keeping a better eye on him than usual. If it were anyone else, we would speculate that they want to kill him before he can go, but Classic is not a man to worry about. But we watch him ever so curiously. A man his age, salt and pepper hair growing in his beard with slow movement, has no reason being among us. He moves like an old tree and he speaks. By the suits, he speaks far too much. And not only that, but he sneaks notes into my basket when he
thinks I can’t see him. This dying melody of a man is wasting what few notes he has left, and he only has two weeks left on the gold chains.
We whisper and he speaks far too loudly. We move and he strides. We are sheep and he is an ox. He is strong-bodied, yet weak with age. He has worked, and he cannot stop working. It makes the rest of us wonder why he is here, what made him risk death? We wonder about his real name and who he might have been before the chains. We agree that we don’t like him. We all agree that Classic is Dangerous. . . .
It is warmer than usual the day that Classic speaks to me. I wake with the sun and am led to the note fields. Classic is already there, hands deep in the earth. I am chained five feet away; my hands dig into the ground and my fingers brush the note covered in dirt. The sound of a note hitting the side of my basket draws my attention and I glare at the older man. He smiles, chuckles, and turns his attention back to his work. Part of me wants to throw the note back at him, chastise him for wasting his notes, but he begins humming. We don’t hum to pass the time here; humming is for the suits, not for slaves. I work, slipping my fingers over the curve of a note. I can’t help but wince as a thorn cuts my flesh, caking with blood and earth from my years in this field. “They call you Blue, right?” The voice is too loud, gravelly and like tires on asphalt. I glance around me, panic settling in my veins. The white suits don’t mind when we speak, but it doesn’t mean that they want us to. They don’t want us to have ideas.
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