Season Two: Episode Two: May I Present, The Timer
Prologue:
(The days are longer now with everything I must maintain. Doy and Justice righteously need my teachings and parenting. There is also the home I provide for everyone needs to be kept up. Fortunately I have dedicated staff that takes care that everything concerning a home is consistently handled. The ARC is operating efficiently and turning a profit. All key positions in the company are filled with competent and creative women and men. I can’t shake the thoughts I’m having of late that deals with the origin of this country. How did America become what it is today?
Why did it establish the systems then that’s left a legacy of unbalance in many parts of human existence. Economics, the economics of slavery, laws, and a defacto male caste system that denied liberty to the powerless. More clearly to the point is that power only resided with European men of Caucasian descent. Okay I got that part, but how did they create these systems in the early formation of America that still today underpins how America values, views, and vilify Black people?
Maybe it’s Black peoples’ punishment for allowing ourselves to be enslaved for hundreds of years creating vast treasure troves of stolen wealth that still line the pockets of slave owners descendants. Dreams invoke in me the need to interpret them. I hope an expansion of knowledge is headed my way.).
Mother Sayer: (Mother is on her way home on a Friday. It has been a stressful week. Overseeing the software development of ‘SAFE ROAD’ which has created so many ideas and analysis of can it be effective not just on roads in America but roads in every country.). I’ve got to look these files over this weekend and give the creative development teams my decisions on Monday. Sarah, can you make sure I have the files I need ready for me before I leave?
Sarah W. Certainty: Yes of course Mother. I’ve just about finished with them. The last proposal was just dropped off a few minutes ago and I’m entering the data into our network.
Mother Sayer: Good. Can you put the one about road safety on top? That one I’m getting a good feeling about because so many drivers are unskilled, old, young, and inexperienced.
Sarah W. Certainty: The ‘SAFE ROAD’ file is on top along with the six files that need your approval also. By the way, have you decided where you’ll volunteer your nursing services in order to stay skilled and current?
Mother Sayer: I have three places in mind. One is a drug treatment clinic. One is a free medical clinic. The last one is one I’ve yet to lock down because I will practice my nursing license in a impoverished neighborhood of color.
——————-1st Interlude——————-
(Mother arrives home safety and finds her children deep in study. A snack was provided and dinner will be at 7:30 pm. She places the files down in her office and turns to go upstairs to her room to change, shower and get dressed for dinner.
As she goes about placing the memories of her day in proper context for recall later, she thinks again about her country. How did America survive all the contradictions and still prosper into what historians would call one of the greatest nations to ever be formed upon it? How could a system of slavery last hundreds of years and produce such stunning and consistent growth? Did my people, Black people, make America what it is today?
How did they do it? I mean how did it start. There must be a record of how it was done somewhere. There has to be. How did a loose collection of indebted men and women set sail from Europe in search of a life where they could purge their old sins and create a fresh start. What was the plan after they got here? Ah, oh well, maybe it’s in some history book somewhere stuck in a corner of a library at an old church on the east coast.).
Mother Sayer: N’tare, I’m going to my office to review some paperwork. Call me if you need me to do anything.
N’tare Boulder: Very well, Mother Sayer. I’m straighten up the kitchen and the house with the staff members and prepare for breakfast tomorrow.
Mother Sayer: Alright then, will see you then and goodnight.
N’tare Boulder: Goodnight.
——————-2nd Interlude——————-
(Mother has completely her review of the files and knows where she will give her okay to move forward on Monday. She is about to call it a night when she feels an authoritative presence come over the room. This isn’t normal. What is going on here. If there is something I’m supposed to see then show it to me. She utters the words speak to me or leave.).
Timer: You want to know things that most people want to keep hidden.
Mother Sayer: First things first. Who are you and what are you here to tell me?
Timer: My position in the Father’s House is to keep a record of what was done on Earth and where and when it happened.
Mother Sayer: Your name is?
Timer: My name is Timer.
Mother Sayer: Yes Timer, I do have some curiosity as to how the early colonialists got a country up and running when they didn’t by all accounts have the money to do it.
Timer: (Without another word Mother Sayer feels as if she has just gained 3000 pounds and her joints would shatter if she moved.). We’ll start here at the place whereas men would say today that I didn’t have anything to do with enslaving Black people. I wasn’t there is the sentence often used to absolve themselves of the crimes of their ancestors.
Mother Sayer: I heard it spoken many times, but it often serves to squash the conversation because there’s no documentation on how the system of slavery really began. You can’t answer the why until you know how.
Timer: (Could she be one? Not now Timer. Just test her. Time will indeed tell.). Follow along if you can.
Mother Sayer: (She smells air so thick with greenery, shrubbery and crisp as a sparkling bubbly that she’s almost intoxicated as it overwhelms her sense of smell. Her eyes seems to see in the distance more sharply than she thought possible. Hold it together she murmurs to herself.). This place can’t be done justice by simply speaking of its’ beauty.
Timer: It is the time before man remakes the world in his image.
Mother Sayer: Understood. Please proceed.
Timer: Beginning where the news broke of cheap labor on the east coast of America, for the record I’ll show you the period mid 16th Century. Let’s round it up to 1650. Many landowners were struggling to find labor for their fields. Make an honest go it. That sort of thing. Never fear though. There’s always strength in numbers. I’ll come back around to that if we have time.
Now, let me ask you. If you have 100 acres and no labor to clear it off, no horses to break the ground, and no way to keep hold of it from thieves. Very little money to buy seeds and for that matter I really don’t know what would grow out here. What would you do?
Mother Sayer: I’d realize I’ve bitten off more than I can chew that’s what I’d conclude.
Timer: Ah, women. More concerned with decency and honor the lot of you. I’ll ask the question in a different way. What do you think a man would do when faced with those realities?
Mother Sayer: I’d hope he would try to figure it out righteously seeing I’ve read they were quite the religious sort of the time in question.
Timer: Alright, let’s follow man’s reasoning then. Take a look and understanding we’re pressed for time I’ll forward the decision making process with that fact in mind.
——————-3rd Interlude——————-
(Mother witnesses one landowner contemplating his situation. Rising to his feet as he stepped and straddling his horse and heading into town to inquire at the local gathering place if what he’s heard is true. He can go in with other landowners to finance a ship and men capable of capturing other men and women and spiriting them away for transport back to America as free labor.
He takes little if no time to make his decision to join in this alliance. The Timer sees and ignores Mother Sayer’s petition to enquire about the conscience of the men she’s viewing. The landowners have made their pact. Now after a few ships have docked and everybody that has wagered and financed the cargo have received some of their return on investment; the landowners are now beginning to feel that this might just work out.
Mind you, there is still no intention to pay these newly acquired laborers. As far as the landowners are concerned they are property entitled to be viewed and dealt with as such. Mother Sayer presses the pause and forces the Timer to listen to her.).
Mother Sayer: So that’s how it begins. That’s how year after year and time after time right and wrong seems to be more of a guidance than a spiritual mandate than defines behavior.
Timer: Meaning what exactly?
Mother Sayer: We like to say our laws are written and blindly applicable to all equally. Our system of appointed guardians to include the police, prosecutors, judges and elected officials are sworn to ensure a just society by holding everyone accountable to the same law as ordinary citizens.
Timer: Before a country can truly achieve such a high bar to which America has never achieved. Let me remind you that what comes out of a man’s heart is what defiles him. I’ll give you one instance of that happening. Picture a balance beam with 50 right points and 50 wrong points at each corner. A man will show you by his behavior that he flaunts the law. He writes into law that says a human being is worth 3/5 of another human being. Which side do you think would gain the most points?
Mother Sayer: The side of wrong. It would probably gain close to all the points on the scale.
Timer: (Is she a truth seeker? Could she be one of those? One that asks WHY?). That’s just the way things are with human beings. Humans only relish in what they perceive as a just conclusion to a work in progress. The embellishment takes place in the form of revising how you got there.
Mother Sayer: Oh, the change of heart to end slavery wasn’t born out of righteousness? It wasn’t decided that it was inherently wrong to enslave people for the enrichment of the owners or the noble cause of making America great.
Timer: Now we’re getting somewhere. Now let’s quickly review if you want to know more. America was built by an extraordinary race of people from Africa. They were enslaved. The leaders and landowners at the time devised schemes to make it happen. Money was loaned and the dye was cast. These unholy alliances formed to make the founders rich and not the slaves. It was a brilliant and bold idea that worked for hundreds of years because it was backed by the government.
The fact that a landowner saw no other way to survive tells you everything you need to know about how slavery was solidified in America. Can’t take something away from somebody that was taught down through the generations how things worked can you?
Mother Sayer: Either fail or caste your lot in with mine so we can make a home for ourselves here in America. Dam these people. Oh, right they aren’t people, they’re property. I do understand more now, but I still need more information. How did it last for hundreds of years? You can’t tell me a gentleman’s agreement and a few shoddy country hick laws were enforceable that long. Were they?
Timer: We shall speak again. (With that, the Timer was gone and Mother was back in her home office.).
Epilogue:
(Mother dismisses all thoughts of piety. This is a chance for me to find out some things about how this country was formed and why it behaves the way it does. Is it so embarrassing to admit the crimes against humanity? Why the pious pompous façade that can only be thrown back in our faces by countries doing the same thing. No wonder we choose to ignore the obvious indiscretions of people we suppose to hold to a higher standard.
Do all these so called Christians not understand the meaning of repentance? How can they follow a man like President Trump that shows disdain for our laws and the entire country. That’s why I’ve got to know more about how the citizens that have ancestors in America can say with a straight face that stealing the wages of African Americans for over 400 years is irrelevant and old news. There wouldn’t be an America today if African Americans labor and bodies weren’t exploited for wealth and social position.
Mother is shaking now as she knows there is now a chance she will have the answers she’s always sought. The Timer she thinks. What an appropriate designation.).