PART 4
I awakened from my own silent scream, retching in panic. The muscles in my lungs tried to draw a breath with all their strength, but in vain. In a last-ditch effort I instinctively blew the little remaining air through my nostrils, and a thick, slimy clot of snot and blood landed on my thighs. I was gasping for breath, but finally I calmed down a bit. Why had I done that? Just a couple of seconds more, and I might have lost consciousness. The ordeal could have been over.
From what did I even “awaken”? Surely not from sleep. A part of my consciousness had shut down, but the pain hadn’t stopped for a single second. My brain was overtaxed with processing the pain. It had short-circuited all other functions. I had become pain itself.
My lower lip was entirely numb. I tried to purse my lips, but I couldn’t. Every single muscle in the lower half of my face had been stretched or squeezed. They had been cramping for hours. Without sufficient blood flow, they must have started to die off. Oh God! I tried to move my lips again, my tongue, my jaws. Nothing. God help me! Parts of me were dying already!
Unfortunately, the numbing didn’t mean that the pain had gone. It had just moved, to my throat, to the roof of my mouth, into the nasal cavity and behind my eyeballs. The agony would wreak its havoc there too, spreading more partial death, cell by cell. Fucking bastards! This gagging device was so simple. Just a few pieces of metal, a few screws. But it was the baton of death, passed on from victim to victim. It was not only killing me, but it connected me to a long chain of meaningless suffering beyond all bearing. The guard had been right. The psychological torture wasn’t any less than the physical one.
Almost ridiculously, I became obsessed with my increasing urge to pee. But such trifles seemed to be the handrail the mind uses to drag itself along. There was a metal toilet bowl in the nearest corner. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. I didn’t know if any of my cellmates had used it. There had been some stumbling around, but I wasn’t aware of my surroundings most of the time.
Every movement hurt. It’s not the right word. I don’t have a word for it. The urge just to let go on the spot was almost overwhelming. By the sickening smell of ammonia wafting through the air, some women had given in the temptation. To my own surprise, my spirit hadn’t been broken totally yet. On the contrary, I felt defiance which gave me some strength. The fucking assholes out there were dehumanizing us and killing us. I would fight for my dignity for as long as I could! I wouldn’t sit in my piss for the last hours of my life.
Brave thoughts that I couldn’t deny, but that I immediately regretted. Getting up was a struggle. Half upright, bend like an animal, I made agonizing progress step by step. I started to pee prematurely; it ran down my legs. With my last ounce of strength, I reached the toilet. The price for preserving a shred of dignity had been high. I sank down, right next to the disgusting bowl. I couldn’t imagine I would ever get up again. But I knew they would make us.
My mind was surprisingly clear at this moment. I looked around the room. There were more than a dozen female bodies, interwoven with each other and a jumble of chains. This mound of suffering meat groaned and grunted incessantly. Squealing like a group of oversized rats. Vermin. That’s what was we were to them, and that was what they made us. I could see some blonde hair, some brown, some red. Almost translucent marble white next to dark ebony black skin. All of their bodies were hauntingly beautiful, even in the knot of torment they’d been tied together in.
What was happening on this island was absolutely insane. At the beginning of the 21st century! It was a stain on the face of humanity that would never go away. It needed to stop! But I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I was just an insignificant piece in a jigsaw of unspeakable cruelty.
– – –
During the passage to Vanubati I had plenty of time to think. Why was it important that I had insisted on a lawyer and contact to the embassy? They told me they were about to relocate me to Radagar. There I could have done that until I was blue in the face. I started to question if this jungle prison even existed. They tortured me physically and threatened sexual abuse and hard labour to make me sign a stupid legal document, including the renunciation of all basic human rights?
The whole story didn’t make sense at all. I had been skilfully trapped from the very beginning. Maybe even Mr. Omenill was in on the plan. He had wanted to lay people off. Maybe this was a convenient way to save the compensation.
Even if Radagar existed, my treatment on the transport ship under the flag of Vanubati made me question whether it really would have been the worse choice. My cell was nothing more than a regular container. Two holes had been drilled close to the ceiling for ventilation. In the night it was pitch dark, during daytime I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face. I had to sit and sleep on the bare steel floor.
Occasionally they threw plastic bottles of water and some rotting fruit into the container. I had only a plastic bucket to relieve myself. The filthy smell and heat were nearly unbearable. The only variety from the endless days in the dark were the short trips to empty the plastic bucket every few days. The beauty of the Pacific Ocean was in sharp contrast to the misery of my desolation. I tried to initiate conversation with the crew members who guarded me during these occasions. But all they replied, was “Shut up, slave!” and “Hurry, slave!”
Finally, we arrived. The anchor chain rattled, and the engines stopped. After a while there was a loud noise from the roof of my container, metal scratching against metal, and I felt like I was in a slow elevator. My prison was set on the ground again. Hours passed. Then more noise, another elevator ride in the dark, and then I fell on the hard metal floor, knocked over by an unexpected acceleration. Lastly, the prison container arrived at its destination.
The door was opened, a dockworker entered, and immediately began to shout and hit my naked exposed body with a thin cane.
“Up! Up! Up! Out! Out! Out! Out! Move! Move! Faster, you lazy slave! Move!”
The strokes fell in the staccato rhythm of his words. I hurried towards the door and outside. I was blinded by the bright light after all this time in the dark, but the docker was relentless. He drove me to a small building which turned out to be a simple shower room.
“Clean yourself, dirty pig!”
It felt refreshing to get the filth of my body, even though the dockworker was watching and screaming to better hurry. He switched off the water.
“That’s enough. Move!”
The cane stung more on my wet skin. I screamed. The docker seemed to be encouraged by that and a hailstorm of cane strokes swept across my back.
“Move!”
He drove me with a flurry of blows to a fenced area, and he pushed me in.
“Wait here! Don’t talk to the other slaves. It is punishable by death!”
My eyes widened. Capital punishment for talking to another person? Oh, “person”. I was still thinking in my old categories.
There were about twenty-five young women scattered over the area. Most of them were sitting on the floor, some were striding up and down. They all looked emaciated and shaken up. I sat down and felt the warm wind on my skin, drying the drops that ran from my wet hair. It was my first pleasant experience since the fateful day at the airport of Melbopan. Or maybe I had already changed to the point where such a small thing could bring me solace.
By and by more women arrived. Alone, in groups of two or three, a group of six. Women from around the world, all naked, in chains and with marks of the cane. Three dockworkers patrolled among the captives. Every few minutes an officer in an eccentric red uniform appeared from the other side of the entrance, picked a woman, and took her inside a building at one end of the fenced area. I hoped that it would be a while before it was my turn.
But it was not long before the officer stopped in front of me and pointed his finger.
“You! Follow me, slave!”
I obeyed. At least this guy wasn’t using the cane he carried on his belt by default. From behind he looked like a Mountie. A Mountie in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It didn’t take long before I learnt to hate and fear this inappropriately colourful uniform. But maybe the colour of blood was apt after all.
Inside the building I was led before a wide desk with five men in the same uniform behind it. Appraising glances, whispering, nodding.
“Squat slave!” – “Kneel, slave!” – “Turn around, slave!”
Glances, whispering, nodding.
“B!” the man in the middle declared.
Another officer took over and led me to a desk to the side of the room.
“B” he said to the clerk behind the desk as if he hadn’t heard it from the other guy already.
“B. 4905-9268.”
He handed me a card with the letter B, the number, and a barcode on it.
“That’s your slave registration number. Memorize it! Failure to identify correctly is punishable by death!”
I stared at the number. 4905-9268. 4905-9268. 4905-9268. Forgetting a number: another insignificant transgression that led to capital punishment. I hoped that they weren’t serious but just trying to intimidate the new arrivals. But every time I thought they weren’t serious, it turned out they were serious. Deadly serious. 4905-9268. 4905-9268.
I was led to the next desk.
“Nationality?”
“American.”
“Not any more. Your American citizenship is declared void. You’re a Vanubatian slave from now.”
The three exits from the building were labelled “Eng”, “A–C”, and “D”. The system of slave castes was never explained, but it wasn’t difficult to understand. At least the categories “A”, “B”, and “C” were. “Eng” I assumed meant “English” and was applied to new slaves with insufficient proficiency in this language. But “D”? Well, there were rumours.
“D” slaves apparently were regarded as not attractive enough to serve in the other castes. I overheard conversations that they were immediately disposed of on arrival, converted into fish food for the numerous big fish farms around the island. Some whispered that they were just pushed into a giant meat grinder. This seemed far-fetched, even for such a horrendous place as this. It would have been bad business either. I thought it was more likely that “D” slaves were sold internationally as cheap prostitutes.
“C” slaves were considered more attractive, but not attractive enough to serve the locals and the rich who had moved here. They were given as maids and no-limit sex slaves to tourists and the foreign workers. Initially, foreign construction workers had been enslaved too, but the government soon realized that it was more effective to give them a slave than to enslave them. Applications for work permits were numerous.
If “C” slaves were lucky, their temporary owners just liked to be waited on hand and foot. But word-of-mouth advertising attracted a specific kind of visitors: the cruel and sadistic ones who paid well for the opportunity to live out their fantasies. Hotels in other countries had pools and bars and gyms; hotels in Vanubati offered all-inclusive torture chambers. “C” slaves quickly became scarred in body and mind, and were demoted to “D” slaves.
“A” slaves, as you probably suspect, were the most beautiful women when they arrived on the shores of this hellish island. When the locals became wealthy from the oil industry, they wanted to show off their new riches. It became a fashionable trend to buy models and present them as party decorations or living statues. Others started to use body modifications to optimize the slaves or to transform them into their living dream body. It didn’t take long, and the absolute deprivation of rights and the tolerance of treating the slaves as their owner saw fit led to an influx of rich sadistic people from all around the world. The most beautiful women under absolute control of the most sadistic men: heaven on earth for some, a living hell for the others. Historians will report about the atrocities committed. Once the slaves showed a minimal flaw, a lost tooth, a scar, or a branding that wasn’t absolute perfect in the eyes of their owner, an absurd crime was fabricated and the innocent victim sentenced to death. If they were lucky, they were hanged. But usually they were crucified. And a new slave girl would be ordered.
The island was small and overpopulated. On the day I was unloaded, at least twenty-five new arrivals were brought to Vanubati. If that was a usual business day, more than 5,000 newly enslaved women came to the island every single year! Throughput needed to be quick to make the business flourish and keep the sadists happy. Not only currency undergoes inflation, so does the value of human life and suffering. People got used to the screams of the tortured and the sight of mass executions. The beautiful island of Vanubati became a pitiless bone mill.
“B” slaves had the easiest among the cruel fates. They were used as domestic service slaves. Doing all kind of menial tasks, they were rarely abused sexually. They were just treated like living household appliances and worked to exhaustion. Always naked and in chains, always humiliated. My days were an endless series of work from before dawn to late at night, always in fear of not completing an order to my owner’s satisfaction. I’ve been whipped bloody for forgetting an item on the shopping list. I’ve been told I would be killed if I broke a piece of porcelain. Even the “B” slaves wouldn’t last long.
But my downfall didn’t come from a job done badly. When I served at a party a guest, a former compatriot approached me, seemingly outraged about the atrocities committed on this island.
“Why does our country allow it to happen?” I whispered.
“Government! You know how it is. They are happy to get oil without sticking their fingers into the mess in the Middle East. So, they turn a blind eye.”
He looked around whether someone was listening, and then whispered: “Do you think it would be possible to get away on a boat?”
“I don’t know. Security is said to be pretty tough.”
“So you want to escape, eh?”
Two officers in red uniform appeared, and I was petrified.
“You heard her. She’s trying to flee from this wonderful country that allows us to treat this scum like it needs to be treated.”
I didn’t even contradict. They wouldn’t care. I should have known better. I had been betrayed before.
“We need some evidence for the trial”, one of the red uniforms said.
“Sure.”
He took a scrap of paper and wrote: “4905-9268 has confessed she was planning to flee from Vanubati.”
My death by crucifixion was assured.