WHITE NOISE

CHAPTER 6

Not a single ray of sunlight has touched me in the past 8 days of my captivity. My eyes had started adjusting to the dim-lit basement which was my abode as of now. I could see that I was locked up into a cellar which was perhaps a factory basement, all the sharp tools and instruments were taken out however there were huge machines that were covered in tar and dust sticking to it, were placed around in the place akin to a dungeon. 

The ceiling was covered in black tar and was broken from many places, yet there was no sign of light. This was perhaps some secret underground place because sometimes no matter how hard I had tried to listen, no sound of anything from the outside found its way to me so far. There was a huge canister with water in it placed at all times mysteriously everyday, I used the water to clean myself off and wash whatever clothes were left on my back. I would relieve myself in a middle of the huge heap of sand or mud in one of the extreme corners of the place. There was a constant damp, decayed and foul smell which my senses adapted to and could stand.  Apart from the huge machines, the canister, the heap of mud and the huge dune of hay on which I lay, there was hardly anything new I had discovered in the past 8 days.

One relief I had since the past few days was I would see less and less of the beast.  Everyday he would throw in food of random sort twice into the cellar like place. Sometimes he would casually leave fruits lying on the floor before I woke up, silently sneaking into the dark chamber. Sometimes I would find his silhouette against the blue-black wall behind him and I would freeze mid-air and my back would go rigid and straight. After the incident when he had laid his hand on me, he did not try to come near me, or show me his face. Somehow this had created a kind of static frenzy in me, I knew the danger was lurking behind the nooks and the shadows and that its ugly head would creep out any minute. 

I would constantly miss my life, my work, my home. Those were the only places that were my identity, a reminder of who I was in the world and my place in it. Although I was fond of my foster parents and held a special place in my life, there was nothing in my life, no relation, no friend that I could cherish. I had sometimes thought of such a situation like this, watching news about people being abducted and being subjected to some horrific end, most of the people who went missing never had anyone who would report about them being missing. At these moments I would head-count the people who will perhaps come to know that I am missing. Sometimes I would be amused and sometimes my heart would ache at the word 'missing'. For someone to go missing, a person must have roots, a place of belonging, a family, people who love them, people who hate them, someone, anyone. 

 My mind would drift off to places like the corner that held the coffee machine at my work place. The Turquoise tiled mosaic artwork in the ladies washroom that portrayed a setting sun in an abstract form, the overgrown grass that would pour itself on the narrow pavement from the front gate to the main door of my house, the one that would soil my jeans with smudges of dirt and muck, in the morning everyday, which I would always remind myself to cut each morning and the thought would be lost to me by the end of the day. The 'Hello Kitty key-chain' that always hung on my bag-pack that had no sentimental value to me what-so-ever, yet I would imagine it was given to me by one of my many non-existent and imaginary best-friends, so that I could find some meaning in that tiny article that I could cherish as a souvenir, on my bag each time that I look at it, or perhaps I wanted others to look at me and assume that I am just like everyone else, who BELONGS to someone in the world and that my existence is an outcome of an emotion and perhaps not just an action. 

 Its crazy how your mind never ceases to travel the places when your body can not, and even beyond. I was now living a life inside my head, with nothing but loneliness as my companion. Yet when I think about it, I suppose those were the only things that really comprised of my life, the coffee-machine corner, the ladies washroom, the empty house, Painted wall-hangings of my work-place, the empty picture-frames on the side-table of the bedroom, the tiny smudge on the ceiling of my bed-room, which was my last view before I would drift off to sleep. Perhaps this loneliness is not such a new entity in my life that came about as a result of my abduction, perhaps it was always present in the tiny smudge on the ceiling that would would bid me good-night, in the empty frames by the bed, the stupid key-chain on the bag-pack, the ever-growing blades of grass in the lawn, the sheer profound emptiness that lived inside and out.

Suddenly I'm snatched away from that brand of emptiness, and  INTRODUCED to a new kind of loneliness. The one where I know someone would come to me, perhaps with a will to harm, yet this twisted sense of belonging gives meaning to the loneliness. Suddenly it is not just an emptiness anymore. Yet when you dream and find yourself in the softness of your mattress, the peace and serenity of your home, and each time your wake-up into the same old haunting reality, it shatters your hope for freedom a little. You open your eyes, and for a moment you imagine you have woken up into one of the nightmares you had, not of the worst kind, still a nightmare.

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Dear readers, Pls excuse the delay in the updates. The story so far was quite slow. Now I intend to take the bull by its horns, and dive right into its core. You will see a lot of emotions, a lot of drama from the next chapter. I intend to finish this story so I will be updating sooner. The Total number of chapters I would write will be 75+.

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