Ribbon
The plantation owner challenged the white Jew to a duel over the
matter and shot him before the trial was over. The planter was going
to win anyway, but he didn't want to wait. The white Jew had been
talking to people's slaves, and he had become convinced that one of
the planter's slaves was a Jew. The white Jew had taken the planter
to court to sue for the slave's freedom. It had seemed like an
interesting but hopeless case, and it had garnered a lot of interest
in the settlement.
Things had probably started with the smith, who owned one slave and
had been very taken in by the slave's explanation of his religion. It
had scandalized and frightened the town. The slave explained that
people's ancestors and the spirits could be contacted with direct
inquiries. The smith's initial fears were short-lived when the slave
assured him that all good goes on to be rewarded, and all evil
eventually gets punished. He was amazed at the slave's insights,
which he claimed came directly from the spirit world. It was all
obviously true. What is it really called, if even the dead can walk
again, but absolutely everything has a balance? The smith was careful
not to tell many people, to avoid rumors about witchcraft, but he
wanted to get to the bottom of it and went to talk to the white Jew,
just because he was different.
The white Jew was very intrigued, and a little bit frightened, but he
knew nothing about it. He knew that the slaves were being taught
Christianity, but he had never thought about whether they already
practiced any religion. It turned out that quite a few of them were
Muslim, a few were Christian in ways that the white slaveowners felt
needed a lot of correction, and eventually he found the planter's
slave, who, while practicing in a very different way, was clearly
having Judaism whipped out of him. So the white Jew had taken the man
to court, and he had ended up being shot for it; accused of just
causing trouble among the slaves.
It had been during a recess in the trial. Clusters of people stood
around the courthouse. A lady in a blue dress and white gloves,
holding a parasol, stood in the group with the planter and other
landowners. She laughed and looked sideways down her nose at the
smith's slave, going from group to group, asking for people to touch a
spool of black felt ribbon. The slaves were being given an unusual
amount of freedom during the trial. It made the planter uneasy. The
white Jew started walking over to the black Jew, who was standing with
a few other slaves near the group in which the planter and the lady
with the parasol were standing. The lady in the blue dress looked at
the white Jew with dismissive anger like one might show for wasps
buzzing around food on a picnic blanket. The white Jew had his back
to them and the smith's slave was walking away from both groups when
the planter shouted out his challenge.
---
The black Jew had the planter tied to a tree next to a swampy pond,
across a small trail that people rarely travelled. It was on the way
to the grain mill, and there was nothing else of interest in the area.
No one would be wondering where the planter had gone for the next
couple of days or so, within which time someone would eventually find
him alive. The slave was in a hurry, moving around the area around
the tree, tidying and packaging things up to prepare for his long,
dangerous trip to his escape. The planter kept trying to talk to the
slave, and the slave kept saying things to him from the Old Testament.
For some reason the planter seemed completely unable to understand his
own situation. He was prisoned in his own disbelief of the reality of
being tied to the tree by the slave. He was unable to comprehend that
this had happened.
The planter was asking the slave again who he was. Who are you,
exactly? The slave gave him another name. He said his name was Noah.
The planter stood helplessly, tied uncomfortably to the tree, to hear
the story of Noah again. The slave moved around packing things up and
said nothing. After a pause, the planter said he didn't believe the
slave that he was Noah. The slave replied to him that, ok, maybe the
planter was Noah.
The slave moved seamlessly from his packing, drew a terrifying
serrated knife and moved without pause or emotion toward the planter.
The planter tensed. Parts of him puckered and sucked up into
themselves. The slave asked him if he knew the story of Noah as he
walked up to the slaveowner. The slave cut open the man's trousers
and they fell in shreds to the ground at the bottom of the tree. The
planter started breathing again; heavily, scared. The slave stood and
stared him in the eye. The slave said to him that he needed water.
Someone would be by soon enough to untie him, but he was going to be
there a while. He would be there in the sun maybe up to a couple of
days. The slave brought water to the planter's face and let him drink
plenty of it.
The slave gave him a little bit of raw meat to eat. He asked the
planter if he remembered the stories about Noah's three sons. The
planter just listened. Shem, Japheth, Ham. The slave changed the
story from what the planter knew. He said, Noah's sons didn't make
it. The planter had three young sons. His mind started to reel. He
felt sick. The slave took the spool of black felt ribbon out, and cut
a length of it. He reached down to the planter's groin. The man let
loose a little yelp. The slave tied the ribbon around the planter's
testicles tightly. Too tightly for blood to flow.
The slave stood back and stared into the planter's eyes again. He
told him to remember that story. He picked up the two packs he was
taking with him, and he left the planter there in the sun.
---
Emmett and his father lived on a large farm that his father ran. They
were the descendants of the escaped black Jewish slave. They didn't
know anything about their origins before that. The world had changed,
and changed, and always continued to change. By the time Emmett was
born, the way this type of farming worked was that large farms in
certain areas had just a few people on them, usually a small family.
The people who lived on one of these farms were basically just
mechanics. Their skillset was just to maintain all of the machinery
that did all of the farming.
Emmett's mother had died when Emmett was ten. One day she had been
trapped on the surface when the temperature in the area had exceeded
the survivable limit for human beings. Emmett and his father had
never recovered from the loss. Emmett's mother had died a horrible,
painful death alone. Not only had she died outside of a Heaven
machine, she had died in this terrible way. For someone to die in
such an old-fashioned way always meant horrible tragedy, with nothing
left of the person for anyone to talk to. So Emmett grew up that way
from that point on.
Emmett's father tried to teach him what he would need to know. He
taught him about the machines on the farm. He tried to teach him good
ethics and values. He tried to explain to Emmett that things were ok
somehow, but it always came across as so hollow, because Emmett's
father really didn't feel like things were ok. He tried to emphasize
Selah. He tried to teach Emmett to just sit with his emotions and
thoughts and work through them. Emmett's father often recommended it,
and he seemed to be trying to make Selah himself almost all of the
time. They were both filled with so much pain.
---
The farm was currently set up to grow corn. Corn plants stretched on
and on, blotting out the horizon. Most of the actual work was all
done by Malaysian multi-purpose robots. Emmett's father knew how to
maintain those types of robots the best, but they were notorious for
certain drawbacks. They had to be communicated with in standard
Malay, they didn't speak any other language. They also always had a
category of strange drawbacks best described as gullibility. They had
an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent them from any use in
military settings, but for people familiar with them, they were easy
to trick.
Emmett didn't do any serious work. He wasn't old enough to contribute
much but to follow his father around and learn by watching him work.
A doctor who seemed very kind came to visit them often and try to help
them feel ok about stuff and stay in good health. The doctor told
Emmett that everyone is like a corn plant. All of the things about us
are like the ears of corn on the plant. Pretty much all of us have
some bad ears of corn, but most of the ears on most of us are good
ears of corn. Sometimes when something is just a bad ear of corn to
your corn plant of self, you can't really do anything but do your best
to let it go.
The doctor paid a lot of attention to Emmett. He seemed to always be
trying to solve a complicated puzzle in his mind. Whenever Emmett
tried to figure the doctor out much at all, the doctor would stymie
Emmett with the most helpful, inspiring kinds of wisdom. If there was
some puzzle, the only part in it between Emmett and the doctor seemed
to genuinely be the doctor trying to help him. One day they were
talking, and the doctor told Emmett that usually danger and
opportunity grow on the same stalk. That was the last thing Emmett
remembered. Then he was lying on the ground, coming back to
consciousness, looking up at the doctor standing over him with a very
stern look on his face, looking down at Emmett. Emmett lay there on
the ground and looked back up at the doctor. For some reason, Emmett
felt filled with miserable shame.
---
Emmett's father could tell that something was wrong. Emmett didn't
even know what to say. He felt blocked from saying anything. He
didn't know what had happened, or what he could say about any of it to
his father. He just knew that he felt a horrible, constant, miserable
feeling of shame about whatever had happened. The doctor said
something to Emmett's father about whatever it was, then started
coming around a lot less. Emmett's father kept trying to tell Emmett
about Teshuvah. His father kept saying it, over and over. He was
trying to get Emmett to apologize, and Emmett had no idea what he had
done. He just felt burning shame, worse and worse.
It felt like a complete impasse that he would never get past. He was
out on the edge of the field and saw a wooden spool half buried in the
dirt. It caught his attention especially because a robot kept looking
down at it, as it worked on something. Every time it would come near
the old wooden spool in the dirt it would look down at the spool, then
over at Emmett, as if it was confused about something clearly
important but completely unclear and impossible to rationalize.
Emmett walked over to look at the spool more closely. It had one
strange word on the top of it. Cut into the wood of the spool. It
seemed to be a word in Malay. It said on the top of it "CINTA".
Emmett looked down at it. He felt like crying. He was overcome with
a storm of burning emotions. He picked it up and flipped it over.
There was a word on the other end of it, too. His heart skipped a
beat. His mind tumbled through his own emotions spinning inside
himself like one of the dust tornadoes that sometimes started when
conditions were right. His hand was shaking so badly that he dropped
the spool again. He stood there at the edge of the field, dazed.
10,000 corn plants stretched away just in the row closest to the edge
of the field. It was so hot, standing there. Emmett's eyes were full
of tears. He went to find his way inside to safety again.
Somehow through the storm of his emotions, pulling him around in such
misery, his mind was flooded with a horrible visual. Just the idea of
all of that endless field of corn burning at once.