Nemrah

Part 1

Two fourteen year old boys hung from their necks. The entire plantation stared, silent and tears streaming down their dirty brown cheeks. For the women who tried to cover their eyes, their hands were pulled from their faces as the white men laughed. They were loud, and rowdy, drunk off of liquor and their wickedness. She stood with no emotion. Numb to what her people had to go through, deaf to the cries of the two boys mothers.

All they wanted was freedom. Young and wild, they ran for their lives in the still night. In their mind, they would make it; they could make it. For months they planned it, but it took ten minutes before the white men noticed and forty before they came dragging them back. First, they castrated them and dangled their private parts before their eyes with mockery. The boys eyes were wide in shock, mouth open but no sound was coming out. Then, they cut off their feet, yelling "Run nigga run!". Next, was their ears and last but not least, they were hung. The sound of the rope crushing the bone in their necks made their mother's scream. This was nothing new; but when it happened to the ones we loved, it suddenly became unreal.

She wished her heart did not hate the white ones. But as she stared at them laughing at her people's misery, it pumped with the blood of hatred. Every vein in her body screamed with repulsion. Around her they pray for a better day to come. When they can finally leave them alone, but she saw that day not coming. She was a realist, someone who rather die than lie to herself. If anything, she wished for the day they died off from their own sickness and leave her and her people be.

The head man who lived in the big white brick home, in whom they called 'master', slid from behind the gigantic circle and stood in the middle. He walked by the two dead boys and poked at one of their bodies, causing it to move slightly.

"Any nigga" He began scoping over all of them with old eyes. "Who runs, dies. We know this. You know this. Yet you still try to run-Shut that bitch up!" To the right where one of their mother's mourned out loud and beat her chest, was kicked in the head by the white men who followed Master. He shook his head and started up again, talking as if rebuking a child.

They were dismissed back to their plantation duties. She was to tend to the cotton along with most. Some were gardeners, who worked on grass and bushes, also kept up with Master's garden. Then there were Master's kids, the ones who were lighter than the rest. Negro people have always came in different shades with different hair textures, yet these came out mixed with something wicked. Something they have never mixed with before they were brought over to captivity.

He took many women throughout his life, both married and young. Him and his men impregnated over sixteen women, who she had grown up with. Eventually they were taken away to work in the house. Their white wives had no say so, all they would do was torture the Negro women who their husband's had mistaken their vile lust with love and raped.

Nemrah hummed to the spiritual song of outcry to the heavens, Mother Sally was singing. From deep within her soul she felt the pain. In that moment was the only times she could sing it out. Her bag was almost full with cotton, which was a good sign. Anyone who did not fill their bags by the end of the night was sent to Willy Lynch. A cruel plantation owner with no soul, who treat his slaves worse than any white man she had ever seen. She had never been sent there, but her mother and three younger brothers had; where they disappeared. The first nights were wailing and trembling, but it wasn't a week later before she willed herself cold.

Lifting her head from the cotton plant, she met eyes with a man across the field. He was tall, with muscles so defined in his dark skin. His hair was as cotton, wooly. He paid her no mind but went back to his work like she were never there. Tearing her sight away, she worked, her humming coming to a stop. Every day she watched him from a distance and almost every time he caught her. He never seemed to mind because he would do what he did just then. Look away. Amongst all the men, he was the one she desired. Of course silently; it took the man to come up to the woman. At least, that was what she saw by observing.

Beside her were one of the boys' father, who kept his head lowered and mouth shut. Although he was silent, tears rushed down his cheeks one by one. In respect for him, she silenced her idol thoughts.

They weren't to stop until their wool bags overflowed and their hands dripped in blood. By nightfall she heard the horse hoofs running in the field. Squinting from the sunset, Nemrah looked to the Master's son. He yelled out meaningless things, making threatening sounds with his whip, making them all flinch. To be a man, his face was clean cut unlike the others. It was rather repulsive, and she wondered how his wife could look at him at night. She probably didn't.

Yes, this book gets disturbing. Very.

Nemrah-17

Tom-26

Toby-28