"For the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23)
I have no one, I am all alone. I have lost count of the days, the years, I’ve been locked in this cell. Each day wears down my body more than the last. With no one to care for and no one who cares for me, I am locked in this prison. My only hope is that my soul can escape these walls. I will die soon, all that I will have after this life is my soul. From this world, I do not need anything more, nor do I have it. I intend only to understand myself and my Lord, God. To learn from the world outside, who punish me for my sin. I do not exclaim any wrong in them, I understand what I have done. I am humbled to the world Lord, and to you I wish to intrust my saving.
The man’s hair now grows as gray as the stone prison walls in which he has lasted many confined years within the dark, dank and damp walls. Walls which hold him and which become him. Food comes only two to three times per week now. Not only does it come less often, but each week it seems to come in smaller amounts. The old man knows how to best conserve what he can. He has dug a crevice in the wall, near the ceiling of his room, where he keeps what little is left of his measly meals. There it is safe from birds, pests, and bugs, for they would leave him starving if only to feed themselves.
Life is a hopeless existence, but the old man seeks survival, everyday he looks on the city where he grew up. Using small bits of food, he baits mice from their living hole. Sitting on his bed, he waits for hours every night for a small noise to rustle from its hole. Smelling for small crumbs, a mouse steps into the black of the man's room. His stomach aches and hungers for food, and his only possibility to cure it, the man crushes the mouse with a chunk of rock. Bursting the mouse open, its organs spill onto the floor, its tiny frame is smashed. The man has done this many times, the first time he crushed the mouse too softly, not killing it instantly. It screamed and squealed writhing bloody on the floor. He knows now that it is better to kill the mouse with one blow of the rock.
The man proceeds to bless its tiny corpse in the thin moonlight. The old man thanks God for this gift of food, he has no way to cook, instead he splits the mouse open with a small shank he handcrafted. Eating the small bits of meat raw while sitting on his bed, there is only a small window to give a hinting gleam of moonlight to the room. So he sits, eating in almost pure darkness.
It has been any number of years, beyond my count, since I have had warm food, since I have eaten in the presence of another. There are maggots and bugs living nearby, who are busy eating anything they can find. Much like myself, I suppose. How would it be to eat at a table again? For, here in my prison I am less than a man, only an animal.
After eating, he walks to his bed with the leftover carcass and skin, bloody in his hand. He walks weakly, at his age his dexterity is all but gone and he only sees black blurs of the room in the night. Using the wall for support and a box as a step, he clambers in the darkness. Eventually hanging onto the window for support, he pulls himself to it. His eyes have looked upon this one view for most of his life. This is his most beautiful world, the world beyond his cage. Still dark, the moonlight reveals a world of freedom and promise. Still it is only a blurry blackness, all but the moonlight reflecting off of the sea. At night he wonders how cozy their homes would be, families warm in each little house. This is just a dream, a facade. Only a distant memory, but it is all he has left of his civility. After taking in the city, he lays down to rest for the length of the night.
In the morning the old man repeats his climb, so that his eyes can reach the light shining through the window. His sight is waning heavily, but he knows the shapes and colors of the world outside. He knows the image that he once saw in them. It has been all that he has and he imagines that if he were a painter, he would paint the coast and the city with precision and exactness. He does not know the technique of a painter, but he knows this picture, he knows how many houses and buildings live across the water; he has counted them again and again, he has watched as each new house arose. He knows the shape of the coast and the angles which deliver the best aesthetic. He knows the color of the dark blue sea which has separated him for so long.He knows the feeling which he would look with, as a painter, the feeling of yearning and wanting. The longing and wishing, the inability to attain, the beauty framed by this window, the life he has lost within the walls of this prison. Only he, not the painter, could paint this picture. This picture of a place where he could have lived, of a life he could have. And he knows too well the pain and tragedy of his own life, and this makes the idea radiate in his mind. If his imagination could pull him from the prison cell and create a world, he would live only in that dream, but he has no paint and he has no brush to bring his idea from his dream. His world is real and he is the liver of his life.
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Bulk Short Story Collection
عشوائيEach part is another story. A collection of stand alone short stories and flash fiction that don't fit into other sets of work.
