1852

Crack! The whip came down over my sweaty back and my body convoluted; my limbs shaking, my head throbbing as I fell in slow motion to the hard, rocky ground. Blood and salt water boiled on my cuts, stinging and my pulse was electrified through my veins. My vision was blurred and tinged crimson from my own blood, yet somehow I could still see his face; the scowl, grimacing over me. He was in control, he was my master, and he held my meaningless life in his rugged hand which was an obvious pleasure in his mind to hold over me. Crack! The whip broke over my body, and I doubled over and wretched. Why was I such a target of torture? Our whole race was being discriminated, my people under the control of someone else’s people. If one of the white skinned people made a mistake, it would roll off his kindred’s back like rain and they wouldn’t give it a second thought. Crack! But not I, an African slave. No, if I slipped up imperceptibly, my back was ripped open by the hand of a slave master and I would be flogged with deftness until my entrails were barely inside me, my bones screaming to tear through my thin dark skin. What made me so different from him? Aren’t we all made equal, one nation under the Lord God? Nonetheless, he took great reveling as he proceeded to punish me. This life I had was so short, yet it was interminable! The sun beat down, scorching my gaping gashes; dirt blew into my body and I surrendered to the overwhelming wickedness which surrounded me. Crack! As my vision blackened and hearing faded away, I prayed a last prayer for my people. I prayed to my Creator to deliver us from evil and to take us to our Promised Land to which I knew He had made covenant to us. My breathing was clogged with clots of dirty blood that I knew would be washed whiter than snow. That was when I let go and I knew my people would be delivered.
Crack!