The Life of Koru, Chapter 77
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Mazo had been a slave all his life. His poppa and grandpoppa had been slaves. All of them had grown on the vast plantations of Governor Hayatudeen, where they learned to be hard-working and obedient. The Governor owned some of the best breeds of koru slaves and Mazo has never questioned the fact that he is a slave. This is why when Noodzaak told him that he looks like the king on some ancient coin, Mazo responded with disbelief.
"No, that ain't me!" Mazo said holding the coin in his dirty calloused palms.
"But look at this nose and them ears, chum!" Noodzaak said.
Mazo didn't even know how he looked like, as he never had a mirror in front of him. He only had fugitive glimpses of his face in a dirty puddle of water now and then. In any case, he didn't consider himself to be handsome, only the Black Lords were handsome. He was just a modestly looking koru boy.
"Ye look like this king!" Noodzaak continued.
"I ain't king. I'se just a vile betrayur and a slave," Mulo said.
And with this the conversation was over.
"Ye should stick that coin in yer ass, Noodzaak!" another slave said.
"Shut up!" Noodzaak said. "We wuz kingz `n shiet!"
It didn't take long before the overseers found out about Noodzaak's coin and theory. They asked him to give them the coin, but he claimed that he didn't remember where he hid it. Even after a heavy whipping he failed to remember. Furious, the overseers stormed the `koru nest' and thoroughly searched for the coin, then with rubber gloved hands they rummaged the anus of each slave. The koru stood there on all fours and were pummeled hard and fisted, but no coin could be found in their asses.
"Should we let them live on with their silly theory, Sir?" an overseer said.
"It is a subversive theory and it could lead to rebellions!" Chief Overseer Hasira Darkmoor responded. "Also any found coin is considered property of the Black Empire, so the slaves stole it. Slaves are not allowed to hold money!"
"Fair enough!" the overseers said, impressed by the wisdom of their Chief.
Next to them, Noodzaak was hanging by his arms from a chain, his body full of deep bloody stripes that the whips had made in a criss cross pattern all over him.
"So you don't want to tell us where you put the coin, dog?" Chief Overseer Darkmoor asked Noodzaak.
"I'se'll say it! I'se'll say it!" Noodzaak mumbled. "I'se have thrown it into the well and made a wish that we'se koru be kingz again!"
Hearing this, Chief Darkmoor addressed the other overseers:
"Bring a slave to retrieve the coin from the bottom of the well!"
Soon enough, Mazo was brought to them because he was a hard-working and reliable slave.
"Don't do it, boy! My wish is our last chance!" Noodzaak addressed him from the whipping station.
But Mazo had to do it. He was a slave after all and he did what the Chief Overseer commanded.
The well in question was a primitive cylindrical stone structure, that provided water for the slaves, its walls crafted from rough, weathered rocks that were carefully stacked and mortared together. At the center of the well there was a deep, dark shaft that descended into the earth, its depth hinted at by the faint echo of dripping water far below. Water was raised from this well using a hand-cranked pulley system and a rusty metal bucket.
Mazo jumped on top of the cylindrical stone structure, placing his large calloused feet at the brink of the well's edge. From that height, he could see his own image reflected in the clean water better than he had ever seen it before, and for the split of a second he wondered if maybe Noodzaak was right and he really looked like the king on the coin. But he quickly chased away this thought as pride and vanity were never welcome in his humble heart.
Mazo was ready to dive in, his muscles tensed and his breath steady, his body arced gracefully, slicing through the air toward the shadowy water below. The water was cold, close to freezing temperature. It felt as if a thousand needles pierced his body simultaneously, but Mazo went deeper and deeper like a slippery fish. He knew how the coin looked like but in the darkness of the well it was hard to see anything. Mazo fumbled at the bottom of the well like a blind koru.
"Fuck!" he thought and he started panicking as he wasn't finding anything.
He wasn't feeling cold anymore, his body had adjusted to the water temperature and he felt as if he could stay there forever if it weren't for the need to breathe. Suddenly strange mental pictures assailed his brain like memories that he had never lived. He saw himself wearing finey clothes and glimma, sitting on a throne like a king or riding a horse to some palace or other such nonsense. He knew these must be devilish temptations to make him interrupt his search. He needed to breathe. He climbed back to the surface gulping some air.
"Have you found anything, boy?" Chief Overseer Darkmoor asked him from above.
"Nosuh, Chief, suh!"
"Try again!"
Mazo was back at the bottom of the well, his hands shifting through the sand at the bottom. The coin was nowhere to be found. After more than three minutes of keeping his breath he was back at the surface.
"Listen to me, ape! If you don't find that fucking coin, I'm going to skin you alive!" Chief Overseer Darkmoor said. "Do you hear me, ape?"
"Yessuh, Chief, suh!" Mazo said.
This really motivated Mazo. He didn't want to be skinned alive. His heavily tanned Caucasian hide was the reason why he was called a koru and treated like a slave, it was the symbol of his inferiority, but it was better with it, than without it, and Mazo didn't want to have it snatched away from his body. This threat alone made him forget about all his non-sensical kingship visions. It reminded him that he was just a slave, a fucking slave, and that he needed to work extremely hard to get his daily ratio of stale gruel and water. He was assailed by the very real memories of him working buck-naked in the fields and in the mine, while he frantically searched the bottom of the well, crazed up by the fear that his hide might be taken away from him and hanged on a stick like some stupid flag. He was so scared, but in the end he did find the coin!
"Good job, slave!" Chief Overseer Darkmoor said. "You get to keep your hide!"
Mazo was immensely happy and humbled, and he kneeled respectfully in front of Chief Overseer Darkmoor, offering him the coin.
No koru knew what happened to the coin after that. Some said that the Chief Overseer kept it for himself or sold it to another Black Lord for a lot of money. Noodzaak believed that the Chief Overseer threw the coin into another well and that he wished that the koru never become "kingz" again.