Dear no one,
I have lost track of how many days I have been in the same chair and the same cold, dingy basement.
The bad man doesn't come down here anymore so I have no sense of time. My wrists have started to scab over to heal, but they bleed whenever I move them and the rest of my body is numb from not moving around for an extended period of time.
The hope I felt is lost and I don't think I will be able to escape. Everything hurts and I am so tired. What if no one cares that I am missing and I stay down here forever? It is starting to feel that way. I don't bother trying to remember things anymore because there is nothing to remember. I'm not going to go back to my old life so I don't need to remember the simple facts about myself nor do I need to know how to escape since it seems impossible. Maybe I have not tried enough, but it feels as though I have given everything I have.
I know that I am somehow still getting water into my system, but I am starved. I don't recall the last time I had something to eat. It's possible that the last thing I ate was before I was taken. Maybe they are feeding me and I don't remember, but I feel lighter and weaker. I feel small and helpless like a bird with a broken wing. I can only be nursed back to health because I can't take care of myself anymore. I fear that I am too broken to retrieve myself and every part of me that I have lost.
Now, I spend my time in the chair just sitting there like a shell of a person. If they wanted to hurt someone, they succeeded because if I meant anything to the person they wanted revenge against, once they see me, they will know that I am broken beyond repair.
Sometimes, I think of what graduation would have looked like. I'm sure it has passed by now. I didn't know anyone in my class, but it would have been nice to get to see everyone walk onto the stage and receive the piece of paper we all have worked so hard to earn.
I imagine the ceremony being long, so long. When my name is called, the man would stand up and cheer and his family because I don't have my own and he would be so proud of everything that I have done. We would get away for a few days before I started my job at my internship. We would go to the beach somewhere and just relax. We would talk and splash each other like lovesick fools. I would feel the sun on my face and complain when I get sunburn instead of the tan I was working for.
I can imagine what my life would be like years down the road. I would be a published author and my children would come to all my book reading and signings. I would get married to the love of my life and we would have a small wedding that neither of us would ever forget. Our honeymoon would be on an island somewhere away from society so we can revel in our newly formed bond.
Even as I think of all of these things, I don't feel sad. I don't feel mad. There is nothing. My life is the way it is and I can't change it. It's as though my body has turned numb to forget about everything that I will never get to experience.
I don't mind the dark anymore. Something that once bothered me because I don't like the dark and couldn't figure out the time, is now something that I enjoy. If I stay in the dark then no one can see me and I can see no one. I'm invisible, I don't matter.
Resting my body against the seat, I sag down and rest. Maybe I can finally get some sleep. I definitely sleep better now than any other time that I have been here. Maybe it's because I am finally accepting my fate. This is what my destiny brought me to. I have to accept it. I have accepted it. In realizing this, there are no more plaguing thoughts in my mind. I don't care anymore. Even as my back stings from the unhealed wounds, I don't move. I don't feel it; it's muted like everything else.
The only time I feel something is when I meditate. I started doing this a couple of times ago, and whenever I feel too numb or start to think of anything, I re-center myself to make the thoughts go away. Closing my eyes, I focus on my body. The lack of feeling in my toes from being cold for so long, the dry blood on my legs, my knees feeling weak (too weak to move), my stomach feeling empty, my ribs right against my skin, the pain my ribs are in every time my lungs expand, the marks against my neck from where his hands were, and the taunt skin around my jaw. I feel the chill in the room and the faint smell of mildew.
Re-opening my eyes, I feel more at peace, more centered. More numb. I like the feeling. Oddly enough, it makes me feel more normal. I used to be so worried about whether I would escape and how I would do it. I concerned myself with questions I knew I didn't have the answers for.
Why worry when there is nothing to do about your situation?
But, there is always one thing nagging at my brain, no matter how much I try to get rid of the thought. There is a man I should know. It always persists in my mind. I should know him. Why don't I remember him? I know I will never see him again and yet he still finds a way to make me feel something, a little flutter in my heart, a gentle feeling of pressure in my hand as my hand is in his. It's frustrating. I don't want to remember. So why does he keep making me? Why do I continuously let him make me?
"Such a beautiful flower." The voice pops into my head yet again. I wish I knew who was calling me that. I know it's Him whoever that is, but why would he call me a flower? I'm not a flower. Maybe he's not calling me a flower, but showing me a flower. I know that that doesn't seem right. If it was, why would it be reverberating around my head every time I think about him or need hope because I have nothing left?
And somehow that feeling of numbness is peaceful. I can live in this numbness and pretend that everything is like it used to be. I can imagine what life would be like if I were to get out of here without feeling an extreme sense of loss.
It may seem dull, and pathetic to others, but, really, for people who may never escape from their captors, it's a way of winning. It basically says that they may have taken me from the life that I have created, but I will never break. I may be broken, but I am stronger inside. I am no longer distracted by the "what ifs." I only concern myself with how to get out of here, which is also a waste of time, but I occasionally listen for a voice. No matter how slim, I can get out of here. I know I will. One day. Even if it kills me in the end. I will see sunlight on my skin again and I will be called "a pretty flower" by my mystery man.
So, maybe, I'm not numb. Maybe I have learned to live with the cards I was dealt, but at the end of each hand, there's a new dealer and new stakes on who is going to win. I may not win this hand or the next one, but I can't lose forever, and when that day comes, I will be ready.