No One Is Interesting: Chapter 4

His face was ready to explode. The veins were bulging; his skin the color of a burnt tourist. I could hear the grinding of his teeth, the cracking of his knuckles and the exhalation of breath has he let out all of his hatred for me. His hair seemed to even show how upset he was; it seemed to take on a reddish tint – mimicking his face and neck.

“Hey, whoa…no need to get so angry, ma-” I was unable to get the last letter out as he slapped me in the chin.

“You will talk when I tell you that it is okay,” he hissed.

I had so many smart ass things fly through my head right then, but I kept them there. It was getting painful to crack a joke.

“I have asked you too many times. So, I will ask once more…then I am getting the toys.” I snickered at this – which he obviously wasn’t a big fan of – and received another smack on the chin. “Where is it?”

It was at this point that I started to lose my sense of humor. I had gone with it long enough but this was getting ridiculous. He had asked me the same question as much as he did because he didn’t like my answer. Too bad that was all he was going to get. I honestly had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

“You still fail to understand the scope of this.”

“Because I have no idea what the fuck is going on!!!” Another stinging blow.

That is when something flipped. I felt the rush of adrenaline that surges when your older sibling is sitting on your chest forcing you to hit yourself; the surge that a woman gets when she sees her child pinned under something; the surge that you get when you have no other options. I was seeing red.

Suddenly the ropes were gone and I was lifting him by the shoulders, throwing him against the wall. I had never felt strength like this before; I was out of control of myself. The world was moving and I was flowing with it, but my brain wasn’t going for the ride. It was like I was a passenger on a train that had lost its brakes.

My fist connected with his jaw and I heard a crack. He went to the floor in obvious pain, but before I could throw another hook, he had speared me in the stomach. His shoulder pushed into me; pinning me to the wall. He unleashed a flurry of rabbit punches into my stomach.

This was the first time I realized that I was a good six inches taller then he was. I don’t know why it struck me then, but there was something about watching a small man hit me that made me notice: short-man-syndrome. His punches were getting through, and I couldn’t stop them because my body wasn’t responding. It was like I was no longer in control.

My foot connected with his shin, stunning him. He backed up and looked just in time for my left hand to catch him in the throat.

The gurgling was all I could hear as I watched him die.

No One Is Interesting: Chapter 3

The taste of dried blood may be even worse then that of normal blood. Not that I enjoy the flavor of either, but you don’t have to like it to know which is better. And that is my stance on the matter. If I was to be strapped to a chair (check) and tied up (check) I would have to admit that wet is more palatable.

Amazing what runs through your head when you wake up in the dark, alone, strapped to a chair. I don’t think that if it was any other normal Friday – at least I think it is still Friday – that I would be struggling to describe the subtle differences in the flavor of human blood.

I started to hyperventilate a little. I can’t stand blood. It makes me want to revisit my lunch. Sadly enough I was hoping that while I was out cold, someone had tried to turn me into a Vampire. That was the only answer to the question that I would be okay hearing right now. I hate blood and it doesn’t help to have the source be me.

But to no gain. The blood was mine.

My tongue flicked over my lips and then along my gums; feeling the cracks and tears in the flesh of each, searching. As I reached the left side of my mouth, pain shot through me; a white heat ran like electricity through my head. I had found the source.

A molar was missing. Remind me to thank him for that.

I took a deep breath and tried to collect my thoughts. I was still tied up and losing it at this point would be bad. At least I could see now.

I wasn’t sure if the vision came back because he knocked it back in to me or because the blindfold had been removed. The results were the same, though, sight. Not that what I saw was anything spectacular. I was in a basement.

The walls looked to be concrete, the floor concrete. Guess what the ceiling was: you guessed it, concrete. There was a small lantern in the corner that cast an amber light up the wall and across the floor.

It seemed to be an expansive room, with the light barely illuminating more then a quarter of the entire area. That was almost eerier then not being able to see. My brain started running overtime building up ideas of what could be in the dark.

“Hello?” I quietly asked. “Is anyone there?”

I guess not. That’s a plus. I looked at the rope that constricted my arms to the chair: could I wriggle free?

“You forgot about me. I’m still here and not too happy about my tooth!”

Nothing. Maybe they forgot about me and – if I could get loose – I could just walk right out.

Step one: get out of chair.

Thoughts of all of the action films I had ever seen stared wafting through my head. The man and his father who are tied back to back have to get out of the burning room, the martial artist who breaks the chair to get out or he crazy cop who dislocates his shoulder to get out of chains. Well…I am alone, I couldn’t kick my way out of wrapping paper and I sure as hell wasn’t about to test my pain threshold.

That means there was only one thing to do: jump up and down.

Hear me out: I figured that if I jumped up and down I could break the chair.

So I jumped up and down. The noise was fun – thunk-thunk-thunk – as the chairs legs collided with the concrete floor – thunk-thunk-thunk.

I stopped for a moment to see if anyone was coming. I could hear the drip of water somewhere, plunking against the cellar floor, but no footsteps.

No One Is Interesting: Chapter 2

That was a normal day. That was a day when everything was how it should be. When nothing could be better and nothing could be worse. Back when I was normal.

Now I am the interesting one; the one that is different. I am now the original person that I had sought for so long.

But I get ahead of myself.

Sanity is a strange thing, especially when you are blindfolded and tied to a chair.

I wiggled my arms, trying to release some of the pressure that was digging into my wrists. I could feel the white hot pain flash through me as the skin became raw and started to come off.

Breathing was difficult at this point. I was trying to take a deep breath to shift my arms again, but I kept getting some sort of material caught in my throat.

After coughing for a moment I would try again: still to no avail.

“You might as well relax. You aren’t going anywhere.”

Aha. So I wasn’t alone after all. Good, because I probably would have freaked out more then I was now. Solitary confinement was a lot worse then being held captive.

“Hmmmph-humph haph fer,” I responded

“Where is it?” He asked me as he began to untie the gag.

That was when I smelled his breath: his greasy, onion-laced, chicken broth breath. When he talked, I smelled an all night diner. When he breathed in my face I smelled an overweight man in a sweat-stained white shirt with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

At times like this I see no reason not to scream. At this point, what else do you have to lose? But, I couldn’t. My captor had released the foul tasting rag from my mouth and yet I was silent. Why?

“Where is what?” I finally got the nerve to say; realizing why I hadn’t screamed: I was intrigued.

Right? I was a part of something interesting right now, so why not milk it? Go with it. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

This wasn’t really a lie, since in all honesty I had no idea what the guy was talking about, but I felt like I was telling him an untruth. I felt like I had just given him false information.

Then he hit me. Right in the face.

Now, I don’t like getting hit and now I can say that the only thing worse the getting hit is getting hit when you don’t see it coming. Things weren’t going the way I wanted them right now, but I had to go with it — roll with the punches if you will.

And I did roll with the punches, because he went to town on me: two or three to the face, a few to the chest one in the shoulder for good measure. Mister “Greasy Spoon” had a mean right hook. I figured he heard the pun in my thoughts and was teaching me a lesson.

“I won’t ask again,” he exhaled in my face; the words dripping with bacon.

That was when I vomited on myself. I don’t know if it was the stench from his mouth or the beating that my body had just taken, but I decided that was as good a time as any to empty the contents of my stomach.

The room got to be quite a wonderful potpourri of stink at that point. Between Captain “IHOP” and my sick we were doing grand.

That was when I realized that I couldn’t tell if I was blindfolded or blind. I couldn’t feel any sort of material on my face, but also couldn’t tell if I was blinking. I started to panic.

“Look, man, if you give me some more information I might be able to—“

The next punch knocked me out.