THE SOUND OF BLACK

TW: slave trading

THE SOUND OF BLACK

Our hut burns hot and fast without warning. Everyone in our village is screaming and running. I outrun my older brother to the sand. He says girls never run fast.

I glance back to see why he’s so slow and spot momma in her apron with fear lining her face. I lunge to help, but I feel a thick hand on my slender arm. The hand belongs to a giant with white prickled hair all over his face. I stare into his eyes and wonder if he sees the world bluer. 

He roughs me aside; I lose my balance and the sight of momma. It’s already raining ash, and it settles against the perspiration on my skin making me blacker.

All the whites are yelling in a language I don’t understand. I keep asking for my momma, but I am hit with a sweaty open hand. I don't understand why the ash does not make their white skin black.

Everyone in the village is forced to strip naked, momma’s apron lies on the heap. They place us in leg irons, and I feel a shove into the bottom of a boat. Abba and I are friends, and they join us together, so I am grateful. Rats scurry as we crawl, our bottoms whipped to move faster. I start to cry but I keep it quiet so Abba doesn’t laugh at me.

We push in and only have room to lie on our backs in rows like millet stalks in a field. I like to be naked, but being beside other naked people seems like something I will not tell momma. 

In the dark hold, I try to think of the colour green. The soft yellow-green of the fields smelling of soil and morning dew. The salty blue-green of the water with its white tips in the afternoon. The bright green of the flower stems long since faded on my mother’s apron alongside dark smudges from dinners past. 

The hold has no light to allow my eyes to recognize colour. Everything is black. Black as my skin, my hair, and the iron around my ankle. I imagine colours so I won't forget. 

I try not to think of orange or red. They remind me of the fire. 

After I memorize green, I remember the colour of the sand against my feet as I watch them secure the irons. The sand colour is like bruised lemons fallen from the tree, perfect and sweet, covered in clay soil. Dusty lemon is the name I make up. I should tell Abba, but she is crying, so I leave her alone. 

Lying on my back, I can touch the ceiling. The boards above me are smoother than the ones that are my bed. I imagine the whites must have soft feet to need such smooth boards.

I picture the smooth boards painted sky blue with soft pillows of white. The heat of our bodies makes it hotter than mid-February so I imagine the searing yellow warmth of the sun instead of the suffocating black heat.

I feel around to get my bearings. When I go outside in the dark, I feel the bark of boab trees, the rough path, and the sausage tree leaves tickling my back to get me to Abba’s hut seven huts away. Monkeys howl at me to say hello.

I finish caressing the boards then use my hands to feel the muscles in my legs, stomach, and arms. They are soft like golden ripe mangoes or like white feet and white bread before baking. I place the white men in the oven charring to black in my head. Momma says to be nice to everybody so I won’t tell her I was mean in my head.

Nobody talks but there is retching and moaning. It feels like talking is wrong somehow. I hear the guards murmuring through the floor, and I am afraid to be too much trouble even though I want to ask for water. 

Retch. Moan. Murmur.

I concentrate on the rhythmic slapping of sea against the floor and the clanking of irons as people try to get comfortable. The heavy thunder of footsteps above my head add to the music. My heart is beating so hard I worry Anna hears. Sweat is prickling my upper lip and I lick its saltiness to calm my nerves. Momma always says, “Add more salt.” Momma’s cooking is the best so the salt is momma. I try to cry again for more of her taste, but I’m dry.

Slap. Clank. Thump. Lick.

When we came on the boat, I noticed one white with a gun sitting in a chair with wheels. Now I hear the rolling, and I count the crescendos when it approaches and the low roll as it fades away. It takes my mind off the moaning to picture the wheels coming and going and count the passes on my fingers. Momma would like a rolling chair. I’ll have to get my brother to make her one so momma’s feet stay soft like the whites.

Whoosh.

I tap my fingers against the floor to the rhythm of my momma’s cooking song. She always hums while she is cooking with the women. I worry that I will never hear momma humming, feel warmed by her beaming smile, or watch her weathered black hands snap beans again. I try humming her song out loud to check if momma would hum with me, but a woman yells at me to stop. She says, “It’s no time for song, child.” 

I hush. Momma says there is always time for song. I want momma. I wiggle to see if my eyes can find her. Rows of squirming black like a roiling sea at night. Angry and powerful, salty and rank.

I don’t see momma and the song I hushed is caught in my chest and wants to explode to a scream. I try to put my chin on my chest to stop the sound from coming but hit my head on the smooth boards and fall back.

Oomph.

I lie back and tap out the tune with my pointer finger on my thigh and make up words in my head with the sounds. I want to tell momma the one I make up about the white men, with their blue world. I want to hear her laugh. I want to hear my brother tease me about my matted hair. I want my ears to close to the crying like eyelids blocking out the colour black. 

I feel my skin in the dark to detect if the silky ash rain is now part of me. I am dry and leathery to the touch, and I dream of water on my lips, tongue, and skin. I won't tell momma, but I peed myself and tried to lick it off my fingers just to feel wet again. 

All this imagining colours and songs makes me tired, but I try not to sleep. Maybe it has been days since I closed my eyes but it is hard to tell in the black. The snoring and night cries make me think it has been days. I don’t like the black with my eyes shut. I prefer the black with my eyes open. 

My eyes betray me and close. I am alone. Alone with hundreds of people from my village and their noises. They can’t see me with my eyes closed. The red of my eyes, the orange of my palms heat the fire to my forehead and my mind is hot. 

I’m grown with all the imagining and moaning. I decide I will make the dinner and add the salt and let momma sit on the stump and get soft feet when we are set. We can be on the smooth boards and sing with brother. We can be in the sun. The hot.  

So hot.

Tomorrow I will imagine the colour pink and make up a song about the chair with wheels. The humming in my head is getting louder. It even sounds outside my head.

Murmur. Retch. Moan. Slap. Clank. Thump. Whoosh.

Then silence.

I feel the hot yellow of the sunshine and the beauty of momma's face stained with tears. She looks sad and I want to tell her about brother making her a chair so she’ll be happy again. 

I try and sing momma my song, but I can't make a sound. A white is carrying me to the railing, and I hit the cold blue of the water. 

Plop.

With my eyes open, the blue of the water is black.