Property

"Chin on your chest, boy!"

Not sure who is talking and not sure who he's talking to I jerk my head down further. Terrified, obedient, I will my chin to bump into my chest past the layers of coats, jackets and scarves.

I am at a reenactment in Fishers, Indiana. I know that I am not actually a slave and the year is 2014 not 1836. But that does nothing to quell my terror of what my owner might do to me...and who he might be about to sell me to.

Our line starts moving and I stumble, lurch forward, and trot almost stepping on the person in front of me. All I want is to be invisible, but the lantern light won't allow me. I try to block out the yelling all around me. It doesn't work.

The buyers are poking their heads in peoples faces. Oops. Slaves faces. Not people, but property. They demand, scoff, humiliate, and laugh. Our feelings are pointless. I hope against hope that I will be unseen. No one will question me. Or maybe they'll at least believe me. I hope in vain.

"What do you do, girl?!" His face pokes into mine. Maybe a half inch away.

"I sew, sir." 

"You sew, huh? How many stitches in an inch."

"Twenty, sir."

"You put that many stitches in an inch?" he sneered, a half inch from my face.

"Yes, sir." My eyes are glued to the leaves between my feet. I felt trapped.

"You would put twenty stitches in an inch? You would waste my thread!?"

Confusion. Humiliation. 

Fear and more fear.

"No, sir."

"How old are you."

"Twenty-two, sir."

"Have you dropped any babies yet."

"No, sir."

"Can you."

"Yes, sir."

"Come with me."

I shuffle, fear making my heart pound. All I can see is the ground in the murky darkness. I finally stop in line behind other slaves. Safety. At least he is gone. I'm with others like me now. The fear is gone for a moment.

Then, rage. 

How dare someone treat me that way? How dare someone scoff in my face and question my child-bearing skills? How dare someone reduce me to a cow to be bred? A potential risk and profit? I am a soul! I am a person! 

But if I raise my head, I risk wrath and retaliation. 

I stand in silence. 

Eyes on the ground.