WHITE OUT!
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

WHITE OUT!

I am now dreaming and I am gripped with fear.

I am a young warrior and I have seen ships heading for the shores of my homeland, Africa. I knew they came for my people.

My village was so far untouched, but I knew it was just a matter of time, before the whites came and took us all away. I was prepared to fight the white slave traders even to the death, which was preferable to chains.

The force of the whites was not a good enough reason for me to submit to them. I know they would surely kill me, but there are some things worth fighting for and this was the most important…to keep evil men from putting their hands on me.

I was ashamed to admit, my fury and indignation, was not that my family would be taken and mis-treated, even though that would be unbearable. I wanted to kill the whites, even for the thought, that they could come to my property and take my family for their service and pleasure.

I had a plan. I needed thirty warriors from different tribes and I only had an hour, at best.

Watching the whites during past slave gathering trips, I noticed two things; they would leave their ships, except for a few men, who would stand watch. The rest would go ashore to assemble the cages, which they would use to hold the captives.

They had guns, which were better than spears and bigger guns on the ships, which made a loud noise. I heard them fire one during their last trip, to scare the tribal leaders into submission. But I wasn’t afraid, I was angry.

I gathered the warriors together and prepared them for the attack. Since the whites were not expecting any resistance, we had a better chance. I could tell by the smirks on their faces when they had taken our women during past slave gathering trips, that they felt they were better than us. They were not better and I was going to prove it.

I divided the warriors into two groups; the first group was a band of four warriors, which included myself. We slipped into the water and moved toward the ships. We surrounded our heads with green foliage, so we would look like floating brush.

When the ships arrived they set anchor a few miles before the shore. Over two-dozen white slave traders lowered themselves into small rowboats and paddled toward land. When they were more than half way to the shore, we approached the ships. We climbed up the same rope ladders the slave traders had used, to lower themselves into the boats. The few men on board were tending to their duties, not expecting anything, other than that which was routine.

Within a minute, we took the ships and slit the throats of the crewmen. The slave traders, who were paddling their rowboats to shore, had no idea that their ships, were now in the hands of their prey.

I pointed one of their big guns directly at the slave trader’s rowboats and lit the fuse with one of the cigars, which was taken from the mouth of one of the dead crewman.

The big gun fired directly into the midst of the white slave traders over turning their boats. Then, the second group of African warriors ascended into the water, swimming toward the boats with knives in their teeth.

The whites had no way to defend themselves. Their gunpowder was wet and they were using both hands to stay afloat. Their only thought was to make it to shore. They never did.

The African warriors retrieved the undamaged rowboats, guns, cages, chains and ships.

Also, on their ships were maps, which showed the lands, where the slave traders came from. The tribal leaders knew how to draw maps in the dirt, but these maps were unfamiliar.

I had gained stature among my people for killing the slave traders and preventing them from taking more people from my village. When I announced I was going to the land of the whites to find the people, who had been taken from us, I had overwhelming support from the tribal leaders.

I took three thousand warriors armed with knives and guns, which we took from the white slave traders. We set sail from the northern part of Africa heading north for Spain. Once we were there, we anchored our ships at the southern tip of the continent and watched the spaniards as they went about their daily routines. The spaniards had many ships, better than the ones we had taken from the white slave traders.

I watched these Spanish conquerors and inwardly admired them. I knew that our few ships, was no match for their fleet of ships. If we were going to take them, it would have to be from land at night.

I sent warriors to scout out the area and particularly watch the officers of Spain’s naval fleet as they would come and go each day. I directed the other warriors to make camp deep within the forest and to become familiar with the land and it’s resources.

After a few days, I sent five hundred of our bravest and most skilled hunters to follow the officers, when they would leave their ships at night and kill them. If the hunters completed their mission, the officers would have been taken out without notice and their bodies buried in the forest. When each warrior accomplished his mission, he was to go to a certain place on the southern tip of the country. The rest of the warriors, some twenty-five hundred, would take the Spanish ships, with an inland frontal assault.

As our warriors approached the ships, everything in the harbor was still. The moon shined its light across the waters and bathed the ships with light.

Silently, we approached the harbor and entered into the ships. We looked for the watchers of the ships and to our surprise, there were only a few on watch that night. The spaniards also had watchmen in high towers, to search for enemy ships coming from the ocean. They had no reason to be concerned about an attack from within their own land.

We killed the few watchers on the ships. The cannons were turned toward the city and lit. Seconds later, there were the sounds of cannons firing. The still night became a war zone. The assault went on for an hour and a half, destroying the Spaniard’s shops and homes.

I signaled for our warriors to leave port. Every ship in Spain’s fleet, pulled out of the harbor, heading south, to pick up the hunters, who were waiting for us.

We headed back to our village, where I planned to call a meeting of the tribal leaders to gain their support for future missions.

When the villagers saw our ships in the distance, they were afraid, believing that the slave traders were returning in great force to take more people captives. But their fears turned into rejoicing as our warriors stood proudly on the decks of the ships that we took from the Spainiards in battle.

It was at this time, that I was no longer in my dream. My spirit was raised above the earth as I saw the story continue to unfold before my eyes.

Over the next few years, the Africans returned to Spain and subdued the land, establishing their government and culture there. Spain became the first conquered nation of the Africans. They stripped the Spaniards of their culture and anything that reflected their Spanish heritage.

All souls became their property. The Africans had no regard for human dignity. The Spaniards knew that their African captors demanded obedience. Disobedience had only one punishment, death.

It wasn’t long, before the Africans, expanded their conquests into neighboring France. France fell hard and was an easy victory. The resources from that rich and furtile country added to the Africans wealth and developing government.

Next, they sailed for England. The English were far more difficult to overcome. It took three years to conquer the whites on the British Isles, but the English lost their fight.

While interrogating their English slaves, they found out that it was the whites from America who had captured their people.

Within a few months, the Africans sailed for America. The journey was long and arduous and many Africans died along the way.

The journey was completed within six months. They landed north of America on a barren, cold, snow-covered land. The warriors stayed near the shore, except for hunting parties, which provided food, to last them through the winter.

By the first thaw, the Africans had lost two thousand warriors, due to disease and the cold. This left them with twelve thousand, who were now adjusting to the weather.

The Africans sent out scouts, who determined that most of the settlements were on the coast.

The warriors were divided into three groups; those who manned the African’s ships, those who were sent to blow up the white’s ships and those who would attack from inland, causing the whites to fight on three fronts.

Warriors were sent with explosives to two-dozen harbors, along the eastern seacoast. By the end of the night, half of the ships in the American fleet were destroyed, but with a heavy cost in African lives.

The Africans fired on the remaining white’s ships. As the whites rallied to the coast, the inland invasion force attacked from the rear.

The battle went on for days. The Africans took many of the coastal cities. But the Americans would not surrender easily and the battle continued for many months.

Finally, the colonies fell and the Africans established a large presence in each of the settlements, setting up their own government and law enforcement.

The Africans freed the slaves and received them back into their tribes. Some slaves did not want to be freed initially, because they had grown use to the whites providing for them. But in time, they were eventually restored to their tribes and their families.

There was still resistence from the whites, but the decisive hand of the Africans, showed fierce single mindedness, as they slaughtered forty thousand whites over the next several years.

The Africans subdued the whites, making slaves of them. They were brutal and many whites did not survive, under the Africans oppressive whips. The acts of violence performed against the whites, devalued their humanity. Animals, who were treated as property, were often treated better than the enslaved whites.

The African owners would often cut off the white slaves toes, to reduce their flight risk. They would brand their slaves with red-hot irons, to establish ownership. The white’s children would be sold or traded like currency. Beatings were routine upon the white slaves, to show the African’s dominance and superiority.

There was a name that soon became a general disparaging term for the whites. Since the whites refered to themselves as caucasians, the Africans began to call them cawcers. There was nothing particularly wrong with the name, but it was the fact, that they said it with such disdain.

Within ten years, the Africans invaded Mexico and Latin America. The Africans used the whites as slave soldiers, who did most of the killing and dying for them. Within fifty years, the Africans ruled most of the known world and possessed all of the abundant resources of these lands.

The Africans were most capable, when it came to creating technology, but they also had the ability, to harness the skills and ingenuity of their captives.

Since the Africans ruled most of the world, there was no longer competition between nations, no trade barriers, only a free flow of commerce, which accelerated the growth of the African government.

As the centuries passed, the whites became frail, due to their being in captivity for such a long time. Their crushed spirits caused them to lose hope. The Africans were concerned, that they might lose their slave labor, so they began conducting research, to find a medical solution to the white’s deteriorating health problem.

The white’s broken spirit had caused them to suffer an extreme level of stress, that over time, caused their metabolic systems, to create new strains of toxins, which infected their blood stream.

An African chemist, experimenting with the hormone adrenaline, discovered a drug that could regulate the amount of adrenaline produced by the body. He believed this would not only increase the white slaves energy, but also their productivity.

The injections were ordered by the “African World Council” to be given immediately. It wasn’t long before large numbers of white slaves were becoming gravely ill.

After several months, The African Council ordered an investigation and found that the metabolism of the white slaves was not strong enough to withstand the adrenaline injections and as a result was shutting down many of their vital organs, which caused a system wide collapse of regulatory bodily functions.

By the time the problem was diagnosed, the whites…all of them…everywhere…were dead!

The Africans became alarmed. For the first time, in a long time, they would have to do their own work. This caused great anxiety, so much so, that relations between the various African nations began to break down.

Eventually, war broke out between various African nations over land disputes, water rights, government policies and countless other problems. The whites were no longer the whipping post for the African’s anger.

In a few years, there were dozens of wars and as a result, commerce began to break down. There grew divisions between various tribal nations, so that, many vital systems shut down, such as mass transit, communications, emergency services, law enforcement and most importantly, their judicial systems.

On a fateful day, due to shortages of skilled man power, a nuclear power plant, suffered a cataclysmic meltdown and subsequent explosion, killing a half million people. The African Government had a difficult time replacing the skilled white slave labors, who had manned the power plants, until there death.

The African World Council, which was now splitting apart, launched a nuclear retaliatory strike, believing the nuclear explosion was an attack against them. As the nuclear attacks ensued, the effects were horrifying.

The insane reaction by the African leadership, was due to the deep-seated anger, they felt, which had been passed down through the generations and was the root of the harsh treatment, they inflicted on the whites. Since the whites, could no longer be the recipients of their rage, they directed it toward each other.

Entire societies fell. Madness gripped the spirit of the age. Blood lust could not be satisfied. Hating had become a way of life for them, which had caused their spirits to become hard to the suffering of the whites. No one would stop the rage long enough to take stock of what was happening.

When the bombs finally stopped and silence filled the earth, there were only a few people who survived. Due to the earth being polluted with nuclear waste, they died as well.

The sky grew dark and an ominous presence hovered over the earth. Then terror gripped…me!

I awoke suddenly gripping my knife! I am the young African warrior, who I saw in my dream. I could not believe the things I have just seen and could not be sure, if what I saw really was a dream or a vision from God.

I now realized that I could not fight against the white slave traders. Any action I took in my own strength, could have harmful effects for me and my people.

And so, I knelt…and prayed.

When the white slave traders came, we captured them and took them to our village.

There we taught the white slave traders the African language and also learned the white’s language. In time, we came to an agreement with the whites to go back with them to their land and bargain a trade agreement on behalf of the African people. The agreement would provide wages and trade of goods, in exchange for labor and a better quality of life for the African people.

The next day, we set sail with dozens of African warriors, willing to go to this new land for the prospect of a better life for ourselves and our families.

As I stood at the helm of the flagship, I saw myself, not as a warrior, but as an ambassador for my people, with God by my side.

Copyright © 2007 Mark Edgemon

Return to: The Works of MARK EDGEMON
Return to: Spiritual and Inspirational Stories