REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS

ON THE TITANIC.

As my arm moved swiftly downward,

my eyes swept up

and became instantly blinded by the floodlight

in the eaves.

In that split second, a million images went through my mind...

everything from the Beardsley graphics to the film images...

of dark men and women at the slave stake..

with rivers of sweat

running down fresh red furrows

and pen and inks of pain and petticoats.

I waited for the sense of contact between leather and skin,

and the sound of the scream at the crack of the whip.

When it came,

it was bloodcurdling...

a high involuntary shriek of agony and surprise,

I could feel the stock leap in my fingers,

the white buckskin tendrils as they wrapped savagely around warm flesh...

I listened to the crescendo in the scream

as it bubbled up

from some deep and hidden unexplored part of the soul...

it was an eerie, horrifying sound...

all the moreso because I knew the voice..

even at that timbre it was clearly recognizable...

It was my own.

My eyes leaped to my lower thigh

where the leather choked the muscle...

the stool before me was gone..

and so was Lamarr Jean.