The slaves of Freetown

CHAPTER TWENTY

I have never set foot in such a large health center; everything is vertiginous, dizzying, and disorienting. The effervescence, the sound of clatter, the noises of the machines, and the anxiety of the relatives. It has nothing to do with our small dispensary in Freetown.

When we got off the ambulance, the caregivers who took Sky in charge had asked me to wait in a corner, along with other slaves. A woman passes on a stretcher. Her clothes are stained with blood, and her arms are swaying limply from left to right. At this sight, I dive back into Mistress Salvi's gaze. Her Form not leaving me ever since Sky's crisis, trying to convince me, insufflate false culpability. I no longer attempt to ignore her, turning to her looking for comfort. I squeeze my fingers around my chest, wanting to escape her embrace, which threatens to crush my heart. One of the nurses accompanying Jade comes to meet me.

"Are you Kanoa? Miss Freeman asks for you. Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything about her medical condition, as you aren't a member of the family. Did you managed to reach one of her parents?" he asks.

"Anna, her physiotherapist, has to take care of it, but I do not know where she is at the moment."

We walk down long corridors and take the elevator several times before arriving at the infectious diseases department. The nurse ushers me into the room and quickly slips away again.

"How are you feeling, Miss... Sky?"

I refused when she required me to do so, to call her by her name, pretending to a certain level of intimacy between us. Now that I have seen her in her most vulnerable state, seeking to bring us closer and fill the emptiness that our difference of status imposes on us, I could no longer put any sense in the naming and phrasing "Mistress Freeman."

"My head's still spinning, and I can't feel my leg at all, but otherwise, I'm... fine," she whispers, smiling weakly. "Where's Anna?"

"She is trying to reach your parents."

"My dad's not in town, and my mom told me that she will be in the operating room all day. She doesn't like to be disturbed there. Even less by things concerning me, no matter how urgent."

"It was a pretty violent crisis," I comment after a moment of silence.

"Like another bad omen, the confirmation of what's happening to us."

"What do you mean?"

She gets up in the bed, letting slip a cushion that I pick up and place at her feet.

"The source of the discord between my parents is a letter that my father received from the New York State government, refusing the renewal of his freed citizen's card. This had a direct impact on his work since he is suspended until he can prove that he will be able to validate his work permit. My mother also fears for her position. The boxes in my room are to send my stuff to my father's apartment in Chicago, where he received a temporary license to practice."

"I did not know that the enfranchisement was subject to renewal conditions." I blurt out, shocked.

"There is a whole list of conditions surrounding the Enslaved Green Card Lottery and the enfranchisement, regularly updated to the detriment of the slaves. These are secret closets that the freedmen swear never to mention. Otherwise, they will return to their status as slaves. To tell the truth, I'm not a gift either for my parents; I mean, I don't fit in the mold of what they see as a successful enfranchisement. Between the fact that I'm crippled and that I lead an Activist quest, they do have some reasons to get us out of the freedmen's quotas and downgrade us, like if we were criminals."

The door opens to another caregiver.

"I'm sorry, Miss, but we can't reach either of your parents, and I have to talk to you urgently."