Lamentations of the Worker

Clicking surrounds me, constant and ever-present. The sound bounces around in my head, and I wonder if there's any meaning to it; I've heard everything happens for a reason, and I believe it... but what is the point of this incessant clicking?

It brings to mind a quote I read in high school, for an assignment... which I failed. Hey, nobody's perfect, right?

“Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.” ― John Berger

I don't know why this, of all the cramming and factoids and useless mathematical formulas, was the thing which stuck in my head. Nor did I know why it came to mind now...

What even is a cicada? The drone surrounding me is not any noise so sweet as that of a creature of nature. My torture is the clicking of keys, on mechanical keyboards, in small cramped cubicles, spaced just far enough apart to make us feel alone but not so far as to feel free of scrutiny.

"Get back to work."

Shocked from my reverie, I look up to see my boss standing over me.

"If you're done working, maybe we should just send you home early? You aren't getting paid hourly to sit around day-dreaming!"

I sit forward, hands instinctively riding back to my keyboard and mouse. My work was completed hours ago, but leaving early isn't an option. I need every dime of that hourly paycheck. "Yes, sir, sorry sir."

No signs of life penetrate my prison of cement block, in this busy city. I could be outside the building, but I would feel no more free. Tomorrow, at the same time, I will be back here with the clicking, because I have to be. My livelihood... my "career" depends on it.

Snap.

A piercing sound bounces around the courtyard as the whip comes down. It's unlike any other I have experienced, with a certain... weight to it.

Wet blood is the first sensation. It runs down my bare back, and I feel a stain begin to spread across the seat of my pants.

Boiling hot pain comes next.

They're yelling. Some are laughing. I see children in the surrounding audience, clutching tightly to their parents. They aren't afraid... just, curious. I make eye contact with the parents. Some look away; some spit, or make faces. These people are different from those I am used to, but even I can see they feel no sympathy for me.

Snap.

I let out a scream as the man behind me brings his arm down in another vicious sweep and, the tip of his whip contacts my skin.

My heart is beating madly, and I pull tightly against the bonds holding me to the whipping block. Voices flood from every watcherby, but I can't understand them. I know they are speaking English; my parents taught me how to recognize the language...

My parents.

I remember coming out of the cabin this morning. My mama warned me that it was too early, we leave to go to the fields for work when the guards come to collect us. I told her it would be fine. We work the plantation. Why should the masters be upset at me for standing outside in it at dawn?

My instincts, it seems, were wrong.

Snap.

Another yell escapes my lips as I am yanked back to the present by fiery pain.

Then, a soft thump; the whip falls to the ground. My torturer walks deliberately around me to plant his feet firmly in front of my face where I bend over, tied to the whipping post. He pulls my face up to meet my eyes, and I see such anger and violence in his face, I wonder what could possibly make a man so vicious.

He yells, veins popping from his neck and forehead, and I get the impression that he thinks he's teaching me a lesson.

Restraints cut from my wrists, I stand shakily, being sure to keep my eyes down lest I make accidental eye contact. "Flirting" with a white woman in the audience could be a death sentence. While I am no longer tied up, I feel an inescapable trap around my neck nonetheless.