THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE: PART X
Being locked up in a small cell, your mental world becomes small too. The view to the outside being limited, you automatically concentrate on yourself. And I had a lot to concentrate on for the moment, as my own situation claimed all my attention. For the time being not to know how to cope with the heavy burden I literally had to wear forever from now on, my interest in what was happening on the other side of the bars that hold me confined, gradually diminished - also because was happening there anyway.
I must have laid down there, trying to lessen the discomfort that my irons caused in vain, for nearly an hour or so - it is a guess, as I had lost all sense of time, and as the corridor was only lit artificially, with no daylight entering, there was no sun to tell me how late it was - when I heard some rumbling in the corridor, coming from the right and still far away, but coming nearer. Footsteps, accompanied by the clanking of chains - apparently some (?) new slaves in the end had arrived.
Immediately my interest in what was happening outside returned. I hurried to the grated door of my dungeon, as far as my heavy chains allowed me to hurry of course, to catch a glimpse of what was happening outside - as I said, boredom at this moment was the worst to fear, so every distraction was more than welcome - but for the present I could see nothing. They were still too far away yet. I tried to figure out how many guys there were, but that was not as easy as you may think, as the footsteps overlapped, and the human ear for a conclusion to be beyond any doubt needs the confirmation of the human eye; but judging from the clanking there were at least two slaves drawing near. Or perhaps even three, just as I had been brought to my own cell as part of a trio. It was very difficult to make that out from the noise.
Then apparently they halted, as the sound of footsteps coming nearer stopped and only the clanking of chains continued for a while. So at least one of the slaves had a high number, and now was thrown into his hole. It only took a few seconds, I heard the grated door banged shut, and then the column clearly moved on.
Meanwhile I saw that my only visible neighbor across the road, slave 47, also apparently startled by the noise, had risen from the straw and positioned himself in the same way as I did, standing behind the bars of his cell. But he would not have seen much more from there than I did from my place, and that meant in the end: nothing. Because the column of guards and slave - yes, it was only one now, judging from the singular noise his chains made - didn't move as far along the corridor so as to pass by our cells. Also for this second slave they halted earlier, still a lot of dungeons before ours. I heard the opening of the grated door, the commanding voice of one of the guards (but couldn't decipher his separate words), some clanking as the slave moved in, again the door being shut, and then the footsteps of the guards fading away as they returned to the stairs at the beginning of the corridor. That it was - silence again.
I now gazed at my fellow slave across the corridor, and he gazed back. Being slave G 47, he presumably was to become a direct neighbor at the oars somewhere, but as I didn't know the distribution of seats on board yet, I wasn't sure where his place would be exactly - just as I didn't know exactly where mine was either. Would he sit next to me, on my immediate left or right, or across the gangway, or perhaps somewhere on a row before or behind me? It would depend on the way the seats were arranged on the galley, how many there would be on one row on each side of the central gangway (two, three, four?), and where I would be placed exactly.
However, as the chance was rather good that we would have to live very near to each other on the galley in the future, I was of course interested in this fellow and what he looked like. Slave G 47 was a few inches shorter than me - well, that was in fact nearly the only special thing to tell about him, the only thing left that distinguished him from me now.
Apart from just one other important thing: his skin color. He definitively was black, and I was not. Judging from his physical appearance he seemed to me to be a black American living in the States, not in Africa. Would he have been an amateur athlete there like me? Apparently our slavers didn't care about race: black or white was immaterial to them, as long as their captives could be turned into useful muscled galley slaves. But would they because of his racial background perhaps treat him more crudely than me? Arabs still weren't free from disdain for Africans traditionally; they in fact had begun to enslave them already centuries before the Europeans turned up on the Atlantic Coast the first time, and until the Twenty-First Century this had a lasting effect on the way Arabs regarded the inhabitants of the Black Continent. As they had been slaves in the Muslim world since the Middle Ages in big quantities, as the Arabs hadn't known any important abolition movement and as no Arabian official had ever apologized for the slavery-filled past, Blacks over there still were the victims of racial prejudice.
However, that in fact was the most important characteristic that distinguished slave G 46 from slave G 47: our skin color indeed. Otherwise, we looked completely identical, as we had in a way become identical with the same future awaiting us, that of a galley slave. For the rest, he had in the way of personal characteristics just a nose, two eyes, two ears - and nothing special about that, presumably no floppy ears or hare-lips or any other very special individual mark which in these circumstances you might hope for to distinguish you from other slaves - and he had in the field of impersonal new characteristics the same Mohawk haircut, the same sallow loin-cloth, the same huge collar and the same heavy shackles and chains as me.
The exact color of what was left of his hair, the crew-cut ugly strip stretching across his skull from front to back, I couldn't discover. It was too gloomy there for that (well, it clearly wasn't blond), as it was too gloomy to distinguish floppy ears if he might have had them (later I would discover that he hadn't). And the ciphers on his slave-tag - they would have said 'Slave G-47' - were not legible from this distance, as weren't those of the blackened brand on his left chest (which, because of his dark skin, I could only perceive vaguely through the bars). His eternal slave number for that reason didn't stick out as much as mine, since the contrast between the black brand and my white skin was much sharper.
We both stood there for at least ten minutes gazing at each other, but not daring to say anything, when again there was noise coming from the right. It again was the sound of footsteps but this time accompanied, not by those of clanking chains, but of creaking wheels. Clearly the guards were drawing forward some kind of small vehicle. It sometimes stopped and then, after a few seconds, it moved on again. Apparently it halted at the door of every occupied cell.
It took a little bit more than a dozen of those small stops to be covered before it came into view. Well, there was at least nothing wrong with my hearing, as indeed the two guards coming along had a kind of food cart between them. On its several shelves stood rows of big round iron bowls of the kind in which I had been offered my drinking water.
The food cart halted in front of cell 47. One of the guards took a bowl of the upper board and gave it silently to slave G-47; the other guard - the one who had brought me my drink - picked up a bowl too and brought it to me. Inside was a huge amount of some indefinable shapeless grey-brown puree that didn't look or smell very tasteful, to put it mildly.
The guard, a little more communicative than his colleague, said to me, while reaching the big bowl plus a simple wooden spoon through the bars:
"Here is your special slave chow for this evening, G-47."
I looked with some disgust at the simmering, evil-smelling mess that was offered to me and that I apparently was to appreciate as my refined dinner.
The guard recognized my aversion - which didn't take much perceptivity, to be honest - and added:
"And you better eat it all, slave, and get used to eating it, as you will get no other kind of warm evening meal in the near future. And you will need it to stay strong to row forcefully and thus to avoid the lash. This is the standard slave feed all galley slaves receive everywhere. It is very healthy and has all the proteins and vitamins that are essential to making a muscled rowing machine out of your body, and to keep it in that useful state. It's in you own interest to become such a rowing machine, as there will be no pity for those who fail to do so, as the bullwhip will tell you in that case. So eat it."
I wondered if he addressed all new slaves receiving their maiden slave meal like this the first time. Perhaps yes, as it seemed that he took some pleasure from talking this way to his feeding victims. However, realizing that I was hungry and wouldn't have much occasion to complain about the preparation of my dinner to the cook, I took in the offered big bowl and sat down with it on the floor. Well, the irons riveted to my limbs were gifts from hell, but at least the whole network of chains was thus designed that they didn't hinder eating very much, as both chains connected my manacles to my sole anklet, and thus sloping down immediately from my wrists: they weren't in the way.
While I was sitting down to eat, both guards dragged their food cart along to stop at the next occupied cell, that of my neighbor slave 44. I could vaguely hear his chains moving in the direction of the bars of his dungeon to receive his food. There the same procedure was repeated by 'my' waiter, this time without saying any word - had slave 44 already stayed here overnight and knew what was expected from him? Or did the guard for some unknown reason specially dislike me, so that he had spoken those hateful - but at the same time, I must confess, useful - warning words?
Well, sitting down I started to eat - trifling with the food, to be honest. I don't know if you've ever had your dinner while the weight of heavy chains is pulling on your shackled hands downwards? Well, as the chains as such weren't in the way, it was possible to do so, but it was not quite a big pleasure. I had to do it slowly and carefully - apart from the fact that, although I had become rather hungry meanwhile, the offered food was not that inviting that you want to hurry to enjoy your meal.
To say it frankly: it tasted boring and disgusting. The slave chow turned out to be a kind of mix of flour, cornmeal, some unidentifiable vegetables and savorless pieces of meat. And indeed a mix: it couldn't have been more a mix than it was, as all was completely mixed up by grinding and compressing all ingredients to an unappetizing looking porridge in a totally indifferent way. The meat - I would learn later from some fellow slave who, as having been a professional food expert in his former free life, knew more and even was able to distinguish the previously unrecognizable mistreated parts of the slave chow - was cheap dog's meat, nutritious but without any flavor. And the cornmeal was of third-rate quality, rejected for human consumption, taken out of the pig trough. Eating dog's meat and pig's cornmeal - to that humiliating level we as slaves had been lowered.
With disgust I succeeded in maneuvering all of it away behind my grinders down into my stomach with the wooden spoon, slowly, bite after bite. But as the menu in this inhospitable inn apparently didn't offer alternatives, I had no choice, if I didn't want to starve from hunger - and later to become punished for being too weak when my time had come to serve at the oars. And for the time being, I didn't want that. Perhaps had I known then what it really meant to be turned into a galley slave for life, I would have preferred that. But the human will to survive and the human hope for rescue are too strong for wanting to starve to death as an alternative, and apart from that, the slavers would not have accepted that their prey would escape his fate this 'easy' way by just saying 'no' to their slave chow, and would have known means to force their victims to eat.
So I did eat 'voluntarily', and eat it all.
After having finished my first meal as a slave, I put the empty bowl with the spoon aside and drank some water out of the other bowl to get rid of the horrible taste. My stomach was full, as the compressed food had been rather heavy. Then I put both bowls in the left corner of my cell and searched for the best position to lie down for the second time, which took some minutes again, although I already had some experience with searching for that.
While I had been eating the guards had continued to distribute the slave feed, till they had reached the end of the corridor. There they apparently waited, as for a number of minutes I heard no noise of footsteps or wheels anymore. I myself, after having finished dinner, meanwhile lying down in the back of my cell, didn't pay any attention to them anymore. Introverted now, my mental horizon was limited again to my own shackled body.
But after some time the guards must have started to go their way back. I suddenly heard their footsteps and the wheels of the food cart coming nearer. Judging by the short interruptions, they halted at all occupied cells. Why that, I asked myself, but had no time to find an answer, as they had reached mine.
"Your food trough, slave", 'my' guard shouted angry, "And quick!"
I needed some seconds to rise from the straw, just to see the guy getting even angrier. I was rather embarrassed by that, as until yet he hadn't treated me very harshly. I would soon learn that a slave never should allow himself to be lulled by some apparent kindness on the part of his overseers, as the next time the same overseer might suddenly be very unkind and demanding. This unpredictability on the part of the overseers of course is intentional: a slave should at every moment be full of fear for his Owner and thus very keen on what He as a Master this time might command him as a slave to do.
"Quicker, you fucking slave, you will have to learn to be quicker!"
I had reached the grated door now and searched for the bowl I had put in the corner.
"Remember, slave! When you finish your slave meal next time, wait here with your food trough sitting behind the bars, and as soon as we arrive the second time, you immediately hand it over to us without us having to ask that, as you're not allowed to waste our time! Understood, slave?!"
"But...", I started, trying to explain that I didn't know that, and thus not deserved his anger, because as a slave I intended to behave well and had been negligent not because of recalcitrance but because of ignorance.
"No 'buts'! A slave doesn't know any 'buts'! A slave just has to obey!"
If I indeed had been dreaming a little away in the straw a few minutes ago, I was totally awake now. I was upset and worried, as I hadn't expected this kind of reactions. They were totally without reasonableness. How to handle this? How to manage this totally unexpected and unpredictable outburst by one of those guards? How would I know what to do to prevent them, to have them treating me in a less aggressive way? I again became aware of my powerlessness. Still apart from being chained and locked up, I totally surrendered to the caprices of my captors.
But exactly in the seeming unreasonableness of those outbursts, you will have realized now, was hidden their satanic reasonableness - from the point of view of the slavers. The first thing they have to imprint on new slaves to get them also behave as slaves is fear of the unexpected and unpredictable. And by each slaver behaving in another way and at another point unexpectedly and unpredictably, slaves indeed become very keen what each of them might perhaps want him to do, to prevent corporal punishment. No, there is not much space in a slave's life to dream away as long as he isn't ordered to do so, not even a little. And he rather seldom is ordered to dream away, as it's not with that purpose that he has been enslaved.
But at that moment I knew nothing about such training tactics or the mental methods behind them, and just trembled, rather out of balance.
"Understood, G-46?!"
The guard now shouted even louder.
"Understood, how to behave the next time?!"
"Y-yes", I stuttered.
Bang! The guard hit one of the bars with his boot.
"Yes?!? It's: yes, Sir, understood, Sir!" He paused, "Understood, slave?"
"Yes, Sir, understood, Sir", I trembled obediently, totally intimidated.
"You apparently don't, slave!"
??? I must have looked quite astonished now.
"If you did, slave, you would have handed me your bowl already some seconds ago, slave! Do it NOW!!!"
"Yes Sir, understood Sir!" - and I hurried as fast as possible to do so.
The guard took the bowl and the spoon silently out of my hands and put it on the food cart. As his colleague had already recovered that of slave 47, without the necessity - or the need - to shout, they could continue their way, to disappear out of sight, leaving me bullied behind.
For the next couple of minutes nothing happened, and also for the second next to come. But suddenly there happened something: inside myself. My bowels, not used to this heavy slave chow, after all the food had passed my stomach, started to work. I was seized with tormenting cramps that I couldn't stand and made me moan. I quickly shuffled to the corner and squatted to shit. No, there was no kind guard arriving in a hurry to offer me a toilet chair for my comfort, as a slave I had to balance above the hole in the floor and to manage it all alone. I had to shit in a humiliating and dehumanizing squatting position as the chained animal I had become.
With my shackled left hand I tried as well as might to lift the back of my loincloth, to keep it as far away from my ass as possible, to prevent my only clothing from getting filthy. It was really a balancing act that I only thanks to my athletic body could succeed in doing, while the cramps became heavier and heavier. Than suddenly all the slave chow came out, or at least a big part of it, in the form of shit. Well, the brown substance at first sight didn't look very different from the unappetizing porridge that had entered me from the front before, it only was even more evil smelling.
But once all the diarrhea left my body in this rather inelegant way, I was relieved: the terrible cramps were suddenly gone. Moreover: I hadn't made a mess of my first crap as a slave and had not ruined my new daily dress. But, oh my God: I would also have to cope with my food, to get used to that. Well, I indeed within a few days would, and from then on eating the heavy slave chow, apart from terrifying my taste, wasn't a physical problem for me any longer.
After being emptied underneath, I swept with some straw the shit that, because of its fluid character, had spread around the hole in the ground. Also with help of a bundle of straw I tried to clean my ass as good as possible, the sharp ends of it pricking into my skin. I doubted if I also would use some of my drinking water to clean my back up, but not knowing when my bowl would be filled up, I decided better to leave it like that. Well, it wasn't as hygienic as it would have been with toilet paper and a daily shower afterwards at home, and I still had to learn that living as a slave also means living filthy, and to adjust to that fact. Then I rose again and, having forgotten the guards outside meanwhile, moved to my already favorite place of retirement in the back part of my cell.
Meanwhile it must be already far in the evening, I wondered if it was dark outside: inside I lost all sense of time. Would there arrive still more new slaves today? Or had we to wait for them till the next morning? Should I have stayed waiting at the grated door, in case the guards came with new orders? But they didn't come back, feeding time was over, and after they had taken back all the bowls they didn't show up again.
Only much, much later did one of them return, walking slowly to and through the corridor. And later followed the other, both their paths crossing not far from me, i.e. halfway down the corridor, where the desk with the third, sitting guard was positioned. Would he still be there? I had not heard him leaving - but I hadn't paid attention all the time if he might. As both walking guards didn't notice me, there was no reason for me to notice them. Of course: in the total boredom of being locked up in a small, dark dungeon, with nothing else than straw to play with and to attract your attention, seeing your guards passing by through the corridor on the freedom side of the solid bars that hold you captive, is the only distraction available. But, to be honest, it's not a very big distraction anymore, once you've seen them passing by for the nth time.
As I was very, very tired now, I had, as said, like an animal crawled in my chains back to the rear end of my cell to create a kind of resting place for the night. Lying on my right side was the best, I had already discovered, but I needed some support for my head and collared throat. Sitting on my knees (as this was the only way to do it, as otherwise my chains would be too short), with my shackled hands I tried to heap up the straw against the back wall until I had created some kind of mound to rest my head and collar on. It wasn't easy, because my chains were constantly in the way while doing this. It therefore took a lot of time, and some tryouts by lying down, till I reached my goal. While I was working, my chains were clanking without interruption from the start till the end, but at that end I was happy to have succeeded in creating a kind of pillow of straw of sufficient height.
So, finally I indeed was ready, and could stretch my limbs for the night, as far as my chains allowed me to do. I moved into the desired position, lying on my right side, with both my legs next to each other and my hands to the right of my right leg. This in the end had turned out to be the least uncomfortable position, when I had tried all before feeding-time. But also lying down I was constantly aware of the heavy shackles riveted to my wrists and right ankle, and of the connecting chains. Above all I felt the ponderous weight of the narrow-fitting, huge iron collar encircling my throat. I hoped, by making a pillow of straw as a preparation for the night, all would be bearable. It was horrible.
How the hell could I manage to sleep in those fucking heavy irons?
I closed my eyes, but for the moment that didn't help, although it was rather dark in my corner. After a couple of minutes I opened my eyes again and - hey: it was dark everywhere, it was also dark outside, in the corridor. They had switched off the lights. It was silent. Were all the guards gone? The only thing to be heard was the very muted sound of some rattling chains of other slaves nearby. Although I had hoped that I had found the right position, I couldn't find enough comfort, so I again turned and tossed, my chains following the turns of my body. I again tried lying on my left side for a while - no, with my right anklet shackled that was even more impractical. Lying on my back? No, that was impossible - within a few seconds I felt strangled by the collar. So then try lying on my right side again, without finding redemption. And so the whole search started once more.
Each time for several minutes I hoped that I could stand it, and that I could forget about the tight irons riveted forever to my body. But I couldn't. They were there all the time, and I was all the time aware of them being there all the time. I couldn't forget that fact even for one single moment. They were just to heavy for that. Apart from that, the horror scenes I had gone through that day didn't go out of my mind. And there was the soaring pain of my pierced penis and my new brand that reminded me every moment what I had gotten into, that I had become a slave. So I was lying there in the straw, exhausted and longing for sleep but not being able to close my eyes.
Panic struck me: how would this be in the future? Would I ever be able to rest and to recover as a chained galley slave in a decent way? Would each night to come be so hopeless? Would I have this same problem every night? So I turned and tossed desperately in the straw of my dark dungeon, not knowing what to do.
And just when, finally, I was slipping away, there was suddenly some heavy noise outside in the corridor. I opened my eyes and saw that the lights in the corridors were on again. It wasn't completely dark in my dungeon anymore. Outside were there now a lot of stumbling and shouting, accompanied by the inevitable clanking of chains. A new slave?
Curiosity on the one hand tickled me to rise to see what was happening - there was at least something happening, and every small distraction was welcome to interrupt the total boredom of being imprisoned in this fucking dark stuffy hole - but my exhaustion on the other hand prevented me from doing that. And I knew that when I got up, it would even be more difficult to reach even the slumber of the last hour again. Apart from that, for the time being there was nothing to see - and if the whole theatre that was going on outside would stay at the spot were it was now, far to the right, I would see not more of it than I had seen of the incarceration of those two slaves who arrived after us, which meant: nothing.
Because a kind of theatre it was. Apparently they were bringing forward an unwilling slave - well: very much willing slaves they will not have locked up in the last few days, I presume. Very slowly the noise came near. There were the gruff voices of the guards barking to there captive, who apparently was a heavy burden. Was he really resisting, or what was the matter?
Than, after a while of moving forward, they came really very near, to halt. Were they next door? Was this new slave to become my neighbor, in cell 48? Or was it still one further away? It was difficult to decide, but I now at least could distinguish the voice of the guy that made the most noise, it was one of the guards who also had accompanied us to our dungeons some hours (?) ago.
"Stop this stupid behavior, you damned slave", he shouted, "Move on".
Than I heard some rattling of chains, and indeed the sounds came still a little bit nearer. Now they really were next door. And now I could hear their victim weeping, although softly, after one of the guards had opened the grilled door of the cell.
"Please Sir, don't put me inside there, Sir. I'm claustrophobic. I can't stand such a small dark cell, Sir, it makes me panic!"
"Go inside, slave 48, immediately. Your claustro.... or whatever it is doesn't interest us at all. Go inside your cell, slave. Or otherwise we will lock you up in a much smaller and darker one! And then you will have to stay in that tiny place for a long time to come!"
The fucking bastards! The poor new slave was really scared, and they didn't give a damn for it.
I now again heard the unhappy slave sob: "Please Sir, please..."
"Go into your cell, you fucking slave. NOW!"
The guard apparently lost his patience now, as I perceived that slave 48 was just shoved (instead of thrown) - the clanking of his chains sounded relatively civilized - with some force into his cell. I then heard him still sobbing, but the sound was muffled as the partition wall between our cells now was in between, and the grating closing of the grated door moreover for a while deafened it. I heard a key turned in a lock, and just a second later the guards already walking away, leaving G-48 in the darkness of his dungeon behind. So I had become a neighbor also on the other side.
Silence returning and lights being switched off at the end, my own martyrdom, my fight against my pains and chains started again. Damn, I had been nearly fallen asleep, and then this whole clamor outside in the corridor! Couldn't those idiots make at least a little allowance for the exhausted slaves trying to rest here? It must have been far past bedtime already; this new slave must have arrived at the airport very late in the evening. Now I was awake again, and I had to cope once more with my shackles when trying to sleep and the panic that I couldn't.
That not only was because of the chains. Again and again flashes of the most terrible experiences I had had to endure on this unholy day appeared in my mental eye, as the results of them still were especially very painfully perceptible on two spots of my body, in the first place on my genitals, but above all on my chest above my left nipple. The branding iron... the branding iron... the branding iron that I suddenly had recognized in the hands of Mehmed... the branding iron that came nearer and nearer to me... the branding iron that touched my tender skin... the infernal pain it caused during those horrible seconds... I closed my eyes, but I couldn't get all out of my mind now. Again and again, when lying down, flashbacks of those gruesome minutes repeated and repeated themselves, only to be alternated with the thought on the collaring and chaining, and the memory of the repelling piercing of my (up until then) virginal undamaged cock. The flashbacks just didn't want to leave my mind, I wasn't able to concentrate on what my whole soul and body desired and wished for the most: to sleep.
And in vain I tried to think over, whether I had missed any opportunity to escape. No, there in fact hadn't been any, since I had entered this damned building this afternoon. Not even upstairs in the reception room, there already it had been too late - three against one.
The last chance - had the last chance perhaps been outside in the parking lot in front of this building? Well, apart from the fact that at that moment I hadn't had the slightest reason to mistrust (if you do not count the thereupon in a reasonable way explained fact that 'my' Mohamed had not turned up at the airport, but this Mustafa), I wonder if they had let me go at that late moment and not would have tried force, as I, by knowing at which remote place the slavery organization had their headquarters, could tell this to the police - if, indeed, at that moment I had any reason for mistrust and knew that this was a slavery organization of course!
I suppose, in case of a hand-to-hand fight, I would have turned out to be stronger in the end - being athletic and trained as a rower, I have a lot of strength in my arms - than Mustafa, supposed I had to fight him alone, he not having the opportunity to call for assistance. Also in this respect those heavy chains had an important function to control a slave: thanks to them even a much weaker overseer in a struggle was able to vanquish a thanks to years of rowing very muscled slave.
But if I had overpowered him in the parking lot indeed, and taken his keys of the car: would I have been able to find my way back to the airport soon enough, before HE would call the police, telling them that his car was stolen? And whom would those local cops more likely believe: a guy, versed in the culture and the language of his own nation, with a lot of connections perhaps to corrupt state officials, or a foreigner, not versed in either: I knew not very much about the Saudis, their country and their culture - I was in the next few months to learn much more, I said grimly to myself - and my knowledge of the Arabian language was compared to Mustafa's small too. To be clear: it was non-existent. And I doubted if the local police spoke Oxford English.
So in fact, retrospectively, the moment I stepped into Mustafa's car at the airport I was lost. Only at the airport itself had there still been a way back - but at that time there existed no reason for retracing my steps yet, at least not more than there had been before coming to Saudi Arabia at all. I tried to remember if I had had any hesitation or mistrust at that very early moment at the terminal. I had had indeed a very little, but as it was only based on my surprise not to see Mohamed - with whom I had had contact before - but somebody else waiting for me, there had been no real arguments, not to follow him.
Yes, now, looking back, perhaps there were, but what would you have done in my place then? I could not blame myself very much for joining him in the trip to the harbor, or afterwards for failing to escape once inside - I only could blame myself, and indeed did blame myself very much for my naivete, to respond to that treacherous advertisement and to take a flight to a completely unknown country for such a special trip, without knowing really something about the organizers. My big fault had been at the start, and once it was made, as a consequence of that I had inevitably ended up where I was now.
'Looking for a unique experience?' Yes, the whole thing already now, even before having seen one single oar, after only one single day, indeed had turned out to be a unique experience. A damned unique experience! Looking backward therefore, regretting my mistake, was depressing - but looking forward was even more terrifying.
What would it be like, to be a galley slave? To be forced to toil in heavy chains, in the heavy chains that were already forever bolted to my limbs for that purpose, under the hot sun and the threat of the lash, for hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month - perhaps year after year??? Oh, my God.... Yes, I had read in my youth something about that, yes, I had seen that famous film Ben Hur, that showpiece with lots of blood and whips and chains about Roman times, at the movies years ago, yes, I did. But reading a book or seeing a film about barbaric slavery in some distant past from a comfortable armchair isn't the same as to experience it sitting on the hard wooden benches of a galley in reality yourself.
I brooded about my future, and all this worrying kept me awake. I just failed to get all out of my mind for the necessary good rest. I because of that must have struggled for hours, despairing that I was still awake. And the heavy chains and collar, the physical uneasiness of having to wear and feel them all the time, the pain of the brands and the piercing didn't help to change that. Concentrating on trying to forget all and just on trying to sleep didn't help, trying to think about something completely else didn't help either.
So I opened my eyes and stared at the dark vault of my dungeon, and then closed them again, whereas the muted clanking of chains in some cells elsewhere along the corridor told me that I wasn't the only one fighting for sleep. I turned and tossed with my naked shackled body in the fuzzy straw - well, at last, I didn't smell it so much as in the beginning, it seemed as if I was already getting used to it - to find rest, without finding it. But at last I dropped off to sleep. It was to be my first night as a slave.