Numb

Chills.

Gooseflesh.

I sit here in this unknown place, blank thoughts stumbling through my mind. My vision is dark, my fingers too cold to feel anything but the burning sting. All of my senses are empty or numb.

The slow drip of a faucet or spout struggles to be perceived by the receptors in my ear, but succeeds at last. The leaking continues, growing louder with each droplet crashing headfirst into the puddle below. My nostrils pick up the smell of bitter rust and a faint, pervasive scent, evoking sickness within the chamber of my abdomen.

Light erupts from an unknown source in the room, dim but welcome. My eyelids open slowly, something which seems new and foreign. As they part I begin to catch glimpses of what exists before and around me. A dripping faucet in a sink; a toilet bowl filled to the rim with what looks like some absurd form of clam chowder and melted chocolate; a single, flickering light bulb in the center of the ceiling; a little washer and dryer in the corner, clothes tumbling around inside; and myself, a ghost of flesh dripping on the concrete floor, shivering.

The stumps of my hands and feet impede my attempts to stand, sending me sprawling against the floor once again, cold against my chest and groin. I realize my dearly departed hands and feet are nailed above the sink in a sick, warped interpretation of crucifixion. The dismembered limbs have been cauterized; at least I’m not bleeding to death.

A voice enters my ear.

“Nap time is over.” It sounds eerily calm and complacent with a hint of sick pleasure. A hand emerges from the darkness and drags me to my burnt stubs. With a

great deal of effort it raises me an inch or two; my upper back stings. I’m dangling from a meat hook, stumps inches from the floor; my head is hanging limply. My gaze is blank. I look up into shadowed eyes of anger and sadness, some speck of disparity and hope glimmering there. He hits me in the face.

“We’re going to play a little game. It’s called Guess Who.” He hits me again, this time a right-hook, then a left. One in the stomach, and then the groin. “Guess who.”

Blood and spit dribbles from my mouth and nose, running down my chin and neck. I say nothing.

His hand disappears into the darkness for a moment, and my thoughts go blank once again. I awake to a razor separating flesh from muscle, a clean square of skin peeled away. I can see the fibers of red underneath.

The cutting continues, as does the silence. Every so often he speaks, asking again if I can remember who he is, as he cuts away at my layers. Seconds, minutes, or hours later, I’m not quite sure, he ceases. His hand disappears again, the shine of a lamp spreads light upon what was once my body, now a chessboard of pink and white. Even my nipples lie among the squares of skin on the floor.

He slides closer to me, pushing his five-o’clock-shadowed face into the lamp’s cone of illumination, not far from my own. I look into his lit face, searching for a trace of something that I may have missed. Some clue as to who he is and why he’s done this to me. I look through the azure waves of his madness, and at last I find it. I remember. A smile of recollection, the kind of smile when you’ve finally solved a mystery and condemned a man to death.

The barrel of a gun presses against the center of my forehead and I think of how my receding hairline must look in this light. I blink.

Looking at his face once again, still smiling, I speak at last.

“I remember. You’re Jack. The father of that little girl I had some fun with and left in a ditch.”

“Bingo.”