The sun beat down on our bodies, and I heard a bird shriek in the distant. I looked up and provided a short moment of shade for my eyes, as I removed a drop of sweat before my look went back to the dirty ground. Many hours later we went home from the field, and as we slowly returned to the gate, I got eye contact with the others and nodded in agreement. If we didn't do it tonight, we would never have the courage to try again. Or we wouldn't be alive to try.
As the moon rose in the horizon, my palms were getting sweatier, and my heart was pounding faster. I heard a crackling in the hay as the others slowly got up. The time had come. We crawled through a hole, that we had made under the wall. I looked up and saw the clear night sky for the first time in what felt like forever. I thought back to that day so many years ago when I was a free man. I was happily married to a beautiful woman, and we had a little baby boy named Tom Junior. God, I missed them! But now I had to focus on getting away from this hell on earth. I was not meant to be kept in chains; I was meant for bigger things.
I looked over the field, making sure no one was watching. Everything was quiet except for the other's nervous breathing. I heard a whistling like an owl from George, one of the others, and I knew that was the sign to start running. I could hear the others as they ran through the cotton field, and I could almost smell the freedom, but suddenly the quiet night was interrupted by a scream of pain. I flinched and tried to locate the sound. It was one of the others, and I hurried over to him. It was George, who had stumbled over a stone, and a bone was sticking out of his left leg. From the main building I could hear a door open, I turned around and saw a silhouette of a man with a gun in his hand. I helped George on his feet, and we tried to run as fast as we could, which wasn't very fast due to his broken leg. I heard a loud shot in the silent night, and I felt an instant pain in my back as I tripped and fell. I was hit. George turned me around. I looked up at sky till the image of my wife and baby boy, and I felt a peace I hadn't felt in years.
***
Words: 445
Written: October 2020
YOU ARE READING
A Sample of Essays
ContoA sample of individual imperfect novels. I wrote these stories in middle- and highschool. I need to proofread it, but I can't guarantee that it's correct now. I hope you'll like them. I translated some of them to danish.
