A Turn of the Tide

A Turn of the Tide

Tiberius Jackson

Caution: This story contains graphic content and discusses a sensitive social issue. While this story involves two minority groups, I assure you that has been written with the upmost respect towards both parties, and serves as a lesson, not for the parties involved, but hopefully, for all mankind.

For the first time in nearly six years, after having beaten the white man at his own political game – through death, uprisings, complex legislature, and historical pillaging, it seems that only now, in these moments, we must question whether or not we truly deserve this hard-won freedom. I used to believe, with every fiber of my being, that we did, that our cause mattered, and that we were better. So how, after everything I’d promised our people, could we have ended up here, with yet another man standing before a crazed mob, a noose around his neck, seconds away from coming full circle with those greedy masters who once slipped the ropes around our own lives? Have we already lost? Is this really it?

A stream of sweat pours from the stiffening fingers behind my back. A throbbing in my chest betrays me, impressing the frantic outline of my heart into the stitches of my suit. My wife stands to my right, coveted by her famously recognizable green dress that elegantly flows past her toes. Her eyes seem barely protected by the same fragility as mine, wondering when the crowd will shatter these masks to reveal the doubts which so clearly hide underneath.

How have they not found me out? How has my betrayal not been noticed? Why do I not speak? I cannot speak. I must remain still, conveying this false confidence which allows me to retain my image of authority. Though, for being an authority, how did this decision ever come to pass? Whose decision was this, if not mine? The crowds? Are we truly offering up this man’s life on social consensus? It wasn’t so long ago when the lives of our own grandparents were unfairly cut short in the same way.

Hounds, I would say, like hyenas, a hunger for the prey before them, their teeth practically gnawing on the bones of this living corpse. An endless smattering of faces cocked upwards to view the spectacle they so deeply desired a few hours ago. A stage, quickly constructed from splintered cedar and rusted nails now becomes a prop in one of the first pages of our history book, a history which only began a few short months ago. There was no grass, or sidewalks, or streets, only the determined faces of a mob seeking their idea of justice – I hardly recognize any of them now. My people, where have they gone?

I need to believe it prudent, in these slipping seconds, to reconsider what we’re doing. Though, how can I possibly entertain such thoughts now? How can I admit, after being entrusted with the freedom of my brothers and sisters, and this new country, forever stained by centuries of blood and plight, that we may have been wrong? That here, in the spiraling chaos, we’re proving every accusation against us true, and there appears only one path towards salvation, but it burns away into ash with every stomp of the ground, raising of a fist, and call for death.

Chaos pierces my ears, the chorus of a mad conductor, hysterically blaring his horn to an out-of-control train. The noise overshadows the once feint cries of a family – a tribe – who desperately seek to end this unexpected turn of events. A father, their chief, only fighting for what he believed originally theirs. It all started out so civil, with us, our race, finally having the power to grant such a request. But how, how did it end up like this? Why can’t our people empathize with the situation? It was only a desire for fertile land, an admittance that a wrongdoing was done by the same hand which wronged us. A dream, for the same freedom we now relish in, which both luck and cultural circumstances finally granted our collective – benefits of which they have never known, banished to the undesirable corners of a country to become the fading remnants of a forgotten past. Surely, surely, we can empathize!

I watch, helpless, as a wife suffocates on her own tears, scraping and flailing to break through the impenetrable barricade before her, a voice which I can only glimpse through the distance but cannot make out. She is about to join the ranks of those wives and mothers who were subject to a similar branding, the devouring of a warmth and love which will never be felt again. I witness an exhaustless desperation in her face, and in those beside her. A dozen, maybe a hundred, I cannot tell, as a thousand others obscure my vision.

I can practically see the steam rising from my hands as the sun burns away both color and culture on this cloudless day – though, I’d prefer the clouds now. The Georgia Oaks in attendance, sporadically towering over the various spectators dawn every leaf of their bloom, dancing to the song of this performance. The breeze is but a hesitant breath, at least to me, barely piercing the numbness of the moment.

This is wrong. We are better than this! We fought too hard and suffered too long to allow such a gift to become the poison which murders our dream. But how? How do I prevent this senseless act without drawing the noose around my own neck? Should I do so for the sake of morality? Save this man’s life because it is right, especially when his intentions were peaceful and justified? Or do I focus on what my people need? We’ve just won a war of five-hundred years, earning a sovereignty that won’t easily be granted twice. If we do this proper and prove that a seemingly undeservant nation of color can perform this miracle, then we can pave the way for others to do the same.

So then, is this really a death? Is this man’s life worth betraying our cause? Or can he serve as a martyr, killed for a goal which seems eternally out of reach for his people, and yet, one which we may be able to make reality should we succeed? This cannot happen if we fail, if our efforts prove fruitless, further proving to the old-world that we were only ever a shallow, outspoken voice, and that they were right about us all along. Yes… We cannot afford to call the ships back, or radio the planes to return, admitting to their prestigious passengers that we’d made a terrible mistake. If one man must die for the sake of a million, then he must die. Right?

No. What am I saying? The way must matter. How we reach the promised land must be just as important as the arrival itself. If we suddenly believe that innocent lives can be sacrificed, without care of color or race, so that our future is ensured, then we become no better than the pale-faced tyrants who stole us from our homelands and enslaved us under their whips. We must care about how we reach the end, because if we prove ourselves no better than our predecessors, then we never really won the war in the first place, and this so-called experiment will only produce the same inevitable future for another race of men, though this time, a darker face becoming the mask of the tyrants.

But how do I make them see the truth? If I stand up now, I may very well find myself on the same three-legged stool where the chief now stands, sharing the endless volleys of ignorance and hate. What if I am the only one in this country who realizes this? What if I am the only one who can bring this to fruition for our people? Should this be the case, then silence is my duty. I must stay my hand, and my heart, in order to give myself a platform to make this future possible. I cannot interfere, because if I am to join the sacrificed, then whoever takes my place may lead us further into damnation, a familiar origin which bound our feet and forced our hands in the first place.

A ringmaster appears on stage, her feet playfully sliding towards the chief. I’m stuck within my own thoughts, without care to know her face, or give her another moments attention. Though, fueled by the cries of the crowd, a sadistic excitement overcomes her, infusing the heart with a molested sense of fame, and creating a desire for more. The crowd, in turn, becomes fed by this puppeteer’s teaseful acts. She gently kicks the corners of the stool, inviting the victim atop to stumble for balance. The volume of cheers and angst increases, just as the screams inside my own head grow ever clearer.

My vision tunnels, blurring the outside scene through the focus on only one set of eyes. The chief’s chin rests on his shoulder, a ravine of twisted trails carved into his neck. No fire spits on me through eyes so bleak, yet their softness dresses me in an essence of fatherly disappointment. Suddenly, I am made the true victim of this death. His courage and conviction cut through the noise like ripples overcoming stormy waters. He, not me, was the wiser, as his decision to die for the future of his people proved me a coward, unable to stand up for a simple injustice which was unfolding all too quickly. An injustice, which, would not set us apart from our treacherous forebearers, but openly welcome their spirit back into our lives, forsaking the bonds of our history with outstretched arms as if warmfully greeting old friends.

Though the rope began to paint his neck with the shade of inevitability, an unexpected opposition began to resist the coming moment – the spirit of a true leader emerging – fearless, prepared. He knows, he must, what he’s dying for, and it comforts him. A tribe, who’d been under the yoke of the same institution which our own in chains. We should be brothers – he and I – and yet, a simple request for land, of which their ancestors had cultivated and revered long before our arrival, suddenly turned him into the enemy in the eyes of the masses.

If we are to save ourselves, we must be different, and whether that is realized now, or a hundred years from this day, it doesn’t just rest on my shoulders to make it true. I cannot be willing to sacrifice my own principles out of fear that my people will parish, and I must begin to set the example for which they elected me to do. I was entrusted; therefore, they must learn to trust. If we’re to thrive in our new society, we must first survive the aftermath of our history. Just as childhood trauma expresses itself unconsciously in adulthood, so too, will the scars of our past express themselves throughout our own journey of development. This cannot be understated and should serve as the very platform by which we create our new culture.

 It’s so clear to me now, and I know what I must do. I must stop this ungodly act! No more, will a soul be persecuted impulsively, and through such barbaric means. Our kind will no longer be fed by pitied hands, or seen as the rats who overcrowd the sewers of society. Instead, we shall be remembered as those who built one of the greatest empires in human history. We will change, and we have the power to do so, we just lack the drive to evolve into our greatest selves.

My hands release to raise the overdue point, a line of sweat coloring the splinters below. I tear the seams from my lips which kept me silent these last hours, uttering the first of my words, but as I begin to speak, the stool… The crack of the stool renders me mute, for it wasn’t the only crack which overwhelmed my senses. Screams and cheers entertain themselves through interspersed smiles and hugs. The hangman raises her arms in victory. A wife, paralyzed, disappears behind the celebration. I, the man who allowed this to happen, waited too long, and now it’s too late. An innocent soul flees into the infinite blue backwater above, while my quivering lip begins to contemplate the question which seems only apparent to my tearful wife and I – tears which now paint a different picture of what our future is likely to become.

My God, is the end?