Withered Iris

 My senses are jolted awake by the inexplicable feeling of danger. I am going to die. I am going to die painfully, or worse. My eyes sting as they open to the world, desperate for information. However I am beset by the horrifying knowledge that despite my vision functioning, and my eyes burning as if I had awoken from a slumber, they will not reflect the world back to me. My eyes are functional, but I see nothing. My back is numb and the back of my skull aches. I'm on my back. I attempt to pick myself up but I feel myself drift. The feeling of gravity betrays what I know to be true and my sense of up and down is removed of me. I feel for the first time as my body is slammed down forcibly against a hard floor. Pain spreads through my body like the cracks in stonework growing. The pressure on various parts of me grows. My arms; My wrists; My shoulders. A brisk sensation crawls over me as I hear the sound of fabric tearing. I'm being striped. I'm being held down and striped. I'm robed of a sense of security that I didn't know I needed so badly until now. I'm going to be raped by my assailant, I believe. All evidence points to this, and yet my mind cries out against the possibility. I am being held down in so many places, what is holding me could not possibly have only two--even four arms. Whatever took me took me so suddenly my logical impulses tell me it could not be multiple coordinated people. Whatever is happening cannot be real. The pressure on me grows and targets other parts of my body. My stomach. My Hips. My genitals...


Where have I awoken? What terrible thing happened to me? I lay there, stricken with fear. I've been conditioned not to move, less I be assaulted once more. The "hands" for lack of a better description pinned down various points of my body, and when my mind gave up hope that my dignity would remain it had mercy on me. Whether or not I felt unconscious, or simply refuse to remember, I don't care. Never knowing that outcome is the only solace I desire right now. My body begins to ache from the way I had been brutalized previously. My lips are numb from pressing together tightly. I don't want to groan or cry out. I fear the punishment of showing signs of life. It craves Life. It craves my life, and whatever it can take from it. If I give it nothing, it cannot take from me. If I am nothing, it wont feed from me. I must starve this oppressor. I must survive. But I cannot control myself. When I attempt to inhale, my throat betrays me with the sharp, fearful cracking of my voice. I slam my mouth shut which sends pain through my jaw. But I know it's too late. I will suffer again.

But nothing happens. I opens my eyes to the same infinite darkness that tells me I am blind against my better judgement. I know I am not blind because if I were I wouldn't be perturbed by the inability to see. I would not expect the world to be defined by shape and color if I had never known the beauty of sight. So why is it that I have no memory of anything resembling an object, or a color? I know I have seen red, but I cannot bring it to bear in my mind. I am confidant I could draw a circle, but I cannot imagine the shape within the abyss that has become my mind. I am not blind, but robbed. Where once I could see, not even the memory of what that sensation is has been left to me. It is worse than if my eyes had been struck away.

Tears begin to well in my useless eyes and sting them before escaping the hollow husk I wish I could call a person. Hoarse, pathetic sound escapes my throat painfully. I cry simply because its the only expression of freedom I know. I wish my cries would attract the oppressor. I wish the oppressor would arrive and end the nightmare instead of continuing it.

As I weep my senses return to me slowly. The ground beneath me is soft, but not like fabric. It is soft and smooth and seems to be warm. I have not been brutalized, so I dare to rise. The shift in weight pressed my bare bottom into the ground below me. I explore the mass with trembling hands, finding ridges, curves and smooth surfaces. The ground directly near to me is warm, and comforting. The familiar warmth of a hug from another person. Meanwhile the ground away from me is cold and stiff, while retaining the same soft, smooth surface and curious ridges. I move to my hands and knees, crawling along the ground and exploring it. Some ridges are large, broad bows and arcs, while others are tighter, more round structures of varying width. Sometimes the soft texture is betrayed by a hard uncomfortable or offensive nature, just below, as if the softness was a layer overtop it. Other times the softness can be depressed and is pliant and even enjoyable to the senses.

As I crawl over this alien landscape my skull is accosted by a hard, firm object. Unlike the cold but soft ground below, this object in front of me is only hard and cold. Rough and callous.

"No!" I scream and fall backwards to my rump, kicking and trying to back away. My foot connects with the object that attacked my head, but that only serves to push me back farther away, sliding and tumbling over the floor that I come to realize is not a floor, but objects on a floor. Certainly something firm holds all the flooring I felt on top of it, but those things are freely moving and my force causes them to move with me. The previously comforting shapes flail as I do and fall over me. It reminds me of the oppressor holding me down and abusing me, and I scream more, flailing and fighting hopelessly against my own sense of touch.

But the shapes to not act with intent. Nothing dislodges me from my actions. I am free to panic and cry out all I wish. In my struggles I feel and learn the shapes. The more narrow portions of the floor are attached to the larger cores. These longer, freely moving pieces end in even more soft, lengthened shapes that caress, tickle, and scratch me in my struggle. But ultimately these feelings are my own to feel. The shapes do not act on their own, because the shapes are not alive.

When I calm myself with the solace of loneliness, I carefully move back to my hands and knees and creep toward where I was attacked. After each shamble forward I reach out with one hand ahead of me to search for what struck my head. It feels as if it is an eternity, but eventually my hand comes into contact with something cold, rough and firm. If I press my hand into it, it does not move. If I press too firming it event hurts. If I draw my hand across it I feel small sensations of something less than pain; the threat of physical pain, warning me that this wall I have discovered is not soft of pleasant to touch. I inch forward until my second hand make contact with the wall, and like a babe learning to walk, draw myself up along the length  of it until I am reminded by my legs just how long they've been still...