Was that a duck?

GASP! Something new... It's a rambling mess of a story. ENJOY!

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Was that a duck?

This is a stupid question. A silly question. A completely unnecessary question. It wasn’t a duck. Couldn’t have been.

She loved ducks.

There are no ducks. Not anymore. Not for a long while.

I miss ducks. I missed ducks. Not anymore. Not for a long while.

I still miss her though. I figure I always will.

Nothing is the same, everything is different. Or maybe everything is the same, always has been. I am made of atoms, that rock is made of atoms, the water of the lake is made of atoms. Everything is the same.

Everything is different. It goes deeper than atoms, deeper than electrons. Deeper than gluons and quarks and a whole bunch of other things that I don’t understand.

There are no ducks, or birds. Or anything. Or anyone. There is nothing. Not anymore, not for a long while. There is only me. Everything is different, everything is the same.

I woke up one morning, alone. I wake up every morning alone.

For a long time I wandered an abandoned landscape, looking for anyone, anything, but there was no one, there is no one, there will never be anyone. Not anymore.

I don’t know what happened, I figure I never will, a better, smarter man may tell you why this one morning everything with a brain simply wasn’t anymore. There didn’t die, they just weren’t. Gone from existence.

Do I have a brain? Did I have a brain? Not anymore. Not for a long while. If I ever did have one its gone now. It must be. There are no ducks. But I saw a duck.

Didn’t I?

I walked here, to this lake house. To this lake house her father built. To where she would always be when I couldn’t find her. But she wasn’t here, isn’t here, hasn’t been here. Not anymore. Not for a long while.

But this place is still her place. It’s still her. Or maybe its me, maybe I brought her with me. Brought her home. I don’t understand. I miss her.

Everything is the same.

Everything is different.

The lake is calm. I am calm. We are calm.

Everything is the same.

There is a duck sitting beside me.

Life

Well here is another one. So now were at one a day... over two days, not bad. I guess.

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They were sitting in a circle. Some on the floor, some on the couch. Ethan sat on the couch a guitar in hand, slowly strumming, nothing specific, just random chords. Emily sat beside him, her knees to her chin hodling herself tight, wrapped in his random strumming, writing random lyrics in her mind to go with his random strumming. Heather lay on her back on the floor, her head resting in Timothy's lap. He was going on about the issues in her life, how everything was becoming complicated, and how she hated growing up. Timothy simply listened, acting as a good friend. Charlie sat cross-legged in front of the coffee table, completly engrossed in what he was doing. He had a mission. A mission to craft something perfect. So he sat in front of the coffee table seperated from everyone else, rolling a joint. The perfect joint, because he believed if it was going to be their last it might as well be their best.He surrounded by papers he had discarded in his quest for the perfect roll. Usually they all would have been upset by such waste, but not tonight. Tonight they were all searching for perfection, and they were determine to get it no matter what the cost.
Ethan stopped strumming, and leaned to grab his glass of wine from the coffee table. He smelt the wine, and to him it didn't smell all too different than any other wine he had ever smelt. He sipped it slowly, savouring it. Nothing special, he thought, at least in taste, but it was special. It was the bottle of wine his parents had left him. The only bottle they had ever left them. They had left him much more; money, a house, toys, but only one bottle of wine had survived the fire that ad killed them. It was this bottle they drank from. A bottle bottled the year he had been born, a bottle which had survived the same fire he had. This bottle, to him, symbolized his life and he had decided long ago that he would drink it the night when the part of his life they shared was over. He had decided long ago that that would be the night he got engaged. He sipped the wine again, enjoying it. Goodbye my brother, he whispered.
Emily moved the guitar off of Ethan's lap, she placed it with love against the armrest of the couch. She moved up to Ethan, crawled under his arm and squeezed it with all the love and strength she could muster. She let go of his arm and drew her knees up to herself, placing her feet under her bottom. She held her hand up and stared at it. She kept catching the light in her new diamond ring, forcing her to squint. She was happy. She moved her head back, kiss Ethan's neck, and whispered into his ear, I love you.
Heather, looked up at Timothy, who was still listening to every word she said. She had just realized that she was simply talking for the sake of talking and that she didn't need to anymore. But more importantly, she realized, Timothy still listened to everything she said, not caring if it was gibberrish or random complaining. He listened, he always did. He was the best friend she could ever have. At least that what she had always thought. Since high school thay had always hung out, sharing every detail of their lives together. He knew everything about her, and vice versa. Every time her heartbroke he was there, and she had only realized something just now. Today. Something that had taken nearly ten years for her to realize. She loved him, more than she could ever love anyone else. She looked into his eyes, deep blue, big, loving. I love you, she said. Echoing her favorite line from their favorite movie he simply said, I know.
Timothy was happy, obviously. A girl he had loved for years had finally admitted her love to him. He realized that this was significant in his life. But this night he had his own goal in mind, that goal involved him not thinking about anything. He always wasted his time thinking about the future, worrying about what to do next or what his life would bring. Over-thinking had always led to issues in his life, they would not anymore. Tonight he would shut off his brain. Let his emotions control him, let his heart do the thinking, that was the plan. He leaned down and kissed Heather on the head. He moved her head off his lap and lay down next to her, he held her close.
Charlie had finished rolling his perfect joint. He lit it took three drags and let them fill his lungs, he exhaled, and for the first time ever he didn't cough. Perfect, he thought. He passed the joint and looked at all his friends. Yes, this was perfect, at least to him. He had fulfilled his goal, to give his friends a perfect end.
Outside a falling star appeared in the sky. It was no regular shooting star. It was massive. Twice the size of Texas they had said. This was the end, but in that appartment Ethan, Emily, Heather, Timothy and Charlie had done it right.

Sliver

Well it has been for ever since I wrote here, but I am back and I have a brand new story that I wrote today. That's right straight from the page to you. Enjoy.
P.S. I just checked and saw that the last time I added anything is was almost exactly a year ago. Egads!

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He hadn't been expecting this. He never thought he would come home to find his place half empty.He didn't realize what was going on at first. He had opened the door and saw that stuff was missing and he freaked out. He ran around his appartment, his heart beating a mile a minute, his thoughts flying through his brain. He didn't know what to do, he was barely registering what was missing. Then he noticed something on the floor. A simple picture frame, fallen from a sidetable. The frame was cracked and the glass fell to the floor as he picked it up. It was a picture of him and Amanda, his girlfriend, the love of his life. He kissed the photo and put it back in its place on the side table. Calmer now he looked around and slowly started to realize something. He hadn't been robbed. There was no way. No one would come to his place and not take his computer, his television, his guitars. Safe for the frame nothing was broken, there was no sign of being robbed. But still stuff was missing. And then it dawned on him. It was her stuff. All of her stuff, gone. Nothing had been stolen, she had simply taken all of her stuff and left. She had said nothing about it to him. There was no note anywhere in the appartment. All he knew was that none of her stuff remained. He thought back to the photoframe on the floor and he realized that that had been the note. That was her goodbye, her way of ending three years of what he always had thought of as undying love. He picked up the glass shards, sat on the floor and cried. A small sliver of glass slipped into his toe, her parting gift.

He sat at a booth towards the back of the bar. Alone. Though he didn't think he was alone. He sat surrounded by empty bottles and happy memories. Memories were all he had left. He had blown hundreds of dollars sitting in that booth. His emotions fluctuating, hitting brutal lows and dizzying highs. He sat there now, a bottle of rum in his hand and tears streaming down his face. He thought of their first date, the first time they met, the first concert they did together. He took a heavy swig from the bottle. Straight, he wanted it to burn on the way down, he wanted to punish himself. He knew he must have done something wrong, so he punished himself, thinking that if he went through enough pain she'd forgive him, come back, move her stuff back in and be happy with him. So he sat there, punishing himself with rough cheap alcohol, the kind that taste like nail polisher remover and burns twice as bad, apologizing to an empty seat. It wasn't empty to him, he saw her there, smiling back at him. He apologized and apologized, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Nervously he reached out and placed the box in front of her, with his right hand he held her hand and with his left hand he opened the box and asked her to marry him. Asked an empty seat to marry him. Asked a memory to marry him. Held the air's hand. She looked at the box, closed her eyes, looked at him, and sighed. She seemed to be about to speak, but nothing came out, she sighed again, got up and walked away, towards the door, towards oblivion. He stood to follow her, but the sliver in his toe stabbed further in and he sat back down, appreciating the pain of her last gift.

Two hours later he had decided what to do. He would leave, disappear, start a new life. There was nothing here for him, no family, all of his friends were her friends. Without her his career was over, just another musician in a big city, utterly pedestrian. So he got up walked over to the bar and settled his bill. He stepped out the door into the blistering sunlight and walked. He knew what he would do, he would go to the spaceport, he would get on the first shuttle and become a colonist, it was so simple, a brand new life, as far away as possible. The spaceport was a beautiful building, five-stories of beautiful curved steel and glass. The walk through the city had been nice, comforting like a warm sweater. He had seen the spaceport in the distance and he was filled with excitement and wonder as he approached it. He was filled with uncontrollable joy, knowing that his loss was not for nothing, that it had given him a noble goal. The pain of the sliver of glass in his toe was nothing more than a reminder of his new direction, his soon to be new life. The spaceport was as beautiful inside as out, a beautiful piece of art made of glass and steel, curved into shapes far from Euclidean. The woman at the counter was very kind and asked few questions, simply directing him to a colonist preparation officer, who ran his papers and explained what his new life would be like. He was informed that the preparations would take several days, and that they would start whenever he wanted. They gave him time to go home gather things he wished to bring with him and say goodbye to those he loved. He told them there was no need to wait, and followed the officer to the medical wing of the spaceport to have be subjected to medical evaluation. He walked towards his new life knowing that the last act of his old life would be removing that splinter of glass from his toe, removing that final painful memory of her.

Two lovers out walking their dogs found him. Face down in a snow-drift, unconscious, shaking, barely breathing. By the time the ambulance got there there was no chance. He died on the way to the hospital. There was no spaceport, no colonies, no other life. His life had hit a road block and he decided to give up on that life, and start a new one. He never learnt that there is no way out, that your life is your life. He imagined a way out and ended up wandering into a cold February day with no coat, or hat, or even long sleeves. He died thinking he had escaped, but he never did. His parents identified his body. The friends he didn't think he had showed up at his funeral, weeping, missing him. At his autopsy the coroner removed a tiny sliver of glass from his toe. He was buried without it. His new life had come, but only now, in death.

The Tunnel, Part 1

I'm not entirely sure how to introduce this story. This is the first part of a story which as of yet remains unfinished. I hope to upload more of the story soon. Also you should expect to the see the second chapter of "He Found Himself Alone" soon, though don't know exactly when. Okay now that I've made promises I think it's time for me to just let the story do its work so I should just let you guys read away, enjoy.
Man I really didn't think of a good way to introduce this story. Too bad.

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I want to kill myself.
Okay, that's a tad melodramatic. Just a tad. I do in fact like life and do enjoy being alive. But yeah, I still want to kill myself. You would to if you were in my shoes. Okay, maybe not my shoes, I wear size sixteen. That might be a problem for you. But anyways, you'd want to be dead too if you were me.
Why, you ask? Well currently there is a small stocky elderly man in front of me. Now don't get me wrong, I like the elderly, enough... But this man is not the kind of elderly people like. As of this moment he has not asked me if I want hard candy, nor has he pinched my cheeks, nor has he attempted to set me up with his granddaughter, who would have a much happier life if she could just meet nice boys like me. No, this old man is shouting. Why? I'm not entirely sure. He started off about his savings account and then kinda just rambled off. I stopped really listening a while ago, but I'm pretty sure he's ranting about the damn commies. So when I say I want to kill myself I really mean that I want to kill him. But I can't say that, or even think that. It's not professional.
Let me make this clear, I like my job, a lot. I get to meet new, interesting people all the time. I also meet people like this ornery old man, but I deal with them. Though at this very moment I do want to kill myself (I stress again that I don't want to kill him, that's unprofessional). Frankly the shouting is expected. I'm a bank teller, and thus money is involved. And as we all know wherever money is involved people are bound to shout, a lot. Even if they are really old. Or young. Or alive in general. I guess what I'm saying is that money makes people yell. Part of the job, I tell myself.
I also love my job because I get to play with money. This might sound petty to you, but just holding thousands of dollars in your hands is a power rush. It's absolutely wonderful. It's electric. It's nearly orgasmic. To me that's reason enough to put up with the shouting.
The old man has stopped shouting, though I'm pretty sure its because he's out of breath. I mumble off something about talking to the manager. I'm out of there before he can say another word. This newfound freedom can only mean one thing. Cigarette break.
The break room is a bleak and depressing place. But I can smoke in it, and its inside, and it’s really cold outside. I think you understand why I put up with the bleakness.
There is one other major reason I put up with the bleakness. COFFEE. I’ll argue with anyone who says it’s not a drug. Coffee is a drug, a beautiful, loving, caring, absolutely addicting drug. I love coffee; I get up in the morning in order to ingest coffee. It’s a crippling addiction and I fall apart after four hours without coffee, but I’m okay with that, life isn’t really worth living without coffee. I even broke up with a girl once because she made shitty coffee. All right, all right, she broke up with me. But her main reason for leaving me was something along the lines of her not really appreciating that I believed that instant coffee was for whores. She probably wouldn’t have been as enraged if I hadn’t said it to her mom. In any case I believe that I have substantially proved that coffee was at the heart of this break up. And it’s more than clear now how much I absolutely love coffee.
Luckily the coffee here is fantastic, which I believe is entirely for my benefit. I pour myself a cup. I breathe in the seductive scent of the coffee. I bring the cup to my lips. Oh shit, I dropped my pen. Ever damn day I drop my pen. My lucky pen. The one pen I’ve had since college, the one pen that I wrote ever exam I ever had with. And at this very moment it’s on the counter by the coffee machine, rolling towards the two-inch gap between the counter and the wall. I grasp for it and miss it. I can’t actually be sure, since I lack x-ray vision, but I’m pretty sure my pen has hit the floor with a soft thud. I groan. The counter, thankfully, doesn’t look to heavily. I tentatively push it with my foot, it moves, but not much. I bend over to push it to the side, my mind focused on the coffee that I left steaming on the table. I’m thinking of its smell, its deliciously sensual aroma. I’m thinking about how goddamn great it’s going to be once I get my beloved pen back. The counter is now substantially out of the way. I divert my eyes away from my coffee. What I see is completely unexpected.
First of all the coffee machine is not plugged into anything. This isn’t that unbelievable, it could have unplugged when I moved the counter. There isn’t a plug though. And the coffee machine is still on. And my coffee is clearly steaming on the table. Weird. I turn back to the wall where the plug should be. I blink. I blink again. I blink one more time for good measure. This can’t be right. Nah I’m imagining things. I close my eyes a fourth time, and keep them shut. I’m pretty sure enough time has past, the hallucination must be over, it can’t not be.
I open my eyes. Crap, still there. The wall, which the counter used to hide, has a rather peculiar quality. Mainly it seems to be made of stone, which is a sharp contrast to the drywall, which the rest of the room is made of. I reach out and push it. It moves back.
I bolt upright. I’m standing in shock staring at the stone. Oh god, what to I do? Do I put the counter back, pretend like nothing happened, maybe yell at the old man and go home? Do I leave it for someone else to find? Do I push the stone all the way? None of these seems right, but I think I’ve come up with the right idea.
“Scott!” I yell.
No answer. “Scott!” I yell again. Still nothing. If he isn’t downstairs that can only mean one thing. I bolt out of the break room and head for the stairs.
I feel like I’ve left out a small detail here, mainly whom this Scott I’m yelling for is. Scott is a co-worker. He is also my best friend. Scott is an eccentric and a character, but I absolutely love him. The reason why I figured he would be downstairs is simple, he isn’t a great employee and most of the time you can find him downstairs not doing anything in particular. But he isn’t downstairs, which means he can only be in one other place.
I rush up the stairs and make my way towards the offices. The bank manager’s door is closed. Scott’s in there. I open the door and slide in.
“Scott?” I half-shout. “You in here?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?” I ask.
“Find me.” Comes the reply.
“Christ Scott I don’t have time for this. It’s not a big office I’ll find you in no time.” I sound genuinely pissed off.
A large sigh escapes from the closest, I open the door. Looking up at me is what seems to be a rather comfortable and well-rested looking Scott.
“Hey.” He says in that voice of his that could make a mother grizzly bear whose children you just slaughtered calm down. He unleashes that ten million watt smile. I smile back.
“Are you sleeping in there?” I ask. “You’re actually sleeping in Mel’s closet? Aren’t you supposed to manning your cash right now?”
He nods, simultaneously answering all three questions. If you are wondering why Scott still works here it’s not because he’s a good employee or anything. Mainly he still has a job because he’s Scott. No matter what he does he is lovable, absolutely lovable. Scott has never been dumped in his life, nor has anyone ever said no to him. You just can’t, it’s his face, his voice, his smile, his demeanor, everything about him. Scott is Scott and he gets away with everything because he is Scott. The last time someone tried to fire him he walked away with a raise.
“Hey, Seth I have a question.” He says. “While I was in here I thought of something. There are a lot of nice suits in here, which makes sense since Mel is a bank manager. However I haven’t ever seen Mel wear any other suit then that ratty old one. What gives?” He stretches out his hand in order for me to help him up.
I give him a hand. “Well if you ask me I think he wears the old one so that people will relate to him more. That way when he denies an old woman a loan he doesn’t look filthy rich.”
“Doesn’t he own something like four houses?”
“Yeah, but you gotta admit he knows how to play the game.” I reply.
“I have absolutely no idea what game your talking about.” There’s a short pause. “Anyway, you should try sleeping in there, I tell you that you will never have a more comfortable sleep then on two never worn cashmere suits.”
“Will you forget about your damn sleep, there is a reason as to why I woke you up you lazy shmuck.”
“Yeah? And what was that?” He asks.
“Come with. It’s gonna blow your mind.”

On "On"

I realize that I haven’t been entirely clear with this blog. I jump around. I give you a story one week, some inane comment the next and then a month or so of neglect. I’ve tried to clear up the purpose of this blog a couple of times and I kinda just don’t want to go through it again. So instead I’m going to explain something fundamental about this blog. The titles. Each title of each blog has a meaning. Most of the time, when it’s a story that I’ve posted the title of the post is the title of the story. The way in which to differentiate between a work of fiction and an actual comment is a simple word in the title of all my comments; on. On is the indicator that what follows is a comment, usually on whatever the second word in the title is. The thing about these types of posts is that most likely they will be more common than stories, since, inevitably, a story takes a certain amount of effort of time, whereas these comments do not take a whole lot of effort or work to write.
I’m not entirely sure where I intended to go with this post. I felt it was necessary to properly explain why some posts have titles that start with “on”. Well this is the reason. I hope that clears some things up. Stay tuned for some more posts and hopefully a story soon. Stay positive.

On Neglect

Some of you may wonder what has happened to me. You may ask questions like; do you not love us anymore? Is all your creativity gone? Have you left us because you’ve decided to become a Somali pirate? Did you die? Well let me assure you, I’m not dead, nor am I a pirate, or uncreative, and yes I still love you. The truth is dull and uninteresting, for you see life is something that takes up quite a bit of our time, and though I truly love to sit here and type I often have very little time to dedicate to typing out my musings.
I actually wanted to start this post quite differently. I sat down here with the intent of writing a rather long and disturbing post on neglect. What I planned on doing was to compare my blog to a child, an infant. Actually compare is not the right word. I was going to use an infant as a metaphor for this blog. The plan was to say something along the lines of if this blog were a child it would now be dead and I would be imprisoned for child neglect or, more likely, homicide by neglect. In fact when the police would have found said child, i.e. the blog, they would have found an infant undergoing decomposition, surrounded in filth, and possibly partially eaten. There would also be lots of disgusting insects. Within days of my arrival in prison I would be shanked and because of my crime the prison doctor would not try very hard and I would die in a prison hospital bed. And the prison Chaplin would just spit on me instead of reading my last rites. Of course this is all a metaphor for my neglect of this here blog. And like I said earlier I decided not to use this metaphor, frankly because I think it makes me look like a horrible person.
So the point of this post was to tell you all that the neglect that this blog, and you, have experienced is now over. From now on I will try my very best to post as much as possible. So expect this blog to update more often. And don’t be entirely surprise if the tone and content of this blog changes. Things have a way of changing and most of the time it’s beyond our control. But that’s for a later post. Just be glad that there will be more posts more often. At the very least the metaphor me won’t get shanked if I do.

He Found Himself Alone... Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of a work that is yet to be completed but may one day produce a full novel. Maybe? In any case I do not have a super long speech to make right now because the first chapter is rather long. The story is rather dark, or at least this first chapter is, but to make up for the darkness of this story my next few posts will be of the slightly more cheerful variety. Have fun reading, comment away at the end if you want to. Oh, and don't forget to tell your friends.

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He found himself alone again. It was a feeling that he was fairly familiar with. Loneliness, some would claim it’s the human condition. Even surrounded by people a man can find himself alone, that is the human mind. Yet now he was in a situation where he was truly alone, entirely and completely alone. He was a tall man, thin, a little sickly looking, yet he had an air of authority, a presence of being able to command and lead people. Some would claim it lied in his face, which was attractive and striking, a face that stood out, that turned faces, crowned with a generous mane of jet-black hair. But I’ve always felt that it lay in his eyes. They conveyed strength, determination, leadership, I’d always had seen these things in his eyes. Yet his demeanor and his appearance currently meant nothing, because as I’ve previously mentioned he was alone, in the true sense of the word.
He was surrounded by complete and absolute darkness. He couldn’t see anything. He felt terrified that he might have lost his sight; he feared he had gone blind. But no, something within him told him he had not gone blind. He felt like he could see and he didn’t feel any of his other senses had increased. He also knew his eyes weren’t closed. Therefore, he figured, that he was in a place completely devoid of any light.
He was scared. It didn’t suit him; fear was not something that was often seen on a face such as his. But his fear was not without reason for he had but just woken up in this room. Or what he assumed was a room. He stood up, his body ached and he grunted in obvious discomfort. He was clearly in an enclosed space, the ceiling was only 6 feet high, and he was forced to bend down. He began moving around, and it was not long till he was fairly certain that he had properly mapped the room.
It was a room like no other he had been in, it had six walls, to create a shape reminiscent of a hexagon, though none of the walls seemed to have an equal length. The walls, floor, and ceiling were solid concrete, very rough solid concrete. He also had felt a door. It was cold and made of steel, it felt like it was thick and his knocking made not a noise. He was convinced that no matter how hard he would yell no one would hear him yelling it.
His other senses were finally beginning to wake up, and the first thing that hit him was the putrid smell. It was the smell of a sewer and bleach, it was disgusting; it was this smell that made him finally realize the severity of the situation he was in.
Wherever he was he was sure it wasn’t somewhere he’d want to be. He had just woke up in terrible pain, feeling not only that he had recently been beaten but also felt like he was out for days. He was in a pitch-black room that stank of rotten things. He was for the very first time in his life truly afraid, he didn’t know where he was or what was going on or if he would die here.
He sat back down, shaking quite heavily, he had begun thinking of reasons why he has here, what would lead people to beat, kidnap, and lock him in a dark room. He couldn’t for the life of him figure out why he was here, what was special about him. Nothing, absolutely nothing made him worthy of this. Was there something he didn’t know about, he wondered, or maybe it was how truly unspecial he was that was behind his current situation. He didn’t know. Slowly he went over every aspect of his life in his mind.
He was a man in his late twenties, attractive, but nothing special. Like I’ve said he had a face of a man with great ambition, but his physical features never equaled to what he achieved. He never stood up in class when in school; he never spoke up till he was asked to. He was intelligent but never shone, he performed all his tasked well and properly, but he never took these cues to do something great. He loved books and he spent all of his earliest years reading, always reading. He never really had friends, but was never picked on, he just spent all his free time reading, and thus books became his first love. He went to university with the same love, majoring in English. Of course by this time he had made friends. By the time he graduated he had decided he had found all h needed in life. He entered the work force and lived a very simple life imersing himself in his first love. I don’t know if your expecting me to say that he worked as something fantastic like a novelist or a editor or something, but no he was a simple proof-reader, like I’ve said he never really showed ambition. But it was something he loved; his workdays and his free time were completely shaped around the written word. Having no ambition to go any further he settled into this life and loved it.
He had gathered himself a small group of friends. These friends made up his family. He’d moved away to study when he was younger and never left the city he now called home. It had in fact supplanted his real hometown ad the friends he created here had supplanted his family. His friends ranged from his college roommate to his current coworkers. They had all grown incredibly close, and even some relationships had bloomed in the group. But he was still alone. He lived alone in a loft downtown. He owned frivolous electronics, and his walls were lined with thousands of books. His loneliness however permeated all walks of his life. Here however he could only regard his friends as something he had lost, he was starting to realize that he had never truly been alone. Not like this.
The life he lived suited him well, but he often found himself drifting away from this life and into the worlds that other writers had created. He found himself often at work or during leisure reading entering into these stories he read, they made him feel alive, much more than he ever did in his real life. It was these daydreams, this futile escapism, which made him feel sometimes that he was meant for something greater, an adventure of his own. But ever since waking up he realized how wrong he was, his life was all the excitement he needed.
Dying wasn’t the adventure he needed, but that seemed to be the only thing he was now destined to do. It now dawned on him that he had been seating here, thinking, examining his life for what seemed like hours. He had become hungry and thirsty, and was wondering if anyone would come to feed him. But time continued to wither away. After what seemed like a few more hours he began to doze off, slowly he sunk into sleep. His last thoughts were that he remembered reading something once that said a man could last 3 days without water and two weeks without food. He also passed into sleep wondering whether or not he would indeed wake up the next morning, if it was really morning.
He woke up feeling like he was asleep for less than five minutes, and with not being able to tell the time he wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t only slept that long. No matter what he seemed to have not been dreaming, indeed he had awoken in the same dark room, with the same rough concrete. It was a bitter realization, his last vestige of hope was that he had just been dreaming but now it became clear that this was indeed real. He got up, remembering his hunger and thirst, and felt around the room to see if anyone had left him some sort of food or rink. After five minutes of feeling around in the dark he was fairly certain that there was no food anywhere within the room. He slumped down in one of the corners and sighed heavily.
The silence and darkness of the room were beginning to become oppressive. He deluded himself into sometimes believing that the sound of himself breathing or the sounds of his movement were the sounds of someone else in the room. But he refused to all these fantasies to become real for himself and he quickly shifted the focus of his mind.
His mind shifted to the dreams he had had during the sleep he had so recently had. He was having difficulty deciding whether they were some of his best dreams or some of his worst. The dreams of the previous “night” seemed to push the boundaries of nightmares and dreams.
He had dreamed what he had always considered to be his greatest and most cherished dreams. He dreamed of all the greatest times in his life, every moment that ever brought him joy in his life. They were such uplifting memories that even now he was beginning to smile. But unfortunately these were not the memories exactly as he remembered them. They were his memories of reading his first book, or of falling in love with reading, or other such great memories. But they all occurred in complete and utter darkness. All these wonderful memories experienced in black, terrifying, horrifying blackness. It was the worst dreams, the worst nightmares he ever had had. His greatest moments put in the context of the situation he was now in. It was the worst feeling he ever had in his life, the nightmares of the previous night had taken all shreds of hope and joy out of him.
These realizations were wrecking havoc on his mind. He had begun yelling, anything as loud as possible. He only stopped when his throat was incredibly raw. Hunger and thirst were overpowering him. He was feeling weak; he didn’t feel like he could even stand. In fact he was falling in and out of consciousness.
The next time he opened his eyes it was to a sight he had not seen for what felt like a very long time. It was light. His retinas were burning, but he felt its warmth, it gave him strength. He had closed his eyes but the light shone through his eyelids. The he felt a hand, someone had touched him, he hurriedly opened his eyes, but his eyes still could see nothing but bright white everywhere he looked. He reached at the hand, but he was grabbed by several other hands. They began to drag him, something seemed wrong, and for the first time in what seemed like ages he raised his voice. It was coarse and low, but it was his voice. “Who are you? Where are we going? Where am I? What’s going on? Help me! Help me, please!” All these questions flowed out of his mouth, like a torrent. Everything he had been contemplating for the long time he had been locked out began to pour out of him. What seemed like minutes later he finally stopped. It went silent; there was no noise but the heavy steps of the men dragging him, and the sounds of himself being dragged. No one answered his question, no one made a sound. Somehow this brought him to an even lower level of despair.
He was terrified now beyond comprehension. He was being dragged to a place unknown, by unknown people. They refused to answer his questions, he was too weak to fight back and he was unable to see anything. He tried to calm himself but was only successful in allowing himself to realize that he was being badly scarred as his back was being dragged on rough concrete. The burning pain brought all his concerns back to his mind. He felt like he was being dragged to his death. He just hoped he would get some answers before that happened.
The pain from the dragging was slowly becoming more and more bearable. After just a bit longer he was able to open his eyes. The blinding white was slowly becoming shapes and things, but it was still hard to distinguish things. He was sure he saw three figures that could be people, but he couldn’t be sure.
And then it all stopped. He was dropped and the room went completely silent. He was about to open his mouth again to voice his concerns. But his mouth met the full force of a kick before he was able to open it. He was kicked hard in the midsection and in the head. A third assailant was striking him in the back. He was having trouble gasping for breath. He was too weak to fight back; too weak to even protect himself. Someone was now stepping on his groin. He spat blood, just as someone brought another foot to his mouth. Someone was scratching at the cuts on his back. His hair was being pulled; his foot was being stamped on. His tears were mixing with his blood. He grasped for the leg kicking him in the face, but just as he got hold someone stepped on his arm. A foot made contact with his head, and then there was nothing. It was over, or at least he hoped so. He was gasping for air, spitting blood, crawling on the floor. He was muttering the word please. Yet nothing was happening. He was sure that many of his bones were fractured; he knew he had a broken rib, a broken nose, many of his cuts were deep. He wondered through the cries of pain going through his head whether or not they would bring him to a doctor. He crawled along for several more minutes and then he was grabbed once again and dragged just as roughly as before back to his cell.
He was unceremoniously thrown back in, and drifted off into a world of unconsciousness.
Once again he found himself alone in the dark. A noise roused him back into consciousness, he was sure he heard the door open, but the darkness of the room showed him that it was indeed closed. His body began to ache, pain he had never felt before, it was unbearable. He took his remaining strength and crawled towards the door. His hand struck something a foot away from the door. He felt it, and for the first time in days he saw some hope. What he had touched was a tray, a tray that held both food and water. It was a simple meal of bread and water, but it was one of the greatest meals he had ever had.
He wolfed it down, within seconds it was gone, and he felt some strength return to him. He sat down in a corner and tried to regain some of his strength. As he sat there his mind started to move towards the events of the previous day, or again what he assumed had been the previous day. His body ached from the beating but his mind wasn’t on the pain but rather on the question of why. Why was he beaten? Why wouldn’t the answer him? What was going on? But his mind could not think of a single plausible theory. All his theories were ridiculous, alien abduction, voter intimidation, torture for information. Nothing seemed plausible. His mind dwelled on the idea of torture for the sake of torture; maybe they were doing this just so that they could do it. It sounded barbaric and terrible, yet surprisingly likely.
This thought was all that was in his mind over the next few “days”. The pattern seemed to repeat itself, he would be starved for days, then beaten, then fed, and then it would start all over again. The second time they took him he realized that if there was a reason for these beatings they would not be revealed verbally. He also realized as his arm was broken that he was not going to be brought to a doctor, that they much rather have the damage compound itself. During his third beating he realized that no matter what they wouldn’t let hi die. This fact alone almost destroyed his spirit, he had previously reasoned that it wouldn’t be too bad because soon he would die, but he had been wrong, he would not die here. Thus it was with great difficulty that the fourth time he was taken for a beating he went without complaint or struggle. He took the beating stoically, he refused to let them get the better of him and for the first time he was able to open his eyes and take in the scene. He assumed that he was able to see because he had become used to the light, but he liked to think that an excess of courage had given back his sight. For the first time he was able to catch a glimpse of his assailant, there were three of them, all of whom seemed to be men. They didn’t seem worried about protecting their identities; they wore no masks or gloves. Two of the men were quite tall, and built quite well, they looked like brothers, square faces, hazel eyes, dirty blond hair. But he recognized neither face. The third man was a squat fat and balding man, he was shaped like a poorly made rather short snowman. He looked similar to what the Penguin looked like from Batman, but uglier. It was clear that this man gave the orders, it seemed he did not get his hands dirty. On all three of there faces were smile. These smiles were the last thing their poor victim saw before a kick to the face met his eyes, causing him to close his eyes shut. As always the beating ended a few minutes later.
He was returned to his room and ate his food as if it was a state dinner. He was getting used to it here, he hated it, it was torture but he was beginning to be able to take it. The more the days passed the more his mind was filled with ideas of revenge and hatred. He swore that he would kill the people doing this too him. But he didn’t think he’d ever get the opportunity. With these thoughts of revenge he fell into what he knew from the beginning would be a deep long sleep.