Torture Chambers

Unit 3: Jail

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been chasing you. I try to think of a time before I’d known your name; I try to remember my ‘innocence,’ the occasion of my nativity. No, it seems I was born to meet you; I am destined to know you. I dwell endlessly these gray corridors, and I fidget and I squirm as I await your arrival. I await your return such that you grant me my purpose.

There are no deviations in my hours; my life is a rigid and linear sequence of repetitious states. Every seven minutes, I am essentially reborn. I start here, at the top of a grey staircase made with flat bricks. Harsh white lighting rains down on me. There are red beams that roll over bronze-grey pipes into mysterious machines, and you can hear the sound of loud wailing over the buzzing of shield generators. Down the staircase, I read to myself the familiar words etched into the wall: “Cell Block B.” I’m not sure how many times I’ve read these very words; I learn nothing from the passing iterations, as I relearn the mystery of its meaning anew every time. Am I in “Cell Block B?” To my right, there are bald men slamming the walls, groaning in pain; they are imprisoned behind orange lasers. They are as singular in their purpose as I am— even their groans do not digress by indulging in change. My path takes me further down into the complex, where the corridors become claustrophobic. There are doors here; they’re large, full of mysterious markings, and full of light. Beyond those doors, is that where you are? I imagine you in flight, leaping through the air, animated by some sort of greater force. And I am stuck here, weak, useless; I have no mind of my own. I try to think about what another life might look like, and I try to imagine new sights and sounds, but all I see when I close my eyes is your face; you are full of daring, and your jaw is clenched in pure devotion.

Through the corridor, I enter a large, circular structure. Looking up, you see a convoluted structure of pipes, jagged and blocky. Beside me, there is a pool of water which seems to serve no function whatsoever. There are various weapons and packages of ammunition suspended in the air, bouncing like stars. I go down to my knees and I like to look at my reflection in the water to give myself some definition, to put a face to the mind I’ve been burdened with.

And how would you recognize me? I stand out from my peers, who wear helmets or bulky metal armor. I wonder what you’d notice first— would it be the large energy weapon bolted onto my forearm? Or the gory cavity in my stomach, where you will find cold hard steel and pressurized machinery. Or my face; mangled, full of leather straps and plastic tubing. I am the product of a process completely mysterious to me. When I look at my peers, they all appear undifferentiated; they even share the very same scars, a communal history of touches. It makes me worry; a shiver goes down my aluminum endoskeleton. Are there others which are identical to me? Have you killed other me-s, such that to reduce me to a pile of gore would inspire nothing more than an increment on a score? Or maybe you would not even waste the most precious resources of yours on my slaughter? Maybe I’d die in a hail of rockets meant for someone else, blown into anonymous little pieces, and thereby be denied my entire purpose of bringing you pleasure by my defeat.

I hear distant explosions, I hear groans of pain and exertion far beyond these walls. Another world seems to sing beyond “Cell Block B,” and I see through the grates above me that the sky is flush with yellow and red lights. I’m not sure what I should be thinking right now. I reach the end of my patrol route. I stand for a few moments, peek left then right, and walk my way back to where I’d started.