There is a sport the Gladiators play to keep in shape: They call it 'Boxing'.
Partners are chosen randomly, always mismatches--The strong fight the weak;
I admit the first time I punched a Gladiator, he punched me back twice as hard.
As cliche as it sounds, I saw my brief sojourn on this plane in that moment.
The fighting goes all day, sometimes all night as well.
It hurts, but at the same time, as the blood swells and the hard,
calloused knuckles of your sore right fist throb, there is another pain
that eases and moves away.
The dance of fist-fighters is an orchestra of fear
where the actors become their fear and move through it.
Gladiators know where their life leads, and we who visit them and practice
bare knuckled and sweaty can look at them with pity they don't ask for.
I won my first fight against a dwarf who grunted loudly each time
my hard left fist the size of his face made dull meaty contact.
He was bloody and almost dead but the smile on his face spoke to me
of a child who knows the faces of his parents, loves and laughs.
The hardest training one can entertain is one that makes them move
in ways they don't move, or do in some fashion they never have.
I came to the arena to learn how to pack more platinum.
I came away understanding courage and victory inside the broken teeth of the dead and dying.
In this way, I found them more holy than saints.
Acre
