Mad Dash
My pace was brisk and steady and my eyes darted uncontrollably in all directions. My right arm ticked as if held down and given electric shocks. (I heard of a neighboring fellow who actually bled to death when an old, brittle mouth guard was positioned incorrectly in his mouth.)
After being stretched out on a gurney, anchored down by boorish hands, my mind would let go of the brutality in free flowing imagery. Gently I surrendered- transfixed by the divinity of a white, domed light above me; expelling the impact of the jolts that scorched my flesh. I drowned into its brilliance- the soft caresses that refreshed my eyes; the sense of flexed fingers combing my hair as by a lover in my arms.
But I knew, even in the highs of illusion, that I was dead: my carcass left bony and my brain butchered. That was the hysteria I had escaped that summer morning, if only momentarily.
In the desolation of my cell, mute, with the orderlies devouring their rations, I managed to loosen some of the belts that held my body in bondage, until I was able to stand. The ankle chains were easily removed and so were the ventilation vents.
Scaling the outside gate was an endevour- to climb it at my delicate age was a difficult task. Once I was over the razor sharp wire I pressed on with bleeding knees and elbows, into the brush that separated me from the claws of a grim asylum and into, so I imagined, the normalcy of a busy city where anyone could lose themselves in a sea of unfamiliar faces.
As I left the spacious void of the plain I entered the darkness of a dry forest. I barely could take another step due to a sudden spell of fear and disorientation that overtook me. I attempted to lean onto one of the heaven-high trees but collapsed instead. Everything was spinning. Sweat began to drop from my forehead. At that instance my thoughts became cluttered, unhinged from the phantoms. I knew that soon the voices would take over with their whispering suggestions and soothing pleads; from the same invisible demons and majestic angels that snared me all my years.
I slowly stood to face the tall soldiers of bark. Slender leftlets and ruffled leaves lay unperturbed beneath my dirty, bare feet. I moved ever so slowly forward-my body, a stone weight; my brain, a storm of chaos. In this vista I saw a path of pebbles that snaked across the darkness of the brush in distorted double vision, askewed and unbalanced. I followed the way with a wry grin smeared across my face like a smudge.
(incomplete idea/snippet)
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