Lying down on my hard cot, a single scratchy Army blanket covering it, I close my eyes, trying to sleep. I’m tired enough that I twitch myself out of sleep, but when my thoughts go blank, a flashing light wakes me up. I stare at the red light. It’s still, sending out its warm wavelengths. I close my eyes and the flashing begins. So this is their game? No sleep? Soften me up for the talk. The big talk? I grin.
“Fuck all of you,” I say, but I realize that my throat is more parched than ever and that I can’t even create saliva.
I walk to the sink. Standing back up makes me realize that my arches are almost collapsing. Shifting my weight to the balls of my feet, I make my way to the sink and lean against it. It’s metal, this sink, and with one button and a hole for the water. I press and out dribbles a most pathetic stream. The metal sink itself seems dirty, though not entirely septic. I move in and can smell chlorine. I hesitate, the thought of having to lick the metal is too much. But my parched throat speaks up and I put my mouth down and lick up some water. I stay in this hunched up position for a few minutes before I’m sure I’m satiated.
This might not be so bad, I think. I might, in the end, learn to wait these people out. I have water, for now, and that seems like it should be enough. But that thought doesn’t last long, I’m immediately enveloped with the feelings I’ve had when in the arms of my wife. Her. I need to get out and save her. Energy courses through my veins. I bang my fist on each wall. There is no sound. I bang harder. Still no sound. Have they somehow managed to muffle me completely? Is this the punishment for a life of words, for trying to be a loudspeaker? I bang with my feet, kick, really. Nothing. I place my ears to each wall and floor. Nothing. The extent of my isolation is stifling. As if to drive the point home, my brain shrinks as well. Recedes from my skull.
The window. I jump to reach the bars, but don’t even come close. I’m not of the age where I can tumble off walls anymore, so I do a few active stretches, kicking my legs back and forth, to limber up. Then I lean back against the door and launch myself up the bed, then kick off the wall and twist midair, grabbing at the bars. My fingers grasp the bottom half of them and I hold on for dear life, thinking that perhaps I’ve torn a few tendons in the process. And indeed my shoulders and fingers pulse with pain. But it’s no time for that, I remind myself of what’s at stake. It’s something more than me. And that helps, almost takes me back to the days when I was a soldier. Regular Army, that is.
Kicking up against the wall, I pull my self up to the window. My wrists press against the wall, adding to the pain, but I don’t succumb to it, even though my eyes water. When I come up to window level, a short breeze puffs only face. I stare. It’s New York, All right. I’m looking over from midtown to Central Park. I wonder what madman brought me here. We’re at least several stories above all the other buildings. A funny thing because with my knowledge of the recent buildings our recent billionaire mayor has put up, and I know what the tallest building is, and it’s a luxury condo, just put up so that the oligarchs could have a place on their assets, so that if they did decide to stay here, they would have a view and be on a throne above the plebs. I’m being angry. I am angry. I stare at the view some more. It’s a summertime scene, and the wind carries with it that fecund smell of the soil and human flesh or skin, along with garbage and exhaust. After a few minutes my grips starts to loosen. I buck and kick, trying to loosen the bars, but nothing. I try to jump down, avoiding the sink and toilet and bed, but landing on the floor almost cracks my bones. I lie down there, staring at the red light, somewhat amused that the ambient light from the daylight isn’t leaking in. Is it another trick of these people?
I lie there, gritting my teeth, wondering if there will be another way out of here when the sound of footsteps vibrates through the ground. I try to summon myself up, though my body doesn’t listen. The footsteps grow louder. I hold my breath and close my eyes, my body trembles. I think I know what happens next. The urge to urinate comes over me. The footsteps are almost here. But I don’t want to piss myself when things get rough. I move up and to the toilet, pulling down my pants and pissing. As I watch my urine move down a metal flute, I realize that I’ve pulled down my pants. Have I lost weight? Perhaps there’s some good about this being hunted business.
“Prisoner 13. Move to the door.” The voice is cruel. I can sense the wont to tear my flesh apart.
“Hold on,” I say in a meek voice, meeker than I wanted. “I’m pissing.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. Move to the door or else we’ll have you listed as rebellious... You don’t want that.”
I want them to come in. But I remember the pain just sustained from jumping down from the window. I can’t take much more. And besides, it’s playing into their hands to allow them a chance to get a punch or kick in. But to be meek still seems like the ultimate insult. I won’t have that.
“You want me to piss all over the floor?” I say, a little bolder.
“Let him piss,” another voice says. “Last thing I want is piss on my uniform.”
A grunt. “Hurry the fuck up then,” the bass voice says.
I finish and walk to the door.
“Hands in the box.”
I push my hands into the little box and feel zip ties placed around them. I pull my hands out and the door opens.
“Turn.”
I turn, taking another glance at the sky. Why does the sky above Manhattan look like that?
I feel metal chains placed on my legs. Why is there plastic on my wrists, while metal on my legs? Budget cuts, I think in reply. We shuffle down the hallway. Through the corner of my eye I take a look at the other cells. They all seem empty.
“He’s looking.”
“I tried to be nice,” says the gruff man. A hood goes over my head. Now I stare at my feet as they trudge across the tile floor.
Finally we come to a door. Wooden. I smell cigars and perfume, and other aromas I can’t place, but which I associate with rich places.
“Knock,” the gruff voice orders me. I raise my hands.
“With your head.”
I pause. Wrong move. A hand grasps the back of my head and uses it to strike the door. The hood helps some, but the pain of my brain bouncing off my skull reverberates. It’s the pain in the next few seconds, borderline dull but deep that sends a signal to my stomach and I dry heave.
“Easy, sweetheart,” the gruff man says and the both of them snicker. They remove my hood, and I draw in some air.
“Come in,” a learned voice from the other side of the door says.
The door opens and I walk in. It’s a suite, luxurious, baroque even, a replica of Versailles. In the middle on a red couch sits a man in silk bathrobe.
I’m pushed through and upon entering, the smell of sandal soap beneath the other plethora of luxurious items wiggles itself into my nose. So he’s worldly as well? I smile.
“Oh? Smiling?” the man says. His eyes are cold. I was wrong to allow him to read anything. This is going to be tough. I don’t answer and stare out a window. It’s the same view as from my cell, but here I can see a normal sky with clouds racing across the blue.
“Won’t answer? Has he been this cocky all the way through?”
I hear movement from behind me, but no words.
“Very well then,” says the man in the silk robe. “In the corner with you. Timeout is what you need.” He sits back down, and picks up a news paper from across him and starts to read it.
I’m pouched into a corner. My body shrieks. This corner is different than the rest of the room. The ground is an uneven cement, with large pieces of rock in the mix, and the wall is cement as well. Compared to the rest of the room, this is oddly austere, spartan even. I stand in the corner.
“Kneel,” says soft speaking guard.
So this is what they want? A slow softening of my will? I know how this goes. So does my body; it starts trembling uncontrollably, the pain in my head from the knocking, increases. I feel weak, sensitive. Do
wn on my knees, the uneven ground digs into my bones. It’s immediately painful. Sweat drips down my temple. I breath, trying to focus away from the pain in my knees. It helps.
For a second. Then the pain wins out. It always wins out. Oh to be a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, to have that level of mind-over-matter-control. But perhaps a lack of control is why I’m here. The pain grows worse, spreading from my knees and up my spine. I move back, resting my ass on my calves.
“Up,” says the soft voice.
I wait a second, trying to bide some time.
“He said up,” the gruff man says.
I hear something cutting through the air, and before I can register what it is, a rod of some kind hits me on my shoulder blade. A shriek of pain convulses my arm, and I get back on my knees. Again the pain in my knees picks up and my heart beats faster. How long will this last? It could be forever. I try to think my way out of this, try to think that this is merely pressure being applied to my bones, that they won’t break, that I simply have to out think the pain. But that doesn’t work, because the pain is too much. I try to shift my weight.
“Stay still,” says gruff man. He sparks up a taser.
I try to stay still as the hairs on my skin stand on end. That doesn’t help. My body starts to tremble even though I will it not to. But it knows what’s going on. It has the same access to my history and my knowledge as I do and it’s reacting in the only real way possible. Meanwhile, I’m acting like a nimrod. Yet I can’t show too much weakness, can I? The ground pushes even further into my knees. My guts rebel in conjunction with my bones. I feel the need to vomit and start to draw in deep breathes of air. To be free from all this.
“Uh oh, looks like he’s going to pop.”
A few giggles erupt behind me.
“Anything that comes out of you in this room, we’ll make you clean it up.”
“And we will make you do what we want.”
I know they will, and yet I don’t want to believe it. And here I am. With nothing. But hope.
“All right, bring him here,” the cool controlled voice says.
They bring me to my knees, holding me as my legs buckle. Straightening my legs causes even more pain than before. It takes a second or two before the pain diffuses into my body. I’m hungry again, but this time I’m also thirsty. All part of the plan, I’m sure, so I try to think about something else. It doesn’t work. When I’m turned to see the man on the couch, I see two new men on either side of him. For a second I’m sure I see collars on these two men, but when I blink they’re gone. Again, the body doesn’t lie, and it trembles.
“Don’t go all weak kneed on me,” says the man.
I recognize the two men. Writers, the lot of them. Coveted ones at that. One writes scathing essays, while the other writes baroque novels. The former I thought dead. But here he is, in the flesh. Staring at the writers, and thinking on how they were ones I always looked up to, until very recently. I can smell the faint trace of cigar smoke. That makes me hungrier. My stomach rumbles. The two writers blush, eyes widened, and giggle like school girls not used to anything outside the norm.
“You can eat,” says the man on the couch. He points at some fruits on the table in front of him. I move towards them but the men behind me jerk my arms, almost dislocating my elbows, and I stand straight.
“That’s better,” says the man on the couch. “You’ve learned to act right, I see?”
I pause, trying to gauge what he wants. That means they’ve won, doesn’t it? When I try to please the man who’s causing pain, it means that I’ve lost. “Perhaps,” I say. My eyes fall back on the writers.
“I see you know these two?”
“I’ve heard of them,” I say. Why did I think I saw collars on them?
“That’s right. But you’ve never met them. But now you can.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I say, wondering if I should mention my name.
The two writers raise their noses at me and scoff. It hurts, even though I don’t think much of them.
The man on the couch seems to relish this.
Something sparks up inside me. I hack up some mucus and spit it out across the space between us. It misses them all.
Behemoth’s still sifting through the back pack of mine and he lets out a sigh and raises one hand in the air and makes a circular motion. The writers smile wryly.
And the regret for my moment of rebellion hits me at the same time that the man behind me, the one with the gruff voice, swings at me with the rod or baton or whatever, and hits me right between the shoulder blades. As I crumple, he knees me in the small of my back and holds my arms, so the snap of my head is hard enough that I can’t help but taste something salty as the world goes black. But it comes right back, except I’m on the floor and being dragged my my feet. The ceiling passes by, a beautiful high ceiling with what looks like replicas of Renaissance age paintings, and I remember to lift my head when a bump hits it.
Back in the corner, kneeling, the pain returns to my body. That separation of soul and hope and flesh starts all over again. It doesn’t take as long this time. The thought process I adopt is that I need to at least act like a simpering groveling fool who’s thankful for any relief. But of course, I can’t really say that’s not what I’m thinking, that this isn’t a capitulation of my self who wants to get off his knees and not experience pain for so long; I wonder if this too is part of the process of what they’re doing? That with everyone it starts with some level of just pretending to get it over with, but then when the real things sacrifices are asked of you then that’s when you capitulate again and totally because you have already done this one step towards it, making it all the easier. And as I try to stay as still as possible, I start to whimper.
“Shut up,” says the soft one.
I nod my head. The pain has now formed into sharp knives traveling up my neck which slowly pierce my mind. I’m sweating profusely now. When does it end? Without an end time, this is only going to get worse. So what can I say to make it better? “I’m sorry for what I said.”
“Too late now, bud,” says the soft one. He sounds sincere. Like he cares about nothing but me. I even feel bad for putting him in this situation.
“I’ll talk. I’ll talk properly,” I say.
“Is he saying anything of use to us?” says the man on the couch. His voice is extremely icy, and I hear the writers chuckle.
“He’ll talk,” says the soft one. I wonder what’s happened to the gruff one. He should be prodding me.
“Let him suffer a little longer.”
And there I am, back in the arms of pain, wondering how to get out of this. There aren’t too many other things I can do besides ask my captors, especially when they’re intent on hurting me, for mercy. I feel shame drip down, but the pain overpowers that easily. That’s been my life, though, hasn’t it? I have ideals, I really do. But there’s been an ephemeral sense to all of them. That’s what happens when you hitch your horse on evidence, and most of that evidence is susceptible to change. I’ve always secretly held an envy towards the fundamentalists in life, especially the religious, as they always seemed impervious to minor quibbles of evidence. While I, after the life I lived, throw that way of living down and accepted the “scientific way” whole-heartedly.
The pain grows, and all thoughts, even of how I should react, die. They haven’t a chance against the all encompassing pain. And since I can’t think, I can only react. I almost want to cry. But I know I’m not a child any longer. That there are only a few things in life that will help me. And none of them is sympathy.
When the pain becomes unbearable, and nothing that I can think of can even alleviate it, I fall over to the side. I’m met with kicks and the taser that jolts me, rattling the pain, morphing it into something worse.
Back on my knees, and now with my hood back on, I wonder if I should try to speak again. I’m not sure why, but it seems like they’ve decided not to speak. All I hear are the shuffling of footsteps and.. The pain.
The pain is now a ringing in my ear. It soon turns into a whisper, a claim that I am defeated and that I need to make all concessions now.
“I’ll talk,” I say.
No one says anything. I think I hear high heels walking int o the room. I want to turn. The scent of floral—alpine in strength and subtlety—fills me. There’s a break from the pain. I can sense the stiffening of the others. Feminine whispers. Chuckles. More whispers. I’m not sure what. I twist my head, trying to see from underneath the hood. Red heels in front of the couch, with three pairs of brown loafers pointing the other direction. The pain has almost fully disappeared. Whoever that woman is, I know her. And this knowledge tickles my balls. And takes away the pain. I squeeze my thoughts, trying to locate the woman, her scent. Her lilly-white arms with a handful of freckles come into view and I know that movement. But I can’t see her face. Perhaps it was merely a woman I’d seen before and my mind, convoluted, is now grasping for hope. So it still lives.
After the whispers, the woman’s heels make their way to me. Her perfume is strong here, and I sense that there’s something of attraction in her hesitation, this close to me. But that’s foolish, I remind myself. She whispers to my two guards, so close I can almost make out the individual words, though all I get is: “Terrorist?... good.. Make him” And the rest is lost in a her beautiful fricatives and I imagine slightly disgusted saccades sent my way. I am a prisoner. But I’m taking in her scent, the sharp sound of her heels, and I’m bearing the pain rather well. I’m winning here. Let her stay and look at me askance.
The Labyrinth of Souls Page 7