The sea breeze on my face feels great, it reminds me of simple times, when my mother used to take me on banana boat trips[1] in the sea. The world seem so simple back then, when I first become a adult I started to realize that I was happy as a kid and a didn’t know.
In my second childhood, I realized that being a child with an adult mind is just the worst. Especially when you live in a society that lives like caveman. I think if I went back in time when I was a kid, things would be better, but I suppose it’s just nostalgia talking.
I stop looking out to sea and look to the deck, where some guards are chatting while the sailors work on the ship. The ship name is the Sea Glory and it’s the same that I was captured.
The first thing that I thought when I heard the names was, what a stupid name for a ship. I even asked the Brute who named the ship and why. He told me that people normally pay for a sacrifice at the Sea temple for a priest to bless and name a new ship.
I wanted to tell the Brute that someone needed to tell those priests to be more creative. But he is a very pious person, and the first time that I made a joke about the Gods, he gave me a lecture and then beat me to make sure I understood the lesson.
I suppose if I was a rapist I would like to stay in the God’s good graces, not that I understand very much about religion here.
On the island, apart from saying stuff like seven hells or by the name of Tupã, nobody made me attend any kind of religious ceremonies or even bothered to tell me anything about the Gods.
I asked my Little Teacher and she never heard any God by the name of Tupã, and that he is probably a minor deity for some barbarian nation. Even thought I don’t believe or even know anything about Tupã, that really pissed me off.
And I wasted a entire morning indoctrinate her about how powerful he is. I just gave Tupã the same powers as the Christian God. The real one, the Roman Catholic, not the Protestant one.
I wonder why I did that? Perhaps I was just tired of people calling me barbarian and acting like everything I did or knew was tainted by the fact that I was a barbarian. Besides, what is a barbarian? People keep calling me that but nobody had a good explanation of what that means.
Just like calling someone a communist in Brazil[2], when you don’t like what someone is saying, you just call him a communist and that is the only argument that you need to prove the person is wrong, facts and logic are irrelevant.
Even the others slaves believe that because they were born and raised in a civilized part of the world, they are better then a person like me. They receive the same treatment, but at least in their minds they are better than a “barbarian” slave.
I suppose that when you are a slave you need to create some form of distinction to make sure you are not at the bottom of the ladder. The fact that the distinction is only relevant to you and people in the same situation, and that in the day-to-day operations nobody important cares, it’s not something that matters.
The worst part is that I don’t think that the slave owners did this on purpose, to divide the slaves and prevent any kind of alliance and future up rise. The slaves did themselves, so that the civilized slaves could think that they are better than the “barbarian” slaves, I really hate human mentality.
For some reason I decided to defend the honor of the barbarian slaves. After lying about my God, I spent the entire night thinking how pathetic that was.
To have a argument with a child over this ? She is not the only one wrong; I should know better. I don’t need to care about that and should just smile whenever she talks about how I’m a barbarian, be the big person.
Talking about being the big person, one of my owners is looking at me, the big one. Without thinking I put my right hand in my belt where the knife they gave me to cut my food is.
The knife is very small and I don’t think it could be of any use in a fight. But it’s good to have something that can hurt someone who tries to be cute with me.
The fact that they gave the knife to me worries me a bit.
The knife is useless in a fight against a armed opponent, I don’t have any hope about cutting a blood path to freedom with it. Which don’t change the fact that is a weapon and I can hurt or even kill an unprepared enemy.
The fact that I received the knife, means that they believe I’m domesticate. I offer no risk to them, because I know my place.
This fact hurts me a lot. More then I care to admit, I’m just a pet. Sure I can be dangerous, but so a dog if bad trained. For this people I’m no different then a dog. And I need to admit they are right.
I know that as long as I follow their orders I will have good food and quarters. Why would I rock the boat ? Talking about how is better to die a free man than live as a slave is all good in movies or books not in the real world.
Because, how many people would risk their life’s to rebel, when there is a easy way out or they are living a better life as a slave?
I can’t deny that I’m living a better life now than when I was on the island. Thanks to better food and exercise I’m in the best shape of my life. My room and clothes are way better and besides the fact that I’m prohibited of taking more than one bath per week for some reason, I have very little limitations on my day-to-day activities.
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Sure, they will make me go to some school to be trained to be a soldier and there is a good chance that I will die. But so what ? It’s not like I would live forever if I had stayed on the island, the raid showed how easily I could have died in case of a attack, besides the chances of dying from some disease or accident.
I’m better now, or at least that’s what I tell myself. There is a voice deep in my mind that keep telling me that I’m lying to myself and I should use my little knife to go in a blast of glory and kill someone before going down, the Brute is a good option.
But I know that I won’t do this, too much of a coward for that. I will keep living until there is no way out, even then, I will try to dig a way for me, as long there is life there is hope.
Castor, come in my direction with a smile. I hate that, Adastros, the skinny owner, only smiles for customers and just bark orders for me or any other slaves. But Castor? He never orders anyone, even slaves, he just smiles and ask for a favor or gives a suggestion.
In all practice that’s a order and if they don’t follow the so called “suggestion” or “favor” they will be punished. But all slaves just love him and treat him like a saint and are ready to beat anyone that talk shit about him.
I think there is a expression for that, Stockholm syndrome? Or was London syndrome? My memories about my past life is getting harder and harder to remember.
He comes close to me and says:
“ As I said before we left, we got luck and managed to find a ship in Lesbos that had just arrived from your homeland. The whole place has been take by a small city state. We will arrive in few hours . Could you go with us and make sure to see if there is anything weird in the place?”
“Yes Dominus.”
What is going on with the island that I used to live? First was my Little Teacher, always asking questions about the place I used to live. I thought that was weird, but since I didn’t have anything to hide I told her everything that I knew.
A week ago both of my owners spend a whole afternoon asking me about everything on the island. Did the place had any defenses? How wealthy were the villagers? What kind of trade we did there? What did my family did there?
Again, aside from the fact that this is my second life I didn’t hold anything. I could see that after answering everything that they were not happy. What did they expected me to tell? That we had a mountain made of gold or a entire army that was preparing to conquer the world?
Not that they bothered to tell me what they actually wanted to know. But they did told me that I need to be prepared since in a few days they would take me to Argos to be a soldier and they expected me to not shame they and waste all the resources they spent on me.
Not the best motivation speech that I heard in both of my lives. But then again, I don’t think motivation speech’s are needed, when falling means death. I don’t think there is any kind of better motivation then keeping breathing.
When it’s close to sundown we finally arrive. All the old constructions were destroyed and I can only recognize the place because of the mountain in the back.
In fact, they actually built a decent dock of stone, so we won’t need to beach the ship to leave. Besides the dock I can see a lot of constructions in the background. Warehouses, homes, shops and I think a temple.
All the buildings besides the dock are made of a mix of mud, wood and stone. Not very different then Lebos. Most of the building need a few more months to be ready, only the temple I think it’s finished.
We dock and I follow a small group led by Adastros out of Sea Glory. There is a small reception group in front of the ship. Adastros speaks the local language and start talking to the group leader.
I pretend to pay attention to the city been built where used my village used to be. The place is completed transformed; I will just pretend to watch the place so I won’t be punished later for not following Castor “suggestion”. Everything that I knew was destroyed.
Adastros and the local leader start to laughing like two madmen. By the Corgi Gods, what could they possibly be talking that’s so funny? The leader starts to guide our group inside the city.
The city may be young, but the smell is awful. Maybe is the fact that I spent the last few days in the sea where the air is fresh, the smell here is probably way better than Lesbo.
There are a lot of slaves working building the place, I try to see if I know anyone. I don’t recognize anyone, weird, I thought that they would enslave the locals to help build the place instead of bring outside help.
In a few months working helping the Fat Bastard I learned how expense is to bring goods by boat, especially slaves since a lot of they die during the trip. It’s always cheap to just buy slaves in the place where you are going to use them, especially slaves used for labor.
Lebos was build on the buying and selling of humans, but most sales are of skilled slaves. They sell slaves for labor, but there are not very profitable.
The villagers were perfect to be used to built this city. Why aren't they being used? Did they all fight to the death during the invasion? I didn’t consider them as that kind of people.
My owners enter a large house where I imagine they will have a feast. Since it’s obvious that I’m a slave nobody bothered to invite me. Which is good, I want to take a walk around the place and see if can meet someone from my village working as a slave.
The place is a lot bigger than my old village, but it’s a lot smaller than Lebos. There is a lot of people walking around or working. But nobody bothers with me.
Without any objective in mind, I decided to visited my old home. The place is a bit far from the village so they may have left it alone.
I try to understand the people talking around me, but the language is complete alien to me. Which is a shame, I have been wondering a lot why would so many people be so interest in raiding this place.
When I was fist captured, I thought that the reason was to capture slaves to be sold. But after working as a clerk, I realized that I was wrong. Even if all the villagers were captured and sold at a good price, in the best situation they would break even.
A ship like the Sea Glory cost a fortune in maintenance and crew pay. One thing would be to raid a ship full of expensive products, but a few dozen poor villagers? Even if they could put that many people in the boat in the first place, there would be no profit.
The Sea Glory is a mix of war and mercantile ships, there is not a lot of space for people outside of the crew, especially when there is more soldiers then the normal so they could attack.
Little Teacher would never be told the reason and the other people that I talk and could know the answer would never tell me the truth.
For a while I imagined that the reason must be me, I was the only anomaly in this place. But when I considered the way the I’m treated since captured, I disregarded that option. Besides asking about my village, they never asked anything about me, if I was the reason for all this, surely someone would interrogate me about my past life.
I leave the city, and without the buildings blocking my vision, I can finally see where used to be my home and drop to my knees.
Where used to be my house, there is a small pyramid of skulls in various degrees of decomposition. I have found where all the villagers went.
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[1] I used to love them when I was a child, unfortunate they are no longer legal on my city (Guarujá), some people died and the government decided they are too dangerous. Such a shame.
[2] I hate this so much, back in the cold war time you needed to study marx, lenin, mao and others during decades to be a communist. Now if you disagree with someone about the price of gas you are a communist and should just go to Cuba and live there forever.