Lacking

Finally

1

He sits, waiting. He sits, watching.

There! That was it! He knows the secret now. Every fourteenth rotation there was a slight tug, only perceptible to him after thirty-two years.

 Has it always been that way? It didn’t matter; it was enough for him to escape. His prison was a series of several steel rings fifteen feet across rotating around him at incredible speeds. To an average person the rings appear to be a semi-translucent sphere. The heat radiating off rings, built up by friction alone, was a formidable enough barrier. Not to mention the cruelly sharp edges.

The platform on which he lived was suspended by steel supports protruding from two sides. His ten by ten square had a bed along one edge with a toilet and sink opposite. His food came from a separate side through one of the support bars. The little compartment was opened automatically when there was food and closed after some time automatically. Once he made the mistake of not taking the food and it closed with its treasure still inside, he never made that mistake again.

Thirty-two years, he thinks, that was longer than the time I had as a free man. The only way of keeping time was his captor’s bi-annual visits. Once, on what they said was his birthday, acknowledged by a simple message painted on his  and another he assumed was six months later.  He knew it could quite possibly be three months or three years. He only knew that he has had thirty-two “birthdays” in his ringed prison.

He gazed out into the darkness passed the sphere once again realizing he has no clue as to how big this particular chamber was. He could see perhaps fifteen feet past the edge of the sphere on to the web like walkways surrounding his little circle of hell. His eyes eventually found the one where he believed his keepers always came from. He knew them only as Mr. Gray-Hair and Mrs. Little-Chest. He thought that they might be husband and wife, judging by the rings they wore, perhaps it was coincidence, and it didn’t matter any way.  All he knew was that they always came together checked the rings, walkways, the solitary light bulb above his sphere, never once did they say a word to him or to each other. The most eventful visit was when Mrs. Little-Chest coughed.

 He got of his little platform bed, took a piss in his little toilet, and washed his hands in his little sink. How he’d grown to love that sink, it was his water source, his entertainment. When he was bored he would turn on the water and see how long he could hold his breath, or splash and make a mess. It was childish he knew but what else was there?  Sometime before, when this place was relatively new to him he tried splashing the rings only to have the water evaporate when it came within an inch of a ring. His wardens promptly turned off the water for some time. He was filthy for what seemed like a week, he couldn’t wash, he couldn’t even flush. His shit and piss filled the toilet; it reminded him of the city’s public restrooms, coated with slime and piss deep enough to be a wading pool. The only thing missing was the bad graffiti and the crud coated mirror. His throat dried and his breathing became raspy and harsh. The food he ate lost what little taste it had as it moved across his desert-dry tongue. His lips became to look more akin to a shedding accordion, and bled when they moved. His hair was had more grease than a burger shack’s kitchen, his face leaked more oil than any teenager. That was his worst time in the place.

lll

He woke up tired, the energy he felt from sleeping was insubstantial and weak. As always. He walked to his sink, washed his too long hair and his too long beard. They hadn’t shaven him nor had they allowed him access a razor. The only way too cut his hair was to let it be cut by the rotating rings. Therefore his hair and beard were always at least six inches; he couldn’t stand the heat if he got too close. He always shaved in one spot so his pseudo-home remained halfway clean, he wasn’t an animal yet. The remnants of years of shaving this way were ingrained into the floor as if held down by some great weight.