Jennylc
04-27-2007, 10:11 PM
In his estimation, waking up was the worst.
He had to lie on his left side because the ribs on his right were cracked so when he woke the dirty grey wall was the first thing he saw.
How quickly he would close his eyes again!
It was a compulsive reflex.
Waking, remembering where he was
closing his eyes - shutting them tight
in the childish hope that when he re-opened them
he would be looking at his beautiful wife lying beside him,
her exquisite face and fragrant hair.
But not now. Now he was in hell and could barely remember her features.
In the early stages he used his memories to help alleviate the burden of time.
Those too were evaporating. He even had trouble picturing his village.
With nothing to read and no writing tools his thoughts became fragmented.
He had tried to protect them, keep them cohesive
but the hours were stalking him, incrementally siphoning his identity.
Part of his daily ritual was to count the small air pockets in the ceiling.
The cement rendering was sloppy so there were many pockets to count.
He guessed it took him four hours to do the whole ceiling.
If he thought he missed any he would challenge himself by starting again.
Only twice had he arrived at the same figure:
6,734 air pockets. That had been an exciting day.
It was usually while counting his food arrived. It was the same food everyday, but at least he saw someone.
He wondered though, if the hardened mask of a trained soldier was adequate compensation for his isolation.
When he felt especially weak, he would try to get the soldier to smile,
to say something pleasant, to show some compassion.
He was never successful. These ones had been trained beyond the realms of humanity.
He knew trying to befriend the enemy was a sign of breakdown
and would spend hours chastising himself after such efforts,
a sense of self betrayal slashing at the foundations of his dignity.
But it was the daylight he missed the most lately.
The wind on his skin,
the squawk of unseen wildlife,
the prickle of sunrays on his nerve-endings.
As if by vindictive design, his two hours in the exercise yard would be after the sun went down, and if he heard wildlife it was the cries of his fellow prisoners, noises that everyday sounded more like desperate animalia.
Too often, a disembodied howl of the interrogated
would skewer his world. They all knew, even though
they couldn’t see each other, what that sound meant.
Perhaps a beating, a cigarette burn, water torture or the worst of all -
sexual assault with an emphasis on the vilest of humiliations.
In those moments, the withering of the heart accelerated -
sometimes he thought the anxiety would cause him to explode.
The blind presence of each other through the thick cell walls
nevertheless suggested unity.
It gave him occasional hope they were as one, for at the very least, they shared a collective memory.
He wondered if they too had started hearing voices and seeing things.
In his hallucinations, he viewed his fellow prisoners as if through x-ray eyes.
Some huddled in the corner of their cell crying,
others praying obsessively, rocking back and forth,
some sitting quietly staring with fathomless eyes,
others pacing their cell – four steps up, four steps back,
four steps up, four steps back.
Some would suddenly break out of their trance
and start screaming and hitting themselves.
He would hear: “Let me out, let me out, let me out!!!!”
And then it would be him screaming.
That seemed to happen a lot these days.
It was involuntary - a surge of violent pointlessness.
Eventually he stopped eating.
At first, he flushed his food down the toilet.
He had to be very careful and very smart because they were always watching.
The lights were always on.
Before he was moved to this dungeon above the ground, Camp 6,
he was imprisoned in a wire cage and could talk to others.
That’s how he knew what they did to hunger strikers.
And once he started to get sick, and forget to flush his food, his turn would come.
He suspected that many other inmates were doing the same thing.
He knew that those closest to death would be removed and taken to that special feeding block - strapped to a chair and force fed with tubes cruelly shoved through their noses.
He knew the tubes, in incompetent hands, sometimes missed the stomach
and entered the lungs causing pneumonia.
He also knew some tubes were re-used, the bile and blood
from previous hunger strikers visibly present.
He understood what further pain awaited him but the desire to die was now ubiquitous.
Too many years with nothing to do, no-one to touch.
Too many episodes of forced humility,
reams of blood-red tape,
the constant presence of merciless indifference
choking the last particle of hope
from their devastated lives.
Everyone there wanted to die.
It was just extremely difficult because
the soldiers were always watching,
the lights were always on.
They weren’t hunger strikers at all, they were suicidal.
He looked to where he imagined a window to be and closed his eyes, thinking of the motto that kept the soldiers motivated:
"Honor Bound to Defend Freedom".
Jenny Campbell © 2007
He had to lie on his left side because the ribs on his right were cracked so when he woke the dirty grey wall was the first thing he saw.
How quickly he would close his eyes again!
It was a compulsive reflex.
Waking, remembering where he was
closing his eyes - shutting them tight
in the childish hope that when he re-opened them
he would be looking at his beautiful wife lying beside him,
her exquisite face and fragrant hair.
But not now. Now he was in hell and could barely remember her features.
In the early stages he used his memories to help alleviate the burden of time.
Those too were evaporating. He even had trouble picturing his village.
With nothing to read and no writing tools his thoughts became fragmented.
He had tried to protect them, keep them cohesive
but the hours were stalking him, incrementally siphoning his identity.
Part of his daily ritual was to count the small air pockets in the ceiling.
The cement rendering was sloppy so there were many pockets to count.
He guessed it took him four hours to do the whole ceiling.
If he thought he missed any he would challenge himself by starting again.
Only twice had he arrived at the same figure:
6,734 air pockets. That had been an exciting day.
It was usually while counting his food arrived. It was the same food everyday, but at least he saw someone.
He wondered though, if the hardened mask of a trained soldier was adequate compensation for his isolation.
When he felt especially weak, he would try to get the soldier to smile,
to say something pleasant, to show some compassion.
He was never successful. These ones had been trained beyond the realms of humanity.
He knew trying to befriend the enemy was a sign of breakdown
and would spend hours chastising himself after such efforts,
a sense of self betrayal slashing at the foundations of his dignity.
But it was the daylight he missed the most lately.
The wind on his skin,
the squawk of unseen wildlife,
the prickle of sunrays on his nerve-endings.
As if by vindictive design, his two hours in the exercise yard would be after the sun went down, and if he heard wildlife it was the cries of his fellow prisoners, noises that everyday sounded more like desperate animalia.
Too often, a disembodied howl of the interrogated
would skewer his world. They all knew, even though
they couldn’t see each other, what that sound meant.
Perhaps a beating, a cigarette burn, water torture or the worst of all -
sexual assault with an emphasis on the vilest of humiliations.
In those moments, the withering of the heart accelerated -
sometimes he thought the anxiety would cause him to explode.
The blind presence of each other through the thick cell walls
nevertheless suggested unity.
It gave him occasional hope they were as one, for at the very least, they shared a collective memory.
He wondered if they too had started hearing voices and seeing things.
In his hallucinations, he viewed his fellow prisoners as if through x-ray eyes.
Some huddled in the corner of their cell crying,
others praying obsessively, rocking back and forth,
some sitting quietly staring with fathomless eyes,
others pacing their cell – four steps up, four steps back,
four steps up, four steps back.
Some would suddenly break out of their trance
and start screaming and hitting themselves.
He would hear: “Let me out, let me out, let me out!!!!”
And then it would be him screaming.
That seemed to happen a lot these days.
It was involuntary - a surge of violent pointlessness.
Eventually he stopped eating.
At first, he flushed his food down the toilet.
He had to be very careful and very smart because they were always watching.
The lights were always on.
Before he was moved to this dungeon above the ground, Camp 6,
he was imprisoned in a wire cage and could talk to others.
That’s how he knew what they did to hunger strikers.
And once he started to get sick, and forget to flush his food, his turn would come.
He suspected that many other inmates were doing the same thing.
He knew that those closest to death would be removed and taken to that special feeding block - strapped to a chair and force fed with tubes cruelly shoved through their noses.
He knew the tubes, in incompetent hands, sometimes missed the stomach
and entered the lungs causing pneumonia.
He also knew some tubes were re-used, the bile and blood
from previous hunger strikers visibly present.
He understood what further pain awaited him but the desire to die was now ubiquitous.
Too many years with nothing to do, no-one to touch.
Too many episodes of forced humility,
reams of blood-red tape,
the constant presence of merciless indifference
choking the last particle of hope
from their devastated lives.
Everyone there wanted to die.
It was just extremely difficult because
the soldiers were always watching,
the lights were always on.
They weren’t hunger strikers at all, they were suicidal.
He looked to where he imagined a window to be and closed his eyes, thinking of the motto that kept the soldiers motivated:
"Honor Bound to Defend Freedom".
Jenny Campbell © 2007