Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 21:51:42 +0100
From: Ben Hur <ben-hur-of-judah@outlook.com>
Subject: RE: The Unique Experience Part IX

THE UNIQUE EXPERIENCE: PART IX

   Within seconds the guard dropped from view, taking with his colleague
the last of us three to his place for the night, as a slave never walks
alone. I heard their footsteps and the clanking of the chains of G 17
gradually fade away as they moved on through the corridor to the left. What
happened further to my poor slave-fellow I can't tell you, but I presume he
was decently delivered to his own dungeon.

   I stood in mine now, and gazed through the vertical bars into the
corridor. That was the most refreshing position I could take, judging from
the bad odor that floated in my direction from inside my cell. The foul
stench that the straw of the dungeon produced seemed unbearable to me. How
the hell could I cope with that, apart from everything else? Should I ask
the guards for another dungeon, a more fragrant one? Well, the chance they
indeed would give me one if I asked them kindly, seemed not very great to
me. The chance that they would react with sarcastic laughter was a thousand
times greater.

   So I would have to cope with it - there was no alternative. And well, if
you stay long enough in a fuggy environment, in the end you don't really
recognize the fugginess anymore. But for the meantime it was that worse,
that I decided to stand where I stood, directly behind the bars, as the bad
smell was at least less all-dominating there than in the parts of my cell
farther back.

   As the grated door, seen from the corridor, was rather recessed, and the
walls to the right and left that separated my dungeon of that of my
neighboring slaves protruded out for several feet, my outward view was very
limited, even more as the grated door didn't extend the whole width of my
dungeon, leaving a short piece of wall to the left of it. Only at the right
side it reached to the sidewall that partitioned my cell from number 48.

   Cell 45, that should lodge my neighbor across the way, still was empty,
as were 43 and 41 to the left of it. Of course cell 45 was empty, I
realized now: there the intractable guy that had overhauled us in our way
down to the dungeons in principle was supposed to be locked up, but
apparently because of his behavior the guards had put him in one of the
dark dungeons at the other end of the corridor, where I had heard him
battering with his fists against the thick iron door of his abode. Cell 49
seemed empty, too, but that was difficult to determine as I had to look
into a ceiling-light in that direction. In cell 47 I on the contrary could
clearly recognize some slow movement and soft sounds in the darkness; the
slave over there apparently was lying on the ground, perhaps trying to
sleep, and when turning over, his chains made some noise.

   I realized again, that from now on that also would be so in my case:
rather every movement I would make, even the slightest, would be
accompanied nearly inevitably by the sound of rattling, the chains that
were riveted to my limbs would produce. At least some sound nearly always
would be there. It requires the utmost concentration of the slave who has
to wear the chains, to prevent any rattling at all. To succeed really in
doing this, you can't pay much attention to anything else.

   That is a big disadvantage, especially if you want - and which slave in
the beginning will at least not WANT that - to try to escape, as you only
have a chance to succeed in doing so if you can slink away
silently. Totally concentrating on that, you cannot concentrate on other
things. That means, to succeed really in slinking away silently by not
making any rattling-noise, you also can't pay much attention to all those
other things which paying attention to indeed might be very useful in case
you want to escape. Suspicious overseers, for instance, by experience know
that most slaves would like to put an end to their slavery whenever a
chance presents itself, especially when they are just enslaved and not have
accommodated mentally with the fact that they have lost all freedom
forever.

   But that's not all. You not only have to concentrate on preventing any
chains from rattling AND at the same time concentrate on what is happening
all around you, if you want to have a chance of success when trying to
escape. You also have to walk very, very slowly away to prevent that
rattling, which in the case of trying to flee is not very helpful in
effecting your purpose, as it increases your chance to flee if you attempt
the combination of actions needed for that a little bit quickly. Chains, as
I would learn later, therefore not only have the function of restricting
movements of the slaves that have to wear them, but also of constantly
signaling to their overseers where their slaves are. This makes it very
difficult for chained slaves to escape their fate.

   You may wonder why this is relevant for galley slaves, as they are
always chained to the oars too, so always to be found on the same square
feet; but not all labor slaves toil on the galleys. Others work in the
quarries, in the fields or on a construction site, and because of the task
they have to conduct - cutting stones, harvesting wheat or dragging away
bricks - they should be able to move from or at least around the spot. In
that case it is very practical that a slave driver not only can see, but
also always can hear, where his slaves hang about. It's just as with the
bells that cattle wear in the mountains: a sheep straying from the flock
can be more easily found this way.

   But at the very moment I gazed through the bars of my cell, of course I
didn't know about that extra function of my chains, as I still didn't know
very much about slavery at all, even less about slavery in the Arab world,
and nearly nothing about the kind of slavery I was to endure in the
future. I only feared it, and I feared it very much, for good reason.

   To have a better look at it, more than taking a look at myself, was yet
impossible. The view from my cell on my future was limited, literally as
well as metaphorically. As the grated doors were recessed, I just could see
the bars of cells 41, 43, 45, 47 and 49, and not much more. As the corridor
was much brighter than the dungeons, and in fact the dungeons across the
way for that reason were seen by me in backlight, I couldn't peer very far
into those dungeons themselves. As said, I only vaguely could see that cell
47 was occupied, and that some other slave - presumably slave G 47 - made
some movements over there.

   Of my closest neighbors I of course could see nothing and would see
nothing. Even when the slave inside 44 - so slave G 44 - would stretch out
his hands as far as possible through the bars, I wouldn't be able to see
them; the walls separating us therefore just protruded too far. I only
would be able to hear slave 44 (and, when in some near future delivered
too, slave 48), when the sounds coming out from his cell, via a detour
through the corridor would reach in a muted way my ear. The walls
themselves seemed too thick to make direct communication possible, which of
course was in the interest of our enslavers.

   For the time being, there were no sounds coming out of cell 44 as there
had been when I was forced into my own cell a few minutes ago. However,
contact would be not very easy, to say the least, apart from the fact that
there were guards in the corridor walking back and forth quietly, and that
all slaves were forbidden to speak unless asked. And the first hour nobody
asked, at least not me. So I stayed silent.

   While I stood silently behind my bars, both guards who had brought me
here returned from - presumably - cell 17. They passed beyond my cell,
without any slave now as one would expect, heading for the stairs at the
beginning of the corridor. They took no notice of me behind bars - well, I
wasn't the first and only desperate guy inside here that just was enslaved
by them, and as I was safely locked behind bars now, without any risk of
escape, there indeed wasn't any reason to take any notice of me. A slave is
never looked more after than is strictly necessary. And well, in the
forthcoming weeks and months there were to come a lot of moments when I
would have preferred that my overseers wouldn't have felt that necessity,
and that they overlooked me more often. After being looked after by a
overseer, I mostly felt it in a rather painful way on my back, I can
already tell you.

   When their quick steps had faded away, I sat down in the straw on the
floor. It was totally quiet now outside, apparently both walking guards had
halted for a while, far out of my sight. For the moment I could see nobody,
I could hear nobody. I was alone, and I felt very lonely in my cell. I
stared at my shackles and chains, and started to weep.

   My whole misery now had become too much for me. I wept silently, and
wept so for several minutes. There was nobody to comfort me. The shock of
the first encounter with my horrible change of state from free man to
slave, and the infernal physical pain of the piercing and the branding, had
started to make way for the notion that a gloomy future was ahead of
unknown duration, of which I couldn't have the slightest idea. How many
months, or even years, of slavery were to come? How long would I have to
serve chained at the oars? How would I cope with it? Would I survive it?
Rowing a boat as an athlete for the limited time and distance of a regatta
is one thing - toiling on the oars of a galley for an unknown stretch of
time another.

   I even didn't know when the whole would start, as nobody told me and
would tell me. Slaves are seldom told what will happen to them. It just
happens to them - and at the moment that it happens to them, it's mostly
still early enough to make clear to them what will happen next. Labor
slaves are not only treated by their Masters as soulless machines, they for
that reason are also regarded as soulless machines. And would you tell a
machine what is going to happen? Well, some guys indeed do - we even once
in Holland had a royal princess who talked to trees - but most will
not. Most guys just start the machine up. So slave drivers in the same
sense just start up their slaves.

   So for the time being I was left alone in my own private dungeon, as G
17 and G 59 were, and all the other guys already dungeoned along the
corridor. How long would we have to stay here in this gloom before we would
be taken out to the galley and get assigned our seats there? A day, a week,
perhaps even more? How quickly would all the other cells be filled with
slaves? One thing was clear: I had plenty of time ahead, and apart from the
pain the branding and piercing had inflicted on my body I above all would
have to fight boredom. I had some idea of the tempo the slave production
line could reach, but it would totally depend on the arrivals of new
slaves. Planes bringing in new victims didn't land every hour at the
Djeddah airport. Even those slavers who had become all-powerful in regard
to us slaves were dependent on timetables and flight schedules to become
all-powerful over more slaves.

   When I made contact with that first Mohamed - the guy I never saw, if he
existed at all - about picking me up after my arrival in Saudi Arabia, I
had understood that the regatta - would there be one, or was that fake too?
- would start rather quickly, the next day or so, but as I saw things going
on now and the still many empty cells, I realized that it would take a lot
more time until all new arrivals were turned properly into chained
slaves. If we had been free rowers, they wouldn't have needed many minutes
to register us, and they could have received several of us at one time. But
as we were to become galley slaves, they had to receive us one at a time to
prevent any escape. And the whole process of individually chaining,
collaring, shaving, piercing, branding and stowing away each oarsman takes
some time.

   Done this way they needed fewer guards to control us, especially in the
very beginning when we were still unchained. All of us were confronted with
three guys at the start, and although some guys may have resisted or try to
flee, as I did in the reception room, one against three for all of us - or
at least for nearly all of us: the intractable guy that was dragged away
before we went downstairs might have needed more than just three men to be
captured - was a hopeless game. And after we were chained, a few guards
could control more of us. And after we were locked away in our dungeons,
even fewer guards could control us all - assuming that the grilled doors
were strong, solid and secure.

   After I stopped crying, I rose from the floor and tested the bars to see
if they were strong, solid and secure indeed. Of course they were. I tried
it in a very prudent way, at a moment when none of the two walking guards
was in view, as I felt a little bit ridiculous about trying it, not wanting
them to see that I tried the ridiculous. Well, to feel shame is one thing a
slave has to unlearn, but in the beginning, having been a free man up until
just a few hours before, one still is very sensitive in that respect, I can
assure you.

   Well, every new slave indeed will have tried what I tried, I suppose, as
one doesn't want to miss the slightest chance in this hopeless
circumstances. You would feel yourself a fool if you didn't try, and if
then in the end it had turned out - how improbable it may seem beforehand -
that the bars really weren't as strong as they should and seemed, and that
there had existed a - thanks to your own stupid resignation bypassed - real
chance to escape. At the same time, you would feel yourself a fool too,
when no such chance exists and the guards see that you are searching
desperately in vain for it. They may like to see your desperation, but you
may not like them to see yours. One thing a slave has to learn is not to
show his desperation - indeed, to show none of his thoughts and feelings at
all - to his Masters, as his fear and their knowledge of that will give
them extra power over him.

   Well, to give you a short report of my examination of the grilled door
that kept me inside: the bars, going up from doorstep to lintel without any
interruption apart from just one cross-bar, were very strong and
secure. They each were some two inches thick, and the space between them
was perhaps treble that. No, I am slender, but not so slender that an
opening of six inches is wide enough for me to wriggle through, and I
suppose the same wouldn't do for you.

   After having come to the inevitable conclusion that the bars were solid
and that the big lock at the left that kept the bolt at the outside at its
place was so too, I sank again on the straw, and again stared in front of
me. No, there was no escape.

   What does a chained slave do when he has nothing to do? Perhaps he
starts to inspect his chains, to see if perhaps they aren't as solid and
strong as they should be. At least, that's what I did now. After having
inspected the grilled door and come to the conclusion that I wouldn't be
able to break it, I started to inspect myself. I looked down at my
shackles, and tried, one after another, if still perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
there would be some movement possible in the rivets that kept both halves
of the cuffs encircling my limbs together. There wasn't. There wasn't at
the manacle that cuffed my right hand, not at the manacle that cuffed my
left hand, not at the fetter that cuffed my right ankle. Not a hundredth of
an inch did the rivet move, whatever I pushed or pulled on the irons. Of
course I knew that, but of course I tried.

   Well, they had delivered professional work, I had to grant them
that. All three shackles were solid and strong and would stay on. They
would at least stay on as long as my captors wanted. There was nothing I
could do to change that. And the links of the chains that connected my
manacles to my fetter were as solid and strong too. I sighed and looked at
my fetter - and again recognized the big thick vertical ring that was
attached to it on the outside, opposite the flat ends that held the rivet
and where both chains were attached. The big ring quivered and oscillated
with every movement I made with my right leg; it was in a rather flexible
(but not fragile) way attached to the heavy fetter. I pushed against the
ring with my right hand and thus let it swing. When, after some dangling it
came to a standstill, I took it in my hands and rotated it thoughtlessly in
the clip welded to the fetter that held it. I still wondered about it being
there. At this point the ring made no sense to me at all. What the hell was
it for?

   Of course I not only tried out my shackles, I also put my hand on the
heavy collar encircling my throat. Only by sitting down on the straw on the
floor and bowing my knees thereafter, was this possible - the chains
between my manacles and my anklet were too short to do this while standing
upright. In that case I would be forced to bow my head and the whole upper
part of my body into nearly a right angle to reach my collar with my hands.

   Not being able to see it, I could only touch it, feel the huge width and
height with my fingers. I let the forefinger of my right hand slide over
the thick upper brim from the right over the back to the left. I felt the
hinges, I felt the flattened nose of the big rivet in my neck that kept the
band of steel locked securely. The whole was hopeless - if I ever might
have thought that there might have been a possibility to get rid of the
collar by getting the rivet out, I lost that illusion now. It was made
bombproof. My forefinger therefore slid powerlessly back from the left to
the right.

   Raising my hands even higher I reached my shaved skull, and the ugly
mohawk reaching from my collared neck to my forehead, that was all what had
remained in the middle of my once fashionable haircut. Well, fashionable in
a way it was, just not my preferred fashion. It was the fashion prescribed
for slaves by the Saudian law, as I later would learn. All slaves, without
regard to who their Owners were or what their duties were, had haircuts
that looked like ours; the only legal alternative was to shave their heads
completely bald, in case of very bad conduct - that therefore was a extra
severe humiliation. This special haircut too made slaves - if ever they
succeeded in breaking their chains - clearly recognizable as such. Free men
in the Arab world once grown-up wore all full hair and beards. A slave has
lost the right to both, and after his enslavement as a standard immediately
is clipped like a piece of cattle. So I had been, and my skin still was raw
from the brutal treatment it had endured upstairs.

   After having had my right hand pass through the last remainder of my
tuft of hair, I felt at the front of the collar, and there my fingers found
the big circular slave-tag swinging below, with my new name - if you can
call it a name - 'Slave G-46' stamped on it. I could feel the imprint, but
could not determine the separate symbols with my fingers, and I wasn't able
to see it when it was just hanging down, therefore it was close to my
chin. But if I took it in my hands and bent it upwards, I could decipher
the ciphers upside down, although they were too close to my eyes to see
them sharply; and reading-glasses in this unholy place weren't delivered to
us here to make this easier. Above that, I had seen the slave-tag, before
the collar was riveted around my throat, so I knew pretty well what
everybody else would be able to read. And I had seen the slave-tags of G 17
and G 59 as well.

   The slave-tag was very solid too, as was its connection to the collar. I
wouldn't be able to break that just with my bare hands - and even when I
would, how would it help me? The slave-tag just told others what I had
become but didn't change anything in regard to becoming that. A new one
could be easily attached to replace the 'lost' old one, I presumed. Only
breaking my chains would perhaps give me some - some - chance to escape my
fate of becoming a galley slave. Being signed out with a slave-tag or not
didn't make any difference in this respect. It only might exercise some
mental influence on the wearer, and in my case indeed it did. I felt myself
numbered and looked with disgust for some ten, fifteen seconds at the
imprinted ciphers, and then let the slave-tag fall out of my hands. It
swung a little underneath my chin, till it regained its equilibrium.

   With even more disgust thereupon I looked down at my left chest. The
branding of my eternal slave-number meanwhile had turned from fiery red
into dark black. Thanks to that it had become even more clearly visible,
inescapably visible, also from a far distance it must have been quite
legible now, as the black contrasted as much as possible with my white
skin. The edges of all the separate characters were sharply cut. It was
done in a very professional way, without any fuzziness, I must agree. SLAVE
B-2307-X-1856. The whole text filled quite a few square inches above my
left nipple, and it still hurt. Well, the vehement pain directly after the
branding had gone meanwhile, to be replaced by a sore one, but the spot
still was very sensitive, as I found out when I touched it carefully.

   Also sore was the pain in my penis, which was pierced in such a brutal
way and soon after, when G-59 had fallen on me upstairs, was shoved in such
a crude way against the floor. Carefully I pushed the downward flap of the
loincloth to one side to have a look at it. Well, my cock luckily was not
bleeding, only looking still raw and red. My penis still was flaccid, all
the lust inside for the time being totally gone, as was the same for my
aching balls. Luckily it was totally gone, as getting a hard on would be
very painful because of the piercing and the short chain connecting the
Prince Albert to the ring around my testicles that would prevent any full
erection definitively, I was bloody aware of that.

   This disgustingly big Prince Albert ring hadn't widened the pierced hole
much further yet. Very carefully again I took it in my hands and rotated it
slowly. It as such also was well done. They were professionals, I couldn't
deny that. But this observation didn't help me very much - it frightened me
even more. In a way, rather the professional way of the whole imprinted the
idea on me that for me as a slave there was no way out. And that may have
been intended too. And even when this was not especially intended, it had
that effect, and that at least the slavers would not regret.

   How painful would it be if I had to piss? Well, I hadn't gone to the
bathroom since my flight into Saudi Arabia, and although I hadn't had a
drink since then either - and in the meantime had become rather thirsty - I
now felt my bladder again pressing. During the whole enslavement procedure
and the hubbub accompanying it, I had forgotten my corporal needs, but now,
in the intimacy of my own private dungeon, my repose not being disturbed by
any Arabian guy that wanted to torture some part of my body anymore, I
remembered that my body not only had been mistreated outside, but also had
been neglected inside.

   With every minute I was reminded of this fact of life. And pissing in
this respect became even more urgent than drinking. That was something, in
a way, I could be lucky about, as for pissing I had to act totally on my
own, whereas for drinking I depended on what the guards were willing to
offer. As they didn't appear to me to be very attentive waiters, and I
didn't dare shout through the corridor for them where my drink was, I
decided to do pissing first.

   But where to do that? The time had come to move away from the bars of
the grilled door and to examine my temporary abode, and thus to defy the
bad smell inside. Or was I already getting used to that a little, did I
already smell it less? As it was, as I already stated, rather dark inside,
this examination was not as easy as you might expect. As I had to sit to
review my body and irons directly behind the bars, there was at least some
- although not very bright - light that came from the corridor, after
turning around I needed some time to have my eyes adapted to the darkness
of my dungeon.

   Only after a couple of seconds I could perceive how big my place
was. Well, as it was to be expected, it wasn't very big. Most suites in a
five-star hotel will have been bigger, and also the ordinary chamber in the
three-star hotel called The Sheik of Medina (if that too really existed)
that was promised me (us?) in the correspondence after I had responded to
the advertisement, will have been roomier.

   Mine over here however was perhaps just six feet wide - I couldn't
stretch my body wholly when choosing a position crosswise - and some twenty
feet deep. Indeed, it was a kind of hole, with unornamented walls made of
very rugged stones and bricks, and with its own tunnel vault, that was
orientated square at that of the corridor. The top of it will have been
eight or nine feet above the floor - it was luckily no problem to stand
erect. As it was impossible (because of the chains) for me to raise my
hands higher than my waist, I lacked the means to see if I could reach the
vault with stretched arms, to make my estimate more exact.

   The whole floor of my dungeon was covered with a thick layer of straw,
thick enough to have it warm enough. But at the same time it was this mass
of straw that was evil smelling. Underneath was a cold stone floor, but
thanks to the straw lying down was comfortable enough - for my body, not
for my nose, as the straw smelled very old and fuggy, as if it had laid
here for months and months, and had seen many slaves before. But the bad
smell of old straw was surpassed by the even worse smell of old piss. At
first, I couldn't figure out where it exactly came from, till I discovered
that, obscured from the eye by stray straws, just next to the wall to my
right (when looking in the direction of the corridor), a shallow channel
ran from the back of my dungeon to the front. There was where the stench
came from.

   Well, to be sure, the whole channel, after I dug it out by sweeping the
straw aside, was totally dry now, but the piss of former slaves had
penetrated into the stone, and wasn't to vanish as long as you didn't have
a lot of fresh water and some biting cleanser at hand. And I hadn't.

   The channel wasn't quite level, but sloped down a little from halfway to
the back AND to the front, where just next to the corner it ended in a
small hole in the ground, presumably leading to some outlet-pipe
underneath. The hole was apparently meant for piss and shit. But as the
channel wasn't very fine-tuned, and had some bumps and breaks at several
places, the liquids wouldn't have easily been washed away totally. Parts of
them would have stopped and either penetrated the stone or dried up. This
explained why it smelled so horrible in my dungeon and would do so in the
future too.

   It was in my own olfactory interest to shit and piss in the small hole
in the corner, next to the entrance, where the bad air could mix most
easily with the relatively fresh air outside my dungeon. But that meant I
would do both in sight of my neighbors across the way and the guards
passing through the corridor, as this place was very visible from the
outside. However, I just decided to empty my bladder and bowels there,
having already pushed my loincloth aside to start, when one of the guards
approached me with a big bowl in his hand.

   I immediately dropped my loincloth to hide my penis in shame.

   The guard laughed disdainfully.

   "Forget your civic prudery, slave. You better get used to piss in public
soon", he said.

   "All slaves have to, as slaves have no privacy at all. As you're not a
free man anymore, you better learn to behave and think as the work-horse
you've become, and not let you distract by the fact that you're always
watched by your overseers and fellow-slaves".

   He paused, reaching the bowl with his right hand through the bars in my
direction.

   "Your body belongs to us now, and we don't care for your former feelings
of shame and shyness. You're no more than a living machine without any
personal needs other than being fed and watered at certain times, and
without any personal belongings than the piece of cloth wrapped around your
waist and the collar and chain riveted to your body. Your life will be
nothing more than eating and drinking, pissing and shitting, sleeping and
rising - and toiling at the oars for hours and hours, of course. Your mouth
is nothing more than an intake to oil this toiling-machine, your dick
nothing more than an outlet of the fluid waste your lubrication
produces. Here's your drinking-trough for tonight. The manger with your
food for this evening will follow soon".

   I seized the bowl the guard offered, and while he thereupon walked away,
I put it carefully on the floor, not knowing for how long I would have to
manage with it. The water inside the bowl at least seemed fresh to me,
without any repelling odor. Well, that I as a slave had to live in an
evil-smelling entourage for awhile and also myself would smell evil soon,
didn't bother my new Masters, but it was in their own interest to keep me
healthy, so to have me drink unspoiled water.

   Anyhow, before I started to drink, I first started to piss. The guard
having gone now, I again positioned myself above the hole in the corner and
shove the veil of my loincloth aside. Very slowly and carefully, as my
penis was still very sensitive, I started to empty my bladder, aiming at
the middle of the hole in the floor, as I tried to make dirty my dungeon as
less as possible. It was the first time the piss went through the urethra
of my pierced cock, and it was not a very pleasant feeling, when it exited
my tortured gland. Directing the stream in the right direction was not as
easy as it seemed, and I had to take care that I didn't urinate on the
chain that connected the manacle around my left wrist to the fetter around
my right ankle. It took some time - and a lot of chain rattling - till I
had found the safest position for that. But in the end I managed to get all
the liquid out, without making to big a mess.

   Then, my chains inevitably rattling again while I was doing that, I sat
down on the straw and took the bowl in my hands for my first drink as a
slave. With greedy chugs - I had become really thirsty meanwhile - I
emptied it nearly halfway, and than carefully put it down in the other
corner of my cell. Well, as I had nothing to do now, I decided to lie down,
and looked for an appropriate place to do so in the back of my cell.

   The straw, although it pricked my skin in a lot of places, was more
comfortable to lie in than I expected; at least it was comfortably
warm. Less comfortable, although warm on their insides because of having
adopted my body temperature, were the collar and the chains. The ponderous
collar was the worst. When I lay on my back, the full weight of it pressed
against my Adam's apple - it felt as if I were being strangled by it. How
would I ever be able to sleep in it? The weight of the chains on my body I
could handle, just letting them rest on my legs and (as they were connected
to the inside of the fetter around my right ankle) in between, although to
feel the thick and heavy links - contrary to the shackles being the whole
time rather cold - slipping over my naked skin with the slightest movement
wasn't a big pleasure either.

   However, after some turning and tossing, I found a position lying on my
right side that for the time being was more or less acceptable. The whole
tossing of course was accompanied by the uninterrupted clanking of my
chains, which moved every time I moved too. Lying on my right side, allowed
me to have the fetter around my right-anklet rest on the floor, whereas I
kept both my shackled wrists near to each other next to my right thigh. But
it meant that both the heavy connecting chains lay together on my lower
leg. I would have preferred otherwise, but I couldn't find a better
solution for the moment. Based on what little I could see of other slaves
turning and tossing in the forthcoming days in the neighbor cells across
the way, I wasn't the only slave that was to struggle with this problem
too. Anyhow, all the iron pounds of the collar now pushed not on my Adam's
apple but on the side of my neck, which was preferable, as it was at least
bearable. No, very comfortable it still was not.

   But if you expect me now to lie down totally motionless for the next
hours, I have to disappoint you. Already after some minutes I tried out a
slightly different position, turning my right leg, or moving one or both of
my hands. And although I thereupon thought, that it should stay like this,
once more after some minutes I realized that this wasn't ideal either, and
moved my limbs again to find a new position, which, alas, didn't give more
satisfaction. With the result that, again after a couple of minutes, I
rather irritatedly changed my position slightly for the third time, hoping
to find a new and now definitive solution, the accompanying rattling of my
chains each time reminding me that I never would find one.

   And so on and on. Although exhausted, and desiring to sleep, I didn't
succeed with all my attempts to do so. My position was just too
uncomfortable, my collar was too oppressing, and my chains were too heavy
to let me fall asleep. I just laid there on the floor, powerless while
struggling with my fetters and rotating myself in the straw.