1
Men have left me in iron fetters. Men have left me with my body twisted and my mind vexed with the mania of forgetting the circadian cycle that tethers me unto earth. I am barred from the world, my world, my home. They tease me with bullets, firing them wildly next to my deaf ear. They taunt with words I cannot hear. They know I wait for the day a bullet graces my skull. They know I wait for the day that I march through the hallway and a disgruntled man wishes to express his anger. I wait for the day that he pulls down the hammer with a forceful hand and pulls the trigger with a gentle finger. One day they will tell me when the bullet will come, this would be excluding the possibility that a malign creativity graced violent minds; bringing them ideas of torture.
But I care not.
I cannot tell men of the things I have seen, as I care not to. I cannot tell men of the bodies that lay around me, touched by the reaper in black, whose bony hand has graced all bodies but mine. If only men who cared could see the physiognomy of men condemned to this stringent punishment, But there are no men who care, and those who do come to belie the facts to maintain the sympathies of their citizens, despite their government's collision with the tyranny that detains me. It was poverty, it was pain, and combined it became a tyranny over the hoods and ghettos. Every morning, all of the others in that dark, dank, basement would scream out in pain and cower, covering their eyes to defend themselves from the rays of the garish sun. At first, I did not understand why they did so. It was within the first few days and months that I discovered that they screamed because when they returned at the crack of dawn, it was because they had been out drinking, fighting, getting high. And indubitably, the cruel, deadly face of our captors would waltz down those steps and beat one of us. In the moments prior to those heavy footsteps crashing down the stairs, everyone would say a prayer, hoping that some god would save them, and they would not be beaten. It was always the same, every day they would come, someone would be beaten. Some days, I wished that it would be me. I wished that it would be my body that would be pummeled by the bruised fists of our captor, whose face we could never quite make out in the dark. Every day, it was the same. Every day, it was the same pain.
My eyes opened, an effulgent ray of sunlight shined into them. For a moment, I thought I may be brought peace, that the elegy of a bullet would appease the temptress Death. I was carried in the muscular arms of a man in a black military outfit with a large automatic rifle slung over his right shoulder. My eyes, still recovering from the piercing sunlight, could not assess the three other fragmented figures surrounding him. Abruptly, three shots fired by my ears, deafening me. Had soldiers come to my rescue? In those moments, I thought of the warrior angels that would fly down from heaven to perdition only to save the righteously damned. I had been righteously damned, and so I had been righteously saved. In a moment of praise, in a moment of reverence, I thanked what ever god had sent them, and let the weariness of all the days and weeks rush over me.
I was in the hospital, alone. Not my neighborhood's hospital, but well equipped and properly fitted. The alabaster walls were clean, unlike the discolored walls of our local hospital. Around me multiple machines sung out the praises of my vitals. There were swarms of reporters outside, like flies attracted to the glass of an electric lamp, they flashed their cameras into the hospital room. Why were they here? I asked myself. I did not understand what had happened to me, or why they felt the need to cover it, what was the extent of my damage, who had it affected? Who had I affected? The room was quiet, but the flashes made my head spin, and in that moment, I remembered.
It was a basement with the stench of mildew hanging in the air. Momentarily, I could hear a door open and heavy footsteps would march down the wooden steps, creaking as the fell down each step. Initially, I was fearless. I wished to look at the man who walked down the stairs, but when I attempted to move my head, it was restrained. I could feel the imposing figure of the man who marched down the steps. I was filled with terror, my body began to convulse.
