Publish Or Perish: @arty_enigma Edition

Death Sees Human ※ Aug '18

I didn't choose this life. It chose me.

I didn't walk into it. I was born into it.

I'm a slave, and all the other things that come with it.

My mother was a slave, and her parents before her, and probably their parents too. It was imperative that I carry down the family tradition.

There was no escape. No resort.

I was born aboard a ship bound for Seville with only a single hand holding my mother's. No, it wasn't my father: I've never had the chance to see him. The hand was my grandmother's. She and my mother used to work together; I could have too, had I not been a male child. Being a boy slave came with its own rewards.

I was plucked from my mother's breast when I was but a child of four and sold to a filthy rich wine merchant of Seville. The horrors I saw are indescribable. Nothing yet has ever come to surpass those dreadful days.

During those four years, my mother had made me understand that whatever comes, I must never tell them my real name. That's why nobody knows my real name, except my mother and grandmother. So when the wine merchant asked for my name, I stood there, staring blankly at his cruel thin lips. Those lips must have felt my stare; they twisted in the most abominable frown and the merchant laid two well-placed blows on my back. Only then I realized that he must have taken my silence for insolence. He said, 'You are Alvaro. Don't try to act smart again. Get it?'

I didn't reply again. I was shaking in fear. I didn't think I was supposed to answer. But my silence earned me another blow nevertheless. That's how I became Alvaro el Mudo, Alvaro the Mute.

My bed had been laid in a stable. The first few days I went to sleep with sobs amidst the smell of all the horse muck around me, with nobody to talk to. Only the memories of my mother and grandmother comforted me. But I would start sobbing again when I recalled that I would never meet them again.

But Alvaro the Mute grew. And he grew stronger. Braver. Quieter. I understood I was less than human; a commodity meant for trade. My body was just another kind of draught animal. The only difference was that I could speak, think and serve my masters and mistresses in several other ways while bullocks bellowed and grunted. I was an assimilation of flesh and blood meant for servicing those superior to me.

I continued to service the wine merchant. I'd often chuck in a tumbler or two from the barrels, unnoticed. The intoxication made my ordeals less traumatic and more sufferable. Thankfully, I was never discovered stealing. Slaves are naturally adept at hiding: be it a thin slice from a hunk of cheese, a sip from a flagon of wine or emotions lurking behind stony faces.

Soon after, the wine merchant discovered he had no more use of me. So I changed hands. This time, I fell into the hands of a wealthy sugarcane farmer. This kind of work was more physically straining but tortured me less emotionally. I'd have sooner worked here for the rest of my life than for the wine merchant for a single day. I was thankful.

At least I was able to eat every day. Every week we received rations of maize, lard, molasses and sometimes even meat. It was more than enough to keep me alive.

Here, I discovered a new aspect of life: friendship. There was hardly any difference amongst the workers. There were all like me: away from home, doomed for eternity. We were at peace.

God must not have liked my state then, for then came the war. I had no idea what was going on. One day, a man came up to us when we were working in the field and declared that we had new masters. I never got to know what happened to the old one.

We were made to toil harder. Whips and curses became a more significant part of our lives. However, whenever I thought about running away, I reminded myself that the whipping was much sweeter than my first master. So I remained there for another whole year. The new masters starved us and yet expected us to work all day. Each day, we were given a bowl of thin stew, sometimes a bit of bread to go with. If we wanted anything else, we foraged on our own. Soon, the stew started becoming more watery, the bread days scarce, and our bodies weaker. I saw quite a number of other slaves die. But we kept quiet.