Public Service
The slave works hard
Serving the feet of the public,
Even though his tongue be tired.
Every shoe is licked,
Every foot revered,
Every sock admired.
The Indentured Footservant
Part 1 – A new life Roger sat nervously in the back of the limousine observing the sights of Jakarta as the car sped through the streets of the Indonesian capital. The uniformed chauffeur was a heavily-built black man in his early 30s. The car had been sent to meet him at the airport. The chauffeur wasn't saying much, and so Roger decided he would break the ice with, what he thought, was a fairly innocuous question: 'Have we far to go?’ The smartly dressed chauffeur paused for a moment before replying in a thick West African accent: 'I suggest you keep quiet, slave, and learn to speak only when you are spoken to by your betters.' Roger's heart sank to the pit of his stomach. Slave! It was the first time ever in his life he had been called a ‘slave’, and it was a somewhat ominous development. He was, after all, as he understood it, going to be a household servant – not a ‘slave’. But how had he come to this humble position at the age of 45? He thought back through t...
