slavery

Where the tree inside my throat had gotten enough water and sunlight to grow I did not know, because I had not had sunlight or water in a life time. In the darnkness of the cargo pit I could not tell if my eyes wer opened or closed making it impossible to determin if I was in a nightmare, or apart of some life after life. My children's laughter, husband's embrace, and mother's voice were all apart of some separate life, and every clatter of the chains clamped around my neck and ankles confirmed that I was getting farther from the living and closer to a life more punishable than death.
The women behind me was breathing hot breath into my bear back, but the women infront of me was simply a corps rolling to the rhythm of the sea. She smelled like maggot infested meat, and the constant rubbing of vomit, blood, sweat, and sewage between us burned my nostrils.
I felt tears sting my eyes. Why had the gods graced her with the pleasure of dying? As I pondered the injustice of life a waterfall of sunlight danced through the open cargo door, and pooled at the center of the hold. For a brief moment the constant groaning simmered to mumbling. As two burly shadows sharing one candle descended into the deck; the cargo-door slamming behind them.
The two men's iron clad boots sounded like puttering pebbles compared to the screeching and moaning of the slaves around them. They started at the women closest to the stairs. Holding the candle over the women's figure, both men would poke and point at the writhing form before one would shove teh other over and grab teh women's chained body forcing her to surrender to his lusts. Each man took his turn holding the candle until drunken with jealously they settled on putting the light on the ground between them. As the candle light drew closer I realized despite age or beauty ever women was taken by at least one of the men if not both.
I did not know most of the words the women screamed, but when I heard their cries in my own language I rattled my chains against the floor baords inorder to push their cries out of my mind. Those women were from my village, and their husbands had hunted with my husband. Their children had played with my children, and as I heard their desperate voices quake when they pleaded for mercy their faces burned in my mind.
My body flet as if it had been filled with rolling boulders as I watched the candle light hover over the dead women next to me. I was shocked the men could tell the differance between a live corps and a dead one. One of the men motioned towards the once tall candle, pointing out how little light was left in the wick. Both men nodded, and the one not holding the candle bent down to one knee and started unchaining the dead women next to me. I attempted to stop breathing, wishing I could die too, or at least become invisible.
His calloused hands glazed my bear thigh when he pulled her out of the row. A flam ignited in his hallow eyes as he stared at my naked: shoulders, arms, chest, loins, legs. He turned his head slightly to get a better look at my entire frame, and then he let the women's corps hit the boards with a thud. Before the man holding the candle could shove the dimming light between me and his victim all strenght abandoned me to the sweaty and sticky frame pressing my bones into the hardwood. His furry morphed into lust as he seized my corps and clawed my bear flesh forcing me beneath him. Hell. This is what Hell means. I had heard the crew use that strange word, and now I understood. I was living in a life called Hell.