A man sits in an anonymous room somewhere in the world. The room is dimly lit, as is the man’s awareness of his existence within the room. A fog flows over his mind as he sits waiting for whatever drug cocktail to begin to wear off, whereas he slowly drifts in and out of consciousness. All that he knows is in what he has experienced up to this point in time, though as he tries to reflect, he cannot recall anything that has prepared him for what is about to happen. He has been told by his keepers that they have secured all of his family and are holding them in a separate facility as a form of leverage. He is told that he must cooperate in giving them some crucial information that they desperately require, of which he is the only one privy to the “assumed” information. His captors seem to think he has a clue or answer critical to securing the dominance of one nation over all others. Though he is unaware of it, his keepers are convinced that he holds a secret piece of wisdom to the purpose of mans existence. Thus, it is the heavy price of his small piece of wisdom of the ages that he alone discovered, which he foolishly alluded to in a small published article.
As he slowly rouses from his drug induced stupor, he notices that he is nearly numb from head to toe, except for the dull ache in his armpits after taking several stuns from a taser gun. His mouth tasted awful, as if someone had forced him to eat bear scat or cat dung. The scent of his own filth filled his nostrils, which made the taste in his mouth seem that much more unbearable. The room was dead quiet, except for his breathing and his heart pounding, there was no sound. His ears felt as if they were plugged with cotton balls. A single LED light was the only illumination in the whole room. His eyes strained to pick up any detail, as his stupor began to wane. The small light shown directly into his eyes, partially blinding him to his surroundings, then he tries to shield his eyes and finds he cannot raise either arm. He struggles and finds all his limbs, head and chest are restrained. A twinge of panic takes hold of him and he realizes he can’t move, but then notices he can wiggle his fingers and toes. The panic fades as he realizes he is not paralyzed. His skin feels sweaty and clammy against the restraints. He thinks,” How long have I been here?” Then, his mind begins to race about, desperately trying to grasp onto anything that could hold his focus as his mind begins to clear. His awareness of surroundings begins to take hold in his mind begins to process more of what his body is trying to tell him. The numbness gives way to an agony, so deeply painful that he can barely maintain focus, for his predicament left him beaten severely prior to his imprisonment. He gasped loudly, but could not utter a sound beyond a whisper. At that very moment, a light overhead flickered on.
All at once, he hears a large metal door whine as it slammed open behind him. Hands reach around his head to release catches on his head restraint, then fingers pull something out of both ears, finally his head nods free from its pinned position. A wave of nausea crashes over his body, as he barely manages to spit out whatever was held in his mouth. His vision is blurred, but he can barely make out a tiny video camera on a tripod facing directly at him. The light overhead doesn’t seem to reach far enough out to illuminate any of the walls he intuitively knows surrounds him. Between the nausea and stupor, he cannot decipher the clamor happening around him until a large folding table slams down in front of him and jolts everything into focus. A twinge of pain below his right ear shocks him awake, then, his thoughts and his senses are regained into their full intensity. A grey jumpsuit clad man walks around in front of him, lays down a laptop on the table, then slams open a folding chair opposite from him across the table and sits down. He reaches back for the tiny video camera, pulls it to his side and flips a switch.
His interrogator pauses, as if waiting for an inevitable stream of screams and pleas for mercy, but he does not have to wait long. The pause is interrupted by the restrained man’s groans and whimpers, as his mind began to process the rest of his injuries he received before his imprisonment. As swiftly as his agony peaks, his composure is swiftly regained, as though a switch had been turned off. His interrogator is startled by the ease of which he regains his composure, where a brief flash of bewilderment crossed the interrogator’s face. With a brief sigh, the interrogator starts.
With deep threatening tone the interrogator says to his captive, “For the duration of your stay with us, you will call me sir. As for my name, let us just say for the sake of civilized exchange, I am called Claude. As for your designation, your name is Job.” The man nods in acknowledgement of his designation. He is in no position to contradict his interrogator at this point in time.
Job, the man in the restraints asks, “When can I go home with my family?”
Claude, the interrogator replies, “That is entirely up to you Job. If you tell us what we need to know, then it is possible that you can go home.” Claude, the interrogator, opens the laptop on the table and types in a command, and then Job feels a jolt of pain coming from his armpits, so he squirms and yelps.
Job pleads,” Why did you do that?”.
Claude responds with, “I told you to call me sir.”
Job answers back, “My apologies, sir!”
Job realizes that the pain in his armpits is not from the taser wounds he received prior to his imprisonment, which meant that his keepers had implanted some sort of devices while he was unconscious. Job steels himself against the searing pain; desperately seeking to focus on something other than his agony of the moment. But before he can regain his composure, Claude, the interrogator, starts in again.
“Do you know why you are here?”, Claude asks in a deep foreboding tone.
“I have no clue, sir, as to why I am here with you, sir.” Job meekly replies.
A pleasant look cast across Claude’s face acknowledges to Job that the requirement of cooperation has been achieved. Claude explains the predicament that Job faces and tells him that he his there to prepare him for testimony before an official inquisition into his statement. Suddenly, Claude stands up, closes the laptop, then flips a switch on the video camera and walks around behind Job to reattach the head restraint. Claude reinserts new ear plugs into Job before leaving his cell. As the door shuts behind Job, he hears a muffled chuckle from his keeper, then the light above goes out and he is left in the dark with his agony and thoughts. He feels a sting behind his left knee, then a warm feeling washes over him like a tropical ocean wave and he slowly goes numb all over. He can barely think as his mind races before he is overcome by a strong urge to sleep. That last thing that flashes across his mind is the overwhelming urge to survive, then he drifts off.
[This story continues next week]
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