it was night or day or how far they had traveled.

His ignorance of what Africans endured during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade could fill volumes. His plight was minimal compared to those who survived the Long March only to be piled on top of each other, shackled in the hulls of ships for months, unable to move, kidnapped and stolen from their homes and families involuntarily. Charles was there of his own volition. It was his choice, his vacation. Being inflicted with pain was his sick and perverted preference and he was paying the price, sorely.

He was in that hole so long, he was beginning to think that they were going to just leave him there to die and throw him overboard, food for sharks. The door opened and the light from the sun temporarily blinded him. He steadied himself and climbed on deck. He collapsed and tried to fill his lungs with the fresh sea air. A bucket of water was thrown on him and he could smell bleach and maybe some sort of insecticide or maybe a disinfected in it. He’d soiled himself at some point and his skin was started to sting and burn from lying in his own waste for so long. “Where are we? Where’s Mistress Emmanuelle?”

“Dewees.”

“What? What the hell is that? Bitch, tell me where I am! Take me back to the airport right away.” His normally subservient demeanor in the presence of Black women was thrown overboard as he demanded answers and demanded them immediately.

The captain seemed unfazed by his little tirade and instructed him to take off his dirty clothes and put on what amounted to little more than a rough burlap sack sort of covering and nothing else. She placed a ball gag in his mouth and leg irons on him. The steel cut into his flesh but he was unable to complain because he couldn’t speak. Once on land, he was tethered to a golf cart in which yet another lovely Black woman was responsible for his transport. “Keep up,” was all she said.

The island where they landed was like an oasis in the desert. The land was lush and the beach was pristine. There were no gas-powered vehicles and a huge hotel flanked the shores. It was the Island of Dewees and it was part of the Gullah Sea Islands that existed mostly in a time warp of traditional African culture and antebellum aesthetics. It was like something out of a Margaret Mitchell novel. The Black population of the island spoke fluent Gullah, a Creole language Charles had never even heard of before. They passed by the Black residents who waved at the driver and greeted her like she was a beloved neighbor, ignoring the half naked white man who scrambled behind secured with a rope. The white people they passed turned their heads in disgust and turned up their noses at Charles as if they knew what fate lay before him but they were accessories to his predicament with their disdain. He struggled to keep from being dragged like James Byrd knowing there would be no TV cameras there to report him being lynched to death. His shoes were left somewhere on the boat so he was forced to run bare-footed on the rough terrain. The majority of the journey