Those who stayed behind found their own ways to resist. A burned field at night meant no crops to harvest come morning, and a burned barn meant no crops for their master to sell. To slow down work they ruined themselves, since a broken leg couldn’t hoe a field. Broken fingers couldn’t pick tobacco leaves. Over and over they suffered the pain of fractured bones, of mutilated flesh. They’d always known their weapons were their bodies. They stuffed cotton roots down their throats. Forced down turpentine and indigo to make the life within stop. The path to resistance was through what their bodies could do, and so they found ways to refuse at every turn.

They made do with what was given. They dyed rags to their liking and wrapped them around their hair. Colors vibrant and daring, colors that gave them a sense of pride despite the shame of their circumstance. They adorned their clothes with cowrie shells and glass beads, smiled at their gleam refracted in the sunlight. They made beauty out of nothing and wore it like the finest jewels.

They took what homeland practices they could remember and used them on their rations. Golden hoe cakes cooked out in the fields, their edges crisp and glistening. Okra stews thickened with sassafras leaves and rice. Hog maw bits cooked with peas. The food was meant to sustain the long days, but soon came new traditions loved and passed down.

When they were told to pray, they prayed. They prayed to a god now told was theirs, but they understood that even this god knew the morality behind keeping someone in chains. This god, their god, would one day save them, and so they snuck out into the woods to pray—for freedom, for salvation, for retribution, but when even this was soon denied, when they could no longer speak aloud their Sunday prayers, they turned to their hearts, silently praying their secret desires in the hope they’d finally be heard.

They blessed their children. The river water washed over their skin and they were born anew. They were saved so that if ever lost on earth, in heaven they’d be found.

Despite these efforts, each day they resigned themselves a little bit more to this life of servitude, of serving, and every day they wished for their god to finally strike down and end it for them all.

Yet, there was a story they heard, one spoken during their weakest moments when they could do no more—a fish’s heart could beat after it had died. You could sever one, dig your fingers past the skin to find the flesh and organs, and find the small clump of red. Reach in and tear it out, hold it in your hands and feel its viscous softness. Toward death and even afterward it continues to fight. Watch as it throbs, this heart, pulsating and still full of life.

XIII.

WHOA, HEY, MIRA, stop!”