The sound of a hoe clipping a stone rings with such clarity. In his dream it is like a shot fired from a pistol, a residual vibration in his hands where his palms are not the right kind of hard for this work. He had laughed about the first stinging blisters earned from the work in the field, flinching childishly from the cool rag applied to them in the low light of the bunk house. It has been funny then to think that any part of him was soft - or at least the way in which Thomas had tended to his palms had made it seem so. Let this work rearrange the hardest spots on his hands to be suited for a shovel instead of a sword, he had thought. Given time, they would have the same exact configuration of callouses.
TING! is the sound the of a shovel cracking a stone. TANGTANG! is the sound of the overseer's bell, so close to that of a ship's that for a time it seems only natural to obey it. Because the work is hard, but all work is hard; his back and shoulders ache, but his back and shoulders have always ached. It doesn't matter. The world and everything in it can do whatever the fuck it pleases.
Then a man named Benjamin who they have worked in tandem with is caught stealing from the smokehouse. Labor is paused. Every man in this field and the ones adjoining take a moment to gather in the heat of the day to watch as the foreman beats the thief with a cane across the back of his thighs like a boy. That's a little funny too - treating a stupid thief like a child. Benjamin yelps at the first crack of the cane. James lets his attention wander, fleeting out across the fields still waiting to be plowed and sown. He's sweating under his shirt. Crack, crack, crack. Benjamin has gone quiet now. James glances to Thomas, pauses, then looks back to where the cane rises and falls. Crack. Crack. Crack. Until Benjamin isn't silent anymore. Until the welts begin to bleed.
In the night, he rubs his thumb across the hard spots on his palm. During the day, while tightening the buckles of plow horse's harness, he asks Thomas without looking at him: "Are you happy here?"
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TING! is the sound the of a shovel cracking a stone. TANGTANG! is the sound of the overseer's bell, so close to that of a ship's that for a time it seems only natural to obey it. Because the work is hard, but all work is hard; his back and shoulders ache, but his back and shoulders have always ached. It doesn't matter. The world and everything in it can do whatever the fuck it pleases.
Then a man named Benjamin who they have worked in tandem with is caught stealing from the smokehouse. Labor is paused. Every man in this field and the ones adjoining take a moment to gather in the heat of the day to watch as the foreman beats the thief with a cane across the back of his thighs like a boy. That's a little funny too - treating a stupid thief like a child. Benjamin yelps at the first crack of the cane. James lets his attention wander, fleeting out across the fields still waiting to be plowed and sown. He's sweating under his shirt. Crack, crack, crack. Benjamin has gone quiet now. James glances to Thomas, pauses, then looks back to where the cane rises and falls. Crack. Crack. Crack. Until Benjamin isn't silent anymore. Until the welts begin to bleed.
In the night, he rubs his thumb across the hard spots on his palm. During the day, while tightening the buckles of plow horse's harness, he asks Thomas without looking at him: "Are you happy here?"