Slavery

Naomi Adam

I remember that day.

I lay in the dirt, streaked with blood, stained with tears and sweating with fear. They began to kick me, shout abusive words at me; yet still I did not move. My heart was burdened and heavy, I longed for freedom, to see my family – without them I couldn’t go on any longer. My eyes fluttered shut. Then, all at once, African drumbeats began to echo inside my head, surrounding me; in my mind I was in Africa. It was as if closing my eyes had opened the once concertinaed fan of my memory; the picture concealed until spread wide. The harsh humid heat of Africa beat down on my back- a fierce contrast to the occasional thin rays of white mans land. Gregarious birds of rainbow hues flooded the skies- mauve, rose, emerald, turquoise, violet, aquamarine, burgundy, indigo, saffron, cerise, crimson, ebony…The amazing brightness of the desolate landscape stung my eyes, surprisingly welcome. My whole body felt full of vivacity. I stood there; proud, resplendent- watching as the first rays of dawn filtered through the celestial sky. I was blissfully happy. Suddenly I was not alone, people from all sides of me appeared, and began to close in on me, chaining me…

I screamed until my throat was raw. Still they had no mercy.

My next memory was walking across the deserted plains of Africa. My feet felt as if they were burning, my head spinning as I tried to get my bearings. Rotten, decaying carcasses littered the ground, their hollow eyes pitying me.

“Get a move on, we haven’t got all day!”

They were irascible, each and every little flame sparking off a fire.

“Lassssshhh! Lassssshhh!” the whip whispered to me as it sliced effortlessly into my smooth flesh, three, four, five times.

“You deserve everything you get!” A white person informed me, venom in her words and poison in her eyes.

The smell was musty and strong, drifting up into my nostrils. The open whip wounds scattered across my back bled, stinging with every move I made. A drumbeat still carried on inside my head, but, unfortunately, this time it wasn’t the happy and joyous drumbeat of African celebrations. Instead it was the beat of my feet, the strange rhythm they produced when I moved them. Inside my head they whispered ‘Slaves; just slaves.’ On and on it went, torturing me with every step because I knew it was true: we were all slaves. No better than vermin. I felt ashamed of my heritage. It was strange to look around, to experience Africa without it’s usual tumultuous buzz, and the place its self was bare; it was as if somebody had stolen the colour, leaving behind bleak, blank misery. In front of me people’s faces were melancholy, whilst others were determined, trying in vain to remember their past life, to not succumb to the ‘tree of forgetfulnesses’ wishes. Some were mumbling in their native language, telling the gods they had done nothing wrong, that they didn’t deserve the torture they were getting, requesting freedom. I had no idea as to how long we had been walking- sometimes, my feet aching, it felt like months, and others I could still remember my past life , my family, my hopes, ambitions; sometimes it only felt like yesterday I daydreamed about fulfilling them. And now? I only daydream of freedom; a place where people would be kind to me, where they would treat me as a human being, an equal, a person just like them. Where I would not feel unwanted, where I would not be treated like some diseased animal.

Some days that was just too much to hope for…

Another memory was on a ship. Dying and demented bodies all around me were moaning, crying, screaming. A filthy stench filled the air, it was around me too. My eyelids were heavy with exhaustion, my body weak and frail, yet I couldn’t sleep. I was so hungry I couldn’t move either. I couldn’t even talk. I could think though, and that I did- of the terrors I had seen. They burned in my mind, re-playing themselves over and over, permanently imprinted onto my brain. They were unspeakable, unimaginable, unmentionable, unthinkable. Every so often the ‘white people’ would walk past, teasing us, taunting us; ravenous creatures that seemed to feed on our unhappiness, relish our depression. Their menacing eyes gleamed, faces vibrant, mouths jeering, expressions gloating. How we loathed them, yet we would fall on our hands and knees, begging, pleading with them. We would do anything for food or sympathy. Our forlorn wide-eyed faces stared up at them. All they did was laugh.

The smell of sour sick swirled around me. I fought the desperate urge to add to it…

My eyes flickered open once again, searching desperately around me until I was sure I was alone. I carefully rubbed the place where the hand and neck cuffs had been, noticing the places where a mark had been embedded into my skin. They had left me there in the dirt. Left me to die. I noticed the footprints left in the dusty ground- was my fate worse than theirs? They were condemned to slavery for the rest of their lives. And me? I was free! My head throbbed and my whole body was tingling and shaking. This was not worse than anything I’d experienced though. There was a certainty about this situation- I knew what was to happen. Knowing that made me feel in control, better than I had felt in a long while. Slowly, silently, but surely, the outside world seemed to melt gently away. Everything; the suffering of my family; the grieving of those we left behind in Africa; the pain of my body; the future of my friends and my bleak suburb surroundings, it all seemed to float away, relieving my mind of a great, stressful burden. I closed my weary eyes for the last time. Sleep would come soon. That I knew for certain.

I felt nothing after that, no recognition of pain at all. I was free of everything. I was glad of that. I remember thinking: is this my future, my destiny, to die? Do I deserve this? But I was too tired to think any more, I needed eternal sleep- I longed for it.

Up here, up in heaven, I remember that day. And I still wonder, is it true, did I deserve to die at the age of 11? Was it a waste of a life?