A Slave's Freedom

Hearing voices, calling me underneath that large oak tree.

They tell me I'm fine, that I'm not broken, and that I'm not alone. They also say my sister is not dead. She is happy, living alongside her Momma and Papa, who love her very much.

Yet in my mind, swirls of ash and decay flutter in disarray among the graves that dot the landscape. Cannon fire cut the peaceful serenity of life to bits, while muskets bellow to the sounds of angry white men screaming to the music of death. Trees fall or stand tall with holes piercing their bark, shattering wood and life all together. Sometimes I describe the image like this, like how my Master saw through his books. I see it like that too, and I love it. Yet I sound distant, like a roving slave without a family to hold.

I'm still distant, and I will always be distant. I'm not free, I'm just a stray.

A stray of my Master's keep.

Waking up to new sounds startles me like the bells on the farm. They would ring and ring until all of us slaves were up and ready for the Master. They had a distinct sound: loud enough to tell us all to wake up, yet low and haunting enough to rattle our spirits. However... these ones are different. It is a short burst every few seconds. And not just that...

My eyes see the sound zap across the... thing. It is taking all my effort to just see the sound zip and zag along a green line. I'm not sure what it is, but as my heart beats irregularly, I see that line dance. It is like my heart is racing the line, but as my heart beat slows, the line slows down too. Maybe it feels sorry for my heart?

I think the line is safe, but I do not see anything else. The rest of the colors around it are blurry. Some of them swirl together, while others become lines and flip in ways I could not know. Am I just floating upside down? I don't know. All I know is that deep within my heart is a piano player who strikes the keys of the tune of life. It transfers over to the bouncing, shifting, and blurring line. It's trying to tell me something, but I do not know what it wants. All those wonderful sounds and bright colors fall to deaf ears and blind eyes.

Another hand strikes a chord. A new tone is heard.

I look away from the green line and see the room I am in. Still blurry as it may, I do see something different. It is attached to my arm, secured by some fabric wrapped around my arm. I wonder if it comes off?

Tugging my arm, I gasp as the pain from whatever is in my arm seers through me. Nope, not at all. My eyes look at the thing again, and see the see-through line that leads to a giant bag of some kind. It is see through too but is holding some red liquid, and—is that my blood?

Why is it outside of me?

How am I alive?

I'm lost, my vision is hazy, and my body is giving up again. My heart races with the green bullet.

Maybe I'll just sleep a bit more. Maybe tired eyes imagine things. This must be a dream. I need to sleep again.

Or maybe I'll wake up again, in a cave, where the light shines through the entrance, or just outside the gorge, where her and I lay silent, hoping for Rainbow Dash's friends to save us.

What a world I live in. One day I see colors swirl and lines disconnect, and the next I see nothing. I think my eyes are open. It's really, really dark, though, like the caves that Rainbow Dash and I went in. Maybe even darker, like the barrel of a rifle. It is unknown to me, a space where even a white man could not travel without being spotted. A rifleman would see him and shoot him too. But what if he was white too?

A skirmish developed in my mind, while I see the colors blend to a dull gray. A white light was shining in, bleakly, from a corner of what appears to be a window. I am not sure though, since the window sill looks like a bunch of lines blurred by a blinding light, but maybe I am just seeing things. Maybe it is a mirage in the distance for a poor slave like me to hope that it would come closer.

Momma liked us by the candle light at night. She would be practicing on her piano, and I would be sitting in a old wooden rocker, leaning back with my feet still touching the ground—my height was an advantage—and clutching a big old book with my two equally big hands. I gripped my book tightly and read the words with a blaze of fright, knowing that at any moment, Master could come and rip the book right out of my hands and tell me to head to the barn where the other slaves sleep.

She told us some nights to forget about the world and how the white man was just living in fear. We heard about that revolt that happened long ago in a place called Virginia, or at least, from what I heard. Some owners were still worrying about it, chatting in the streets while a slave hiding in the thicket of corn was staring onward with my big old eyes locking in on those two owners.

"Thinkin' the slaves would do a revolt 'ere?"

The other man, with his black stetson tilted down, shook his head. "Not in a million years, Mr. Baker."

Mr. Baker was a friend of the Master. He come by once in a while. He'd come in, utter a few welcomes to Master and his family, and even he dropped off a big sack of grains once, thinking that Master needed some extra feed for us slaves. Master did tell him no, though, shaking his head without a second to waste.

"But Mr. Stockton," Mr. Baker began as Mr. Stockton, whose black hat and boots leaned up against the post like he did at the tree, puffed another needed hit from his cigar. "They still could do it if they knew how to read an—"

"I don't think these slaves could harm a fly even if they could read, Mr. Baker," Mr. Stockton said through the smoke. "Besides, even if they could and staged a revolt, those slaves would be shot dead just like Turner's. Don't you agree?"

Mr. Baker nodded.

"Right! Then what is the problem?"

I guess when I started to read, I did not see the problem in what he said. I guess now, looking back at it, I should've seen the signs. I should've noticed that I had the ability to be free. I am literate. I can read. I could've started my own revolt, and got my family to the Union. But that is not available to me now. I'm not where I was before. I'm alone in a world I don't understand.

Slowly the gray lights turn bright white and the window sill comes to life. Some lines join together, and dots of a landscape outside the window begin to form. Where I am, lines form all around me, and color does too. Browns swirl with whites and grays, broken lines become curves, and gentle sounds of a hand wrapping against a door—wait, what?

Peering up to the sound, I see an indistinguishable mess of colors, as if an artist dropped his or her palette and meshed the colors of the rainbow together. It does not make sense, seeing nothing but color. Lines are disjointed, while some are broken bends. Nothing is making sense.

I just want to see again.

"Dyson?"

Blinking, I hear a word. It is not in Rainbow Dash's voice. Who is it, then?

"Dyson?"

The voice sounds off again. I do not know what or who it is. Could it be Momma?

"Be… Sleep."

Sleep? "Momma, I be fine! I don't need sleep no more!"

Suddenly, a searing pain rushes through me. And in seconds,  the darkness eats me whole.

Yawning, I sit up. The room is white. The green line is still zipping and zapping along the screen. Chords are attached to me. I ain't killed by them yet, so I must be fine. I am safe. Yet who put these chords in me? Why is that case of blood sitting there all full and of my blood? Is the machine still sorry for my heart?

Questions whirl in my head like the leaves outside which twist and turn like they are in a cyclone. Some of them wrap up against the window as if they want to get in the room. But they aren't strong enough to penetrate the invisible barrier. angrily at the sight of me. Leaves see? That cannot be true. Silly thoughts entering my brain. I need to shake them away.

So I do, and that's when she enters.

"Dyson?"

The voice sounds like my Mother. I nod politely, fearing she would pop out at any moment to tell me to shape up for the poser. "Yes ma'am."

My throat is as dry as the gorge, but I can troop through it, especially with this poser in the room. Her fake smile glimmers in the daylight. "I'm glad you're awake," she says happily as she clambers over to my bed. "May I fix your pillow?"

I nod and lean forward, but I cannot help but ask, "Who are y—"

"I'm your nurse." A hoof smacks the pillow while the other balances the fluff. "You may call me Redheart, Dyson."

Her tone of voice sounds… loving, but as she smacks the pillow again, I get a sense of violent distaste. Does she hate me?

"Yes, ma'am." Be polite, Dyson, be polite, just like Momma says. I put on that smile that Papa taught me, a small, gentle smile that gets women all the time.

Redheart looks at me and shares the exact same smile. She pats the pillow once last time and places it back under my head. "Lean back."

And I do so. She keeps that smile up as I snuggle in comfort. What cotton field did she get this stuff from?

"I take that you like it now?" A nod from me spurs a giggle from her. "I see. Well, are you feeling better?"

I raise a brow at this. "Why would ya care?"

The words slipped out of my mind. I had no control of them. And those words, violent, distasteful, savage words rubbed her the wrong way. She mirrors my brow. "Because I'm your nurse?" An obvious reason. "But more importantly," she adds, pointing her hoof at the curtain in the middle of the room, "she would want to know too."

She? "Who is she?"

Smirking, Redheart says softly, "Rainbow Dash."

Behind that curtain lies someone who is in a worse condition than I. I call out to her.

No answer.

"She's in a coma, Dyson."

Words I did not want to hear. "Coma?"

The smirk Redheart had on her face disappeared with a flash. A frown now resides on her face. "She mentioned your name before her body gave out. She's been in her vegetative state ever since you and her arrived."

"How long has it been?"

An impulse to just ask the begging question had entered and passed. The words hit her like bricks.

And she replies, those bricks hitting me twice as hard.

"Three weeks, Dyson."

Three. Whole. Weeks.