You waken to darkness. In the distance, you hear the slamming of doors, and the harsh sound of metal on metal. Somewhere in this vast complex, the sun breaks through. You imagine it is like a fire, smoldering between the cracks of a window frame, or igniting between the splinters of rotting wood. As quickly as it catches, it is extinguished. The shadows are like shots of water. They blow suddenly, then drip down the walls and onto the floor. You stand perfectly still in that dead center, far from the light, far from all. You have dreamed that night, a dream that never ends. Your life is like the heart that beats within a shadow. You are life still living, but deep in the flesh of a stiffened corpse. None would think to find you here, for how can one live whose life is death? Hope is unknown to you. Though you soul has perished, yet your body will not die. It survives your livelong sentence, the interminable hour that measures out your days from one to another, to another.
In an hour, a sound deafens upon your ear. It is the steady drag of a weight across the floor. And soon, there is a flash, and another, and another, like the shine of steele in moonlight. An unseen thing caresses your body, at first gently, as if uncertainly. But in a moment, it clamps hard upon your skin, and squeezes. It squeezes until your eyes turn to tears. You long to draw back, but metal surrounds you. Press fast to the walls of your prison. Their shape becomes your skin. You have reached the end, and your body gives way, back into the squeezing, which has not stopped. Many moments go by, until you begin bleeding from a place you have never seen. Your insides seep long into an unknown bucket. One drop. Two drops. On and on, you are drained to emptiness. Your eyes are hidden beneath the blackest veil, the trembling of your lips. At length, the thing throws you back, and you hear dragging. Then again, the slamming of a distant door and the going out of an unseen flame. You twist to reach your wound, but metal holds you still. Your body is raw in the acrid, early morning air.You are alone at the center of a vast complex, unknown, and unknowable. Who would think to find you here, still living? Do you believe in life after death? Does the body go on?
February 11, 2009 at 6:13 am |
Your words remind me of the death camps in Germany. No hope, just waiting to die, not being able to die and when you die it is the worst way possiable. You got the point across.