The way this girl carried herself was different. She walked with an almost undetectable confidence. Sure, she was trembling. Sure, her eyes were just sort of welling up with tears, but there was something unmovable within her. I can’t describe it, really. She was like a rock in the middle of a raging ocean, and the water pounds, and the rock is drowned, but it emerges, unbreakable. I shivered.
Francis forced her onto the stocks. The iron began to sizzle, and I felt a sense of dread. I am seasoned in my profession, but I always feel a pull in my chest. When my Ma passed, I felt like I was going to die because my chest tightened in the same way, and I started praying, praying to God that this was just a dream and not reality, praying that I wasn’t going to die cause Ma wasn’t dead, and yeah I’d seen her lying in her casket but she couldn’t be dead because who would be there on those nights when I felt shame, shame in what I did?
My Ma always told me that those slaves and shameful criminals got what was coming to them, but I always felt like God wouldn’t want me to do what I do because I’ve seen people cry. I’ve seen people break down in sobs and wail for their babies. My job’s a hard one. I don’t know if I can pull through this time.
Sometimes when I feel the pull in my chest it feels like I can’t breathe, and it feels like I’m in a box even though I’m outside. And I can’t, I can’t, and I’m breathing but I can’t breathe, and then it stops. I brand the girl with an “I”, an I for Idiot, for Insolence, for I-Can’t-Do-This-Anymore-I-Feel-Sinful-With-The-Blood-And-Tears-Of-A-Child-On-My-Hands, I-Feel-Dirty, and she’s crying, and I want to tell her.
But I can’t.