Shhh! Scribbler at Work

Unmasked

(prompt: 'reveal' 20/4/2018)

"It's dark in here, Carruthers," someone said, sometime, somewhere (but search as I may, I cannot find these answers). For an equally dark and mysterious reason, my mind wandered back to another century and a place of fearful blackness.

The name 'Black Hole of Calcutta' had no special meaning to me at that tender age - only as an expression to describe a bad and hopeless place to be. At that stage, I doubt I even knew of Calcutta, India. Over ensuing years, my knowledge of that bitter moment in history expanded. Current research has fully shed light on this particularly dark moment of Man's past.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Now you can take the blindfold off," I shouted cheerfully, through the closed door.

Usually it would only take a moment for the hapless victims to realise they were now in a place darker than waking in the middle of the night from the grip of a nightmare; darker than anything the blindfold had produced. Even the foreign smells gave them no clue. There was absolutely nothing to reveal their whereabouts. And then the screaming began.

I wasn't cruel or totally insensitive. I opened the door instantly. There's a distinct possibility my adult claustrophobia was born from the horrific plight of my captives. Now there's a case of well-deserved Karma, if ever I heard one.

I justify the apparent cruelty by blaming my crass youth. And maybe a certain kind of skin thickened by being the butcher's daughter. I knew it was only Dad's smoke-room where he cured hams and bacon. And I knew it wasn't in use this day, so they needn't have feared his wrath, if that's what they were near-hysterical about. Somehow though, I didn't think my Dad was the problem here.

There were no complaints when we first came home via Dad's shop and he gave each of us a thick slice of his home-made fritz. Everyone loved that cold meat sausage.They hadn't seemed to mind when I led them blindfolded over the woodpile. Nor when I helped them feel the greasy walls of the car pit. Probably because I held their hands, they knew I could be trusted... mostly... well, sometimes.

Admittedly they weren't too enthralled when unsuspecting hands were poked inside the mouth of my gentle giant Airedale dog, Kim. And there were more than a few shudders when those same hands were plunged into the trough of newly made mincemeat in Dad's factory. I didn't really understand that reaction - after all, the meat was fresh and well-protected from flies with a cover. Little did he suspect this proved no deterrent to small hands burrowing in from the far corner. Imagine if he'd known! He was always SO fussy about the total sterilisation of his machines and tools of trade - so the kids had nothing to worry about there.

Back then it was a mystery why some kids went home in tears.

Author's Note: A transcript about The Black Hole of Calcutta (1756) -

That night, as he recorded, there occurred a horror which became a legend in the history of the Raj. A total of 146 British prisoners, including two women and several wounded men, and Holwell himself, were herded at sword-point for the night into the fort's 'black hole', a little lock-up the British had built for minor offenders. It measured only 18ft by 14ft 10in and had two small windows. The heat at that time of year was suffocating and the prisoners trampled on each other to get near the windows and fought over the small supply of water they had been left, while begging for mercy from the guards, who laughed and jeered at them while they prayed and raved in vain. At 6am the next morning when the door was unlocked, the corpses were piled up inside and only twenty-three of the prisoners were still alive. A pit was hastily dug for the dead and the bodies were dumped in it.