Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 01:48:22 +0100
From: Ben Hur <ben-hur-of-judah@outlook.com>
Subject: The Unique Experience Part IV

   There I stood, next to the bench, chained as a galleyslave. With horror
I looked at the thick fetter encircling my right ankle, and at both very
heavy chains with their very big links that connected the fetter to the
manacles around my wrist. At the outside of the fetter swung the big empty
ring that led to nowhere, the purpose of which I didn't yet understand. The
longer I stood there, the more I became aware of the immense weight of my
new set of slave irons, tugging on my limbs.

   Only one out of four of them was still unchained (and would remain so),
but if you may think that this would heighten my chance to escape - as of
course I hadn't accepted becoming a slave at that moment already, so the
idea of escape as such was still somewhere pricking my mind - I have to
disappoint you: no way.

   If I tried to run, with one foot shackled to my hands, I would entangle
myself rather quickly in the unhandy connecting chains, which moreover
would jerk both my wrists and especially my very vulnerable ankle the whole
time in a very painful way: there is not much flesh around your bones over
there, so you feel the hard iron cuff rubbing immediately with every quick
movement you make. And even if you can stand that, you, by being forced to
run in a very irregular way thanks to the asymmetrical arrangement of the
whole, have to concentrate more on your chains than on finding your way
out, because otherwise you will soon lose your balance and stumble over
your chains.

   So if you as a reader might be on the point of advising me to try to
escape now again (apart from that, in what direction?), I have to state
that such a thing was rendered totally impossible, and would in fact still
be so in all later stages of my slavery. No, I can assure you, all was
thought well through by those slavers in this damned building and
thereafter. They clearly didn't want to run a risk, and above all not the
risk that a slave would run.

   However, there first was - as if to fortify this interpretation of mine
- an extra security check. After having me standing upright, Omar went on
his knees to feel the bolt that riveted the fetter around my ankle
together, testing its stability, shaking the now connected flat ends of the
fetter rather roughly, I felt the hard iron rubbing my skin rather
painfully - the bolt didn't gave way even a thousandth of an inch. Then he
stood up, to do the same with the bolts that riveted my manacles. Of course
they didn't give way either.

   Omar again looked very satisfied and than grinned at me: "Well, slave,
you will not be able to run away now anymore. Those chains will not come
off ever. You better get yourself acquainted with that soon."

   Than he said: "We will continue now."

   As we were apparently finished here, I understood his words to mean that
he wanted me to walk over, but this wasn't the case.

   When I made preparations to take a second step, Omar intervened: "No, we
are not finished here yet. Just turn around and lie back down on the bench,
this time with your slave head in the direction of the anvil."

   While I wondered what was going to happen next, fearing something
unknown and horrible, Omar shouted to the assistent: "Ali, get this slave
his collar."

   The collar - indeed, the collar. Mohamed had mentioned it in passing in
the reception room. I had forgotten it completely during the last few
minutes, as I was totally overwhelmed by becoming chained. The collar!

   Oh my God, would that collar be as huge and heavy as the irons that
already were riveted to my limbs? Again trembling I turned to the bench, as
commanded. You may perhaps wonder about seeing me obey. But what else could
I do?

   So I tried to climb onto the bench again, in the reverse direction this
time, which was not as easy as my last climb, as the heavy chains tried to
keep my hands and feets down. The chains rattled loud, making a lot of
noise, with every movement I made. Would that sinister sound indeed always
accompany me from now on?

   While I was doing that, Omar turned the anvil a quarter, to have it
square to the bench. I now for the first time in a flash noticed that next
to the far end in the main direction of the anvil - and stretching from
what now, after this turning, had from my viewpoint become the near side -
a kind of semicircular drain was carved out, some 5 or 6 inches wide and
about the same in length. At the far end it was left complete open, at the
near end a thick ridge protruded inwards for perhaps an inch more or
less. Would that have something to do with my forthcoming collaring? Seeing
the drain, I couldn't help having views of cruel medieval punishments like
beheading coming to mind, although this, in respect of my destination of
becoming a galleyslave, of course did make no sense at all. But my first
spontaneous association of the drain was with the guillotine.

   After some struggling I finally succeeded in getting onto the bench in
the desired position - and this struggling, my first struggle with my
slavechains, in the meantime made clear to me how much they restricted my
movements and my phyiscal possibilities, how difficult it was going to be
to have to live the whole time in chains. "You better get yourself
acquainted with that soon" - Omar had no problem saying it but that was
quicker said than done.

   I laid down again, this time with my feet on the higher side and my head
on the lower, which was rather uncomfortable. Behind the back of my head
was the anvil, waiting.

   I lifted my head, and turned it into the direction where Ali now
went. Fearfully I saw him walking to the bench at the far, darker side of
the room, where I, when entering the hall, already had distinguished a heap
of iron, but because of the dusk in that corner, at that time I couldn't
figure out what exactly was there. Now it became totally clear to me: the
empty manacles and fetters being displayed on the first bench, and the
loose chains on the second, that was to be the bench for their whole supply
of collars, waiting to adorn new slaves.

   After a few seconds Ali came back, carrying in front of him in both
hands the next ominous shining piece of iron meant for me. He held it as
though he was presenting the crown to put on the head of a new king. But it
was a collar, to put around the throat of a new slave. He really strode in
a solemnal way forward, I presume because of the weight of his cargo.

   When he came nearer, I became aware of its impressive dimensions. Really
- the collar did, from an esthetical viewpoint, perfectly match my fetters!
But I realized, with horror, that its weight would match very well with
that of them, too. In front of the collar I saw something dangling, some
thinner shiny piece of steel. When, Ali being halfway that one bench where
the collars were on display and that other bench where I was on display, a
ceiling light fell on it, I recognized what it was: a circular plate of
sizable dimensions, the slave-tag Mohamed had made mention of. I could
perceive that some symbols were stamped on it, but the distance was too
great to be able to read them.

   This changed when Ali reached my bench and presented his gift to me: a
huge collar of solid steel. I stared at it and shrunk from the enormous
seize and weight. Was I to wear that? Yes, I was.

   "This is your collar slavecollar, G-46," Omar said with a gruff voice.

   "Your number is stamped on the slave-tag, as you see," he continued -
and indeed I could read it now, and read it with horror – "and you
better remember that from now on you are slave G-46, and that every
overseer can read that always around your neck and always will address you
that way for his commands. So you better learn to react immediately in case
your slave number is called by one of our slave drivers, to obey
immediately his commands, as reacting too slowly will be rewarded with a
stroke of the lash!"

   "And if for some improbable reason you might lose your slave-tag, which
I don't recommend you doing," he added hatefully, "you don't have to
worry. Your slave-number is also stamped on the back of your collar, as it
is on all three of your fetters - and those you will never lose."

   Reflexively I glanced down and indeed now deciphered on my manacles the
signs `G-46.' I didn't doubt that it was on my anklet, too.

   Then I turned my attention to the collar again. I shivered, perhaps more
intimidated than at any moment this afternoon before. This huge collar
... I was totally upset by the big band of heavy steel which they
apparently meant me to wear from now on. It seemed huge enough to keep an
elephant in check. It was perhaps just a little higher than my anklet and
bracelets were, but half again as thick. I was horrified by the idea, that
they would fasten it the same way they had done with the fetters around my
ankle and wrists. I was really scared by the thought, it would be riveted
around my neck.

   Its design was not just a bigger version of my other shackles. There
were no flat ends this time to connect both halves and close it. The collar
opened apparently at the back and had hinges on both sides, so placed
between the semicircular front half and the two quarters of a circle that,
afterwards riveted together, would make up the back half of the collar.

   On the front a big D-ring was welded square to the thick band of steel,
with the round slave-tag, about 3 inches in diameter, swinging on
it. "Slave G-46" was stamped on it, the number a little bit bigger than the
word "slave." Surely, no severe slave driver would miss noticing it when I
was toiling at the oars, as it would always be visible underneath my
chin. To them, I was reduced to just a number.

   I gazed in trance at the horrible collar they were waving before my
eyes.

   "Well, you have had a nice view of your collar now, slave, the same view
as your oarmates will have on yours soon, as we now will rivet it on," Omar
said, sarcastically intruding on my thoughts.

   I came back to reality and as I with reason feared that I would have to
wear that collar till the end of my days, I did lose my self-control and,
suddenly panic-stricken by the prospect of getting collared, started to
shout.

  "Fuck you, you bastards, you can't do this to me. I'm not an animal! I'm
... I'm a man! I have rights!"

   Whap. Omar slapped me in my face, in the same aggressive way as Mohamed
had done before in the reception room.

   "WHAT did you say, slave?!!!"

   "How dare you! For those unprecedented impertinent words you will
punished severely, as soon as you're chained to your oar downstairs. This
will be reported to your overseer, be sure about that."

   Omar thereupon also grumbled some angry words in Arabic that I couldn't
understand. What I could understand was that I had better keep silent now,
to preclude a further change for the worse. I didn't have any chance to
escape or resist for the time being anyhow, so it was better to adapt
myself to the new situation as best as possible.

   "So move your damned head in the direction of that anvil, slave."

   I realized that I had better obey without protesting further, but it was
not very easy to do that. I felt the rough wood of the bench scraping the
skin on my back when I shoved myself the way Omar ordered, trying to keep
my head more or less erect to prevent bumping against the anvil that should
be somewhere underneath me.

   "That's OK, slave."

   There was Omar again.

   "Now keep your head a little bit more erect there for a while without
moving."

   I tried my best to do that. I guessed my neck now was somewhere on a
level with the semicircular drain, my collar bones nearer to the protruding
ridge.

   I guessed right. From the corner of my eye I could see that Ali, bearing
until now the collar horizontally in front of him, turned it so that it was
now held on its side, with the open ends of the collar hanging down. He
moved it in my direction, and for a short while it was floating before my
eyes again.

   I only now became aware of the fact that the open ends of the iron
collar weren't cut off straight from the upper to the lower side, but that
they were in a way crenelated; the left one having two rectangular
projections, indeed at the upper and lower side, with a rectangular notch
in between, the right one again having a rectangular one in the
middle. When put together, they matched exactly, as did the holes that went
through all three projections, making one small hole from the upper to the
lower side of the collar. This hole clearly was intended to be filled up
with one big rivet. I did see it all in a flash, but my mind was very clear
now, so I did catch the point rather quickly.

   Then Ali lowered the collar and it disappeared out of my
sight. Thereupon it went round my neck. In just a split second after that I
felt the cold steel of it touching the skin of my throat. I immediately
became aware of the full weight of what must have been at least 9 pounds
pushing on my Adam's apple, as Ali left it there, and by doing that left me
gasping for breath. One half of my neck now was encircled by solid
steel. Than the open quartered ends of the collar, up until then just
hanging vertically downwards, were turned by Ali to the inside and put
together, the projections of one side filling in the notches of the other
and reverse. The collar was closed now, Ali pressing the ends of it firmly
together.

   Within a few seconds my neck was no longer free, but encircled by a
thick ring of inflexible iron, which, after being securely closed, there
would be no way out. It was a very narrow fit, there was hard and heavy
cold steel now everywhere around, not more than perhaps a finger space was
left between my soft skin and the hard steel. But moreover, I nearly
succumbed to the immense weight of the whole. I was worried by the idea,
that I had to wear this infernal collar for unending days. How, by God,
would I ever be able to stand this incredible burden? I felt like a dog
now, being collared, but then much worse.

   "Turn to the right, slave," barked Omar to me - or at least it sounded
in my ears as if he did so.

   I turned carefully to the right, just for a quarter turn, till I laid on
my side. My turning was accompanied by a noisy rattling of my chains, as if
to remind me that in case that I again might consider running away, this
wasn't possible anymore. My heavy irons compelled me to turn my body rather
carefully; the chains connecting my fetters after that rested on my naked
legs. I felt how the cold thick links of it slided over my tender
skin. While doing this all, I noticed that Ali was turning the heavy collar
around my neck slowly in the same direction, while of course keeping it
securely closed.

   "Lower your head now, slave." That was Omar again.

   I did - and I perceived the semicircular drain under my neck. The collar
was to rest there, with my neck caught inside, to be riveted on. That
horrible procedure, that would seal my enslavement, would start soon
afterwards.

   It is the most humiliating position you can imagine, lying down this
way, with your neck soon going to be fettered by a huge ring of solid
steel. I assure you, it really makes you feel that you are becoming a
slave! There's nothing that can make anybody aware of his hopeless position
more than to become collared this way, lying on your side, with your neck
pressed against an anvil and already enclosed by its predestined heavy
cuff, only waiting for the rivet and the fatal blows which will close it
definitively around you. To be force to lie your neck down on the plank of
the guillotine to wait for your execution can't be much worse.

   Ali thereupon pulled me by the collar a little backwards, I couldn't
resist the force, and was again gasping for breath. It must have been not
more than an inch or so, until I reached the desired position. I noticed
that the lower side of the collar collided with some extruding part of the
anvil, at least it couldn't move farther back. It must have been the ridge
narrowing the drain that I already mentioned.

   So there I was, lying stretched on the wooden bench, my neck caught in a
heavy collar kept firmly closed by the blacksmith's assistant, not being
able to move. Imagine: apart from the collar coming up soon as a new
adornment, I already was shackled and chained by one feet and both
hands. Their weight I had to bear, too. I was indeed in a mood, as if I was
going up for execution, lying there in that hopeless position, loaded with
iron, not able to resist whatever was going to happen now. Well, at least
my civil life in those unholy minutes indeed came to an end definitively,
so a kind of execution it was. Tom was dead now, slave G-46 to come into
existence. At that moment I only still didn't have the slightest idea what
becoming slave G-46 in daily practice really would mean.

   While Ali kept me in this humiliating position lying on my right thigh,
I heard Omar pushing something in the coals of the still burning fire
behind me. I presume he had taken up his pair of tongs again, with a rivet
held in between. I then had only to wait until it was ready for use, and
Omar would take the fatal rivet out of the fire, that would fix securely
the inevitable slave-collar I from now on had to wear continuously. I was
quite right to presume that - what after all wasn't so difficult to do
after all that had happened during the past minutes - and as if to confirm
that, in the moment that I somehow noticed that the rivet was taken out as
heated enough, Ali said to me:

   "Now lie very quietly, slave, as this is a very, very long rivet, that
has to go though the whole length of your nice new collar, and if you move,
the rivet may slip aside to touch your skin, and it's damned hot, I can
assure you. 650 degrees Celsius will be more than you can endure stoically,
I suppose. We don't want to burn our slaves without reason, only when there
is a good reason for it."

   He laughed loudly at his own sick joke. But the real point behind it I
didn't get yet at that moment, as it was far beyond my imagination.

   Apart from that, I hadn't much time to think it all over in
tranquillity, as I, only one second after Ali had said so, already felt
that the rivet was inserted, connecting the holes in the projections at
both ends of the collar. I said, I felt it: apart from the fact that I
heard it - all was going on very near to my ears - I also felt the heat in
the air, when the red-glowing rivet was approaching my neck. After it was
inserted, just as had been the case when my other fetters were riveted, the
heat spread steadily through the collar itself. As the rivet was inside the
curved band of steel directly attached to my skin instead of, as with my
other fetters, in the projecting flat ends, it spread much quicker.

   I only could hope that it would be over as quickly as possible, and the
collar hammered shut before it really would start to become hot. A strange
hope, I agree, as this means that I was in haste to lose the freedom of my
neck: the sooner it would be over, the sooner I would be collared for the
rest of my life.

   Sounds strange, yeah, a guy begging in silence that he will become
collared speedily by his captors? But I assure you, when you yourself had
been lying there, your fear for immediate pain is bigger than your fear for
a distant future you can't realistically imagine for yourself, as you still
wouldn't believe that you are really turned into a slave and will have to
wear that collar for the rest of your life indeed.

   Luckily - luckily? - the whole procedure didn't require much
time. Although in fact it took only a few minutes, in my perception it
lasted a lot longer, so much that I was longing for the cooling water at
the end.

   I only now recognized that Ali this time was wearing gloves - he hadn't
worn them during the past rivetings. Apparently he knew that the hole stuff
could get rather hot this time, as more blows were needed for the big rivet
to get it securely in place. He himself clearly didn't want to burn his
fingers. For the galleyslave, that they were making a bit of extra pain for
me of course didn't count.

   Ali again broke the silence, by instructing:

   "It's very simple now. You'll do nothing yourself, you'll be totally
served by us. You only have to wait patiently and silently, until we've
fixed your fine new neck ring. The only thing you have to concentrate on is
to keep lying down totally motionless again, as otherwise the blacksmith
may not hit your collar, but your head. And also keep silent the whole
time, because he doesn't like to hear any sound coming out of your fucking
throat while he's working. That's bad for his concentration, you know, and
therefore may be bad for you, too. He might miss a blow then, uh oh. And
believe me, after a missed blow by him, you can search for your brain-pan,
as it will be smashed to blubber, and then you will not end up as a working
animal on the galley but as cattle-meat for the sheik's tigers."

   He again laughed out loudly for his own disgusting joke, a joke he
seemed to have made often. Perhaps he even made the joke every time a new
slave was to be collared, he was quite the type to do that.

   In fact, if at that moment I had really known what it meant to become a
galleyslave, I perhaps might have preferred to have my brain-pan smashed to
blubber at that place before I entered Hell. But they knew that none of
their newly captured oarsmen could imagine what the life of a slave is
really about, so all of them - like me - in that early stage of their
enslavement would prefer to live on, just to serve as a rower, and only
much later regret that they survived the collaring process.

   Later I would learn that the slavers on board, knowing that slaves - to
escape their hopeless existence, mentally exhausted by the boring,
strenuous toiling on the oars day after day, realizing gradually that they
don't have any prospect of a more human life in the future - might try to
commit suicide, would do everything to keep them alive. Just because of
profit motives, it was their goal to keep all their slaves healthy AND
fearful, in good physical condition but at the same time a bad mental
condition, by punishing them in very cruel and painful ways, but without
ever ruining their usefulness and precious working power. Because killing
or mutilating your slave is destroying your own property, and a reasonable
slave-owner will never do that. Well, reasonable they were, according to
the whole organization they had set up - if you can at least call the whole
damned enterprise I had gotten into, in such a treacherous way, reasonable
as such.

   When reading all this about waging death against slavery, about
preferring a quick end of life over a painful lasting of it, this may sound
rather abstract to you. But the bullwhip is real, and one lash of it will
help you to slave better, and prefer slaving to a second lash. And, oh yes,
you may prefer to be dead, when hit that second time! But the point is:
that's not up to you anymore. At that damned moment you don't have the
choice between being dead or being lashed - you only have the choice
between toiling harder or being lashed again and again.

   That's what makes the bullwhip such a diabolical instrument of
discipline: if well handled - and let me tell you, those overseers on
galleys know to handle the whip well! - every stroke of it on his naked
back for a slave is painful beyond imagination; but at the same time by
doing this, the overseer even in the worst case never ruins more than the
slave's back. A galleyslave needs just his hands and arms for rowing, the
rest of his body only has a function to help remind him to do that
necessary task with all the force that's inside him. And a bare back,
exposed to as many lashes as may be needed for stimulation, in that case is
a very welcome gift to the slave's overseer.

   All this of course I didn't know at the very moment I was lying there on
that wooden bench, with my neck strapped in a heavy iron slave-collar
resting on an anvil, waiting to have it riveted together for ever.

   Perhaps this waiting made the whole even more horrible - waiting for
what you know will come, but of which you don't know exactly when it
comes. Whereas I had been able to watch the riveting of my hands and my
ankle, and was prepared for the heavy strokes the riveting hammer gave,
this wasn't possible with the collar, as it was riveted at the back. Each
time it was an attack I couldn't watch coming, and the first blow thus was
totally unexpected.

   I wasn't able to see exactly what they were going to do as in the case
of the other cuffs. But I was able to feel it and hear it - and believe me,
that was perhaps more frightening than also seeing it, for by only hearing
and feeling, without seeing, the whole collaring process became more
intense. Because you don't know what's exactly going on, and just can be
sure, something horrible is steadily happening to you that you can't
prevent, so you have to wait for the `unknown', but `sensed', result at the
end. So all I could do was lie down, waiting in a passive state until the
whole thing was over. You really feel as if you are brought to a
slaughterhouse, reduced to a piece of powerless slave-meat.

   Well, the rivet would have been inserted just a few seconds before, when
I suddenly felt and heard the first blow with the heavy iron mallet Omar
had taken, coming from behind.

   Wham!

   The enormous strong blow hit the rivet inserted at the lower end of the
hole, just above my shoulders. It was very close to my ears, and the dull
drone of the mallet at my collar made me shiver. It was much more horrible
than I'd ever imagined before. I heard the upper side of the collar
crashing against the ridge of the anvil that had to catch the blow. With
the help of its resistance the tapering red-hot rivet first was driven
further into the hole and then, with several more blows to come, would be
flattened between the collar and the anvil, till after a dozen of them it
had become so broad that it wouldn't be possible to remove the rivet
anymore, and thus the collar would be tightly closed.

   By the force of that blow, just the first of a series to come, the
slave-collar, and thus my neck inside and my head and body attached to my
neck on one side and the other, shook to and fro. I had never experienced
something so horrible as that! The tremendous shock of the blow went
through my throat, my chin, my head, through my whole body, straight to my
hands and feet. My chains rattled, as my body didn't stay motionless after
that unexpected enormous first blow.

   And then that sound! O God, that sound, that horrible sound of the blow
of that mallet! I'll never forget that sound! It was a terrible sound! To
me it was the most terrible sound I'd ever heard till then. The first hit
of the hammer on the big rivet rumbled and roared into my ears as never did
any sound before. It entered my head from behind, as everything came from
behind now, and went through and through and through. It pierced through
all my bones. And I knew that there would follow a lot of blows after that!
How to describe my feelings at that moment! O dear, there's nothing
comparable to being forced to lie down as I was and having to listen
defenselessly to the blows of a mallet behind you, while knowing that with
each new blow a hot bold is driven more irreversibly inside the holes of a
thick iron band slapped around your neck, and thus is riveting each time
more firmly together both halves of the heavy collar which makes a
galleyslave out of you forever. I assure you, there's nothing that can make
your sense of losing your freedom, yes, of your masculinity, more intense
than that.

   Omar waited a while until my shaking body came to a standstill again,
and he thus better was able to level the mallet more exactly to avoid
hitting the back of my head or worse.

   Wham! There was the second blow. Although I expected it, I couldn't
foresee the exact moment, and thus it came unexpectedly. Then the next blow
followed after a short interval, but hard and unavoidable, and then again
the next.

   Each time it was the same - and at the same time every subsequent blow
was different from its predecessors. A sudden Wham! Then silence - and
waiting on my part until Omar would draw out again. The next blow then
always came a little later or earlier than I anticipated. Thanks to the
uneven rhythm my mind strayed a little, and then suddenly: Wham!

   Each blow not only made another horrible roar, but was attended with a
brief but sharp tug on my neck, because the blacksmith smashed his hammer
so violently that my collar moved back a little each time. But that little
tug on my back was enough to have the inflexible iron pressing each time,
with each blow, against my Adam's apple in front and get me nearly
choking. O Lord, I thought I wouldn't stand it, it was such a horrible
experience, the more, as the clasping metal band was becoming warmer and
warmer. But I didn't dare move, fearing that otherwise Omar by accident may
struck my head instead of the rivet, or the fixing would take more time,
and therefore the iron of my collar would become hotter still.

   Then, with the twelfth blow - if I counted them well - Omar stopped and
let down his mallet finally. The collar already was really painfully
burning around my throat, I feared for burn wounds on my skin inside the
cuff. Water, I begged in silence, water, please water! Goddammit, come on
with the water, Jesus, I can't wait for it any longer. Where the hell can
the water be? Powerless, I started to twist in pain.

   It took seconds, but it seemed to me to be hours until I was released
and Ali finally chucked some cold water onto the collar. It hissed
furiously as it cooled, as must the rivet that held it fixed behind me and
in the forthcoming seconds was definitively made irremovable. I knew that
the cooler, and thus more bearable, the collar became the cooler that bolt
and thus more inflexible it became too, and that the more inflexible the
bolt became, the more definitely it would weld both parts of my
slave-collar together, and that there was no way out left for my head
anymore. Then the hissing stopped, and the iron band around my neck was
cold again - as must have been the rivet, which nobody could remove now by
any means.

   So that was that. What seemed to be the most humiliating part of my
introduction to slavery was over. Gasping for air, I tried to realize what
hopeless state I had ended up in. I was collared now, collared as a
slave. It still seemed incredible to me. For the future I had to wear this
heavy and high tight-fitting ring of infrangible iron around my neck
permanently! I had to wear it day and night, to work in it, to eat in it,
to sleep in it. I had to live in it twenty-four hours a day as the most
visible and most pinching mark of my enslavement. And above all: I
apparently had to wear it for the rest of my life! O God! I wouldn't be
able to remove it in whatever way, I knew it. I had to inure myself to it,
I had no other choice than that. I was not a man any more, I was lowered to
the rank of a dog, of a head of cattle, of a tool, with which those slave
drivers could do what they wanted. I was a slave now, and everybody seeing
me could be aware of that at once.

   "That's it, you won't lose your new ornament easily now," intervened
Omar into my troubled thoughts.

   After a while he added sarcastically: "Well slave, that feels much
better, wearing your new iron collar, doesn't it?"

   "And you will feel even better still, when you're chained up soon as a
real galleyslave to your oar," he continued jeering. He then paused for the
second time.

   "Perhaps you still want to run away, slave?" There he was back again,
even more satanic.

   "Perhaps you want to make complaints at the police station, slave? You
perhaps still think that anybody will believe you when you say you're a
free man, that you are NOT a slave? That those chains just by accident are
riveted on your limbs? Be sure, boy, all has been taken care of with the
authorities. This is Saudi Arabia, boy! Slavery is a normal part of society
here, and for the government all of you will just be newly enslaved
criminals, condemned to serve at the oars."

   Although the last information was totally new to me - of course I wasn't
able to prove if Omar's allegations were true - I only listened with half
an ear to him, coping with my own thoughts and fear for the future.

   I still couldn't grasp it, the riveting of this heavy collar that still
made me gasp for breath, although this kind of riveting had already been
done to me three times just before on a smaller scale! This was barbaric,
as if the Middle Ages weren't still over now! To weld my collar and those
fetters in place! This all clearly was a permanent business, with no
question of being released for a while now and again. They really meant
these things to stay on. I had to wear them day and night, to work in them,
to sleep in them, to live in them. And that as long as I would have to
serve at that unholy galley of theirs!

   It seamed unbearable to me and it still seemed unbelievable to me. I was
chained and collared now for life, and was really looking like a slave. The
slave-tag swinging from the front of my collar, with that hateful `Slave
G-46' stamped on it, told everybody what I was. As Omar just rightly had
predicted, nobody would doubt that I was a slave now anymore, as I was
completely fitted out as one.

   At least, I thought so. But didn't I tell you the last time, the worst
was still to come? Indeed, at that moment that I was allowed to rise from
this damned torture bench after my collaring, it still was.