Chop. Chop. Chop.

  The screams cut through the stale night, only to be muffled and gagged out moments later, like they never existed at all.

  The world was shrouded from the sun, shadows had fallen over the swampland. Fireflies buzzed about with quite, simple purpose. Frogs croaked and cicadas sang their song to night mother, waiting for the sun to rise to descend into temporary hibernation once again.

  The moon beamed down bright, a silver disk in the sky, surrounded by little specks of light, gleaming from lightyears away, the brightest among them, the Southern Star, shining brightest among the black canvas above. It watched them all with glee and curiosity, unbeknownst to the mortals below.

  “Gahdammit, kids these days jus’ don’ listen.” Even though he couldn’t see the lights that beamed bright in the sky above, the dark-skinned man still gazed at that southern star, smiling through his crooked and missing teeth, running his slimy tongue over his inflamed gums, spitting out a wad of black spittle at a nearby can. The black goo missed the can and slapped down on the white floor porch, a twist of long white bones tied and glued together to make a sturdy floor.

  His black skin melded with the shadows of the swamp. If it weren’t for his bone white chair, he would be nigh invisible. He rocked back and forth in his ivory seat, enjoying the illumination of the southern star, “Yeap, is ‘ight tonight. I can feel it coming on.” He adjusted a bit, smacking the top of his rocking chair, “Quit moving now, gahdammit, yous almost spilled mah glasses off.”

  The Southern Star held its place above him. He adjusted his glasses, neatly setting them over the bridge of his nose. He glanced back up to the sky. That Southern Star just gave him so much hope for the vision of his master. A new world be a coming. He just knew it to be true. A world where men be free of every shackle that binds them.

  His black hand held his banjo, adjusting himself to play the instrument better. His fingers ran over the metal strings, feeling the frets below. He smiled and began rocking again, playing a tune to the midnight audience abuzz in the swamp. He could hear the shuffling of feet in the bone white street in front of his residence.

  “S’lively tonight. Got a good energy ‘ere.”

  He walked the streets many a night, feeling the grooves between the bones with his feet and cane. How many people must his master need to build his town to completion? The Bone Doctor was one reckless, tweaked mother fucker, but he didn’t mind, he served him after all. The perks was too good for an old blind negro to pass up.

  Chop. Chop. Chop.

  More screams rang out from inside his bone hut. He missed his chord and screeched an awful twang, instantly ruining the mood. He spat out the chew in his mouth, the clod of brown muck smacked against the can and clung there, slowly inching down like a slug.

  “Gahdammit. Ima whoop a negro’s ass tonight. You bet yo ass I will, damn youngins.” He set down the banjo, his chair shaking, moving around again. He smacked the top of the chair, standing with his cane, “An I said you quit moving! You best learn yo place ‘fore I get back, or they be hell to pay.” He smacked the head that was perched at the top of the chair once more with force to get his point across.

  Flesh was still attached to the head, its eyes moving about, trying to shy away from the blows that came in. It’s bottom jaw removed, tongue still hanging down, flopping about. Its upper torso intertwined with the rocking chair, its spine serving as support for the back of the chair. Flesh was peeled away except for its neck, shoulders, and up to its head. Its nubs from its shoulder rotating about, moving the chair side to side, messing with the rocking momentum.

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  He didn’t know if it was a man or woman, hell, he didn’t care if it were a child, it was a lousy chair that moved too damn much. He smacked the head over and over until his hand hurt from the impact.

  The head and nubs quit moving, allowing the chair to still, finally admitting defeat. It’s eyes drooped down to the floor.

  “Now thas mo’ like it.” He tilted his head in victory, smiling as he opened the white door, a plethora of bones lashed together with a face at the knob, eyes moving about but unable to escape its fate, “Gotta break ‘em in first, ain’t that right, Niglet?”

  He peered over his small, black spectacles at a tall black lad covered in blood and guts. His apron only protected him so much as his white shirt was now stained dark red. Niglet stood in front of a table, a large meat cleaver in his hand, back turned to the old man. He hacked down on a body strapped to the table.

  Chop.

  The screams erupted again from a middle-aged white man, nude, missing one of his legs at the hip, the other missing large chunks of flesh. Blood oozed out onto the bone white table, dripping through the cracks between them.

  Niglet looked back at the blind man, “Yessuh, Mister Waltah, suh. Yous a right old negro, yous is.” He hacked down again, his free arm holding the squirming body as the man screamed out. “This un hard to break, he is.”

  Walter felt his cane out as he walked to the table in his bone home. Four human legs were holding the table up, one in each corner, their feet twisted inward to avoid catching.

  He smacked Niglet upside the head, “Now, what I tell you, boy? Yous s’posed to cut the lungs out first, so they don’t be screaming every bit of the night, waking up the whole gahdamn Basilica!” He smacked him again, the young black man flinched away.

  “Sorrah, Mistah Waltah, I forgot ‘bout dat. Is hard to know where tah chop, it is.”

  The man spoke through his pain, trying to ignore the searing pain in his hips and leg, “Please, just let me go. I’ve done nothing wrong here. Please, show some mercy. Anything but this. Please, you’re a nice young man, do what’s right.” He gave a half-hearted smile, hoping his pleas would not fall on deaf ears.

  “Really now?” Walter chuckled while walking around the head of the table, standing above the man’s head. His glasses slid down his nose, revealing empty sockets where his eyes should be, “An’ did the man who owned me show any mercy? Did he do what was right?”

  The man on the table swallowed hard, sticking his tongue out to bite down.

  “Ha! Ya know dat won’ work here, mister. ‘Ave a nice life as a decoration now, ya hear?” He laughed out some more, turning his head to Niglet, “Let’s finish this job quickly now.”

  Niglet took his butcher knife and sliced deep into the man’s chest, cutting down his sternum and into his stomach. The man screamed again until Niglet reached up inside his chest cavity, breaking apart the ribs, and ripping out his lungs. Air wheezed from the meat sacks and the man stopped screaming.

  “See,” Walter pat the young negro on his shoulder, “You got the hang of it, boy. Ain’t you read them instructions I give ya?” He pointed to a chart on the wall, made up by the Bone Doctor himself. “S’all written there in great detail.”

  He shook his head, “No, suh, I ain’t know how to read.”

  Walter shook his head, sighing, “All this freedom now, and you choose to be the dumbest negro in all the Basilica. Damn shame, boy.” He turned back to his porch, the man on the table still thrashing about, trying to escape his demise; his mouth moved, but nothing came out but the clicks of his teeth and mushing of his mouth.

  It was quite now. “Thas better.” Walter head back to his rocking chair, yelling back into the house, “Make sure he ain’t breakin’ them teeth. They as good as gold ‘round ‘ere!” He smacked the head above his chair for good measure, sitting back down and grabbing his banjo.

  The ear-piercing whistle of a steam engine chugging down the swamp towards the basilica could be heard all throughout the bone town. Black cloaked figures began running through the bone-laden streets towards the docks.

  Walter smiled, starting to strum his banjo, “Looks like newcomers ‘bout to arrive. We be busy for a week, mayhaps two now, Niglet! Best keep that chopping up! Ha ha!” He strummed away into the night, glancing up over his spectacles to the Southern Star. It’s light beamed right into his soul.

  Joy filled his heart, “The Bone Doctor be building a haven for us folk down here, and I don’t care what we have to do to get it. These youngins don’ know what we put up with, but nah, nah we kings.” He grinned into the night.

  A black comet blasted across the sky, headed for a nearby mountaintop. His missing eyes couldn’t see the thing flying through the sky, but his smile faded and a sense of dread began to replace his joy. It was the dawn of a new world a coming, after all.