‘You’re not the only one being imprisoned by this... I’ll bring you some new clothes soon.’
I don’t know what she means or what to say in reply. For once I am relieved to hear the lock click shut…
* * * * *
… I awake with a start, disorientated by my sudden flight into awareness. Something woke me; a loud sound. I’m certain of it. It sounded like a gunshot or a car back-firing. Or was it just a dream? I hold my breath, listening intently but the noise is not repeated.
Hope surges through my frame as my over-active imagination churns out a reason for the noise: the police have found me; even now they are heading for my room, guns drawn, ready to set me free while behind them she lays slumped on the floor, a bullet-hole in her head.
I listen hard, willing my ears to here the slap of footsteps approaching but there is nothing, just dead silence. Maybe it was nothing? Maybe it was just a dream?
Disappointment hits me hard and fast. Before I know it I am sobbing. Through my tears I can see something on my desk in front of me. A piece of paper and a pile of neatly folded clothes next to it. It is only then that I realise I am still naked. I don’t know why but the fact that she hasn’t woken me to dress me fills me with a horrible foreboding. Usually she would never trust me to dress myself.
My sobs have stopped and I wipe away the tears from my eyes so I can read the note next to the clothes.
It is short so it doesn’t take me long.
I really wish it was something I’d written and just couldn’t remember but I know it isn’t my handwriting.
I let it fall to the floor when I am done and my sobs come back full force…
* * * * *
… I take the shirt off the top of the pile and slide it over my head. Even this minor exertion causes me to pant slightly. I can feel beads of sweat break out on my forehead. Carefully I lift the razor blade from where it nestles on the fresh set of tracksuit pants.
I struggle into them, wincing as my bloody knuckles, stripped raw by the repeated pounding of the door, glance off the desk’s corner during my struggles.
I don’t want to be naked for this.
I have finally decided to do what the note suggested. But before I do, there is something else I must do first. It has finally come to me, now, when it is too late.
An idea.
I can see it crystal clear in my mind. It may not be a masterpiece but what does that matter. My only critic is never going to read it. I sit down at the desk and peer at the razor blade for a moment, glinting dully under the fluorescent lights before reaching for my pencil. I look at the small nub that she left me and hope that it will be enough to get the job done.
I have yelled myself hoarse and I have beaten on the door until my knuckles are bloody. I know that no one is coming. I wonder if they will ever find me. Soon it won’t matter but for now I will write. I hope it will make it seem that this all had a point to it. That my life didn’t just evaporate when she first turned the key in the lock.
So I sit in the room that has become my cell and I write…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R. Frederick Hamilton is a young up and comer.
LEGUMEMAN BOOKS
www.legumeman.com
Extreme and/or Unusual Fiction for
Extreme and/or Unusual People
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