Death Sees Human
[Published on 01/09/2018; word count: 1,827]
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.
One day, we didn't receive our food. We were already starving, a day without food could mean death. So one of us meekly asked the overseer about the whereabouts of our daily bowls. And that earned him so harsh a whipping that he soon lay dead, blood seeping out of thin cuts in the dark skin where the lash had struck. And that was it.
What nobody told me was that I could run away. Away to places where people like me lived and laughed like other men. That's what I did. The next morning, before anyone was up, I made my way outside, sneakily. There wasn't anyone guarding the door. In those conditions, I don't think the masters of the plantation could afford anyone. I ran all the way to the dock.
There was a sight that made old scars bleed again. The very ship that has brought me here was again bringing more loads of slaves. There were more slaves there than any I'd ever seen. There, I had no idea where to go. Of course, I couldn't climb that ship again, could I?
But then I heard some distant shouting, which soon became audible. Someone was shouting. Yes, that was what I was thinking. Someone was recruiting soldiers. There was my chance to get free. Anyone could join the army, slave or no.
So that is how I dived right into the war even though I had wanted to run away from it. But that was my best option. The first attack left me horrified. I had never seen o much bloodshed before. I almost cried. But I held myself together and made it to the next. The battles seemed to be endless. And then I fought my last battle. Our contingent had reduced to about a hundred by then. The enemy crushed us easily and we were taken as prisoners of war. And soon came what I'd been dreading. My hair and beard were shaved off and I was sent to the galleys.
I rowed and rowed to the beat of the drum, hands and feet chained to the bottom. We were supposed to do everything there only. I rowed because I could do nothing else. I rowed as if my life depended on it. I thought nothing and said nothing, I only kept rowing. During all of this, I became even more of a bag of bones. I started seeing things. Sometimes it was my mother, sometimes my grandmother. It felt as if rowing harder could make me reach them, and fast. Sometimes I even saw the wine merchant. Once it got so bad I screamed my throat out and tried to stab myself with a splinter of wood. I got a good amount of whipping.
One day, as I sat rowing, the ship shook violently. Suddenly, there was a huge crash and we understood a cannonball had penetrated the ship. There came one more. And then more. One or two even struck the galley and crushed whoever came in their way. If I did not die then, I was sure to have died by drowning. I didn't know how to feel. Honestly, it felt good to know that I'd finally be out of this misery, back with my family.
People were dying around me but I was numb. I felt the ship shatter around me. The wood beneath me shifted and I went down, chained. Sinking down, I closed my eyes, ready for the water to engulf me.
I think I was half a minute in when I saw a dark shape approach. Maybe it was a sea creature attracted my the smell of blood. I thought for the first time in many days. Was that the way I was going to die? No, I realized. So I swam with the little power I had left, trying to steer clear. The creature did not follow me. I swam as much as I could but then my vision started to go dark at the corners. I think I swan for ten more minutes until I started feeling faint. I don't know what, but something in me told me to keep swimming. And after that? I saw land.
It was all I could do to reach it. I staggered up and got to my feet. I felt horribly tired. The sand was a good cushion, so I drifted off to sleep. I don't know how long I had slept. When I got up, I looked around. There wasn't a soul to be seen. I started walking in whichever seemed the best direction. As I advanced, I started feeling the crunch of dry grass beneath my bare feet. I kept on walking. The grass grew taller. I did not stop until the grass became knee-tall. The geography of this place was curious. I was tired again and I remembered how hungry I was. But there was nothing to eat. So I lay down again, waiting for sleep to come. I had barely shut my eyes when I heard a soft sound above me. I opened my eyes and met the stare of an outlandish creature just above me. I gave a scream. Where was I?
I tried to get up but the creature thrust its sharp, heavy paw on me. Its nails dug into my skin. The creature had four feet and features like a cat but much, much larger. It had a crazily bushy mane around its head. I realized this was a creature I'd never seen but heard of in one of my grandmother's tales. I was in my homeland.
But Death had followed me everywhere. First, the suffering as a slave, then the war, the sea and now this. Was Death so desperate to lay its hands on me?
Now, as I wait for the creature to devour me, I think I'm still human enough to feel the pain. My existence and everyone's else's is the same for the bringer of death. If I've suffered for so long, that doesn't mean death would be any less painful for me. I'm as much human as anyone else when I die.
And that is the last thing I'd ever think about.