THE
LONG WAY HOME
Karl
is a fair skinned German boy who was left parentless after the British soldiers
killed all the villagers in his village during World War 1. He has deep brown
eyes and light auburn hair. He looks exactly like a British boy. That was the
reason why he was not killed among his family, relatives and friends when the
British soldiers raided his village. The soldiers thought that he was kidnapped
to become a servant as he was found wearing ragged clothes and scrubbing the
floor when the soldiers raided his house. They brought him to an orphanage and
left him there.
Karl was always bullied by the other
boys in the orphanage. The others seemed to realize that he was different from
them. They knew subconsciously that he was not one of them because of the way
he spoke with a Russian accent. The other boy, Spike as he is known, is a
British and led the children to bully Karl. Spike was abandoned by his parents
and was found by the side of an alley by a Good Samitarian.
Karl felt a burning rage when the
British soldiers killed his loved ones. He could feel that the rage he held
inside him grow slowly each time he was picked on by he others in the
orphanage. His hate was concentrated on the British. The strong hate that
coursed through his veins was always directed at the British.
* * *
One afternoon when he was walking
home from school and on his way back to his so-called “home”, he saw Spike
walking back “home” alone directly in front of him. Suddenly, a surge of
uncontrollable rage boiled in him when he saw Spike. His sight was locked onto
Spike. Before he even knew it, he was bashing Spike’s head and forcing Spike
face first towards the blistering-hot tarmac. Fists were sent flying by the
both of them. With tremendous effort and strength, Karl landed a few punches on
Spike’s solar plexus and jaw, knocking him unconscious. The uncontrollable rage
in Karl drove him to kill Spike. He gripped his right hand on Spike’s throat. His
grip tightened by the minute. Spike struggled but with no avail. Karl felt
Spike’s body shudder and the struggling stopped. Spike was dead.
“I did it!” Karl thought in daze.
This is revenge. He convinced himself that he had done the right thing. He
clenched his fist and let loose a fearsome bellow. He felt extremely happy, but
his happiness was short-lived. A young girl had witnessed the happenings and had
reported to the authorities. Karl was hit on the side of his head, and was
knocked out.
Karl was brought to a ghost town
where all the inhabitants had been killed off too. A masked man wearing a
police uniform yanked him by hair out of a car. The pain was excruciating. He
was dragged to an underground bunker-like hideout, lit by a single naked light
bulb. The air was damp and the surrounding eerie. It was like a gigantic coffin.
He was tied down to some sort of medieval flogging pole used to discipline
wrongdoers. The masked advanced towards him with a scalpel. A feeling of unease
washed over Karl.
The masked man reached for Karl’s
eye lids and pulled it outwards. Karl squirmed and tried to loosen himself and
to escape, but he was unable to move. As if slicing cheese, the masked man
slowly cut off Karl’s eyelids and laughing as if enjoying Karl’s shrieks of
pain. Karl screamed and pleaded for mercy but the man just laughed louder. The
man was a sadistic psychopath! There was blood all over Karl. The masked man
then thrust the needle-sharp scalpel into Karl’s mouth. With a few twists and
turns, Karl’s tongue dropped out of his mouth. Shaking uncontrollably and in a
state of serious shock, Karl’s sight became unfocused and he fainted.
* * *
Sharp pain woke him up. He felt very
uncomfortable as if his hands and feet were embedded with sharp spikes. When he
glanced down, he saw his hands and feet tightly secured with barb wires
piercing through his skin. The wires were attached to the reins of four racing
horses. Before he had a chance to figure out what was happening, a single
gunshot rang out from nowhere. The horses bolted in a mad frenzy away from him.
In a blink of an eye, his hands and feet were loped off. Hot blood spurted from
the stumps where his hands and feet used to be. A silent scream of pain broke
out from his throat. No sound could be made after his tongue was taken out. A
look of pure terror was etched on his face.
Someone took the opportunity when
Karl’s mouth was wide open. He slipped in large cherry-red-hot fishing hooks
into his mouth. There was a sizzle when the hooks came in contact with the
flesh on Karl’s cheeks. The hook bonded with his flesh and was glued on. There
were ropes attached to the hooks and a large man was holding onto it. This
time, Karl knew what was going to happen. In a bid to release himself, he
twisted, writhed and struggled like a hooked fish. Now he knew how a fish felt.
The large man started to pull. For a moment, Karl’s face stretched, and then
there was a sound of ripping flesh. His cheeks were ripped off and his mouth
was left as a large gaping hole with bits and pieces of skin and flesh hanging
loosely. His face was covered with gore. His face was numbed by the pain. He
fell to the floor and lay in a pool of his crimson blood. Trying to look
upwards, he saw a dark figure hovering over him, and then he blacked out.
When he awoke, his whole body was
caked with dried blood. He felt something sharp pressing against the side of
his head. Without thinking, he looked to his right. A large man with a fit body
was standing on his right. Karl got the shock of his life when he saw the man’s
face. The man was a freak! The freak’s grotesque facial features sent shivers
up his spine. The freak laughed loudly. Karl recognized the laughter. It was
the masked man! The freak cut deeply into his temple.
Like a caring doctor, the freak
spread on a cool paste his wounds. It took a second for Karl to feel the
burning and stinging sensation on his head. The paste was made specially to
hurt and heal at the same time. The paste was formulated by mashed up fiery-hot
jalapeno peppers and freshly-squeezed lemon juice. The two ingredients were
then combined to form the paste. Karl thought of it as a “healing salve of
pain”.
Every day, Karl received his daily dose of
pain at random times. He usually gets whipped with barb wires. Barb wires are
used to inflict great amounts of pain by tearing his flesh out. The slightly
hooked wire on the edges of the barb wire cling onto the flesh and tears the
flesh out when pulled away. The freak would spread the “healing salve of pain” onto
the raw, exposed parts of his body. Sometimes diluted hydrochloric acid would
be fed to him. Karl was fed with stale bread and soup. He ate like a dog.
This type of treatment on Karl was
continued for many years. His torturer was careful not to kill him. Karl knew
that his time would come soon. He did not want to die in this cursed place. For
many months, the thought of dying away from his “prison” gave him enough hope
to not give up.
* * *
One night while he was left
unattended, he managed with much difficulty, escaped! He summoned all his
courage that night. In order to release himself from the chains locking him to
a pole, he bit off his arms. He ignored the pain to be able to reach his only
goal, freedom. Using his chin to move, he “crawled” up the stairs leading
outside and above the ground.
When he reached the open space above
his head, he felt a sense of relief and joy but he knew he could not stop
because there was a risk of getting caught and thrown back down there to rot.
There were many sharp stones on the ground. The stones tore viciously at his
throat, abdomen and thighs because he only got underwear on. His chin was badly
scraped, until the chin-bone was exposed.
Karl crawled until he could crawl no
more. He felt strangely at peace when he slipped into the void. He saw his
parents in a bright light ahead. He reached out towards them. He touched their
faces and felt happiness radiating from them. Many different emotions rushed
towards him from all directions at once. He felt better than he ever had
before.
He was home.
Erratic Behaviour
No comments:
Post a Comment