Shackles

There was the man in shackles, a man in a wheelchair, and a man incapable of the glorious senses in which encases human enjoyment. Let us focus briefly on the last subject mentioned. With an eye patch over his left eye; the bald, aging, and emaciated figure walked with a limp. In laborious activities one would hear the creaks of his rusty bones and an eerily silent, somber attitude toward him. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t hear, and couldn’t see. Deaf, dumb and blind with a black eye patch hinting to an unacquainted person that there is a chance the man could see, although he would only be capable of observing half of the living. Perhaps that was the appearance the man was hoping for: capability. But that was a lie. The man was a burden, a plain fact. Next, we move to the man in a wheelchair. Sadly, he’s more of a tragic story. Able yesterday, lame today; the man would be a towering six feet tall if he was not amputated. The clean knobs, stopping just short of his knees, can deceive a surgeon that the legs were expertly removed. He would have deemed the procedure necessary. Perhaps an infection threatened his existence and the two useful sticks of flesh became the very question of life or death. The surgeon would be correct if we closely examine the sad man’s past, but only thanks to serendipity. Closer scrutiny and creativity required, we see the man standing with black hair and facing a myriad of spectators. They shout and scream for their hero, the proof of their superman. A common celebrity and symbol of Olympian strength at the time, he would awe both child and man as they watched him run. The hair would only serve as a mystical, aerodynamic beauty as it flowed in the wind, as he would rush and create new air. His legs were the tools to his success, his jewels for his magnificent, agile motion. Now he is bald and lame.

The man in shackles also was a Hercules of a different type. He used his arms to craft, mold, and create. Although he was from a small town unlike the second character, he was famous for his skill nonetheless. Thoroughly enjoyed by all that were lucky enough to meet him, exquisitely desired by women, passionately envied by the weaker men, and held in a reverential light by the children. He thought most for the children. For these delightful creatures he carved toy horses, swing sets, doll houses, etcetera. Now he was in chains, the horrible souvenir of regret and loss. When he walked; the chains cackled, if he lay on his back; the metallic demons would bite, if he attempted a movement outside of the boundaries of his tormentors; the shackles would tighten.

And what are the similarities of the lost souls? No hair, no humanity. A forth one enjoyed their presence, though he would be food for thought and other things later. The space inhabited by the three lonely spirits was equally dark and grimy. It reminded them there was no outer world and if there be any, it wasn’t a whole lot better. The memories that he wanted to forget were the remembrances of happiness; for the man in shackles. The man with steel wheels thought only of the future. No one knew what the dumb “bore” thought.

The damp and stale cement floor of the room for the condemned of the world would never cease to remind them of the cold. The darkness reminded them of the gloom, and speech reminded them of nothing at all. Only one object of some interest accompanied them in the room, an escape. A brown door, something from a dungeon rather than a twenty first century prison, was placed in the middle of our heroes. No one had the capability to open it, a man in shackles can never free his hands for what they were meant to do, a man with no legs could never reach, and the dumb man had a silent reason of his own. A guard would drop three plates filled with rank soup and hardly edible bread. Water came from a sink seemingly filtered from an unknown outer source. The pipe would drip, drip, drip. The fourth man did not need water, or food. “Nasty water, nasty drink, nasty people,” the man in the shackles thought. He was hesitant to let the acknowledging thought that he also lost his kindness many years ago.

Something different happened. A voice from the slit called the fourth man into an unexpected light. Nobody in the room knew the slit was made inside of a door, another primitive one, yet an average sized door meant for standing; as compared to the one meant for crawling. The bald, starved, nameless thing (one could hardly recognize any of them as men), walked pathetically resembling a healthy into the light. He practically didn’t make it. However when one foot touched freedom, he was snagged by an arm with the grandeur of a gorilla. Two shots were heard by each prisoner save the deaf one. He was lucky for the loss of senses; the shots would never stop reverberating from the tightening walls. They reminded the chained man of thunderclaps or of a scorn by God himself, exacting a justice no one knew of. The legless man soiled himself and began to sob. He did not mistake the gunshots as something else like the man in binds who was blessed for his ignorance. The wheeled man’s accuracy of interpretation was due to the view he had. Facing the dead man’s back, he saw nothing of the angel that brought the anonymous figure to death, but saw vividly the trauma the tiny metal playthings wrought with the ferocity of Hell that could be done to skin. The dead man moved, “what have I heard?” - asked the spectator, the dead man turned to answer his question with a cold, gushing, bloody, silence. But, “where is his face?” – screamed death’s lonely audience. The pale and faceless monster had no mouth to answer, but had more blood. A sea of red brains crawled towards the wheeled man with a mocking, artificial movement of inertia. The deaf man laid in a corner starving and wasting away, convulsing. And the late carpenter’s chains tightened with indifference to a mysterious man’s death. There, the body lay, in the gleaming light to show the three most enlightened spectators of the ugliness of a human’s insides.

Gun in hand, the monstrous guard dragged the body towards the door to paint with the only color an artist of life and death can paint with. The thing made a sound as it slid across the floor like an indescribable amount of locusts rushing for dinner. As the brute left with a satisfied snicker for his joke of judgment, the deaf man sniffed as if he smelled something familiar. Slowly like an unraveling ragdoll, he began to become back into consciousness with an uncanny, beastly motion. He sniffed more like a hound with an appetite. Stepped scrupulously with an approaching care as a predator stalked its prey would. Reached the blood and brains, stopped on the dime, kneeled to an unfamiliar God and drank the blood of the victim; murdered of a crime, if there be a crime at all. The wheeled man was sobbing too much in view of an inhumanly image unparalleled for its senseless brutality. This time, the shackled man saw it all. The deaf man rose to look into the eyes of the man in metallic fastenings. If the deaf man could see, it appeared at the time he acquired a beastly sixth sense in the presence of spilled blood, that he would witness hatred. There were no ifs in view of the demon in front of the carpenter. A broad smile came across the deaf man’s face, the first expression witnessed in the dungeon, and a familiar color decorated the teeth of a wolf. Red. Red everywhere. Red seeping from his mouth, red lightly playing with the deaf man’s tongue as he unwittingly stuck it out, red on his hands; an ugly color appeared, pink. Pink tissue of the brain decorated the proud servant of Old Nick.

So much rage took hold of the chained man that he spread his two arms with such a force that deep cuts formed on his wrists. The adrenaline of hatred made it possible for that pain to be impossible to feel. The man in shackles couldn’t feel sympathy either for the monster in front of him. The possessed his body and made him forget his starvation, forget his past, and only think of the appetite of a grand stranglehold that he wanted to have on the deaf man. His weapons were still attached too strongly and it was impossible for him to make his dream of a purple and dying deaf man come true. He resorted to his second option, brutal beating. These thoughts only took hold for less than a second; the nature of the beast was to strike without question. The deaf man was far enough away for the man in binds to gather up a rushing strength to tackle the dumb man. Head stooped low like a bull, running full speed, and eyes raging, the lame man saw a horrid mirror image of himself. The stride and quickness within the carpenter backed up the runner’s theory. His legs were taking full control and it looked as if he were flying, the carpenter’s bald head looked like the perfect blunt weapon to bring down the deaf man in agony. It lasted only a few seconds, and both deaf and armless were on the floor. His head thumped over and over again, ignoring the blood coming from his own forehead, against the shattered ribs of his victim; reminded the lame observer of the evil of the maniacal lust the carpenter had, much like the guard’s own enjoyment. The runner cried more. Finally the first beating of the deaf man was over, only because the guardian of his pain was fast asleep from exhaustion on the floor. And the stink of death and hatred began to pervade.

The shackled man dreamt he was not human. His mother was a fifteen foot long worm attached to an intestine with her mouth. She would bite away to feed her babies, and finally laid the shackled man as a larva. Up he went through the blood stream towards the brain, leaving behind his mother who was having dinner. He found his target, the brain. Grasping onto his food he began to form a cyst, and eat away at the tissue. At that moment he felt an excruciating pain, which made him as a larva quit working.

The man in the wheels watched the shackled man sleep with a horrible fear in him. The armless man began to have a seizure and foam from the mouth. Trembling, the lame man shouted, “Wake up!”

The dreaming cyst heard the awakening call and realized he was attacking his own brain, he was the parasite; leeching onto himself. The larva within him wanted more and the dreamer could not awake. Suddenly, the tissue was starting to vanish slowly, nothingness creeping towards him. The larva started to panic but could do nothing.

He awoke and wiped the white foam from his mouth, crying. Then he looked around and saw dried blood on the deaf man’s mouth, the carpenter jumped up and began to kick the deaf man uncontrollably. He heard the creaking of steel wheels trying to stop him and show mercy. He didn’t care and kept kicking. Tired of the beating since his victim wasn’t moving, the simple fun of seeing pain was over. It fascinated him that the deaf demon was certainly paralyzed but still alive. It sickened him to see that slow movement of the belly, rising up and down, persistently working for life. And just as he asked the question to God with his eyes to a stifling ceiling, he realized there was no room for God and heard a cry and a thump. The cry was short and pathetic, coming from a short and pathetic, lame man. The thump was the effect of another seizure the deaf devil had, putting him out of his misery.

Death that came with no pain was rare in their world, life was pain and death was the last flicker of light making a grand stand. The last breath should surely be felt with a fighting force made by the body, fending off the disease of death, sending off neurons to do their last job and make sure the host of an organization of skin, organs and nothing else; felt something. This man’s death was life’s unexpected finale and the carpenter was getting sick of surprise. He wanted to be expectant of something, the plotter of a scheme in life and death. He chose the only living soul occupying the space that made all good men killers and started to walk. Their eyes met and the lame man was almost slain by just that look of fiery hatred. At the perfect moment, if a second later the light didn’t fill the room, the legless man would be dead.

The gorilla stood at the door and had on an executioner’s mask. But both the legless and armless knew that he was smiling. The mask moved as effect of the motion of the jester’s mouth and he said, “Out, Pigs!” – they followed orders, slowly and indifferently. Keep their heads low and maybe their heads wouldn’t be at their feet. Never make eye contact with your destroyer for he can undermine your maker. Once light hit their bodies, more shackles were tightly wrapped around their necks. It only got worse the closer the men got to light. The gorilla pulled both of them at their leashes and laughed and laughed and laughed. Their feet weren’t touching cement anymore; it was wood, like that of a pirate ship as you walk the plank. The gorilla stopped, choking them both, and strapped their leashes to invisible hooks on an invisible wall. The light only followed them and the darkness stretched out to what gave the impression of eternity.

A unanimous burst of laughter erupted all around them, reaching farther back. Bright and amused eyes appeared and encompassed them. There was more laughter. They were participants in a show as a sad circus of freaks. The gorilla told the man in shackles to kneel, and in the process of obeying orders the shackled man felt a strong but withheld force striking his feet; making him hang in midair. He was dying and he believed in God, because it was a miracle he didn’t die instantly from the force of the metallic noose. Two strong hands clasped him like a toy and brought him back to his feet before he would feel his last breath. The crowd thought this was a riot and snorted. A wave of freezing cold water hit both of them, drenching their weightless bodies. Another wave. And then another. Absolutely naked icicles chattering away chained like dogs, incapable of anything. Two clicks and their hooks were free. Their gorilla led them back across the plank into the dungeon. Lights out.

When the two prisoners staggered and rolled in, two passengers accompanying them in their descent into darkness were missing. The one with the idle face, where a large melon can fit its place; was missing. As too was the deaf man who silently and absently passed away. A clue to what there whereabouts may have been was seen in the faceless’ man new blood trail leading to the door leading downwards. The man in fetters casually walked to the place where the corpse of the second forgotten was last observed and spit to represent his absence. So it was, each dead man had his special headstone; spit and blood. What items of importance would let anyone remember? And what is the dungeon door? The armless man established that it was a tomb for all of them. More than a door, a gate into Hell, the mouth of the beast, he thought. The legless man was too scared to neither object nor form any opinion that could be a threat to the man with no arms. Each agreed that this would be the end of their traumatized lives; hopefully it would be in the same quickness as how the two nobodies left the living. The two survivors slept.

One awakened but could not see, but he knew he was falling and he knew the door ate him. He was screaming and abruptly hit the bottom of the well. It was just the right depth to bring him immense pain and make his death painful. The handcuffs that he lived with for more than a decade began to be freed from him, but his hands would be freed as a consequence and they would cut slowly and deeply, amputating his beloved tools.

The wheeled chair man saw all of this but could hardly explain the supernatural force behind it. All he knew is he heard screaming of agony from the opening. It strangely beckoned him but he was too afraid, leaving behind feces every foot closer he got to the gate. The door was opened perpendicular so it left enough opening for him to drop in. At this time without the lame man’s knowledge, the door to the prison opened and an eerie light silhouetted the gorilla executioner. His eyes were brighter than the light and made him into a holy figure. He grasped the handles of the wheelchair and threw the wheeled man with one motion into the pit. Before his head could make it, the gorilla closed the door with the force of a beast and with a swift motion and the skill of a samurai, slit the lame man’s head off. From the perspective of the man in binds he saw enough light to see only the wheelchair fall, not knowing that there was a headless body in it, and saw the light creep away from the well. With a desperate gasp, a painful one, he started to cry pathetically for help. On the inhale he would pronounce the “h” and the “e”, but losing breath the “e” sounded like an “a”. The talking was killing him quicker, he was bleeding from the mouth and his wrists would surely fall off soon enough, but he had the time to say help thrice. The well of the abyss responded, it echoed with an uncontrollable sound that sounded like laughter, Ha. Ha. Ha. Now without wrists, broken arms, and the most excruciatingly unnatural death, he left behind nothing. The wheeled man left behind a sobbing head and his waste (a gravestone of fear), the deaf man left behind spit (a tomb of hatred), and the faceless corpse left behind the sporadic yet grave amounts of blood (a memorial of assent).

Nobody knows how many years passed since the horrid story of malignant treachery took place. Nor are there any of the human markings that could relay to curious men where the spot really was. The castle, it was assumed to be a castle, that many men lost their humanity and lives; is gone. We do know that it was set upon a hill and overlooked a village. People believed it to be alive, there were no established rulers; villagers were abducted daily and taken in to be tortured. A supernatural darkness would take place as the castle loomed over the village, the sun never came out. Over time the village and castle unexpectedly burnt to the ground, following the same fate of many men, children and women who were buried. A forest grew after many years. Many say that the forest is the most evil place imagined. Ominous storms conjure on the top of the hill and the lightning reminds one of the brightness that only makes death closer in view. There are the forest fires, the underworld’s raging armies, eating up everything in their paths. The never ending rainstorms, chilling the bones of a grown man as he can’t help but be reminded of the penetrating sounds of a rough body being dragged or chains rattling. It’s a murder’s playpen, if two men go, only one returns; for your tracks are covered from the first steps you make.

The only reminder of the nightmare in which this story took place is the dungeon door. It is said to sit on the very top of the hill, with the densest part of the forest, and where storms forever brew. There the tallest tree stands with a mark on it. The symbol represents the glowing smile of the deaf demon with one eye; a bloody spot and a red curve under it. There he smiles and lures people who wander too far. If you take the wrong step you can hear the squeaking of wheels or rustling of the armless man, the predator. They are the guardians of the gate of Hell. Each branch that cracks on the tree overlooking the dungeon door represents a brittle soul that is an easy candidate for the boundless depths that the door hides.