“This is good,” I thought broodingly to myself as I felt the container I was confined to slowly sink into the violent depths of whatever piece of ocean they had chosen to throw me into (I knew it was ocean because I tasted the salt). “It’s finally over,” I kept thinking to myself, “This means it is done.” I wasn’t afraid; I was completely calm. I trailed my finger aimlessly down the crease in the creaking corner of my little dark box. I slid it lightly over the ever-growing cracks, the dendrite-shaped artistry that I knew so well, that appeared one day when one of the Outsiders (the name I had given the man or men who captured me) had gotten angry with something and kicked my box, resulting in the cracks and a couple of ill-placed bruises. I remember that day well, just like all of them. It was number twenty-four. Another crumb-scrounging, light-depriving, and otherwise lifeless day spent in my animal crate made of decaying brown maple. That day had been the first of many furious kicks and violent shoves. I tried not to remember the days of which had followed. I shuddered, crossing my legs tighter remembering the pain then shrugged off the thoughts and continued my pointless tracing, withdrawing into my drawn-back conscience state. The water was all around me now, enveloping me, taking my air, and providing a bleak halo of dirty, mucky, brown, wavy hair.
I started knuckling a crack I could see through, because it was newer and larger than the rest. “A new friend, come to join us,” I chuckled inside my drifting mind, indicating the other cracks as my friends. It won’t matter soon, it will all be over. I could already feel the water preparing to use its mighty concussive force to crush my lungs into crumpled bags not even worthy for your groceries. “Goodbye friends,” I mouthed as I planted my hand on the wall of my crate, but, to my explosive surprise, it kept going. My hand broke through the water-logged wood and carried me out into the pitch-black nothingness. I looked down, mouth agape, and saw my box twisting and turning in slow-motion among the bits and pieces of wood from the shattered wall, gliding down slowly to its eternal grave. As it slowly dissipated, I saw one piece suspended in the pitch that said, “Made of Hickory.” “Huh,” I hummed as I tweak my eyes in disbelief, “I could have sworn it was maple.” Then I snapped into reality, feeling the burn from lack of my since-worthless air. I took a glance at the box. Not my grave, not today. It’s all yours. I looked toward the bleak light sifting through the water from the surface and kicked for my life. Part of me knew I wasn’t going to make it, but I still tried. With every ounce of resolve I had left, I kicked. I screamed, I kicked, I cried (if that was possible underwater), until I had no energy left. I was only a dozen feet away from salvation, but I just stilled. The light was fading. No, I was fading. The light was the same. It was I who was drifting away, eyes closing, letting out all I had inside me and giving up.
I woke up with a jolt, shrieking at the top of my lungs, crying profusely, and coughing violently until I started hacking up scarlet drops of blood. Once I had settled myself slightly and thought I could sit and/or halfway stand, I scooted to the edge of the bed sweating perpetually and breathing as though I were a triathlon contestant on its third and last leg. It was all a dream. Well, it was actually a memory, but it was still all over. “I will never be in that dreadful box again,” I thought imperatively to myself, even though I knew it was a lie. I was in the box every night in my dreams, or nightmares, rather. In a way, I am still inside that crate. Physically, I escaped, but mentally, I went down into the darkness with it. I never escaped. I am forever trapped.
-Dalton J. Bennett
(May 15, 2012)
