Aurel

two

"Ye plan to do what?"

"Ye 'eard me."

"Ye a foolish gyal if ye tink dat'll work."　

"Ye jus' mad ye 'een tink of it firs'." There by the river, a small gathering of them, womenfolks, knelt washing clothes.

"How yuh plan to seduce dat white man?"

"Simple. All it tek a part of mi breast mi ah show him. After dat, he'll wan more." All the women laughed, all but February.

"Tap ya chupitniss, Anne. It's not safe." (Stop being silly.)

"Kum ya, February. (Come on now.) It's a likkle laugh 'ere. No 'arm dun." To that, a sharp suck of her teeth.

"Ye playin' wit' fiyah. That me ah know." She grunted but otherwise said nothing else. It didn't matter if it was foolish or not. A plan was a plan. A chance was a chance. She fullheartedly intended to see it through. If nothing else but for her children.

***

Time moved in waves and in particles, sometimes fast, almost too fast. Accidents. Mishaps. Glimpses of her form; squatting by an open stretch of road. No privacy. Mather's eyes, his eyes, the eyes of other working slaves on an exposed backside, burnt sienna and glimmering with perspiration. Skirt lifted up and over her bent knees, a single stream of urine splattered the ground and wet the earth.

Feet lost in the abyss of sugar cane, the chip of the machete and enthusiastic voices of men and women as their song carried in the wind. Passing by one stretch, there, two bodies were, entangled. An exposed backside and sunburned arms held down a dark female figure as the hips of the male humped away. Mathers. Anne. Rough and violent. A fist struck her as she fought him. Harsh, gruff sounds of pleasure drifted up from him and his feet quickly hurried away.  

Still, another morning. Full from breakfast, he ascended the stairs and approached his room. Softly opening the door, he saw her on all fours, head down as she scrubbed the floors. The breath in his throat stilled and for a moment, his mouth fell open and eyes grew wide in shock. The loose fitting shirt she wore gaped in the front, leaving her sweaty buxom spheres nearly completely exposed, gravity causing them to dangle and quake as she scrubbed vigorously. Frozen, in silence he watched her continue, moving to another spot, taking with it the sight of her bosom. 

Time also moved slowly. So very slowly and he didn't want any of it to end. Conversations in passing, in the night when all were to be sleeping. There by fire's glow they were, speaking, laughing, coming to know the other, more and more with words. In the short amount of time, he'd known her, he'd learned so much about her. She told him about her parents, and where they were from. There, she said, in a place called Ghana, they lived in peace, unbothered by European civilization or colonization. 

She could only recount the memories of her parents, as she'd been in her mother's womb when they'd been stolen from their home. Caged like animals until departure, women like her mother were repetitively raped without mercy, even while pregnant. Men like her father were kept away from their women, stripped of their power. Those that dared to rebel and fight back, Anne recounted, were brutally tortured and killed for the amusement of their handlers.  

The long gruesome journey across the ocean, she said, had almost killed both of her parents. Perhaps, she said with a small smile, it was her ghana, her warrior spirit, inside of her mother that pushed them to survive. 

When he had asked about their whereabouts, the smile left her face. Her mother had been killed in front of the Big House, in front of all of the other slaves for daring to protect her, then a girl of 5 years, from being sexually abused by one of the overseers. Her father had been sold away after her murder and she had never seen him again. Her memory of her parents were strong and beautiful, much like her.