"Slavery" (gold miners, brazil) - Tim Barrus

Contemporary Slavery and HIV

(**Information to come)

"I thought about slavery today, I guessed and imagined... that's all I could do"

by Rachel

Someone showed me a photograph

He told me

It is slavery

Contemporary slavery

Today’s slavery

Somewhere out there far

Far from my home

I looked at the image

Cell phone, email transmitted

Photographic full colour

Amazing really

Today's technologies, are amazing, actually, I thought

To myself

It could be

Anyone's image

Anyone's cellphone transmitted

Anyone's today in my home

Instant looking from my

New York apartment

Far away

Now near to my cup of tea and

All my stuff, feeling like HOME

My looking led to wondering...

I wondered

What would it be like to be a slave

Someone’s slave

Having never been someone’s slave

I was only wondering

Guessing

I guessed

It must be pretty awful

Yes, I guessed

Definitely not something, I would choose

- That’s for sure

I was guessing though

Having never been someone’s slave

I had to imagine

What.

Imagine what exactly

With pain, I imagined

Yes, pain must come first

Pain, came second

Pain, came third

And Fear

Yes, I imagined fear

And

Crying

Would I cry if I was someone's slave

Yes, I am certain I would cry

A great deal

I decided

After looking

Transmitted colour

Technologies

Amazement

So far, so near, in my home

In an instant

In my guessing

The guessing of stranger by stranger

Slave, by not slave

Woman, by not man

Chance encounter

It is possible

To guess

To imagine

To dare to empathize

Slightly clenched breath

Under the weight of guessing

What it must be like

To be the fifth man

The fifth man on the path

He caught my eye

I don't know why

I guessed

With my eyes and my breath

Heavy sack

Straining

Climbing like a donkey

Nose to tail

Nose to side of tail

Looking at each step and stop

Up steep, steep mud and rock

Path

Was it a path

I looked.

For a while I couldn’t make out

That beyond, that below the fifth man

Then it dawned on me

It must be the gold mine, itself

I'd never seen a gold mine before

So reckoned it must be, so

The Gold Mine

I didn’t realize it would be so wide, so deep

So full of men

So open to the skies transmitting cell-phone images

I assumed, I guessed

The many below beyond the fifth man, who had caught my eye, for some reason

I guessed

Were slaves

All those men

Well, if not all

Then many, many of those men beyond the fifth man

Must be slaves, someone's slaves

After all

The transmitted subject box

Stated it :

"Gold Mine, Brazil. Slavery."

I know the stater

I know my friend, I believe him

Why would I not

He's a friend who tells the truth

In my experience, he tells the truth

Four words.

"Gold Mine, Brazil. Slavery."

The fifth slave man on the path

Must have

I decided

Walked far, like donkey

Hemp looking dirty looking sack

Nose to tail

Weighed lumpy sack of mud, lumpy mud

Pulling his head, his back, his neck, his legs, his lungs

I assumed

Gold nuggets were in the hemp looking dirty lumpy mud looking sacks

Yes, I think that's what it's name is

Although can't be certain

Don't know much about gold, the origins of gold

Gold nugget, fleck of gold perhaps, a name like that, perhaps

In the lumps of mud

Somewhere

Somewhere in the mud

In the heavy hemp looking sacks

On in the fifth slave man's back

What I remember most

What struck me

What has stayed in my mind

Are his legs

His dark legs

A slave's legs.

How strong his legs must be,

I imagined

His thirst

Heavy loads of infected HIV blood

Pumping through his legs

The strain of dirty blood

Again and again and again.

I looked away from the image

And swallowed

My pride

I sat

Looking away

From the fifth man's strong legs

Breathing slowly

Beating butterfly heart-beats

Wondering what to do

Reaching past my tea cup

And my laptop

Reaching for my Nivea Lotion

Dark blue plastic bottle

Tried to guess

How many bottles of Nivea Lotion

Would buy the fifth slave man, with legs

Walking nose to tail

Like donkey

With sacks of heavy mud

With gold somewhere in the mud

On his back

I thought to myself

How much money exactly is he worth.

I looked again

Wondering how to assess his value

Never having bought a man

I did not know the answer

As I pushed the white plastic pump of Nivea

Again and again and again

Globbing and smearing thick white lotion

Over my hands

Oozing it between my fingers

Again and again

What to do

Who is doing what

Who can do what

To help the fifth slave man

The liquid

Loosened my gold band

By chance

And

In that moment

I knew

I just knew

For sure

I could

Never wear

Gold

Ever

Again

life.

And,

I knew

I knew after guessing, imagining

After looking

After rubbing white Nivea Lotion

Over my hands

I knew clearly

I would never

Ever

Want to ever be

A slave

Somebody's slave

Anybody's slave

EVER.

And

What Now.

I feel like crying

For the stranger

For the fifth man

On the path

Nose to tail

I loathe gold

The pain of gold

Today