I was running. I didn’t know what it was, but it was terrible. All black and slimy, and some of it was getting on my leather, flimsy sandals. It smelled bad, too. Just like the pigs that were in the stables just to the side of me, while I was working in the fields. Smelling mephitic and contaminated. Gosh. The smell. But the thing was still chasing me. And it was getting closer…and closer…. I woke up, cold sweat dripping down my back, feeling like raindrops. I was still in her bed, sleeping beside Mama, still in cotton sheets that people like us had made many years ago. I was a cotton slave along with my mama, Deena Williams. Life was tough, but we could take it. After all, that was just life in Jackson, Mississippi. It was 1860, for goodness …show more content…
It was to surreal, but I knew the truth. Mama had the Bacon Sniffles.
The Bacon Sniffles aren’t what they seem to be. They’re also known as pig influenza. I had heard of people getting it before, but I never really thought about the chances of someone getting it until it was too late. There was no cure, and 100% of the people that got it died.
The massa’ let Mama go home and rest in bed. I, however, was allowed to keep working. All that time I was thinking about when Mama was going to die. She did seem unusually tired this morning, and she did have that bad cough. Why didn’t I realize it? Maybe her sickness was all my fault.
The news came in the late afternoon. Mama had passed on. I blinked at the man with the whip, tears in my eyes. Mama was gone. She would not be here to wipe the tears from my eyes anylonger. She would not be able to smile at me when my hands were scarred and hurt. She was gone.
“What are you doing? Keep working, and stop crying. You should be grateful ya still have a bed and some work to do. Work!” The whip captain spit in my face, and it drip off my chin. I grabbed the basket made out of corn husk, and went to work. I slept alone that night, and Suzy was the only one who comforted me in my grief. Now I used her as a mother figure, and she was the one who wiped my tears as I drifted off to