Everlasting Chains

Urshu Basha

Blades of grass pressing against my skin as the morning dew delivers a faint, cold sensation right around the back of my neck.

With my arm stretched out towards the heavens it almost seems as though I'm trying to grasp something... something grand and the ever increasing sunlight pulsating through the gaps between my fingers affirming this possibility... closer ..a bit closer till I grab something in the palm of my hands... if I could do that.. then maybe I could make my fate my own..

But as far as the Sun was from the earth.. was as far as I was.. from freedom.

WAKE UP! BOY! were the first words I heard every morning and this one was by no means an exception. Born as a slave, all you ever think about is what freedom looks like because you don't really have the luxury to study freedom from the hands of those you serve, for at their appearance.. you can feel the cold invisible chains tightening against your skin.

So whatever freedom was.. whatever freedom could be.. both lord and slave knew nothing of it.. at least in my opinion.

For though I am a slave bound hand and feet I could still see those that enslaved us were bound by something far more sinister, that the eye could not see.

We were raised on the bread of b*****e until we were resigned to our fate, our lives were simply a means to an end. We didn't know what it was like to dream. We didn't know what it was like to love. Or rather, perhaps we did.. but we knew all too well how swiftly it would be taken away. And so we were like creatures forsaken, past feeling.. trapped in a darkness where light was faintly dangled in front of us until.. until whoever stretched out his hand in desperate pursuit.. lost it to the master's blade.

O! How quickly thoughts of hope can fade.

It served to remind us that escape meant death and the fear of death was carved into our hearts from birth and we had the scars to prove it.. skin bathed in burns and bruises.

We didn't know what it was like to choose... because death was not an option... not for me.. For as the wind blew across my cheeks I knew it would one day blow me away.. and I'd swim through it's waves to a place I'd been many times before.. in my dreams..

WAKE UP! BOY!

But the winds were never strong enough, day after day... until..