Town Square
On a bright and sunny day in the town square everyone is relaxing and enjoying themselves – everyone, that is, apart from the prisoner-slave who is languishing in the town square kneeling-stocks. If we zoom in on him, we can see that he is being lectured by a magnificent monk master-sir, who is reminding the prisoner-slave of the following inalienable truths:
· That he, the prisoner-slave, is a sinner, whereas everyone else in the square is holy, which is why the prisoner is being punished whilst everyone else is having a good time
· That the young, black woman seated in front of him is quite right to ignore him and turn her back on him, since she doesn’t care about his pain and suffering in the stocks, and is, on the contrary, enjoying a frivolous and fun time out with her friends
· That he must, out of respect for the aforementioned young woman, study the backs of her socks, since they are the socks of a beautiful girl who is the slave’s infinite better
· That he must study her socks even though only one of them is visible to the prisoner-slave from his humiliating position in the kneeling stocks – this being due to the fact that the young woman has elected to wear short, black sneaker socks on her feet and one of them, the one on her right foot, has seemingly slipped down inside her sneaker, presumably due to sweat (the monk sir asks the prisoner what he feels about that, and the prisoner politely and respectfully, replies to the monk master-sir that he feels truly humbled to only be able to see just one of the girl’s socks, but that nevertheless he must be grateful for small mercies and focus his eyes on that remaining sock whilst contemplating the missing sock in his menial mind, if the monk master-sir would be so kind and understanding?)
· The monk master-sir laughs at the prisoner’s obsequiousness – born of fear – and takes great delight in reminding the slave that his next public whipping is due tomorrow afternoon. He furthermore informs the prisoner that the weather forecast is for it to be another hot and sunny day, so the slave can be assured of a large and enthusiastic audience for his whipping
The prisoner-slave thanks the monk master for his kind reminder, and endeavours to take his mind of his impending whipping by focussing on the young woman’s visible, black socktop in front of him.