with ease, Sammy with strength and Celina with long slender graceful leaps and stretches. When they reached the top, they looked out over the edge. Only two teams were still with them. The other team that fell behind would never compete again. The girl had fallen near the top and hit the rocks. The waves were crashing around her lifeless body as her partner tried to work his was down to help her, but it was too late. Sammy just felt thankful it wasn’t him and glad that it hadn’t happened to him in the years before. To die like that, as a failure in the challenge with no honor, would have been horrible and more shameful than losing.
Celina pulled him back from the edge and the rushed to wall. This time Celina practically flew up the wall when Sammy lifted her. She quickly took the rope she had and tied off an anchor on the far side of the wall. She threw the rope over for Sammy and he was up in a flash. They turned and started up the hill path to the lighthouse. The other teams were still clamoring on the wall. They passed into the distance and Sammy and Celina never saw them again.
Most of the town was there to greet them as they reached the lighthouse; they had taken the stairs on the other side of the small island and had been ferried by the town’s fishermen between the docks. This was the one time of year the townsfolk were allowed to step foot on Neptune’s sacred island. Just before entering the tower, Sammy and Celina’s parents stopped them and hugged, congratulated them, and said goodbye.
“Celina, let’s just walk from here.” Sammy said as he caught up to Celina. “We’ve made it. Let’s just enjoy it.”
Finally, after the endless spiraling lighthouse steps, Sammy and Celina reached Neptune’s light room, the holiest of holy places, and the seven masters were waiting for them. As the master stripped off their clothing, Celina and Sammy looked around the circular room in awe. The entire room from floor to ceiling was plated in polished silver, broken with only tiny stone walkways and the great flame holder in the middle. The monks ushered them to separate sides of the lighthouse onto the small balconies. They washed them in basins, dried them and brought them back into the holy room. The monks then anointed them with fine smelling oils. This was treatment only royalty received in their world. Under normal circumstances, naked virgins washing and bathing in oil would have other things on their minds, but here, in the holiest of holy places, Celina and Sammy could only think of the honor. The head master wearing a white robe broke the silence and began chanting. Neptune’s flames began to rise from the center of the fire pit. Sammy and Celina could do nothing but smile at each other from opposites sides through the glow of the flames.
The master paused his chanting. In one voice, the seven masters shouted: “Enter the flame.” The crowds below heard their shouts and began to cheer. Sammy and Celina, the strongest and the most courageous, the most beautiful in all the town, stepped in unison into the flame, writhed in pain while embracing in the middle of the flames, and died as virgin sacrifices as their god intended.
Author’s Notes:
The goal of the article was to challenge our North American and western European concepts of death and religion in the modern world. Please comment below and tell me what you think about a society where certain forms of death are embraced, not just for religious reasons, but also in general. For example, dying with honor as a soldier or choosing to die with cancer rather than fight.
