Bonded

The sun bites hard on my back, my arms and my face as I squat over the countless unwanted weeds that crowd around the rows of ant-infested sugar cane. I watch my burnt hands mechanically pull out weeds, handful by handful, as I have been doing for years. I carelessly throw each handful into the sack strapped to my back. My dark toes dig further and further into the mud. I pause for a second and wipe the sweat off my face, then I resume the monotonous routine of pulling weeds. Yank, throw, yank, throw, wipe sweat off brow, fall onto butt. Not too far off, I hear the angry voice of my master, then the lash of a whip, followed by the agonising scream of a worker. I wince and continue to work, faster this time.

I am a sugarcane worker here in the Philippines, where they pay me 150 pesos (or 3.50 USD) each day. I am trying to help pay off the huge loan my father borrowed years back, but it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. My father, unfortunately is now dead and my mother is too weak to work, therefore I, as the eldest have to step up to earn money. My name is Dante, I am 15. I am the eldest. I am hungry. 

When I come home, I find my mother gone, and my 12-year-old sister, Diwata, sprawled across the linoleum floor, weeping. My face contorts into a confused but concerned expression as I quickly embrace her in my arms and ask, “Diwi, what is wrong? What is wrong?” She looks up, her hair matted in wet, salty slabs all over her face and sobs even louder. She screams, “They took mama! And they are going to take me, too!” I am angry now. 

“Where?” I ask, almost shouting. Tears staining my face, blurring my vision. 

“They…they took her to j-jail,” Diwata stammers. 

“And where are they going to take you?” 

Diwata shivers violently. “They… they want to sell me to men,” her voice wavers as she barely manages to finish the sentence. Her big, dark eyes seemed to plead with me, to help us escape this living hell. With my eyes I tell her I don’t know what to do. I feed a huge blow to the floor and continue to punch the surface till my fist hurts and blood trickles down my arm in a stream of red ink. Suddenly the door to my dimly lit house flies wide open, letting in the sour smells of the night. Two large men march in. One man carries handcuffs, and the other, a baseball bat. 

“You,” one of the men grunts, pointing to Diwi with a long finger, “come here.” 

Diwata looks at me with fear so thick, it makes my hair stand on end. “No.. No, Dante you can’t let them! You have to get us out of this-“ 

But it’s too late. They roughly grab her dark chocolate, stick-thin arms and cuff them behind her back. She desperately screams for help but no one, not even the neighbours come. They’re too afraid. I arrive to my senses. I have to save my sister, I have to save us, and somehow I’ll pay back all the money that we owe and we’ll be happy. I stand up. I am weak and hungry, but I somehow feel courage and bravery seep into my bones. I walk up to one of the men and punch him squarely in the face. He looks at me, and slowly his face twists into one of the most evil, and angriest I’ve ever seen. He grins and furiously returns the blow with his baseball bat. I fly across the room and hit my head, hard. “No!” My sister screams. I touch the back of my head and notice that my hair is caked in some sort of damp liquid. I look at my fingers and see them coated in red, red blood. 

As I attempt to get up but the two men surround me and start beating me up with what seems like all their might. They punch me all over, they kick and slap me in horrendous places and each time I try to get up, I am engulfed in a mass of agony, torture and regret. I beg them to stop, pleading at the top of my lungs, my voice cracking each time. But they only laugh as they hurt me even more, the pain unbearable and so excruciating to the point where dying starts to sound a lot better than trying to survive this horrific episode. Diwata screams and weeps and howls as she watches me get beaten to a pulp. “Your father never should’ve borrowed any money,” one of the men says coldly, as he finishes me off. 

I am broken all over. Blood is spilling from various places and I am in so much pain. The battle between Death and I raging like fire, and increasingly bloody. But one side is winning, it’s on its way to victory. And it isn’t me. “I love you, Diwi,” I croak weakly. My sister’s desperate pleading starts becoming muffled and inaudible, and I soon realise that my vision is growing dimmer and blurrier and that the pain dilutes bit by bit, no longer unbearable. This is the end.

End. 

Note: This is not an essay. It's not allowed to be, anyway.  I don't really quite know what it is. Though I think it floats somewhere between a dialogue thingy to a short story. I do hope you liked it.