Some dreams are best forgotten? Ann & Anna: Part 1

This morning’s dream did not turn out well, but at least in story, we can give a different, more hopeful ending, right? —

“There’s that fancy!  We got all three!”

           I froze.  Not again.

           Tremors and nausea struggled for dominance, as I wrapped my arms around my belly.  The stench from the canal didn’t help.  The familiar pain again, as I clamped all of my muscles tight.  I could hear feet running toward me in the gathering darkness, even as I stood stock still, knowing all was lost.

           My friends had already fled.   Dropped their baskets and foolishly run along the canal, passing right in front of the President’s House.  I could hear their short strides crossing the road, heavy booted feet pounding after them.  That’d be Mary screaming.  They told us to wait here, to stay together, just present our papers if we were stopped.  But who can blame her.  Mary never really wanted to run.  Just couldn’t be parted with us both.  So this is our fault.

My fault.

            I knew they would know.  Those Free Papers might do for a field hand, but never for a fancy.  The Senator would want his fancy back.  He would never let me go.  But Mary and Sal were going, and I had no future, anyway.  Little Sal was determined, and Mary would never let her go alone.  I couldn’t blame her.

            More screams, this time, the voice of little Sal.  They were closer, now, and the sound of more Constables, shouting, was joined by the rattling of a cart, moving fast enough to cover the sound of the horses hooves pulling our doom closer.  My bowels threatened to spill over, watery humiliation gurgling as I clamped down tighter, recalling what had happened the last time.

              Not to me, of course.  Never.  No marks could be made upon the Senator’s favorite fancy.  But others could suffer, and to punish me, to show me never to run again, others had been made to pay for my mistakes.  Even killed, to be sure that I would know, never leave again.  Mary had explained it, as I wept for them:

“You know why they make us wear these fine dresses.  Why they whip them, and not you.  These white men, they want us because we look like ladies.”

            I had shaken my head at her, not wanting to believe that I was part of the game.  A willing part, as long as I let him touch me.

“But Mary, we are still darkies.  We are not white, that much is clear.”

“Oh, it is clear, honey.  Our light skin lets them dress us up, lets them pretend that we are white women.  What they want, but what they cannot have, they take from us.”

               A twig snapped near me.  Someone was approaching, slowly, carefully.  They had orders, we knew, not to damage us.  It was our beauty that made us so prized on the auction block, often selling for more than a valuable field hand.  Selling that beauty which had no good use.  That beauty which had caused so much pain, and even death.

            I unlaced the top of my bodice.  My beauty would no longer be used for evil.

             This time, no one would die for my weakness.  I pulled my embroidery scissors out of my basket, opening the blades as I found the longest vein on my left arm, and glanced at my right.  For once, it was good to have such light skin.  I can see where the veins run from wrist to elbow.  I’ve looked so often I had them memorized.  No other slave will die because of me, be whipped to spare my flesh, to teach us all not to run.  Only my blood will flow, this time.  I pressed the open blade into my wrist, the other blade biting into my right hand fingers, drawing down along the tendon, welcoming the pain here, instead of down there.  This pain tells me, as I dig deeper, toward my elbow, that I have not submitted.  This pain will wash away my shame, at last.  And no one else will suffer for me.

Not again.

                 A thin stream of blood began to drip from my left arm.  Not enough.  I held up my right arm, letting the sewing basket slide down to my shoulder, and pressed the blade into my right wrist.  Now the open scissors bit into my left hand fingers, but I could almost not feel them, anymore.  By now, it was too dark to see any veins, so I’d just have to use the tendons as a guide, and pull that blade as hard as I could down toward my elbow, toward where my sewing basket hung on my shoulder, until I could dig no deeper.

                Before the open scissor blade could bite into my flesh, a slender dark hand wrapped itself around mine…

—

Ann & Anna, Part 2 (“Hope”)  continues here … Shira

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