Black


	"Black" he hissed, and that meant death.  The word
emerged, roaring from its frothy red cave.  Flickering inside, a
tongue that savored and spat out colors like betel leaves. 
Black.  A brittle finger that dug into my chest, boring deep the
officer's decision that I was to die.  "Black" he had said.  Two
sepoys, youngpantingeager, immediately dragged me from the
line.  Both gripped tightly, squeezing clenching tired flesh
with hard hands.  They bristled with a need to prove themselves,
but must have been disappointed in me, for they were not the
ones I wanted to fight.
	Black.  The betel spitting officer had just made the
last decision of my life.  Several comrades had been
granted "grey".  That meant they would be tortured, then
released near the border.  They were to be exiles.  And then
there were the few "whites" who were set free.  They were seen
as the harmless ones.
        I had been identified by a lanky teenager : a peon that
worked in our district office.  He stood studying the lines of
fresh arrivals, the shadows of his many betrayals making him
look older than his years.  But war had aged us all.  There were
more like him - a mixture of secretaries, office boys, darwans,
from districts all over.  Who knows how badly they had been
beaten, how many close ones cut down before them, to make their
heads spin and spin and spin, until they no longer remembered
what they were facing or where they came from. 
	They took me to a black barrack.  It was dark inside.  I
joined lines of men on the floor.  Once my eyes adjusted, I saw
several familiar faces.  A few nodded in greeting.  But many
just stared at the ground, at empty space, at anything, while
their minds churned out the thoughts men have before death.  I
have had those thoughts for three months now.
	We were a silent bunch with dirty rags stuffed into our
mouths.  On average a black prisoner has a few hours to live. 
There were many ways to die.  Sometimes we were just taken
outside and shot.  But that was no fun for them.  They preferred
target practice : tied together we were made to wade through
water at night, with torches positioned behind us.  This was for
officers that needed shooting exercise.  Sometimes we were
buried alive.  There were more painful ways.  Dangerous
prisoners were kept for several days; broken bit by bit.  
	I was not important enough for special treatment.  But
there were a few among us that would not be let off easily.  It
must be difficult, having to worry if you could die honorably;
if you could die with dignity, not asking, not begging, for the
pain to stop.  For if you did, you were letting thousands down. 
Millions.  Those that could never ask for their pain to stop. 
For theirs was that of losing mothers, fathers, children; losing
everything they had and being left alive.
	But I would die with a smile, because I knew the more of
us they killed, the lower we would crouch among the river
weeds.  The faster we would tear through the rice fields and the
calmer we would wait on an empty stomach.  We strike just when
they cut us. And we would take it until every single one of us
was free.  Because each one of us knew that there was no
punishment, no torture they could mete out, that we hadn't
endured already.  Because we are the gentlest people with the
hardest resolve.
	My turn was six to seven hours away.  It did not take
long to figure out their system.  Approximately every forty
minutes, about a hundred of us would be chosen, starting from
the front of the tent.  The "special" prisoners would be
separated.  Those sitting near the front had everyone's eyes on
them.  For that was how we talked - the gags meant nothing.  The
human eye can hold so much more, can speak so much clearer than
made up words.  Strange how many were dying for a language, but
we could talk this easily with our eyes.
	And we were saying to them, the ones closer to death,
that it was all right, that each one of us left, would keep
fighting.  That there was no end.  There was no loss too heavy
for our freedom, and now was not the time to doubt.  Now was
when we stared at our captors with the same fire all seventy
million of us carried.  A fire that confused our killers, scared
them, and told them very quietly, very deep inside, that they
could never win.
	When my turn came, they brought me here.  About forty of
us are chosen, to donate blood for their wounded.  To donate
blood.  They�re bleeding us to death.  Some officer walked in
told and us we would be fed later, and that we were the lucky
ones.  I cannot understand why they lied about it, and why they
keep lying.  You�d think they could tell from the smell in the
air that we knew we were dying men.
	They tied us down on these benches and strapped a needle
into an arm.  The needle Is connected by a tube to an empty
plastic bag.  A large plastic bag.  And as I watch myself
pouring into this bag, I am surprised by how dark my blood is. 
Maybe it is all my years of struggling and plotting that has
colored my blood so.  All the years of straining my body to the
fullest; lashing it with thoughts and sights that nobody should
face.  And to think that they want this blood.  Don�t they know
that this blood can never be used to hurt our people?  That each
one carrying away our blood will fall?  Just as we�re falling. 
Just as I am now.  But there�s a difference.  I die terrified,
but content deeply within.  Because I know I am not leaving. 
This bag full of me will go somewhere, to someone who will know
a little what It was to be me.  And as our killers lose
themselves to us, they lose their war. 
But they had lost it from the start.












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