He used to get his hopes up, in the first few centuries. Around 380 he’d actually scraped together a little money working as a messenger, and there was this girl, and then her father got pissy and sailed halfway to Cartagena before weighting down Longinus’s manacles and dropping him overboard.

Longinus held his breath on the long dark walk back to shore. He had a beard by the time he emerged. He could have just breathed water, yes, but have you ever been to the ocean floor? You’d hold it too, if you spent two weeks neck-deep in fish shit.