The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing
new. Xander’s
condition had not changed. Bruises
covered his body, leaving it more black and blue than white. The bruises he could handle, but it was the
pain that he was worried about. He had
hoped that when he woke up from a good night’s sleep, his muscles would just be
sore, instead of burning with an uncontrollable fire. Deciding that there was not much that he
could do about the pain, Xander clumsily climbed out of bed onto the wet, dirt
floor. When his feet hit the floor,
making a slapping sound, his inmate
groaned.
Now, you must understand
that Xander was a prisoner of war. He
had been a prisoner for so long now (and sustained so many brutal beatings)
that even he could not remember which war he was a prisoner of, let alone which
side he had been fighting for. The only
thing that he could remember was that food and water came every day at what he
presumed was five o' clock, or dinner time.
Xander grew to learn that the beatings would come sometime after the food
and water were delivered to his cell (after the soldiers had time to drink
their booze). Soldiers would be drunk,
or simply looking for a lesser to beat up on after losing at a game of cards to
their captain. In the beginning, Xander would
fight the beatings. After eighteen
months of imprisonment, Xander now just let the soldiers have their way with
him; they would get bored more easily, and it would result in a less painful
experience.
Glancing over at
his snoring inmate, Xander quietly made his way towards the food tray that was
lying on the dirt floor of their impenetrable box. This was how Xander referred to himself- a
puppet forced to stay inside of its toy chest, pondering when his puppet
masters would let him out to play. Xander
never got to play; his strings were involuntarily plucked. This is how it went on, day after day. Then,
one day, it didn’t.
It had been a
day like any other, Xander waiting for his meal and for his beating. Instead of hearing the drunk roars of
laughter of the soldiers that accompany dinner time, Xander heard unearthly
howls outside of his prison door. Only a
couple minutes after the screaming had started, Xander heard a key being turned
in the prison cell’s door. To this day, Xander
still remembers the words of his commander in chief, his savior, whenever he
opened up that dank prison door, “Come,
children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.” The war had been won.
