"Get in there you crazy son of a
bitch." I land on a hard floor. They
slam the door shut and I'm surrounded by darkness.
"See how you like it in
there for a week. Maybe you'll learn to behave,"
they yell from behind the
closed door.
I sit quietly and listen to their
footsteps depart, until, there is only silence. I am left with only
the sound of my own heart, pounding beating and
strained. I go in and out of sleep in shifts.
A dim light comes on from somewhere
in the ceiling, and wakes me
completely. Some food is jammed through a slot
in the door, which is then
shut fast. I'm starved so I eat. When
I'm finished, I take the opportunity
to observe my room. It's small and has no bed
or chair like my old room
had. In fact, the only furniture is a toilet,
which doesn't even have a lid.
The smell in here is, disgusting. I noticed
it right away, the minute they
threw me in, but it seems to have gotten worse while
I slept. There appears to
be something moving on parts of the walls, crawling.
But, with this light,
it's obviously an illusion. I go over to the
wall, to a part where there
doesn't seem to be any movement and I lay my palm
flat against it. It's warm, soft, and sort of yields a little to
my touch. Strange, this is not at all like the walls of my old room.
The door opens suddenly, and there
he is, his eyes, hidden behind
square frames, with massive hairy arms and muscles
covered by thick fat. He takes my food tray out then returns.
He picks me up by my collar and neck and he, he shoves my head into the
toilet, up, then again and again. He throws me to the cement, tearing
my pants and skinning my knees. He gazes at me without expression.
He kicks me in the gut. "I'll be back for you tonight," he says without
emotion. Then, he leaves.
Wait, there, it was behind the
door. He missed it, my spoon from the
breakfast tray. I know what he has in mind when
he returns. A sense of rage
comes over me. I take up my spoon and think
on it. I could maybe break
off the end and make it sharp. I could stab
him when he returns. Of course
the punishment would be severe, but damn, it would
be worth it. I bend the
handle. It gets hot where it bends, back and
forth. It snaps off and
there is a very good point.
I decide the soft walls are a perfect
test for my new weapon. I will experiment and see if it will cut.
I jab hard against the wall with an over
handed thrust. It squelches when I pull it out
and a thick liquid pours out
of the hole. This must be the source of the
disgusting smell because it is ten times worse than the general smell of
the room. The liquid is dark and thick. It spurts out of the
wall in gushes, staining my shirt.
And so, an idea comes to me, the
clearest thought I have ever enjoyed.
There is no reason to wait for him to return tonight.
That is not the way.
No, the way is to tunnel out of this terrible place.
I can tunnel through these soft walls using this jagged spoon.
I get to work immediately, stabbing
and stabbing in a big circle near the
floor, which is large enough for me to crawl through.
The liquid makes quite
a mess all over my hands and arms and it makes the
ground slick. But, I am
now able to grab the circular chunk I've been working
on. I pull it and rip
it and it comes free, with a huge gush of the dark
liquid. Oh, the smell.
I cough and am sick.
I examine the hole. The wall
underneath is even softer than it is on
the surface. Well good, back to work.
There's only one way out of this place
for me. I dig and scoop glob after glob of the
warm sticky wall, piling it
into my room. The hole has now become a tunnel,
almost two of my lengths
deep. I am totally covered with the dark liquid,
and am not getting used to
the smell. I try to hold my breath in the tunnel,
because while I'm in there, even breathing through my mouth makes me gag.
It's not that much better back in the room. Flies have found their
way in somehow, maybe through cracks around the door. The room buzzes
with them.
Back into the tunnel, I dig and
dig, now just going at it with my hands.
The wall is that soft now. I'm covered with
the slippery ooze. Back and forth I go to deposit armloads of debris
into the room, then back to the tunnel to dig some more. The room
is becoming filled with the stuff. It must be two feet deep from
wall to wall, and my tunnel grows longer and longer. It had been
completely dark in the tunnel but unless I'm imagining things, the wall
in front has a faint glow, as if a bright light is shining from the other
side.
All I can hear is the squelching of my hands
and spoon and the thud of my
heart. It doubles itself with a steady syncopated
beat, bom boomp, bom
boomp. The sound is deafening. I've never
heard my heart beat like this before. Perhaps it's because I've never
been this excited.
As I rip off a couple big chunks,
the wall feels like it's moving in my hands. I bring the handfuls
back to the room, crawling backwards as I must, down my narrow tunnel.
I'm sick, I'm sick. My hands
were filled with worms. My vomit floats on
the thick lake of debris. I'm sick again at
the sight. It's up to my waist
now, so thick you can't even walk through. You
sink down and it holds you
like wet concrete.
I can't believe my resolve.
I didn't know I could still surprise myself.
I'm going back into the tunnel. It looked
and felt like I was about to break through. Who knows where it'll
come out, maybe completely out of this
place. Of course, the worms, but if I want it
bad enough-
I crawl through the tunnel, hands
squishing with each press into the sticky floor. There definitely
is light behind the end. I close my eyes, hold my breath and spring
my legs. I feel myself pushing through a thin filament, the worms.
I'm pushing through into open air. I'm falling, no, floating.
With final nerve, I open my eyes.
And, there is nothing there.
I mean nothing, no blue sky no ground no
dirt trees ocean, nothing. It's not dark or
light. It's more, clear.
There's nothing above, nothing below, certainly nothing
in front. I'm not
able to get enough momentum to turn around and see
behind myself. It's
very difficult to move. I try kicking and twisting
but that doesn't work.
Finally, I simply look over my shoulder.
Oh, there's not completely nothing.
A few feet back, I can see the jagged entrance to my tunnel. It lies
near the center of a little sphere, which also hangs suspended in nothing.
If I lean backwards and stretch my arms I can almost reach it. Perhaps
if I take off my belt and use it as a rope, I might be able to catch it
on the edge and pull myself back.
But, why would I want to do that.