Benjamin Davidson Krolewicz

TORTURED

      The vile hell of this small cell was all she knew. The drugs and poisons, pumped in by her captors in place of food, keep her in a constant stupor. The pain of confinement, starvation and the dizzying effect of the chemicals mixing in her blood, all seem to be part of a punishment for something, but what wrongs she may have committed were long forgotten. Although her sight was useless in the darkness, she became increasingly aware of noise outside the walls. At first, there was only the reverberating chatter and laughter of her subjugator mingling with a multitude of voices in a muffled mob. While trying to gain any insight from the strange syllables being carried through the layers, she is suddenly struck by a blast of sound that shakes the very walls of her prison. Enraged by the deafening noise, yet weak from lack of nourishment and a steady influx of poisons, she feebly strikes her limbs against the giving yet eternally pressing walls of her soft cell.

      “What a kick, she must be dancing!” her mother exclaims, tenderly stroking her swollen belly with the hand that holds a Marlboro Light. With the other she raises her neon drink off the bar, and notices it is the same hot pink as the sign flashing “OPEN” in the window.