The following morning, we discovered the source of his fixation. Standing upon the upper deck, waiting to be danced, Abuto trembled as his eyes met those of a woman. They said nothing, made no gesture of recognition, but their eyes bore desire and hope too strong to be concealed. We nodded. We saw it—the dance of love in their eyes—and as we danced, their spirits danced another dance and even our dance was for them. Had the captors known, they surely would’ve tried to break this bond, to strip these lovers of the last vestige of joy they knew, so we tried not to look at them or they at each other. Yet the tug of love pulled nonetheless, and occasionally their eyes met and brightened. We tried to distract the captors’ attention away from them that they might get a few precious moments of seeing and perhaps even brush each other’s flesh. That alone would have to be enough. At least for now. And it was. It was comforting to see these captive lovebirds refusing to deny the only thing they knew for sure.

When we descended the stairs and returned to our planks of pain, Abuto stared into nothingness as tears marked his cheekbones. These were not tears of sadness. No, he wept from knowing that the keeper of his heart still existed above. He wept because she had not given up and jumped overboard. He wept because he had left home in love and the feeling had never subsided. He wept because, in the midst of insanity and trauma, he had not lost love. Through them, we realized that, though bound and suffering, we possessed something that could never be taken away. We’d known it from the beginning. Elders had told of love’s elusive nature, how it lurks in the hearts of people and surfaces uninvited. They’d taught us that love could never be conquered or possessed. It must simply be enjoyed. And when two find it, their spirits mesh into one. Love comes that there might be life. We’d spent our childhoods waiting to be in love, to know, finally, the magical feeling people get when they discover their soul’s compliment, and now we saw that it could never be destroyed. Abuto and the woman upstairs reminded us that no power on earth could extract love from a person’s heart. We thanked God for the reminder. Our breathing eased.

And then came the storm.

It lasted three days. It tossed the boat right and left, back and forth, with no regard for its human cargo. Voices screamed and shouted, from fear and immutable pain. Only the chains held us secure. Vomit covered the ship floor. More died, including some of the crewmen above. With each passing hour, we were less and less sure any of us would survive.

When the storm calmed, diseases crept in among us. We had no cure for such strange maladies. Perhaps if we’d been home we could’ve boiled leaves, tree bark, or roots to ward off these deadly illnesses but, as it were, we had no defenses against the invisible predators whose single joy was our total obliteration. Their names were scurvy, dysentery, or what they called the flux. Each had its own specialty, its own commitment to our destruction, and each performed courageously. In their presence, many could not hold their stool. Bowels moved without permission, leaving people streaked with runny fecal matter and bloody pus. Others could hold no food, regardless of their consumption. Their throats, tender from constant regurgitation, shed blood as if scourging the lining of the esophagus. A few shook from nervous systems gone awry. Their entire bodies trembled and never settled. Wrist and ankle shackles, like beaded shekeres, beat out sixteenth rhythms against the wood on which they lay. It was a symphony of suffering and death, a melody of sorrow and grief, captured by those whose one desire was to escape bondage and enter a realm of everlasting peace. We could only listen to the song. We could not sing it. There were no words. Just blurred rhythms driven by human anguish and torment.