***
The dream went dark and a terrible stench filled my sleeping. Then there were flickers of light. In a split second I recognized where I was and instantly was filled with horror. I had pissed and shit on myself. There were tight chains on my ankles and wrists. I was lying on painfully rough, raw boards. There was terrible pain where the gray steel rubbed against my raw skin. I blinked through my sweat and tried to see where I was. Turning left, I could see my arm and shoulder, a black arm and shoulder. On each side of me was another chained black person and above me still others. In the dream I lay soiled and my thoughts were in a desperate frenzy.
I heard below and all around me the shifting and moaning of other people in their racks. The heat was harshly torrid and the smell overwhelming-sweet, prissy, rotten, salty, shitty. I felt a rolling sensation, a strong heaving up and down. I was flat on my back, with no more than six inches of clearance above my face. Through the gaps in the rack above me, I could see the frayed, bloody back of another chained, black slave.
***
My vision was assaulted by colors, a jumble of bits of color as seen in a kaleidoscope. The scene had changed and I felt a pleasant coolness. I was refreshed and calm. Out of that explosion of color came a soft white glow. There was something emerging. A face, a shadow of a face slowly became vivid. It was a dark, longhaired, strange-looking man with full beard and weathered sunburned forehead, nose, and cheeks. He looked to be about thirty-one, my son Amos' age, yet his was an ancient visage. Warm, sad brown eyes were set in his hollow face. Tears were rolling gently down his cheeks. His face was an image of reconciled sorrow.
He spoke to me slowly, "Show mercy, make justice, be humble." He then offered a faint smile, saying, "All who are able, get wisdom, repent and follow me."
***
I woke up crying into my pillow, not whimpering, but sobbing. I was afraid I'd be overheard and wake Mother in the next room. I buried my head deep in my pillow until I could control the fierce, abject pain erupting within me. I quickly got out of bed and went about my morning routine: teeth brushed, hair combed, and face washed, and dressed with gig line checked. I tried to push away my dream experience, with marginal success. I left in the dark. A half-Moon and its faithful pre-dawn partner, the Morning Star, lit my entry to another day of my troubled pilgrimage. But where was I off to, and for what?