(Yeah, like the title said this isn't a poem. This is actually the notes to a story I'm never going to write. [If anyone wants to use these notes and write the story itself feel free cause I aint.] I'm only posting this here cause I really like what I wrote and I can't think of any many other places to put it. It's a long read, but hopefully, it's worth it.)

Mind you, this isn't the story itself. These are just notes.

MUTE HORSE

The story starts out with the farmer working on his farm. Names of everything are undecided. A lot of things in small details are unknown and undecided as of so far. The farmers name, the mute's name, the farmers techniques, and even the name of the planet.

Anyway, the farmer spends mostly all of his time alone. All he has is his dog. He goes to town once every two weeks to deliver his shipments to the stores and to spend some time with the guys are the tavern. And this is his life.

One day he's at the bar and he makes the complaintful statement about how working on the farm is very hard for him by himself. One of the guys at the bar makes the suggestion to get a slave.

Now, in this part of this world slavery is accepted. Generally a slave is just the child of parents who owed people debt and had to give up their child in order to pay it. Or the family needed money somehow and they give up their child. More often then not the best slaves which are physicly fit men are actually captured criminals just doing their time. Either way, the slaves are generally have to be kept taken care of better then the slave holders family and their are often strict rules with them.

The farmer says though that he's considered that, but that the monthly payments for a slave are just too much. But then the guy presses him further and tells him that he can get a slave a lot cheaper if he gets one disabled. Of course, the farmer still says no and tells him that a disabled person wouldn't do very well with him on the farm as it would be hard for someone missing both arms and legs to lift bags of hay and so forth.

But irregardless, the farmers interest does get the better of him. Coincedentfully there is a slave auction right there in the small town by the time the farmer leaves the bar. Well he goes there and he sees this man hawking off various people, all fit and all expensive. But there is a place in back where people can check out the discount slaves. The disabled ones. So the farmer checks them out instead. There he finds many people with many disabilitys all of which would make them nothing more then dead weight on a farm. But then he sees one slave who is a tall and fit young woman. The farmer asks a slaveholder what is so wrong with her and the answer is that she is mute and dumb. She can take orders if one is nice to her, but she seems to ignore the people that've been mean to her.

Well the pressure of needing help on the farm and the fact that the auction would be leaving the next day presses the farmer to make the purchase. After all, she seems healthy and strong enough, and you don't need to talk to do manual labor. So he makes the purchase.

And thus begins his life with his slave. He's told that her name is Sandak and she's from a family in the mid east of the planet. Her parents had died during a drought, and on this planet you get one chance to be put into a foster home before you're put into slavery. Since no one took her in on the first pass, she's been a slave ever since.

The first thing this farmer finds out is that Sandak isn't actually dumb. Mute, yes, but not dumb. In fact, she has developed her own sign language that she and her siblings used to use. The farmer was able to recognize this off the bat.

Her first few weeks, or some undetermined time, was very difficult for Sandak. She's never worked on a farm before, in fact, the only time she was bought was as a waitress to a club that ended up going belly up. For example, she's bringing water from the well. She has the buckets on each end of a large oxen wood peice over her shoulders. But the weight is too much for her and she ends up falling. The buckets spill of course. And the farmer is there, but he doesn't help her. Instead he just gives her a look of dissapointment and picks up the wood and buckets and gets the water himself. There are several events that happen like that.

Thing is, for some reason Sandak has a desire to prove herself. That is, once the farmer says he'll have to send her back, she'd do anything to stay. Being with those slave holders was not a good experience for her. With the farmer she gets a nice bed every night and two warm meals a day. The work she has to do is a small price to pay she thinks.

So she works at it. And she works hard at it. Even after the farmer has gone to bed she decides she needs to practice at her work as much as she can until she's mastered it. And eventually she does. And she is proud, and the farmer can't believe it of course.

Throughout this though it almost seems like the farmer has been keeping himself rather distant from Sandak. Eventually however he opens up to her. He tells her about life on the farm before he was alone. About how he had a wife and a son. And how they had died from a sickness that swept the land years ago. And he tells her about how work had been hard since this and productivity had never been as high as it was since his wife and son died due to the fact that he didn't have their help anymore. And he tells her about how thankful he is for her now.

Sandak opens up too. Of course, she can't speak. But she has been teaching the farmer her sign language. And it's progressed immensly. But she's also been teaching him words that she'll be using when she describes her past. And she does. She tells about how she had many siblings, a father, and even two mothers. But there was also an immense volcanoe that blotted out the sky and brought ash to the land. Eventually there was no water in their irrigations and the village had died off slowly. A group of raiders came to the town and destroyed much of it and captured the female children. Eventually another party lead by a tall black woman with a scimitar had defeated the raiders and freed her and the rest of the hostages. Sandak was tooken into the planets current equivalent of social services and was directed into slavery. She's only had that one waitressing job.

Clearly, despite him not only being her owner but being twice her age, the two of them the farmer and Sandak become quite close.

But all good things must come to an end. Or at least be put on hold. One day the farmer makes his bi-weekly shipments into town. He goes to the tavern for a drink as well. As it happens, for the past few months there have been this group of not so nice people. They've invaded the town but law enforcement hasn't been able to do much anything about them legally. In this town there are crimes you can commit that won't have the cops come get themselves involved. And this group has been taking that to the extreme. Eventually though, this group has attacked the law enforcement and consequently tooken over the town. Without the cops, the place has been put under marshal law and the mayor can't do a thing about it.

Well the actual taking over of the town came to a suprise to the farmer when he went to the bar and found out he couldn't get a drink. Everyone was there that usually goes there, but no one was drinking. All the beer had been redirected to the gang for their personal use. The farmer asks his friends why they are still here if they can't drink, they only say that there isn't anything better to do anymore except sit and think instead of sit and drink.

Well the farmer goes back to his farm and tells Sandak about the happenings going on. Sandak feels it is too similiar to the raiders who had invaded her villiage and she signs to the farmer that they ought to do something about them. He asks what can they do, but she has no answer. Eventually though, her ingenuity and perserverence pays off as she does end up getting an idea.

The farmer goes back to town the next day and rallys people up. Currently, I myself dont' have a plan. But I'm sure I can come up with one by the time I get to writing. But the end result is the farmer and Sandak rallying the people and putting an end to the renegade gang. But then comes the tear jerker.

Among other people, both from the gang and just the townsfolk, the farmer is shot. Sandak is distraught. At this point with him on the hospital bed and her by his side, they tell each other how much they love each other. Well, the farmer tells Sandak how much he loves her. She can only kiss him. Eventually, before he dies he tells Sandak that she can't take care of the farm on her own. Plus she's still a slave. She can't go out on her own anyway. He tells her that she'll have to live on her own. She doesn't want to and she vehemetly objects to it and telling him she will not leave his side. But he tells her she must. Eventually the hospitals orderlies have to remove her. So she goes home.

She comes back the next day. When she comes back she finds the farmer isn't in his bed. Clearly she thinks the worse. She goes to seek a doctor or a nurse but before she does she is caught by these people whom she hasn't seen in some time.

Slave drivers.

They speak to her. They explain everything. That they didn't come to take her back after her owners death, the farmer. But rather just before he died that the farmer came to them and payed for her emancipation. In other words, she's a free woman. Their is a tattoo on the inside of her left forearm that shows she is a slave and which slave drivers own her. They don't remove the tattoo, but rather cover over the name of their company and then encircle the cross. This is the proof that she is a free woman.

But she still can't take care of the farm on her own. It's too much work for her, as much of a spirited and hardworking woman she is. She eventually has to make choices. So she leaves.

In the migrant travels of the slaves she's seen some wonderous things. The times she lives in is the end of the simple days, there is an industrial revolution happening in her civilization. As far as she can tell, the farm is her past. It's the city that is her future. So she lives in the city.

There she trys to settle down. She finds a man, a few years younger than she is and marrys him. She hardly loves him, but he wants her. He really wants her. And this man is the son of one a man who owns one of the richest oil companys in the world. She doesn't see marrying him as anything to do with love, but rather as a way to make sure she can have a safe and secure life.

Eventually she has a son by this man. And almost immediatly after that a daughter. But she makes a concious dicision to put an end to any child making. Years go by and she is dissatisfied with her life. To be quite frank, she hates it. So she runs away.

Her two children are old enough, nine and ten, and she takes them with her. But there are only two places she can think to go, back to the slave encampment or the farm. So of course she goes to the farm. And there, her and her children bring the farm back up and running. It's hard, but her children have her spirit.

Of course it's not over. With people like Sandak it's never over. As it happens her farm isn't the only one there anymore. The town has grown quite a bit. When her farm was shut down when she left, another international farming company came in and moved in and built their own ranch. Once she started up trying to sell her stuff to the shops in town, they wouldn't buy. So once again she had to shut down the farm after only two weeks. But she can't think of anything else except one thing, go to work on the ranch.

She had her life as a little girl and she loved it. She was safe and secure until the raiders came along. Then she had her life as a slave and she wasn't safe or secure and she hated it. Then she worked on the farm with the farmer and she loved it simply because of the farmer. Then her life in the city... she hated that despite being safe and secure. And now her life on the ranch. She doesn't hate it. It's work, it's money, and while it aint safe it's security. So she settles. It's all she can do.

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Quote:

Originally posted by Bruklor Nec is just dumb

I'm taking that as a compliment.