When storms came again, memories faded. Reality returned. Sometimes it rained for days, as wind and waves pounded the ship’s hull. Blasts of fury threatened to dismantle the vessel and set the captives free. If only we’d been so blessed. Our stomachs turned constantly and bile dribbled from the corners of our mouths. Tears streaked our cheeks without our ability to wipe them. Some screamed through their anguish. Others squeezed their eyes and endured. We’d had slaves, too, but only in recompense for debts owed or as prisoners of war. And even then they were never publically disgraced. Not like this. Regardless of their crime, we would not have been allowed to bind and beat them and take them so far away they could never get home. It simply wasn’t our way.

We wondered now why we had ever fought each other. What had made us think we were enemies? We believed basically the same things! That there was one God. That the land was ours collectively. That family is the core of any strong community. How had we taken each other’s lives so easily? There was something we claimed to believe about the sanctity of life that we had not practiced. We wanted to apologize to each other, but there were no words. Only regret. We wanted to bow before each other in humble correction, but we could not. We were all guilty. Perhaps our bondage was recompense for having spilt each other’s blood. Silence shielded our shame, our remorse, our admission that we were, at least in part, architects of our own situation. We knew it. All of us. We’d been warriors at each other’s expense. We’d gained wealth from what we’d taken. And now we all had to pay.

The evening and the morning were the nineteenth day.

* * *

Captors visited our compartment every evening, though not for very long. When they arrived, the stench drove them away in seconds. It was thick and heavy like smoke, permeating their pores and leaving a bad taste on their tongues. As for us, we spit constantly, sometimes on ourselves, sometimes on each other, sometimes on the floor, trying desperately to keep the putrid taste out of our mouths. Still it lingered. For some, it never went away. Every time they chewed or swallowed, they tasted the flavor of bondage. They were nauseous for a lifetime.

Sadness evolved into resistance. We were unwilling to surrender, no matter how bleak. We were angry, mostly with ourselves, but we had not lost the will to fight. We simply couldn’t understand why this lesson had come. Yet we determined to survive it.

Our greatest hurdle was language. We were from the same land, but many spoke very different tongues. After some weeks, though, we began to speak with our hands and eyes, creating a basic system of communication all of us understood. Sometimes we banged on wood to get others’ attention. Sometimes we bulged our eyes to say Don’t give up. Sometimes we growled and grunted so our anger would not consume us. Sometimes we beat our heads against bed planks and, when others joined in, we knew we were becoming unified. Sometimes we even tried to smile, but our pain was often too much to bear. So we hid our hearts behind rhythms and melodies that spoke what the mouth could not.