Trapped:

It is a bit ironic as I sit here and count the seconds ticking away, how much I claim to hate enclosed spaces and yet the warm cocoon that surrounds me now, almost seems like a haven to my senses. I wonder if this means I am about to fall into that blissful abyss called ‘sleep?’

It is dark now. How long has it been? Five, six, seven hours? Two days? Who knows? Who cares? That quiet voice in my head whispers. Apparently no one. I can feel muscles I never knew existed begin to ache. It is a bit crampy in here after all, and it doesn’t help that my body is currently twisted at an angle that borders on making any yoga instructor jealous. I think my legs are numb…hell! I can’t feel them anymore.

Tick, Tock. Tick, Tock. The only sounds that keep me company. The sound of my watch ticking away. My life ticking away? If so, then I probably will have to thank grandpa for giving me this little timepiece for my eighteenth birthday. A painful reminder of how short life is and how much time I have left in this world. I shift again, only to wince as my neck protests the movement. Don’t think that was such a good idea.

It is faint at first, almost as if it were whispering its presence to me. But I hear it soon enough. There is nothing else to hear, when it really gets down to it. That is besides my watch ticking and the sound of my heartbeat. From a faint whisper to a droning monotony. Dear, Lord. I never knew that the sound of rain could be so soothing. I remember running away from it every time it came down, wishing I was anywhere but there. Now…ironic, isn’t it? I pray to see smell and taste it one last time. Speaking of taste…I am getting a bit thirsty. My throat is beginning to feel as if someone had poured in a ton of dry sand through it.

I swallow and almost cry out in pain. I must have broken a bone in my neck, for that simple act is enough to send me to ‘sleep.’ But I can’t fall asleep yet. I have to at least try. To keep my sanity if nothing else.

I try to think of happy things. Isn’t that what the good old men and women say? Think happy thoughts and you will fly, fly away…or something like that. What happy thought do I have? I could always think of my family, right? I mean, they should send some sense of happiness through me or so, right? Everyone’s family is supposed to have some kind of happy memory to share. Well, not me. I can’t remember a single happy moment. Well, besides the day my father decided to leave us alone. Yeah, that was a really good day for me, but a bad one for my kid sister and my mom. Not that I ever understood why mom would feel so bad about it, I mean, the bastard was a…bastard to her. To all of us. Not once, did I ever share a fatherly moment with him. Not once, did he ever cradle me in his arms. Not once, was he ever there to see me through school or to come to my baseball games or to my birthdays. Not once…

Has the rain slipped in here somehow? Funny, but my hands are beginning to get wet. Oh yeah, my tears. So much for happy thoughts, right? Well, I d o have one, now that I think of it. And that’s my kid sister, Marcy. She hates her name. Says it reminds of a department store. I keep telling her its ‘Macy’s’ but she says it’s the same thing. No point arguing with a determined ten-year-old now, is there? I remember asking her what she would like to be called and I can still remember the blush and small smile she gave me, before leaning close to whisper it in my ear.

Call me ‘Athena,’ she says. Of course, I was surprised to hear her say such a thing. But I agreed, never really taking the time to find out why she wanted to be called that. And so Athena she became, but it was our little secret. No one else was supposed to know.

She is cute. Athena, that is. She has this chestnut-colored hair that’s always in ringlets, no matter how hard you try to straighten it out. She has the most amazing green eyes I have ever seen. Took that after my mom. She has dimples and they always come out when she smiles or talks. She is pretty damn smart too. Can spot any thing from a mile away and is a whiz at arcades. Yeah, I guess Athena is my one happy memory. She always did make me smile, even when she was a pain in the butt.

My mother.

I don’t want to think about my mother. Much as it hurts me to think it, but she is…a miserable, old hag that seems not to care about anything or anyone. Not since that excuse for a father walked out on us. She seemed to become a zombie after that. She became a shadow of her former self. Never smiling, never leaving a kind word.

She just didn’t care!

Christ! I was only fourteen at the time. What did I know about raising a family and taking care of a home?! But there it was, I became a ‘father’ at fourteen years old. Having to make sure that my kid sister got to eat and go to school every morning. I had to get a job delivering papers, since mom decided that getting a decent job wasn’t going to be in her agenda. The money wasn’t much and I never did give it to her. I saved up as much as I could to pay for my own needs for school and stuff like that. For Athena’s eighth birthday, I managed to buy her something she had always wanted. A Barbie doll. The one that talks and dances too.

Funny, she still has the doll up till now. Even though it’s a bit raggedy and old.

I remember trying to keep away the creditors from sending my mother into a deeper state of depression. Mr. Wiseman, that was his name. He always came to our house on Saturday mornings, needing my mother to pay for this bill or for that mortgage or something. There have been times when he has sent social workers to come get us, but as usual, I would have to be the one to stand up to them, lying through my teeth, praising my mom for things that she never did for us.

Ah, well…at least Mr. Dudley was kind enough to help fend the bills for us. Who is Mr. Dudley, you ask? Why he is my…friend.

If you know what I mean.

The rain is beginning to pour harder now and I can feel the first trickle of something cold and wet, brush against my sneakers. The water is beginning to seep into my prison. Any minute now…

How much time do I have left anyway?

I met Mr. Dudley at my second job, working at the local grocery store. I was sixteen at the time and had begun to get noticed by lots of people. I mean, older women that seemed to think I was cute or something. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I could have if I wanted to, but I refused to allow myself be tied down to one woman. Dealing with my mother was enough to take out the fun in that kind of a relationship. Anyways, good ol’ Mr. Dudley, had walked into the store on that fateful day and had given me an offer that I just simply couldn’t refuse. It had sounded simple enough. He had told me that he was looking for a young man of my strength and caliber to help him deliver some goods for him. He would pay me every night, depending on how much I was able to accomplish. And being as desperate as I was, the thought of getting paid over a hundred dollars every single night, was just too tempting.

I agreed and allowed myself to be led to his mansion at the end of town after work on that day. I remember how shy and foolish I felt in my old shirt and jeans and almost worn down sneakers, standing within those expensive looking furniture and paintings that I was afraid to touch. It was then that I got a chance to meet his son.

His beautiful son.

Mr. Dudley was proud of his boy. And who wouldn’t? I mean, the guy seemed too perfect for his own good. He was captain of the football team. A class president. An artist. A musician. Christ! I felt like a dud in his presence. But to cut a long story short, Jason (that was his name) was to escort me on my ‘missions.’ Which was fine by me.

And so began our weird, bizarre and tumultuous relationship. Weird, because for starters, I had never considered myself ‘gay,’ but as fate would have it, Jason and I became partners. It wasn’t too bad, now that I think of it. The first time was kinda painful, but I settled down and somehow became the dominant one in our ‘friendship.’ Bizarre, because our job required me to leave home every night at six o’clock on the dot, wait for Jason to pick me up and then we were off and running to send over the brown packaged boxes in the trunk. We sometimes had to drive all night to our destinations, stopping for short breaks at either a liquor store to nourish our tired bodies or just to screw each other senseless. Either way, I began to get a nagging feeling that we were doing something that was…illegal. But, I didn’t complain. I was getting paid and Athena was getting all that she wanted. And my mother…who cares?

Tumultuous, because Jason can be quite…volatile. If I was five minutes late, he had the tendency to bitch and complain like crazy. I would have to appease him by giving him head for over an hour, or resort to being treated like a punching bag for several minutes, before I snap and retaliate. I wasn’t really sure about the kind of relationship he had with his father, but I can assure it wasn’t a healthy one. How would you react if someone told you that he ‘played’ with his father every night? The image alone was enough to said me barfing in disgust. Odd, I feel like barfing right now.

But Jason was a good guy in the end. He had issues, yes, but he was an okay guy…that was until his body was found floating down the river about a month ago. Shot to death, they said. That was the night I had had to bail out because Athena was sick and I had to stay home. Jason hadn’t been too happy about going on his own, but I had pleaded with him, promising to make it up to him in some way possible.

My tears are beginning to fall a bit faster now as I remember the small smile he gave me, before that last and final kiss. It was as if he was saying goodbye, you know? As if he knew that he might never make it back again. As if he knew that his time was finally up and that this would be our final meeting.

I shift again, almost unconsciously, but that doesn’t stop the scream of pain that wrenches out of my parched throat. The water is now around my shin and I am beginning to shiver. A wave of darkness washes over me for a moment, but I manage to shake my head and stubbornly keep my eyes open. Not that I am seeing much at this point.

I remember hiding amongst the trees that day as I watched them fish his body out of the river. I can still see Mr. Dudley’s face. He looked like he had aged a hundred years or more. I wanted to scream out in anger, frustration, and despair as the almost unrecognizable body was brought out. I refused to believe that the mangled body had once belonged to someone with so much life and vitality. I refused to believe that they had gotten rid of Jason over some silly mistake we had done.

Yeah, we had blown a mission.

And it seemed like the people we were dealing with did not take too kindly to messed up situations. Or in the words of Jason…FUBAR.

So, it’s my turn now. I knew that they would catch up with me sooner or later. I mean, how long was I going to hide in my ramshackle home with my sister and mother. I wasn’t going to run away. I could have done that if I wanted to, but I had Athena to worry about and I was determined to remain with her until they came to get me. Turns out I had almost a full month to enjoy her company. I made sure I took her to everywhere she wanted to go to. I made sure she had the best stuff with the money I had saved….

Damn…didn’t know the water had reached up to my chest now. Not much longer now…

I spoke to her the night before they came to get me. Not that I knew it was going to be that night or anything. I gave her all the money I had saved up and told her to take care of mom for me. I remember the puzzled look she gave me.

“Are you going somewhere far?” She had asked, with that innocent gaze pinned on me.

I broke down there and then and I guess that scared her more than anything else. I have never cried in her presence before and so I guess that big brother sobbing uncontrollably before her was a major scare. I hugged her tightly to me, never wanting to let go. Knowing that this would be the last time I ever get to smell her freshly shampooed hair or see her in some nice dress that I had bought for her.

“I love you, Athena. I love you so very much.”

They stopped me on my way back from school the next day. I didn’t protest much, not that it would have helped anyway.

Have to keep my head bent at an even more awkward angle, the water is now up to my chin. Heh…the rest of my body is pretty much numb. Cold and numb.

I could have sworn they were going to shoot me, but no…they had something else in store for me.

To stuff me in a box and to drop me down the old mine shaft that had been rundown for years. It was close to the river and so the chances of me escaping was pretty much non-existent. It was a tight fit as you can well imagine, but they didn’t care. Hence, my rather cramped position. The river is flooding now, and that is why I am currently about to drown.

How ironic.

I take a deep breath, feeling the heaviness of sleep about to befall again. It has been a pretty long day after all, or should I say a pretty long life. Athena, I will forever regret not getting a chance to watch her grow up. To see her share her first kiss with some boy or even to watch her get married. My mother will probably die sooner than we think and my father will rot in jail as he so rightfully deserves to be.

And as for me…

I guess I do deserve this in a way. A retribution for my sins and transgressions can only be achieved by leaving this world in such a manner.

I take my final breath and close my eyes, diving beneath the cool depths of the waters that flow over my head. It is a peaceful feeling, when you really think about it. No worries….no fear…nothing….nothing at all…

Goodnight, dear friends, for it is finally bedtime.