Dragon Bike by Elly Blue

Author:Elly Blue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing LLP
Published: 2020-01-23T09:58:18+00:00

BEASTS OF BATARANAM

Taru Luojola

Peng Shian was of Chinese heritage, but they weren’t born in China. Not even Peng’s mother could remember how many generations ago it was when their ancestors were brought to Bataranam, the Dutch colony in South America where they were born. Peng wasn’t that different from the other slaves on the sugar plantation. Their friend Kibu remembered Africa, Jadine remembered the Caribbean, and Karmela thought they were from India, but they all had a similarly dark skin like Peng. Together, they all talked the same language of slaves and they all sang the same work songs.

But Peng’s mother didn’t want to forget the country of their family. At night, when Peng was sleepy after all the weeding, picking, carrying, and running, mother told them about China, the great country where dragons reigned. One day those enormous serpent-like beasts would bring luck and prosperity to Peng and their mother and raise a flood to wash away the slavers. When Peng told this to their friends, they almost got angry.

“Dragons aren’t some water snakes,” Jadine said. “They are monsters, and they fly and breathe fire.”

“And they have several heads,” Karmela chipped in.

“No, they don’t!” Kibu argued. “And you can’t really see them, other than when you’re sleeping.”

“You know nothing about dragons,” Peng snorted. But in Peng’s dreams all those stories mixed. They saw how powerful and scaly beasts rose from the river and flew around, spewing water from some of their heads and fire from the others, and ripping with sharp talons those who tried to enslave their people.

Peng’s childhood ended the day when Cornelis Brömmelspruit came to the plantation for their older sister Gen. The white master Brömmelspruit—or Römmel, as the slaves called them when there were no whippers within earshot—owned the plantation, and Peng, Gen, and their mother, and it wasn’t the first time that they had come to get young women.

Peng watched as Cornelis Brömmelspruit approached riding a bony iron horse, which didn’t have legs but two wheels. After them two other men rode two iron horses, pulling a metal cage. The men dismounted the iron horses and unsheathed their machetes.

“Run, girls!” Karmela’s mother hissed. “Run while you can!”

But Peng didn’t run. They stayed and watched as Cornelis Brömmelspruit strutted by the field and scrutinized the girls whom their whippers dragged to them. As Brömmelspruit stopped by Gen, they grinned and nodded, and the men who rode the iron horses grabbed Gen and walked towards the cage. Gen struggled. Their mother cried out and rushed after them, but the whippers caught them.

A whip lashed. Mother’s face split, and suddenly there was blood everywhere. The whip kept lashing. Other women cried and shouted and rushed to stop the whippers. The sun flashed on swishing machetes. During the turmoil Gen had already been locked into the cage.

Only then did Peng run. Together with Karmela, Kibu, and Jadine they escaped from the field to the forest. Nobody came after them because the whippers were attacking the women, and Cornelis Brömmelspruit and the convoy were already heading to the road with their iron horses.

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