By slaveobjectx
The Court
‘Ten years slavery with hard labour in a chain gang, no remission, take him down.’ At first I thought I’d misheard the guy. He was old and kinda mumbled through a dirty grey beard. And he looked so bored when he said it, like it was no big deal or nothing. Then I thought it was some kind of joke, like a local way of saying, ten years community work, part time, something like that. Because slavery was abolished long ago, and chain gangs were too. Apart from that, the duration of my imprisonment would be in no proportion to the crime I was thought to have committed. Therefore, at that moment I heard it, I was quite sure, it was either a mistake or just an old-fashioned way of speaking in this remote provincial town, (which was behind the times in juridical terms), and most likely both.
So I guess you can say that I was surprised when, as soon as I was off the stand and down into the lower regions of the courthouse, a burly guard snapped two handcuffs, connected by a short chain, onto my wrists and shoved me into a cell. ‘Your transport will be ready for you in about ten minutes, boy,’ he said breezily and stomped off, his boots echoing on the stone floor.
