I get up. Change me clothes and listen out for the call of the driver blowing on him conch shell, calling the field slave them out to work. But there is no such call. There is going be no work today, and not on any other day, unless backra give in and pay us.

I notice how quiet the morning is. So quiet you can almost hear a gentle breeze rustling the tops of the sugar cane, way off in the distance. In the few moments between the past that is no longer and a future that not yet come, the world open up to me and all the memory them of childhood days come flooding back. The days up in the pasture with William the Second and all the stories I used to collect, store in the breadfruit tree.

And this morning I come to understand, now is the time for new stories. Stories no longer filled up with the lonely yearnings of a lost boy, but stories bout the power that faith and belief in you own kind can bring. Stories where new beginnings lay in wait. All I have to do is pick up the gun I been hiding, keeping back for meself, open the door, step outside into this new day.

Last night, slaves set fire to the trash house on Kensington Estate. Is a rich plantation that sit at top of a high hill looking down on Montego Bay. It burn fast, go up in smoke billowing out over the town for all to see. Sam Sharpe choose Kensington Estate because when the fire get lit, it going turn into a signal. A signal that slaves can see for many miles round. A signal that mean, the time has come. Time to rise, to stand up to backra.

All of a sudden, more flames start to light up the sky. Was supposed to be just the one, but two light up, then three, four, five, six, ten. Moving cross the parish of Saint James. Then more and more flames start to rise up all over Saint Elizabeth. No choice now, no turning back. Not that we going change our minds. We been waiting for this glorious day all our life. Finally, it come. And from plantation to plantation, drums start to beat, carrying messages that the time is now. Time to make war on the master.