The Wind in the Willows

My wife, Christy stared daggers from across the room and she looked annoyed at me for finally gaining the courage to grow that itchy rugged “bear-man” beard she hated. She finally cracked a smile and accepted it before leaning in to rub my prickly chin and plant a kiss on my lips, something I desperately long for.

      I begged them to let me see her one last time and in exchange could do whatever they wanted with my corpse. I rubbed my bloodshot eyes and saw that there was only me on the other end of the reflection, a broken man, unclean, confused, and alone.

      It’s been months now, and I know that is certain. Time seems to lapse at an unusual pace here that I don’t know if I would notice if a year or several had passed. They prevent me from killing myself, as they have strict security measures in place in this enclosure. The room has good ventilation and they provide me with a well-balanced diet, ensuring my healthy physical well-being. However, mentally, I feel dead inside. How long has it been now? How long will they keep me locked up in this space without an explanation, am I trapped like a lab rat in a maze? This experience made me cynical about people. How could we be so cruel to one another, tormenting each other for our sick amusement? I was a primary school teacher, happily married, and a father of a two-year-old girl. I’ve never badly treated anyone for what I can remember. I had always tried to do what was morally right. So what the fuck do they want from me!?

      “What is it now?” I slammed my fists on the white walls.

      I hear static noises, buzzing, and clicking with strange pitches through the speaker in the corner far from my reach. They torment me this way, without proper communication.

      “Say something, you cowards! Anything!” I launched the metal chair against the metal glossy wall, but it barely dents it and it becomes just another dent of many I have created in the last few weeks. The dents are like my tallies, they signify the passage of time.

      “Look at you, Andy, Andy, bo-bandy. Banana-fanna fo fandy. Fee-fi-mo-mandy.”

      “Shut up!”

      “Of course not. I won’t do that.”

      “I’m tired of your games, babe. I’m sorry for yelling.”

      “Well, I’m protesting. I won’t shut up until you manage to get out of this shitty prison, and I won’t shut up until you kill every last one of these terrorists who imprisoned you. Only then will I stop bothering you, Mr. Fo-Fandy.”

       “I’ve been threatening them to let me out, but they just keep handing me useless shit like this crap!” I picked up a Rubik’s cube that slid to me from a compartment on the wall and launched it across the room to watch it break into a dozen pieces.

      “Andy, I’m not telling you to be aggressive. Try to speak sense into them, calmly. You can pretend to be friendly when you speak to them. Try to manipulate them, understand what their motives are.”

      “It won’t make a difference. These mother fuckers love to see me in anguish and they don't talk to me. They want to treat me like a filthy animal, so I’ll eventually become one, grunting and gnarling at them.”

      Christy sighs. “Your daughter misses you, honey. You’ll do it for me?”

      “These walls are indestructible. I’m fucked in here, don’t you get it?”

      She starts to cry when we argue.

      I’m starting to forget her voice even more so that I fabricate these conversations and little arguments. I’ve been seeing Christy more each day on the glossy walls. She shows me the progress of her home grown plants, and gives me life again. She gives me my sanity back and makes it worth surviving.

      A broken and unintelligible voice emanates from the speaker in the corner again. I cannot decipher what they're trying to say to me, but finally, they use a computer to communicate, an AI voice speaks in English to me.

      “Hello there... we are happy to see you in good health. We are ready for your trial... please follow the lights to find the exit of the next room...A wonderful reward awaits you... We wish you the best of luck!”

      “Hey!” I pounded on the wall. “Son of a BITCH. Where the hell am I? I need you to open the door right now. People are looking for me! I can pay you anything!”

      The stoic white room went dark for a moment and then, when they illuminated it again, I had been in awe at its expansion. An opening to a door with a lit-up frame led me to enter, where I found a large room with several strange objects inside and a timer.

      Ten minutes passed. The juvenile test I figured out involved memory and basic comprehension, matching shapes and associating photos. They handed me a reward on a silver platter, which included a chocolate cake and a red unbranded can. I devoured it almost instantly, shoving fists full of mashed cake into my mouth before taking a deep breath. It was a welcome change from the nutritional shakes and pills that they fed me all that time.

      “This is so fucking good!” I muttered swallowing the carbonated drink as it burned my throat.

      After the trial room, they had prepared for me a resting area with a couch and a self-cleaning toilet.

       I had lived in their prison for a long time and this was the first change in the way they interacted with me. I had rested for an hour before another entrance had expanded. The outline of the door had lit up in bright green.

      “What else?”

      “They’re testing you,” Christy said in the reflection of the wall near me.

      “But, why?”

      “I haven’t figured out why, but keep it up, honey. You're doing fantastic! Maybe they’ll finally let you see me and your baby girl when you’re out. Don’t you dare think of giving up, ok?”

       I went inside as they wanted me to.

      The next puzzle was more difficult and when I eventually completed it, they gave me a big pile of gold nuggets and rocks of diamonds. I smiled for a second, thinking how much it would be worth before the realization came through in my face that I had no clue if I’d ever leave here. This money was worthless to me. They had read the dissatisfaction in my face, so another panel on the wall opened up, another platter of food. They were tasty, but odd flavors I wasn’t used to, like they were creating dishes from a toddler’s direction that didn't meld together.

      There was a milkshake of red gunk that tasted like a blended pepperoni pizza. One hamburger with odd toppings, a flattened yellow strip of spicy pepper. The beef was chocolate. The bread had an odd texture, but it was the only thing that tasted normal to me. The lettuce was absent of anything familiar, far too sweet and too sour. I had still devoured it, even if I knew I would throw it all back up in a few minutes.

      Another door opened up.

      The puzzle had been more difficult, but I was able to succeed.

      My reward was one giant tub of pinto beans and a carton of beet juice.

      As I had taken a few spoon fills of the food, the spoon in my mouth had dropped. Another door opened up from the room and a woman walked skittishly towards me.

      “Christy?!” I walked over until we were at eye level, holding her cheeks with my palms. “Is that really you?” The excitement caused my voice to crack.

      “You're real?!” She ran up excitedly to me and grabbed my arm to rub it against her face. “It’s been so long since I’ve felt the touch of another person,” she said in her sad, feathery voice. She continued to cry happy tears, holding onto my hand for support. I realized she wasn’t Christy she looked completely different from her.  

      “We are happy... that you enjoyed your gifts and presents! We hope they will encourage you to continue further in our puzzles. You are both doing so well...we are happy about this! The next puzzle is for the two of you. We wish you impeccable of luck!”

      The next challenge was grueling, but ultimately we were able to figure it out, using common sense, a bit of physics knowledge, memory retention, and finesse. I realized we were both exactly what I had feared originally: two lab rats, wearing white jumpsuits, running obstacles for these cruel sick pseudo-scientists creeps. In return they provided us with their versions of a block of cheese.

      The girl continued to hold my hand as if we were dating, she told me her name was Suzie.

      She was a skinny young woman, freckled-faced with a dark complexion, her hair was untamed and frizzy. She curled the sides of them as she spoke the rare times she did.

      After we finished the latest test, they provided us more time in the resting room, with two toilets, two beds, and more unusual foods to eat. She chose to cuddle with me on the bed but the touching did not feel sexual in any way, I think we both needed to feel normal again.

      “How were you caught?” she muttered. “They tricked you too, didn’t they?”

      “Yes. I remember clearly, even if it’s been so long ago.”

      “Tell me your kidnapping story.”

      “I had been picking up groceries for my wife and boy, er... daughter, and then a woman cried out for help. There was a stream of blood leading me to a building. I thought I could help her... my phone stopped working so I couldn’t call the cops. And then... come to think of it, I don’t remember what she looked like when I entered the abandoned building. I just saw this bright light...”

      “Abandoned? Yet you went inside alone?”

      “Yes. It was one of the places that went bankrupt in my town...”

      “Funny how they manipulated people trying to do good things...”

      I sighed. “Yeah...and how about you?”

      “They lured me outside of my apartment with a baby. I heard it crying outside of my window at night and walked over to a dumpster. The cries were coming from inside the trash bin,” she said, shaking. “That’s the last thing I remember, looking inside, and being blinded by a white light, so bright I had fainted.”

      “Well done, everyone! We have arrived! That is all. We’d like to thank you again for your cooperation and we wish you a great rest of your days,” said our captors through the speakers. Then, for a brief second, a strange clicking sound again before it went silent. 

      The door from our prison opened up again. This time it led to an opening into the outdoors. I recognized the mountain in the foreground, Yellowstone National Park.

      Suzie and I walked outside together and before we could turn to see the outside of the prison, we were immediately blinded by the bright white light, and I could only fixate on the sounds I heard afterward with my eyes covered. It was like a brush of wind flowing through the trees, gentle yet powerful. Suzie commented and said it was more of a synthetic sound, the way certain electric vehicles create from speakers where the electric motors are located.

       When I gained my sight again, there was nothing around, just nature, a broken stream leading to a river and several willow trees near by. They looked vibrant, with branches and leaves so elongated as they drooped down, their leaves easily manipulated by the wind. The willow trees were the first signs of life we saw outside of each other.

      The sky had been clear, blue, and more beautiful than I could remember.

       “They built that place to see how smart we were,” Suzie said in a strange monotone voice as she pointed up to the sky. “They wanted to see if we were worth saving.”

      “What?”

      She stood silent for a moment. “You know the buzzing and clicking?”

      “The sounds the faulty speakers made?”

      “Those were their real voices. Whatever they were.”

      “I’m just glad it’s over. I need to get back to my family.”

      “What if they're all dead?,” she said. “It’s going to be different living now. We might be the only ones left and they want us to repopulate...”

      “You're wrong. And stop acting they like they're little fucking green men in the sky.”

      She wouldn’t let go of my hand since I first saw her until I finally aggresively brushed it away. She came back and grabbed it and cried. I felt bad so, I let her feel secure until we needed to part ways again. “If there were still people here, I don’t think I could ever feel safe again,” she said. "I don't think I can trust anyone else anymore, knowing they could easily just take us again, knowing we are never safe when they're always watching us."

Our captors had left bags of our belongings on the ground nearby. Mine had been filled with gold and diamonds, my old clothes and groceries now rotten and my cellphone, I hadn't seen it in a long time. Me and Suzie watched in suspense as I pressed down the power button in hopes it had some energy left in it. We were so happy when it did, we quickly checked the date on it and our jaws dropped to learn three years had gone by.