Escape
The last light disappeared when the blindfold was tightly drawn over my eyes. As I was robbed of my sight, my heart began to stutter and within moments became an erratic thumping in my ears as one sense compensated for the loss of another, amplifying any and every sound.
Even when the thick gag was put in place, I had been able to muffle any protest that may have inadvertently escaped. I was still, and offered no resistance to my captor as he shackled my wrists behind my back and my ankles to the chair legs. I had still been very much in control up to that point and easily held back the destructive panic that I could have succumbed to if I was a weaker person. But I had never allowed that label to fasten itself to me in any of the other challenges I faced before. My work is about surviving in these types of situations, situations where to be weak, is to be dead. With this, the hardest test ever thrown at me, weakness had no place. I had remained motionless as the heavy locks and bindings were tightened to make certain I was indeed a prisoner. I had made no eye contact and gave nothing away in my frozen face, but maintained focus on the plan indelibly imprinted by years of training.
But when the last of the restraints took away the light, my experience was totally ineffective when not only my eyes, but also my head, descended into the dark. No drill can prepare you for the mental battle that often dominates the physical.
Memories, with insane cruelty, launched at me once they recognised they had a captive audience. I tried concentrating outside of myself, straining to identify sounds, textures and smells to keep me in this room and out of that one. But the past I had so long ago filed into distant corners, suddenly spilled across the floor of my consciousness, forcing me to relive it.
This was the true torture. Every sensation I was experiencing in the now, was a link to the worst of my history and it raced through time to confront me face-to-face. My hindered breathing was becoming irregular with the struggle against my handcuffs, but the raw chafing of my wrists was dull compared to the pain of the first memory.
In the darkness, always in darkness, a shadow hovered undecided over my bed for an excruciating time like a pendulous axe that could fall at any moment. Or somehow just as bad, not fall at all. This way, the dread would be drawn out through an agonising night ending only when morning came. Then everything I said or did in the day was tarred with the blackest of intentions that no one else surely had to contend with.
Just as I was right now I had been alone in the abuse and the loneliness, and it overwhelmed me as fresh as it had then.
I learned too early that darkness has its own yin and yang. By hiding in it, the dark is a refuge. But it also masks everything familiar as if you've been dropped someplace foreign with no guide. As a child, these extremes disoriented me and now as an adult in the dark, I started to feel confused as I tried to make sense of up and down, left and right.
Why had I come to this? Which decisions should be held accountable for steering me to here? I blame no one else for my choices and nor would I; for such a long time they were all I had to call my own. The dwindling time I had now was as good as any to reflect, dissect and analyse the mental bonds as I writhed and fought the physical ones.
With a jolt of panic that snapped me from my torment, I felt the first soothing touches of cold water against my now bloodied ankles and pointlessly pressed my eyes shut as I felt it slowly but inevitably creep up my legs. I hadn't noticed the water’s noise before, but its gushing din was now the only sound I could identify and it easily eclipsed my muffled grunting.
I painfully straightened my arms behind me and leaned down into my lap to implement a well-practised but immensely difficult maneuver. The chair vibrated under the strain, echoing the muscles in my thighs that were the force in the action.
Recognizing the swirling sensation of water, the demon in my skull now gleefully distracted me and painted a long-ago scene with hot yellow sun, brilliant blue waves and coarse sand between tanned toes. I was immobile now, balancing part-way through the movement as in my mind, the push and pull of the current quickly turned on me and I was no longer in awe of its freedom but instead, fearful of its might. The young me tumbled around losing all awareness of direction and the last of my breath was smashed out of me so I lay peaceful at the bottom, staring into the muted light tunneling away from me. There was no pain, no fear, only release.
Not like now.
The water was rapidly approaching my hips as I continued with strong bands of muscle to fight the only way I knew how. My heart swelled with the effort of escaping and pushed against my chest in a tight but invigorating way. It pumped my blood faster and faster, coursing the adrenaline around and around. This heart had taken such beatings in its life but had refused to stop beating, hoping. That spring of hope eventually became a pool of love that had its own incoming and outgoing tide. Someone else now embraced and protected it as carefully as I had and it was for him that it now slavishly worked.
Come back. To here and now; to this moment and its dangers.
Lips so dry, but little can be done to moisten them with a rag clamped between my teeth. I bit down hard and made my legs push against head-high water to tuck under me and force the lift I needed. I drew on every drop of grit left in me so that if I failed, it would not be for lack of fortitude.
With a numb feeling of inevitability, I took a deep, snorting last breath and was submerged in the final prison. My body was churning the water, twisting and coiling until at last one arm was free. I blindly groped above me, frantic for a lifeline that I now determined to grab and cling to.
A scream burned in my throat when with a desperate wrench I pulled on the rope my arms found and kicked at the devils with my mind, snatching back freedom with both acts.
It was a long moment, suspended in silence and stillness, until a dull cracking and a splintering explosion dominated everything. The glass walls shattered into tiny clusters, filling the waves that rushed across the floor and over the edge to drain away.
I lay on my back, heavily soaked and still blindfolded. I breathed in and out, heaving through my nostrils and my flexing ribcage. With a weak swipe at my gag my mouth was free to gasp and help in the fight against unconsciousness. It was vital I didn’t pass out at this pivotal moment when I needed to stop and face them.
When it seemed an eternity had passed, I managed to sit and then painfully, stand upright. I had battled and triumphed, with only a few wounds to attest to the war won.
Reaching for the last of my confines, I tore away the cloth that had obscured my sight and my rationale.
Beautiful, warm light washed over me, blinding me, reviving me. I bathed in it and reveled in the glory and pride. The roaring in my ears was a symphony for all I had planned, dreamed and worked for.
Transcending all of these, one voice stood out from the crowd’s applause and my ears arrowed in to hear his “Bravo!” above anyone else.
With my eyes clear and my nightmares disarmed, I looked out over the bewildered but entertained crowd to accept my accolades and to take my bow.
