Captive

I don’t know where I am, but I know I traveled to get here, along with others like me.

I awake to a pool of blood burgundy around me. I hear roars as loud and symphonic as crashing waves, damning me to an induced hysteria. I’m anxious and nervous, and saturated by a mist! I feel icky. I also struggle to comprehend why I’m here, but I know I emerged from a place of darkness.

I have a captor, stout and intimidating. The defined curvature of her shoulders embodies the characteristics of cement, hard and impenetrable like the cage they kept me in. Her body is chiseled to perfection, like Michelangelo’s David.

Suddenly I feel the helplessness overcome me like a claustrophobia as she tightens her grip on me with those long, flamboyant, coffin-shaped fingernails.

She has a fine sparkling rope made of karat gold chain around her mole-ridden neck that has a crucifixion charm. While lowering her head almost as if in prayer, she subtly kisses it, then lays it gently to rest upon her flat chest once again.

“What are you doing?”, I think as I begin internalizing my thoughts. Suddenly, she squeezes harder uplifting me into mid-air putting me on display. Onlookers witness and protest with mouths wide open and eyes wide shut. Some are shouting gross obscenities, while others appear to be euphorically obliged. After a swift showcasing, she slowly brings me closer to the ground where she starts to kneel.

My mind begins to contemplate even the furthest far fetching of scenarios:

“Is this some sort of cult?

“Am I a sacrifice?

“Are they going to spill my blood too?”

“Why won’t she let me go?”

“What am I doing here?”

She slowly places me alongside her so that I’m aligned against her lower extremities. Her physique is like a packhorse, this one.

Meanwhile, adrenalines are surging around me as the atmosphere is growing insanely intense. People chugging beers and boos. And there’s others, others like me…others like her.

P O P!

*Gun goes off*

“HELLLLLP!” “HELP ME!”

“SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!”

Others hurriedly disperse like a herd of cattle running in the same direction, evading trying not to get caught up. Someone just fell and twisted their ankle. She’s yelling when I should be. Seems like a lot of chaos!

Alas, I’m still with her. I hear her elevated heart rate beating tumultuously outside of her chest. She’s afraid. She should be. Her eyes begin to swell with fluid as strong winds taunt her capacity to see. Even I feel as though I’m beating down winds at a hundred miles per hour. Her heavy latent breath forcefully falling upon me like a whisper inside each her strides.

The proverbial weight of gravity crushes us as we drift ever so slightly, staggering endlessly to stay the course. All the while leaving a trail of burgundy and bodies behind, heel over heel.

Another is up ahead. She exhibits the same sense of urgency but focused. She continues to look back as she begins to sway from side-to-side. Just as we approach, she begins to turn away, taking a few calculated steps forward.

She begins to loosen her grip as she inches me towards her. I knew I had to go willingly, forcefully with another.

“GO!”, she yelled as she releases me.

***

“Earlier today at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon where the Women’s 4x400 meter relay trials were being held for this year’s 2024 U.S. Olympics resulted in travesty for the U.S. Team.

First leg, 20-year-old Veronica Garrett, who herself is a two-time U.S. Gold Olympian may have jeopardized the opportunity for her, as well as her teammates to compete with the other 10,500 athletes headed to Paris, France this year for highly anticipated and monumental event.”

“Uh, yeah Rob that was quite the shocker. I’m still in disbelief! Everyone is speculating about what happened and the stories thus far are out there, but tell me Rob, what do you think happened? Better yet, how could it have even occurred?”

“Well Bob, as difficult and absolutely less dramatic as it may seem, sources close to the two-time Olympian contend it was just a simple miscarriage and misplacement of the baton.”