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While one holds me upright, the other threads my foot back into my underwear and the leg of my pajamas, but they insist that I bend down to pull my bottoms up myself. "Sick?" they demand. It seems like they're always asking me that now. I shake my blindfolded head. No, just take me back to bed. I remember beginning the trek back to my cell, but I have no memory of arriving.
* * *
I have a dream. In my dream, I am asleep. But then I struggle awake, like kicking up from the deep end of a pool to the surface. I find myself in a cramped, closet-like space, pitch black, which somehow I understand is an old-fashioned confessional. Beside me, unseen, I hear the priest—but his voice is that of the chef who came a few days after my kidnapping to take my photo.
"Jeremy, have you been praying?"
"No, father." I have disappointed him. I am a disappointment.
"You must do better, Jeremy. You have been given a heavy burden for one so young. But you must carry the burden."
He is concerned for me, though I do not deserve it. I become weepy. I have no tears left, but my shoulders shake feebly. "I'm sorry... I want to do better..."
"I am glad," the chef's voice says. "I want to help you, Jeremy. What do you need, to do better?"
The answer comes instantly: a yearning, an aching, a blurry male figure, springing full-born from my subconscious. "Someone to be with..."
I hear the rustling of the priest's clerical robes. Then he says—only now his voice has turned into Bernie's—"I absolve you, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Go in peace."
That last part is why I am certain this was a dream.
- COMMENTS
canndover 10 years agoThis has been compelling and fascinating from the beginning. I find myself strangely having this slightly pos. feeling for the Makmald and the kindness he shows, along with that young boy who talked to him one day. I'd be a real Stockholm Syndrome candidate pretty quickly huh. You really bring the reader along on this ride to insanity he is taking as the story moves forward. I try to picture throughout how it would be to be forced to survive this. I am really unsure if his will is weaker than some? Afterall, they aren't hurting him at least, well, except for that one asshole guard. How can he take any more of this in the state he is in? It seems he would totally go into his own mind and maybe not come out. I take it Alan will be entering the story next which will be surprising that they will give him a cagemate. The ending was a bit haunting. You kinda want to know if there is a chance Bernie was kidnapped, though I think the mission and the family would have seen him safely home or at least protected once he was kidnapped. I think he's just sinking closer to insanity. The Chief's patronizing 'you must pray' is annoying. I hope at some point we learn what it is they wanted of Bernie and then of him when they mistakenly took him. Is it just money from the family? I was surprised that when they said the whole country knew his name, he didn't take some comfort in that. Would the govn't get involved if they knew his plight and moreso if the nation knew it? I'm intrigued as to what his environment was that made him so fearful of being gay. Is it the religious voice of his uncle? Is it his town/area he lives in? Why was he not taught some tolerance in college? I look forward to seeing more of the story.
SumacandIvyover 10 years agoWell written and compelling. This chapter pulled me in and held me hostage from start to finish. How will you top this?
Anonymousover 10 years agoI just love everything about this story your an amazing writer , you have captured this whole captured , prisoner , almost Stockholm syndrome thing with Jeremy I cannot wait for your next chapter
