True, there was joy like I never knew before, but bubbling up, right behind that joy, the deepest sadness overcame me and I wept bitter tears for Stella, for James, for Calla, for friends, for Sam Sharpe whose body backra bury like a criminal in the bottom of Montego Bay Harbour. All of them gone before seeing that freedom day. And the joy and sadness sat side by side, moving from one to the other, as I waited to discover if backra finally go set me free.

The only thing that gave me strength to endure, to wait, was because even though backra still keeping me in chains, Sam Sharpe, a slave, won. The fighting and killing and dying was worth it. Piling sacrifice on top of sacrifice till the silence of slavery was broken, the barriers torn down. Escape from bondage. The sweetest taste of them all. A taste I been longing for. A taste, still not mine for the taking.

Two weeks later, the soldiers come for me. Bang on the cell door, order me outside. Leave me to stand waiting in me bare feet, me pants, a shirt, the mash-up clothes I work in. When they ready, them bind me hands and a soldier push me in the back with the butt of him rifle to start marching down the road to the Black River wharf. The early morning sun already hot, shining full, bright, and I start to sweat, the raggedy shirt sticking to me, water dripping down the back of me neck.

Marching to the wharf, we have to stop, step to the side of the road as wagons weighed down with cargo rumble past. In the distance, I can see plenty tall ships out in the harbour, flags limp in the windless heavy heat. Slaves on the dock loading and unloading, lugging, heaving boxes. Hear orders and shouts, the sharp smell of saltwater, the sea gulls screeching, circling overhead.

I stumble past a crowd of passengers dressed in them finest, hugging, kissing, saying goodbye to family, to loved ones, to friends. I look at them, see how joyful they look, some of them must be going home, glad to be rid of the heat, the fever sickness that sometimes carry off them children. A happy crowd rowed out in longboats, get on board first, settle into them cabins, having to wait till us chained, unhappy, unlucky ones get on board.

Not much shade down by the wharf except for a stingy-leafed old tree the soldiers let me sit under, while them catch some shade inside the little guardhouse. Sit in the dirt getting hotter and hotter waiting, waiting for the last longboat that going take me out to the packet ship, lying in wait in the harbour.