A Long Road to Heaven

Dirt spiraled in small tornadoes all around her, and she coughed, closing her eyes miserably. No, misery was an understatement. Anisa fingered the dirty chains around her wrist, avoiding the growing blisters they caused that were red and enflamed. She looked around at the torture of her friends and family as they lay on the ground, either dying of disease or agony, at the seemingly endless men with whips that circled them with harsh glares, at the terrified faces of everyone around her. Though her family was all sitting, she refused to. Someone had to show some sort of dignity in a place like this.

Anisa swallowed thickly, the dryness of the air making it difficult. They wouldn’t give any of her color anything, not even water, so they had to suffer. She glanced at a carriage that drove past them rather quickly, and she clenched her jaw. While the rotten white men were able to ride around in luxurious velvet seated carriages, she and her family were shackled to the ground with nothing more than a gimpy white tent to keep them out of the burning sun. Anisa missed her old home—glorious green leaves everywhere, thick jungles that made an exciting playground for her and her younger brother. She had no idea where he was, much less if he was alive. He was taken onto a different ship when the white men invaded their lives, leaving so much destruction in their path. Everything was destroyed, many were killed. The last look she got of her village was the blood splattered grass and the pale faces of the ones she loved, the dead eyes.

Anisa shivered, despite the hot air around her. It was dry hard to breathe, unlike the humidity she had grown used to. She thought about her nights on the ship, the crowding around her as she struggled to breathe in the stench. She had been forced to watch her own father die slowly as boils erupted on him and his skin became sticky and hot with fever, while all the white men did was laugh bitterly. She promised herself that would be the last time she’d ever cry.

She glanced over at the white man they were calling “keeper”, who held a whip. He was surveying them, holding the whip in his hand viciously. Anisa had been there for two days straight, and had watched any slave that stepped out of line get whipped many times until they stopped writhing on the ground in pain and lay motionless. He met her eyes and sent her a bone chilling glare. He held it until a man came up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. This startled the keeper, and he turned to the man they called the “seller” and looked up at him. The seller was a man with hardened features and battle scars, but he didn’t look as threatening as the keeper. She watched them as they spoke in hushed tones, but she couldn’t hear their words over the loud yelling, banging and moaning around her.

She looked away, turning the shackles around in her hands. She recalled the men on the ship saying something about them being sold as slaves. She kicked the dirt ground with her foot, praying no one would want her as their slave. She wasn’t really that useful, actually, but they might want to take her due to her looks.

Even through the grime and dust that seemed to cover everything endlessly, her beauty still rivaled all women she was with, and many white women as well. She was Arabic, coming from Morocco, with silky black hair and dark brown eyes and medium brown skin. Now, her hair was matted, her eyes red and tired, her clothes a mere sack hanging off her body, and yet she was still very pleasing to the eye. As Anisa thought about it, the more she preferred to stay where she was. She tried to push out the thoughts of what men could do to her if she was bought, but they followed her like the plague.

She urged herself not to sit down as a warm gust blew through, her weak body almost falling over. She hadn’t eaten a decent meal in almost a month, and her ribs were prominent under the rough cloth she wore. She struggled to keep her balance as the wind forced her to the side, but she regained composure and glanced at the keeper, who was staring her down again. She merely looked away, suddenly trying to avoid any male contact, whether it be eye or physical.
“Anisa, come and sit with us,” her mother said to her in Arabic. She turned to her, facing a frail image of what her mother used to be. Grey hair had taken the place of the silky hair that once mirrored her own. Her face shone with age and her cheekbones stuck out sharply. She looked dozens of years older in only a month.

“Maybe, mother,” she replied in the same tone. They had all agreed to speak only in their native tongue and pretend they spoke no English, which, in reality, they might’ve spoken it even better than some of the white people.

Anisa made her way over to her mother, finally giving up on her persistent strike. She glanced one last time at the keeper, who was grinning at her as if he had just won a glorious battle. She looked away, trying to maintain a blank face, while anger bubbled up in her stomach like a geyser. She leaned against the tent post like her mother was and closed her eyes. She was exhausted—not sleeping for days had that effect on one. She closed her eyes and was lulled to sleep with her mother stroking her hair and the warm wind that swirled all around her.