Jerry

They were putting the board on Jerry's back again. It was a piece of plywood, or so it felt, splintery and heavy. It felt like there were little spines that stuck out of the board into Jerry's back. Like the heads of nails. The board was big enough to cover Jerry completely, driving metal spine tips into his back and head, butt and calves, anywhere the board actually touched him. Jerry wondered if his body was going to become flat on the backside from the repetition of the spine board being placed on his back. How long had it been? Well, it had to have been longer than 15 years, right? Or was it 20 years? It was so hard to remember, as there was nothing to mark the time. It was the same thing everyday, which makes it difficult to separate. A while ago, Jerry thought, I was brought here and they put me in the brick room. Face down, on the slimy, wet-green stone floor. They spread his arms and legs, so that he made a large human X on the floor, and then they chained him there. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He lay there, staring at the wet-green floor, with nothing but his thoughts. No, that was too much. Sometimes he would tap his fingers and he would listen to the echo in the room. Sometimes he could hear the tapping as a drum beat to a song that he was trying to write. Sometimes the tapping was some creature under the floor digging around for a bit of food. Sometimes it was the water on the shore, softly beating against the wrecked hull of the ship that had been carrying Sanderson.




The first thing Sanderson realized was that he was lying face down in wet sand and it was going up his nose. He tried to raise his head, but the shooting pain in his neck made him stop. The pain radiated out and down, telling his body that it had to move much more slowly than he was used to. Creeping his knees toward his head until they were under his body, Sanderson found his way to his knees. The sleeves of his long-sleeve white shirt were tattered and sandy, and he noticed the thighs of his pants were ripped and wet. There was sand under his hands. And the tapping, gentle tapping, of the water on the shore, softly beating against the wrecked hull of the ship that had been carrying him. The water was beautifully blue. A color that Sanderson had never seen before. A color that, really, couldn't exist in a man-made world. The color of calm crystal liquid cream. His back hurt.




They were placing the weight on the board again. This made the spines go just a little further into Jerry's back. The weights felt like bricks, those big cinder block bricks that they use on construction sites. Jerry had tried to pick up some of those bricks when he was a child, and they were heavy and cut into his hands. He didn't like them. They were angry bricks. Maybe that's why the weight felt like cinder block bricks: cinder block bricks were angry and the weight being placed on the board on Jerry's back was angry. A brick was dropped at the base of Jerry's skull, and he heard the small pop of flesh being punctured. In a second, he hoped, he would feel the warmth of blood from the new hole. It was cold on the wet-green floor, a cold that never went away and had managed to cling to his bones, and Jerry enjoyed any extra warmth he could find. Even as painful as the board was, it was able to provide some warmth, and that was a good thought for him. And the blood, when it came, was warm. He felt this warmth trickle down the back of his neck, and it gave him a small shiver as this tiny river of warm relief carved a random path on his flesh. That's kinda nice, he thought. He always tried to look at the positive things in life. If you don't look at the good things in life, you will miss them, and you might never get them back. Plus, you don't want to be consumed by the ugliness. So think about positive things. Today, one of his positive thoughts would be the warmth from this blood river.