Permanent Obscurity

 

            Simon leaned back in his chair in his office at home, rubbing his eyes now tired after staring at a screen for the last four hours. Excessively blinking as the afternoon sun poured into the room, begging him, tempting him, and working hard to draw him outside for a jog through the woods. The clock overhead finally reached five in the afternoon, reminding him that he had very little time to enjoy a jog through the afternoon sun. Slipping into a fresh t-shirt, shorts, and his running shoes, he did a bit of stretching, and told his wife he would be gone for about an hour for a bit of exercise.

               He slipped out the front door, walked the sidewalk to the edge of the park to begin his run through the woods, nodding, smiling and waving at those he met on his way. Always one to think of himself as better than, smarter than, and more talented than everyone else, after a plastic smile, he internally mocked those he passed as he continued on his jog. Half a mile into the woods, he came across a path to the immediate left that he had never before seen. “Hmm, let’s check it out,” he thought, “a change in scenery might be nice.”

               The path in the woods came to an end as he passed into an open field that contained a small number of old, rundown buildings on the opposite side of the field. He maintained his running speed and was approached by three very odd-looking men as they rushed from one of the distant buildings. A projectile came into view that quickly connected with his forehead, bringing with it a bright flash and an immediate headache. He dropped to his hands and knees wondering at what had just happened.

               Within moments of stopping his movement, he felt three sets of hands seize him and drag him toward one of the decrepit buildings. Multiple punches and kicks landed on his body as he landed on a dirt floor inside the building, to be immediately chained to the wall. He felt his head swimming, his body aching, and he tried to understand what the three men were saying, as most of their words sounded like gibberish. The three men left, closed the door, and Simon watched the day grow dark, feeling hungry, thirsty, and incredibly sore.

               His mind was swirl of confusion, pain, and terror, wondering what had just happened to him and if he had any opportunity for escape. The final rays of daylight disappeared, leaving him swallowed in absolute darkness until the three men returned with a lantern to continue their blows upon him, speaking in a way that he could not understand. After descending into a state of complete and absolute pain, he was unchained from the wall, taken into another building, tied to a table, and repeatedly whipped with leather straps.

               The darkness removed all possibility of identifying who these men were, what they wanted or if he had any possible means of returning to his home. “Damn, those are some incredibly ugly people, they look inbred to me,” he thought. One of the men left the room, returned with a hammer and began shattering all of the bones in his feet and legs. When the destruction was complete, the second man left and returned with pruning shears to systematically cut off all of his fingers while chanting words that made no sense, to then cauterize each wound with a glowing red metal tool, the sizzle of burning flesh shot waves of pain through his damaged hands.

               The third man retrieved a long, rusty nail from a bench nearby and popped both of Simon’s eyeballs, when this excruciating pain was over, he felt a device fit over his head covering both of his ears into which came the sound of an airhorn over each ear, effectively destroying his hearing. A hook pierced through his lower jaw, forcing his mouth open, at which time one of the men began extracting all of his teeth, severed his tongue, and then branded his torso with the glowing red metal tool, spelling out the word ‘liar’. His fingers were dropped into a metal bucket as well as his now severed genitalia to be followed by cauterization of the open wound.

               The three men left the building, as Simon lay quivering in perfect, absolute pain across every inch of his body. Trapped in his mind with no way to communicate, he could feel the room growing warmer as the morning sun, he assumed rising on the new day. He lay still, suffering, aching, and wondering what would happen next. In a shocking and unexpected moment, the three men returned and began whipping him again with the leather straps. Simon could see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.

               The restraints were removed, he was lifted from the bench and placed into a large bag that was dragged out of the building, dropped into the trunk of a car, and after some amount of time, he was removed from the trunk, dropped on the ground and left in a state of absolute helplessness. Terribly hungry, terribly thirsty, and in pain throughout his entire body, he felt the warmth of sunshine come upon his body, leaving him wondering if someone had found him and were trying to help.

               Completely at a loss as to what would happen next, he was lifted from the bag by two sets of strong hands and taken to a hospital in an attempt to heal his broken and tormented body. Still trapped in his mind with no way of communicating, he felt the prick of a needle upon his skin, giving him a reprieve from the pain that nearly swallowed him. After several hours of solitude, he felt a tapping upon his arm, a message in morse code, which allowed him to understand that his family had been contacted and were now with him.

               Now that he was no longer alone, he began to receive a pleasant, kind, and soothing massage on the parts of his body that were not damaged. Still trapped in darkness, silence, and solitude, uncertain of the length of time that had passed, he was lifted from the hospital bed, placed in a wheelchair and taken home, in torment over his inability to communicate what had happened to him. The morse code tapping began again, communicating that co-workers and family were with him, desperate for him to communicate to them what had happened.

               In his crushing state of solitude, his mind was a swirl of memories of the three men who had beaten and mutilated him, he struggled to think of a way to tell the story, their horrible disfigured faces, their inarticulate words, and their sheer brutality upon his now broken body. Now that he could not speak, could not hear, could not see, and could not type, he had no means for doing his work or earning an income to provide for his needs and the needs of his family.

               Now confined to darkness, silence, and a wheelchair, he could no longer walk, jog, work, or provide for those who needed him. Over the next six months, the savings account that he had been buildings slowly reduced toward zero. Every day, his wife and his children would visit him, hold his hand, feed him, and tap morse code messages that everything would eventually be alright. Simon knew better, knowing that the money would eventually run out, leaving them destitute and eventually homeless.

               As time passed, he began to communicate with morse code, telling the story about the damage that happened to him, who did it, and where they were, who they were, and remained uncertain as to their goal for damaging him in such a way. As each day moved into the next, co-workers and family continued to support him and his family, buying them food, and paying their bills. Still trapped in his silence and solitude, he hated the fact that he was trapped and unable to contribute anything of value, now lost in confusion and pain, he knew that there was nothing he could do to escape and be of value.

               Two full years passed and those who knew him and believed that he was still mentally intact, ran out of funds to continue caring for him. When this time came to an end, he found himself sitting alone on a pile of cardboard in an alley, while his wife and children moved on to another life where they could take care of themselves. Simon was trapped in darkness, silence and pain, hungry most of the time except for the few people who would give him food at least once a day.

               Eventually this philanthropy stopped and he found himself eating only once week, still sleeping on cardboard in an alley, wondering if there was any end to his suffering and solitude. Despite hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and speaking nothing, he became a non-person that eventually everyone began to completely ignore, to eventually starve to death behind a dumpster.

               A small group of old men found his cold, stiff body, shriveled and damaged, to then call the police that a body had been found and something needed to be done with it before the wild dogs and cats would begin to eat it. The paramedics arrived in the alley, moved the emaciated and damaged body into a body bag to be transferred to the nearest morgue in hopes that someone would be able to identify this person of seeming no identity.

               Simon hovered above the activity in the alley, desperate to communicate who he was, why he was there and trusting that eventually someone would identify him, give him a proper burial and allow him to move on. Still tormented at the shallow, empty life that he led which was nothing but deception, selfishness, and unkindness, knowing that he considered himself better than everyone, and wishing he could go back and re-live a life that was based on love for neighbor.

As this thought rolled around his disconnected mind, he noticed that he began a slow descent with an ever-increasing rise in temperature. “This is not the path I foresaw for the first fifty years of my life,” he thought, “I seem to be going in the wrong direction, I guess I’ll see how this comes to an end.”

 “Well, a change like that is not going to happen,” he thought, “I had one chance and I completely missed out on doing what was good and right, unfortunately thinking only ever of myself and distracted by the foolishness and inanity of my culture. I wish I would have listened closer, acted better, and focused on love rather than selfishness.”