Posted by Night Manager on September 13, 2008 at 12:40am
Last Night… in my Dream…I must have fallen asleep on my couch because that’s where the dream begins. Something was wrong with the book I was trying to read because the words were all jumbled. Before it became frustrating enough to wake me there came a loud rumbling from outside my window and then a banging at my door.But the banging was not to rouse me or to get me to open it. It was too strong, violent and the door shook on its hinges. Suddenly it burst open and in stomped strange men bearing hammers, swords and chains. Their skin was weather beaten, their hair was wild and they yelled at me with accents so thick that I could not understand what they were saying.In a rush they came at me and pinned me down. With their rough skin around my arms and their swords at my throat they chained me. Then they pulled me to my feet and I saw that I was a good foot taller than all of them. Not that it mattered; they slashed at me with their blades and pounded on me with those hammers, forcing me to the door.Just outside my window I could hear screams and fighting. I was pushed through my door a saw the most horrible site. Huge Truck flatbeds were being driven right down my block. They were so large that they knocked and scraped along the cars parked on the street, knocking some of them up onto the sidewalk. On the backs of the flatbeds were people.Some people I recognized; they lived in my neighborhood. Others were strangers to me but they were all chained as I was. They were men and women, adults and children, individuals dressed for work and families dressed for bed. The strange men were pulling my neighbors from their homes and then loaded them onto the trucks. Those that resisted were beaten with the hammers until they complied or no longer could. The strange men jabbed at me with their swords and I fell down my steps onto my face.The men laughed and jabbed again, yelling for me to move. Chained as I was it took some doing but I wasn’t the only one. A woman was screaming and I looked to see her being dragged away from the unmoving body of her husband. He isn’t the only person to fall and not get back up.I saw that most of the people who resisted were men… and most of them were then lying unmoving on the ground. A fear took hold of me like I’ve never known. Quickly I was on my feet and marching to the truck.That’s when I saw you.I know you don’t live in my neighborhood but I wasn’t surprised to see you. The strangers dragged you from the breezeway in between two homes across the street. You fought with everything you had but they only laughed and pulled you easily down to the street. You never had a chance against them as small as you are. As they load you onto the truck one of the men grabbed at you indecently. Your chains prevented you from striking back at him and he sneered at you wickedly and laughed again with his fellow captors. Cold steel was pressed against the back of my neck and I did nothing except comply and climb aboard one of the trucks.The culling goes on for hours. We rode aboard the trucks for miles as people were rounded up, chained and thrown on board. Along the way some leapt from the trucks, desperate to escape. But the chains were heavy and the strange men were everywhere. None that I could see make it. None that I could see survive to climb back on.All the while the men taunted us. Theirs was a deep well of cruelty, hitting some, leering at a few of the women and punishing those who do not show enough submission. As tall as I am I became a target for them. Try as I might to comply I found myself bleeding and bruised from their intermittent attacks. When they weren’t after me I looked for you but the other trucks were all identical. You could have been anywhere.They took us all the way across the city and I could soon smell the river. Still they were loading the trucks and more and more people were chained. More and more bodies lay on the ground when they resisted too hard or a moment too long.But not everyone was taken.Soon we were driven through nicer neighborhoods. Some homes were still raided for prisoners but many were not. I saw sad shameful faces peeking out from windows or standing in doorways. Those homes were all marked with a large piece of cloth… a flag bearing an unfamiliar pattern. No one was taken from those homes. I saw a few familiar faces whose eyes never meet mine. They were the faces of people who had only one thing in common that I know of: money.Soon we were brought to the docks and sitting in the water were the largest boats I’d ever seen. Old boats with huge billowing black sails, like the ones you see in pirate movies. Atop the tallest mast of each ship the strange flag fluttered in the wind. Several people screamed once they saw the ships. Many called for God and a few passed out. I actually found myself envying them being spared from the nightmare. Again some tried to make a break for it but no one could run with the chains on. The trucks rolled right up to the docks and the people were ushered off the flatbeds and marched up the ramps to the ships.My truck drove up beside the largest ship, a triple-decker with a symbol printed on each of the tall black sails. It was a figure eight lying on its side. My fear grew even more but I marched along. I did not want to die.The ship was so full of people when I was lead onto the deck that there was no more space in the hold. For moments my mind reeled. Would they move us to another ship or would we simply be put over the side?But the strange men had known they would have this problem and had come prepared. On the two lower decks were cages set all around the edges of the boat. Without pause many were herded into the cages until full. The rest of us were then forced to sit along the rails and chained to the deck.Then they began to process us. Quickly, roughly and with as much humiliation as possible we were all stripped bare. One man tried to defend a woman who must have been his mother. He was beaten, then unchained and tossed over the side. No one else fought after that.Then day became night and night rolled into day. The strange men continued to harass us as they pleased. Sparingly we were fed; horrid bread and brown filthy water. More people went over the side.A man who fought to protect his daughter went screaming…A woman and the dead body of her child who she refused to be parted with went over together…An elderly lady who may or may not have been dead because she never responded to the blows from the hammers…Day became night and night turned to day until counting them no longer seemed to matter. The strange men continued the process of beating us into submission.Several young women, the ones who were of age, were taken from the cages and moved to the crew quarters. One woman begged for them not to take her daughter, who was too young but very tall for her age. She offered to go with them instead. The strange men laughed and the one who leered at you, he smiled a wicked smile. He jabbed a fat thumb at a group of girls who were obviously too young and then held up two fingers. The woman cried and shook her head until the stranger grabbed her daughter roughly by the head and forced her to her knees. With tears streaming from her eyes the mother pointed at two of the girls and quickly they were exchanged for her daughter. The strange man smirked at her and handed her and her daughter fresh apples.This went on day and night. The harsh sun burned down on us and the smell of the sea and each others ripening bodies made us gag. I passed the time thinking of ways to escape, of food… of home… or of dying but mostly I thought of you.Another man attempted to resist. The sun beat down on all of us and he was using his own body to provide shade for a sick elderly man. He was beaten and then handed a blade to kill the man. I watched wondering what he would do. The man was not related to the old man. In fact he’d never met him before he was captured. He refused to take the old mans life none the less. But the smirking stranger was not done.He opened a barrel of fresh water and another full of fresh fruit right on the deck and even my mouth watered. Then he took the sword from the man and had three other men unchained. They unchained me.He pointed to the fresh water, the food and then finally to the man. Then he drew his hand across his throat.There was no resisting them.It was him or me.I was starving and perhaps… could share the food with others…But I hesitated… the others did not.It was ugly and horrible. They were not given weapons and none of them had ever killed a man before… at least not with their bare hands. He died slowly, strangled, and then they finished off the old man. We were chained back up and I sat down in shame trying to convince myself that I wasn’t wrong for wanting the water or the apples. I may have thought about joining in but…But I didn’t help…No… I didn’t help…This continued as well until no one was dying at the hands of the strangers anymore. We were killing each other.More days past, the blazing sun sucked the life from our food starved bodies and nighttime rains opened us to fevers. Many died.I did not.One late afternoon after a particularly bad storm broke there came a commotion from below decks. The strangers dragged several prisoners up onto the main deck and dumped them before the rest of us. As bad as it had been on the top deck I had seen more bodies brought up from below and dumped over the side than had died topside. But this was different. These people were still alive and you were among them.The stranger who always smirked was grinning down on your group. He motioned to his men and a few of them began to open the chains of the group of prisoners who had become their favorites. These were Men who killed other prisoners with no qualms and accepted the fresh water and apples happily. These men were given warm clothes to protect them from the sun and keep them dry in the rain. These men had been to the crew quarters to take time with the girls they had imprisoned there.Hammers were placed into their hands. They moved to encircle your group their eyes wide with excitement. You looked up. Your eyes were so defiant so… resolute.There was such strength in your eyes as you looked from one traitor to the next. My breath caught in my throat because then you looked beyond them and your eyes fell on me.It wasn’t anger that I saw in your eyes then although that was what I was expecting. No… you looked into my eyes and I saw… I felt your disappointment, like I had failed to fulfill some unspoken promise.I don’t know you very well, we’re little more than acquaintances. All the same my heart ached with a pain that eclipsed the battering my body had already taken.How dare you? How dare you expect anything from me? How dare you shame me? How dare you fill me with pain that burns worse than the sun? Drains my strength like thirst? Bruises like the beatings? You don’t know me! I owe you nothing!I stood at once and called to the strangers. The Smirking man looked at me with small insect-like eyes. I thrust my hands out to him, open, my eyes looking to the hammer still strapped to his belt. The smirk slid up the side of his face.He gestured for his men to unchain me and quickly I was brought into the circle of his executioners. The smirking stranger unbuckled his own hammer and passed it to me. It was larger and more ornate than the weapons of his comrades. It was heavy in my hands… but not too heavy.The other prisoners still in their cages or chained to the rail began to beg to be given weapons as well. The long voyage had taken its toll on all of us. The deck was alive with promises to kill your small group and cries for food and water. The other prisoners standing beside me glared at me menacingly. They did not want to have their shares of the food and water divided anymore than it already was. They glanced about angrily and began to shout down the other prisoners, raising their hammers threateningly. The smirking man took all this in with satisfaction in his dark eyes.Then he shouted for silence, pointed to your small group who still lay on the ground and drew his finger across his throat.One hammer wielding prisoner grabbed you roughly by your chains and pulled you beneath his weapon. He raised it his eyes wild with the thought of fresh water and the red apples. His eyes remained open even after I brought the hammer down on the back of his head.He dropped limply to the ground. The other executioners backed away from me startled. The deck went silent for a moment and then the smirking man roared. He pointed a thick calloused finger at me…… and then drew his finger across his throat.They came at me at once. They had been fed better for days. They had not been struck or beaten as much as I had.But somehow… I was faster, stronger… and I had the biggest hammer.It was a frenzy of a fight. I swung with wild abandon and so did they. They may have struck each other as much as they struck me. But my body had been tempered by the beatings while they had been pampered by the apples, fresh water, warm clothes and vulnerable girls.The last hit the deck with a thud and lay unmoving as a pool of blood spread from his head. I was breathing hard through clenched teeth and was gripping the hammer above my head ready to continue the fight.The Strange men drew their swords and began to approach me.But I saw fear in a few of their eyes.Had they attacked as a group I would have been killed there on the deck like so many others. But their fear was great and they came at me only as each overcame it in turn. Their sword reach was great but not enough to overcome my longer arm reach. The first to come at me was too hesitant and he fell just like the would-be executioners. The next two tried to surround me but I swung before they could get themselves into position and they fell as well. The smirking man barked gruff orders and the other strangers regrouped. They would be able to take me in moments.I spun on my heels and turned to the cages behind me. One blow was all it took to pop the rusty lock and the gate fell open. A sea of angry, starved prisoners poured out onto the deck……and surrounded me.Behind them walking back up to the third deck was the smirking stranger. That smile had slid almost all the way to his ear.I screamed at them, my fellow prisoners, to fight, that we could take the boat. Their only response was to pick up the dropped hammers of the men that had been killing us all. They converged on me.My heart sank but a part of me knew that I deserved this. I let the strangers take me without a fight. I let them kill my neighbors without argument. I deserved this.I turned slowly, trying to keep any of them from rushing up behind him. They saw how I handled the hammer in my hands. None of them wanted to be the first to fall but they weren’t going to let me go.Then I saw you. You’d been released from your chains and stood foremost among the rest of the prisoners I’d freed. There was a lean and hungry look to you and you had daggers for eyes… and a sword in your hands.The hammer felt so heavy then. I could barely hold it before me. This was going to be bad.You raised your sword… I cast my eyes downward… and you stepped forward.I deserve this.You stopped about a foot away from me and when I look up our eyes met and I was filled with strength. It streamed from your eyes like sunlight and somehow parched my thirst, cooled my skin, filled my body with fire.With a cry you turned into the crowd surrounding us. Blood flew and people fell to the deck. The hammer was light in my hands and devastating to those who tried to stop me. We fought them together and for the first time since they had taken me I was not afraid.The great beast of a ship pitched and rolled as we cut across the deck. Soon people were jumping over the side of the ship to get away from my hammer and your sword. We fought our way into the crew quarters where the men had been taking liberties with the female prisoners. We happened upon a massacre. They had tortured those girls and left none alive.We fought on with a renewed fury and the deck became slick with blood. People cried out for the strangers to help them. They begged and pleaded to them like they were gods.The strange men had no choice then but to answer. There weren’t enough prisoners left to fight for them. The Smirking man advanced with a vanguard of his men, swords drawn.It doesn’t matter. With you standing beside me it felt as if the sea wind was lifting me. We ran into them and they fell too, dropping to the blood splattered floor like all the rest or rushing to the rail to pitch themselves into the sea.At last the smirking man stood alone by the rail on the top deck. His smile still imprinted on his face like a brand burned into his flesh. His eyes no longer smirked though; they glowered instead at his hammer that was held tightly in my hand.Refusing to fall to his own weapon he leapt up onto the rail and pulled a flint box from inside his jacket. With a slight twist to his lips he struck the box and set sparks to the huge black sails. They were ablaze in seconds.With one last twisting smirk he joined everyone else over the side.That last spiteful act had done its job. Soon the triple-decker ship was a whirling inferno. Embers from the burning sails floated through the air like falling snow in a storm of black smoke.I looked to you to saw the tiny embers landing lightly in your hair.Your hair didn’t burn, although it became flame… a brilliant mane of fire that flowed beautifully around your face and reflected in your eyes.I was drawn to you and our lips touched. Such a fire filled my soul.We made love on that third deck as the great ship burned down around us into the deep black sea.
Comments