by Ryan Brenner

Created on: August 26, 2009   Last Updated: March 05, 2010

Escape

He sat with his back pressed against the cold stone wall.  Water dripped from somewhere in the cell, but it was difficult to see where in the blanket of darkness that surrounded him.  The room smelled of dank mold, rotted food, and another smell that he knew all too well, the smell of death.  He knew it was there.  He knew if he did nothing it would eventually seize him the way the chains that clinked and clanged every time he moved his feet already had. 

His name was Anthony Cooper, but his name was insignificant he had lost his true self a long time ago, and he had gotten himself here.  He knew that, knew there was no one else he could blame.  At first it seemed so good. It felt right.  He acted for himself.  He was his own man.  No one would tell him how to live. 

And so the spiral downward began.  When they had first come to him (the men dressed in black) promising everything he could want it had been exciting.  He closed his eyes trying to remember their faces, and found he couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t see what they had looked like, or now he thought hard; had they even had faces?  He couldn’t remember.

But that first night, the first mysterious rendezvous, and the first taste of that alluring elixir was incredible.  In that one moment he had been able to leave it all behind.  The stress of the kids, his wife, and his job were all lost in an instant.  Those men that had come to his office late that evening whispering with unseen faces told him he deserved this, and he needed the break.  If no one ever knew, if no one found out, what did it matter?  It wasn’t like he was hurting anyone.  At least that’s what he thought. 

It led to more and more, suddenly one night’s escapade with a stranger was not enough, the elixir’s initial dose now not quite as satisfying, and then there was the money. 

“It was okay,” those faceless men in black had whispered, “Does your boss really need that much?”

“No,” he had rationalized, “It’ll never be missed.”  So he took that too.

So he had it all, and his family, well they were surviving.  They’d be okay.  He was living the dream. Wasn’t he?  Every man’s desire, but from somewhere another voice came, “This is not freedom.  This is not life.  You are a slave,

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