Chapter Text
"I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all."
Richard Wright
This must be what it’s like to be dead. The darkness I mean, and the silence.
I’ve never experienced anything like it before. Even in my room with all the lights off, the blinds drawn and no moon there’s always some light, the glimmer of a streetlight down the street, the occasional flash from a passing car.
And after a while, no matter how dark it is, your eyes always adjust to see something.
They say that blind people can make out shadow, flickers before their eyes.
I can’t see anything, except pictures in my head. Pictures of all the people I love. Frank, Vanessa, Mom, Dad, the guys, Callie……….Iola. They’re all in my head all the time, pictures, faces, incidents; tumbling over and over each other until sometimes I feel like my head might explode.
I guess that’s why kidnappers blindfold their victims. I feel so powerless, like this piece of cloth around my eyes is also around my neck and its squeezing and squeezing until I choke.
Stop it Joe, you’re starting to panic. There is nothing around my neck. Just this cloth around my eyes, and these chains around my ankles and my wrists.
The darkness is all around me though, and the silence. How can it be so silent?
Cities are full of noise, cars, people, alarms, air conditioning, and factories. The countryside is full of noise too though, raccoons, birds, rats, cats. There is always something.
Now there is just silence.
All I can hear is the sound of my own breathing, the clink of the chains and the rustle of my clothes against the cold, damp concrete walls and floor.
I’m not afraid of the dark, but I don’t like the silence, because it means that there is nothing to stop my imagination from working overtime.
I can’t believe that a few hours ago I was driving home.
He just grabbed me, no warning, no sound, nothing. I was in the van, stopped at traffic, then, BANG
And then there was nothing, nothing until I woke up here.
I heard him breathing beside me, but he didn’t speak.
I couldn’t handle his silence; I needed to hear voices.
"Who are you? What do you want?"
I had to know, I had to ask.
Silence…………………………
"Who are you? Please, just tell me, speak to me.”
His voice when he eventually spoke was soft, like a nursery schoolteacher, or a social worker. It wasn’t the voice of a murderer, of a psychotic killer.
"It doesn’t matter who I am, does it? It doesn’t matter who you are either. All you need to know is that I’m in control and that you…. You are no-one, just another victim, another face in a newspaper next week, and another name on a headstone."
I shouted at him then, I shouted over and over again, trying to quell the fear inside of him, trying to show him that I wasn’t scared.
"My name is Joe Hardy, my name is Joe Hardy, MY NAME IS JOE HARDY"
But he never replied. He just left me here.
Alone
In the beginning I tried to get out, to untie the ropes on my wrists, my arms, my legs, my ankles, to take off the chains. I tried and tried till my arms hurt so much I couldn’t stop the tears.
Then I stopped, I stopped trying to escape, I stopped crying. Why cry when there is no-one listening?
That was when I really began to notice the silence and the darkness.
Sometimes I think I can hear a noise, I think he’s coming back. Maybe I want him to come back.
He just left me. I mean he wasn’t exactly my favourite person, I mean he kidnapped me, but at least he was real, and he made noise.
Until he left me here
Alone
Just me, and the darkness and the silence. And my thoughts.
Oh god, I’m so afraid……