Viscous Circle

You try to remember your life before the darkness. There was a woman standing over you, crying. Why was she crying? Try to remember. TRY TO REMEMBER! But you can’t. It’s been days…months…weeks…hours in this crushing dark. And it's getting smaller.

Why did they put you here? Why are they keeping you alive? You yank at the tube they have attached to feed you. You pull and pull, but you’re just too weak. They give you enough to live, but that’s all.

Some days (weeks?) you wish you were a coffin (still in a coffin? when were you in a coffin?) Wood or metal. Something solid. Not this... thing. There's a term. You reach back for it. Vicious? Viscous? A liquid cocoon pressing on you inside and out. You can barely tell where your prison ends, and you begin. Or maybe you don’t begin, and your prison just never ends.

Who is ‘they’? Why have ‘they’ stuck you here? You don’t know anything. You can’t even remember who the woman is. Was. She was everything, you know that. And now she is gone.

You are so alone.

Oh, god, the pounding. THE POUNDING! It won’t let you sleep. It never stops; it just grows louder, fills your body. And the music. It comes from nowhere and everywhere at any time. You can’t tell what it is. Random notes filtered through someone’s memories of what muzak is. Elevators. You remember elevators. WHY DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE WOMAN! That silver hair, glowing in the dying light. Her tears. Her tears won’t stop falling on you.

Light. Another way they torture you. It has no rhyme or reason. It does not rise or set anymore. If there is no day or night, how can you rest? Why won’t they let you rest? You beg them. Please let me sleep. please.

What is that? They are done with you. They have come to crush you. The pressure builds and builds. You know there will be nothing left of you soon. And you still don’t know who she was. Or who she was to you.

Something is pulling at you, like a kitchen drain…leading to a garbage disposal. You know they are ready to toss you away. But you’re not dead yet. Even though you can’t breathe. Something is choking you. The feeding tube is stuck in the drain. You yell at them to stop, to kill you first, before they flush you away. But you have no voice.

They pull you out of the darkness. Wait.

You recognize them.

You find your voice.

You want to scream.

NOT AGAIN! I DON’T WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS AGAIN!

All they hear are the cries of new life.

Not the death of your old one.