The Owned

An Irish woman and her children sold into Caribbean slavery by Cromwell?s regime. A TV series on the history of slavery. A historian working on the series finds the woman?s story conveyed to him through the crucifying randomness of night. As the chronicling of her life becomes progressively more compelling to him, his reason seems held ransom by the dark. Against the background of the world history of slavery being presented, his marriage is in polite meltdown. He ignores the apparent parallels between his family life and the slave woman?s till they accelerate to a collision point on the Island of Barbados. ?We can all have irrational thoughts or behave irrationally at times. But so long as you know you?re being irrational you are not yet insane?. His colleague?s advice works well in the daylight, he thought, but not when, at the fading of the light, his visitor?s narrative again claims ownership of him.