Crucification
Black Jesus is crucified on the cross. His black skin makes a sharp contrast with the blue sky above him. Hands are nailed to the cross. The nail is covered in Jesus’s red blood. Drops of blood are falling from the nail.
The nail shakes. Jesus’s fingers bend and form a black fist. The arms start shaking. It seems that Jesus is shivering. His head is tilted down, but not because he has fainted. Jesus is intently looking at something below the cross. Fury is bursting through his eyes.
Jesus is watching a young, beautiful, dark-skin woman. Wearing a white headscarf, she is standing below the cross. She has wisps of red hair poking out from under the headscarf. She looks like an angel sent directly from heaven and has a charming smile on her face. The smile makes her look even more innocent. Why would Jesus be mad at an innocent woman?
The beautiful woman is offering a flirtatious smile to a Roman soldier. The soldier is a handsome man with an athletic body and long blond hair. His eyes, however, are repulsive, with lust overflowing from them. The woman does not seem to mind though. She is kindly attending to the wound that the soldier has on his finger. ‘Wound’ is too much of a word; it is more like a small scratch on the tip of his middle finger. The young woman is using her white ribbon to wrap around the scratched finger.
The soldier has his right hand extended towards the woman, and is leaning his left hand on the cross. The cross is mostly red from Black Jesus’s blood. Some drops of blood are also dripping on the white headscarf of the woman, but she does not notice them. Or perhaps she does, but she is ignoring them. All her attention is on treating the scratch on the extended middle finger of the Roman soldier. Could Jesus ever forgive him for the crucifixion? Could he ever forgive her for…?
The fury in Jesus’s eyes becomes wilder and wilder. THUNDER strikes suddenly! And the Roman soldier’s face turns black. The young woman is still smiling at him. THUNDER strikes again mixed with a furious scream! And the soldier’s face is all merged in black color. The brush hits the Roman soldier, harder and harder until it tears the canvas. Jesus’s scream gradually turns into a pitiable sobbing. The brush drops from his hand, and he himself falls to his knees. His head hits the palette that has fallen on the ground. He rolls and lies on his back as he is still crying. Jesus’s black face is now covered with a variety of colors.
“God, how can I ever forgive you?” Black Jesus says with excruciating pain. He looks at the canvas torn around the Roman soldier. He then looks at himself crucified in the painting. And then turns his look down to the young, dark-skin woman below the cross. She still has the flirtatious smile on her face. The smile, however, no longer looks innocent.
The phone rings. Jesus takes his eyes off the woman in the painting and reluctantly gets up to answer the phone.
