Slave Coffle

The unyielding, sun-heated iron collar blistered my tender skin and its unfinished edges lacerated my raw flesh. A lifetime of wear had not smoothed its edges or callused my skin. My head bobbed and jerked to the random rhythms dictated by those, one step before and after, to whom I was chained. My bare feet shuffled the dusty path, contributing to the cloud which veiled the hot sun in a ruddy glow and choked my breathing. I wished for the freezing snow and cold rain of winter, but violent shivering and deep mud were only variations on the theme of misery. Plodding, I hoarded my meager energy. Heaps of bones line both sides of the path, mute testimony to those who had already expended their last ounce of strength. Ahead, a woman's voice sang a popular song. Those chained around her joined in. They passed a flask and a white powder carefully between them. In merriment they sought forgetfulness. Laughter rippled along the line as a ribald joke was passed from mouth to mouth. Behind me, two discussed theology. I joined them, debating and arguing over the finer points of doctrine and the pursuit of knowledge about God. We anesthetized our pain in intellectual pursuit and prided ourselves in being religious; better than the rest. As the human chain rounded a bend, I was transfixed by the sight of a woman's lewd dance. She gathered the stares of men to herself as if the sense of her own attractiveness would heal her soul. I lost track of the intellectual conversation in the sight. For a few moments, the sensations drowned out the pain and discomfort of my slavery. The warp to the woof of our pain was pleasure: we Exchanged it, bartered it, sold it. It seemed as necessary as air. Ahead of me, the chain sagged. Those who carried the sudden extra weight on their necks cursed and strained. A shadow materialized, spreading a loathsome, stinking miasma of death and decay around us. In comparison, A Leper's disfigurements seemed beautiful. The apparition unlocked The body and tossed it aside, a silent new member in the piles of bones that fenced our way. Its putrefying stench would soon add to the misery of our journey. Death is our only escape from this hellish life. Once, long ago, I thought I had escaped. I ignored the angry words of those travelling nearest me as I thrashed about, desperate. The iron seemed to yield, and I instantly leaped over the bone barrier. Before I took two steps, the claws of a shadow horror encircled my throat with superhuman strength. With a scream of fury it thrust me back into the line of walking death and abound my hands behind my back. I shuffled with the rest, mesmerized by the unending motion, lulled into a soporific half sleep. A wave of derisive laughter swelled along the line. Its object became clear as By slow inches, I shuffled forward. A strange man stood on the piles of bones. His clothing was ordinary, but stripes of dried blood welded the shirt to his back and a round blotch of dark crimson sealed it to his side. A circlet of dried thorns crowned him. Their hard unyielding spines penetrated the tender flesh of his brow, fountains for Bloody streaks which coursed down his face. His beard was matted with the blood. It dripped from his beard to his shirt, creating a pattern of fresh crimson blots on his shoulders and chest. One man from the line struck him on the head. Laughter rippled around the perpetrator. He spat, a parting contemptuous gesture. This new insult added to the accumulation which covered his face and dripped from his beard. Blood and spittle soaked, his shirt clung to him, revealing ribs standing out clearly as if he was near starvation. He held his hands out to the one who struck him, revealing gaping blood-encrusted wounds in his wrists. "…free…," the word exploded in my mind, absent its context, but capturing my entire attention. "Would you be free?" he asked the one in front of me. "I am free!" He retorted, blaspheming. I stared at the marred face. He turned to me. The line seemed to stop. I could not breathe. An eternity passed as he read my soul to its very depths. He knew my longing, the pain of my enslavement, my desperate attempts to free myself. He understood. He held out his hands to me and asked. "Yes," I said. His word freed me. The collar fell away. The knot holding my wrists slipped to the ground. A shriek of death-wings surrounded me, enveloped me, but I was not afraid. Joyous Peace filled my mind. Falling to my knees, I clutched His wounded feet and worshiped Him. I felt the bones of dead men beneath my knees but the life of him who died for me flowed from his wounds into my soul. "Free, free, evermore free," reverberated in my mind, the antithesis of the hopeless cry of my soul but a moment before. I felt the cleansing touch of His blood as it dripped on me from His wounds. I heard the welcoming words of acceptance and love. The power of a new mind, of a new me, surged in my veins and cascaded down the nerve fibers of my body. "Free, free, everlastingly, eternally, free." 01.31.99