The Unwilling Hostage (Based on true events)

Softly I laugh at myself, more at my situation than anything else. I refrain from enjoying the quiet outburst for too long to avoid worsening the headaches that plague me. They come on with the simplest of things, laughing happens to be one of them. Trying to minimize them, day in and day out, has led to too many parts of me almost feeling lost, like a dream. What was funny in the first place? My pathetic situation.

The area around my recliner is barely illuminated by the dim light on the table next to me. Everything beyond that hazy dark edge lay shrouded in shadows and hidden from my eyes. I feel uninterested in anything. Leaving all that I enjoy out of reach and unattainable. A torture to a regularly and otherwise active body and mind. What a crazy month this has been.

“You can say that again,” a voice says from somewhere just beyond the shadowy veil. I don’t recognize it and for a moment I wonder if I should feel scared. But it’s the first voice I’ve heard in a while. The first one to fill the void left behind by my loss.

So, I decide to answer, “What would you know about crazy months?”

“Well, my month all started with a simple trip taken by a friend of mine. He fell onto something quite interesting. Well, interesting for me that is,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, feeling almost like something he shouldn’t have said.

“How so?”

“Well, it was after this trip that I became a bit of a thorn in his side. I was there to remind him what I needed, what I could and couldn’t do, and in the end what I wanted. You see in my line of work it isn’t always easy to take a vacation. And in a way I found out how I could get one.”

His voice is soothing, enticing, and hypnotic. And as he talks I get the sense that he’s circling me, just outside of the light. Every time he stops talking I internally beg for him to continue. “Okay, you have me interested, tell me more,” I say hoping he continues.

“Of course, we have time. You see my friend found himself in a situation, a place where he needed help.”

“And you were the one to give it?” I say, wondering why I interrupted his thoughts, his voice. “Sorry, continue,” I add hoping he will pardon my interruption.

“Not exactly. He needed some specialized help. We had to seek outside sources for that. It didn’t take long to find them though. We knew exactly where to look. There’s a place where someone can go to get the type of help we needed and the specialized care the situation called for. In fact, we were lucky in that regard. We got there just in time.”

Lucky, that word means something to me. I know a few things about luck and one lesson I’ve learned is that not everything gained or won through it is truly a blessing. And I feel like somewhere in my recent past I was called lucky, a nickname perhaps. Am I still the same person deserving the same moniker? “Where are you? I want to see who I’m talking to.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea quite yet. How about I finish the story of my friend? He ended up in a situation that he kind of fell into, and that alone, with all the effort that led to it, left him worn out, drawn thin, and suffering from it all. The people we found were willing to take on the task we gave them and planned to make everything right. You see my friend needed a lot of help to do things he knew were, let’s just say, above his pay grade.”

“It almost sounds as if your friend was doing something illegal,” I say when he pauses.

“No, not at all. He was doing the right thing. It was me that was the one who stepped across the lines. It was me that did something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the opportunity,” he says while still circling me.

Deep inside me an uncertainty rises, a need to understand what he’s saying but at the same time a deepening fear that it’s potentially not something I want to know. Finally, my curiosity gets hold of me, and I ask, “What's was it? What was the line you crossed?”

“Well, in my friend’s moment of weakness, I took advantage of him in a way. Actually, there’s a simple word to describe it, I will just say it, he became my hostage.”

“What? You mean literally?” I cry out for clarification. Inside of a single heartbeat I can feel my face redden with my outburst, and in that same second my headache intensifies.

“Careful, you don’t want to make anything worse,” he simply says then continues, “Well, yes. It was the first time I took power over him. I mean, I always had some power over him in less manipulative ways but now I own him. He’s trapped. It almost feels like there should be some guilt, but there’s none. Maybe some remorse for what I’ve done would be appropriate, but I don’t have any. Hell, I’m almost glad I did what I did. After all, I should be the one in control, and now he’ll always know that.”

Now? Is this ongoing? Maybe I can do something to help his victim. Looking down at my feet, raised up in my recliner before me, I realize it might be smart of me to get up, to get out of this chair and prepare myself for what this—person has in mind.

With a pull of the lever along the chairs side my feet touch the ground. And pressing my hands against the arms of the chair I push myself up. As I rise upwards the pressure, the exertion adds to my growing headache.

“Careful now, you probably don’t want to do that. Headaches aren’t good.”

“What do you know about my headaches?” I say, my outburst was louder than I meant it to be, mostly out of frustration. My pain rises higher. Instinctively I put my hand to my head.

“We all have headaches, some worse than others. And now you’ve done it. You’ve let that persisting problem show its restraints on you again. It’s going to become the death of you,” he says almost a touch of concern in his voice. “We can’t let that happen. You should probably set yourself back down.”

Almost as if against my will I gently return to the chair and ease the seat back to where I just was. “That had some potential,” I comment on the sudden severity in my head. “Thanks for the advice, I should stay more still.”

“What got you up in the first place? You aren’t allowed—don’t have any reason to be getting up.”

“Honestly, I got up to help your hostage, to save him, protect him, and maybe to free him from you,” I say with my eyes closed, even the dim light bolsters the ache now.

“Protect him? Oh, my dear friend, whatever makes you think you can protect him?”

“You said you have him held hostage. I may not know him or you, but I do know what your doing is wrong!” Again, my raised voice just makes everything worse.

“I said he became my hostage. He isn’t being held by any restraints. That’s not necessary. He was only given strict orders. And, well, he can either comply with those orders or suffer the consequences.”

With my hands held to my temples now, desperately trying to lessen the pain from my wildly pulsing head, I simply say, “Comply, that’s just another way to say do what you tell him. And ‘suffer the consequences’ makes it all sound as bad as it likely is.”

“Where would you currently rate your headache?” he asks.

It’s a simple question; it’s an exhaustive question. Everyone keeps asking me how’s your headache? Are the headaches bad? Are they intermittent or constant? What’s been the worst one lately? Once again I answer the question, hoping it’s the last time I’m asked, but I know it won’t be, “It’s about a six or seven.”

“Yes, I would agree. From where I’m standing it looks painful. For me a strong headache is terrible, but a constant low grade one can just be exhausting. It makes it hard to sleep sometimes. It’s endless,” he says, almost sounding sympathetic.

Opening my eyes I see a form standing just at the shadows edge directly in front of me. “Take another step forward so I can see you.”

“Why? You’re the one that’s my prisoner, not the other way around. I own you now!”

What? I’m the hostage? “Prisoner! What gives you the right?” instantly my eyes close again and my headache rockets up to an eight.

Calmly his reply comes, his voice delicate to my overly sensitive ears, “You gave me the right. You will spend your time heeding my call, reacting to my every whim. I may not need much from you day to day, but you will be unable to ignore me. Even now, as you sit there grasping your head, it’s because I wish you to.”

The situation calls for me to be aware, to be present, headache or not I have to face my captor. Opening my eyes once again I see he’s stepped even closer, all but his face is out of the shadows. However, the light, as dim as it is, pushes me to a nine. And with my new found pain my captor takes one more step forward. And I realize he’s me…

I’m suddenly startled awake in my recliner; a dim glow emanating from the muted television in front of me. What a crazy dream, hostage, me? Then I take stock of my situation my headache is only about a two or three, much less than some days. Reaching back, I feel the scars at the rear of my scalp on both the left and right side. The headaches were a lot worse back then for sure. It was the closest I came to an end. Now I must just sit and heal.

It all started from a simple fall, didn’t seem like it was something to be overly concerned about at the time. Over those next couple weeks, the slow bleeds at both sides of my brain bit by bit revealed something was going on in there and it was only getting worse. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to see the signs and make the right choice.

I thought the surgery was the worst part, but now, my news yesterday may almost be as terrible. Though I know that it’s not truly comparable it just feels like I’m now being strangled. Apparently one side of my head still has a slow bleed. Now any progress I’ve managed to earn back after surgery is reduced to near nothing. I’m not allowed to do anything.

The glow from the screen in front of me shows nothing of interest. I would rather be up doing what I enjoy. However, the doctors have told me otherwise. I could ignore them, but I won’t.

For now, until they find an answer, I’m doing as little as possible, waiting for my next scan, and hoping for some change.

I’m a man being held hostage by his own broken brain. The only thing to do is continue sitting in my unwalled cell in silence.