The Man Who Disappeared
If a man who has a great influence on the world were to disappear, catastrophe may result; when a father is suddenly lost to a family, the family is at a loss; even when a lonely individual is not where he was, a select group of people will feel the emptiness in his place. But this story is about a man who never mattered, about a man who faded from memories and hearts to nothingness. Perhaps he never existed…
“No, sir, no more please…” but the stone-faced man was oblivious to the needless wails as he flicked the bloody tail of a whip down on the cowering body of a child, to let loose another howl as he impressed another ‘stripe of maturity’. In a moment, the child was unconsciously sprawled in a pool of blood; while the man merely turned grimly towards the door, flicking off the blood on his whip in one sharp motion. The door closed behind him. He caught the looks of apprehension of the wizened old men. Time is not kind to those good of heart, time added humps to their backs even as they bent over the boy to tend to his wounds.
By the waterfall alone, he gazed lightly on the innocent boyish face that looked back at him. The face had not changed but the passion in the eyes had given way to cold tunnels. Somehow back then, the scars inflicted on his body had killed his spirit in an unusual case of a spirit departing the body. That was his job now…
The ‘stripes of maturity’ was merely a military brainwashing programme. Its goal was to strengthen children to men in an instant, to oppress them, filling them with a hatred and sadism unnatural to happy people. Since young, they have been deprived of feelings and in its place instilled with the desperation of survival. They were the ultimate soldiers, but only if a higher power existed…
He recounted all those years again. It was that same dungeon that he had been locked in. Looking back, his scars had turned to the very same stripes beasts used to scare off their enemies. However he was lucky to have somehow preserved his face from that savagery.
Once again the image of his day of freedom flashed back in his eyes again. He envisioned himself finally rebelling against his tormentor, ending in a death choke after a bloody struggle. For once, his tormentor bathed in his own blood. The inane smile worn on his last moments however made him uneasy for awhile. He had taken the only solution, had he not? He was merely giving back what his tormentor deserved.
Why was his liberation so unfulfilling? The imperfection and the mystifying hollow emptiness haunted him to this very day when it was now his turn to step into the shoes of his tormentor, ever since the day a dead body was disposed to an unmarked grave…
He was awoken from his daydream once again as the two old men came in to dress him up… In those days, they and the tormentor were the only people he saw and they always dressed him up pleasantly. He now looked down on the crooked features of the two young men who once served him, now sallow old men with a gaunt look that no longer recognized “the child no longer weak and susceptible to pain”.
He remembered the days when they were expressive young men who did not have the courage to face up to a giant torturer, the pleasant smile they gave him tending to his fever from a result of infection; the scowl and suppressed disgust at the tormentor. But now, they regarded him in his strongest state with the deepest sympathy and profound pity. One just cannot hate a walking corpse who was seeking death. It was indeed a weird feeling. A person who used to be so close to you is now estranged and aloof without any conscious effort… Perhaps it was he who had disappeared rather than a brutal tormentor…
Without another word reminiscing about the past, the tormentor settled firmly on the man he became and walked towards the dungeon. The smell of death lingered in the air and the tormentor in his last moments held his breath to attain his answer separated by a thin piece of wood. The door creaked open ending with an ominous thump… Like the door which saw him through he was now old…
At the end of the room laid a pitiful form curled in a ball of terror. The tormentor stepped up and lifted the child by the neck and flung him against the wall. The tormentor expected a savage beast to immediately spring to its feet and tear open his neck but all he saw was a limp figure crumbling to on the floor, fixating him with a gaze of defiance… That same inane smile… It did not take long for the tormentor to take in the fact that the body laid out spread-eagle was no longer a whimpering child but in a way an accomplished soldier, immune to all hurt and feelings.
It was just not fair! Why does he not have the chance to be the one who smiles? Was death not the worst thing to life? Why does he feel more pain now?
In a frenzied rush of blood he kicked the body to have it roll over and over… willing it to notice him and respond…the smile flashing again and again at his frustration… He sank to the floor to pound the lifeless body until he was fatigued… The child had died.
The door opened and the two men silently glided towards the only smiling figure… dead. A black figure stood crossed-arms with his back facing the sobbing men taking the body away.
The door closed with a resounding clang leaving the child in the dungeons he had shunned many years ago. In a rare historical moment of this chamber, a child had not died, the tormentor ceased to exist… Looking all around the room which still reeked of his blood that stained the very stony limits to freedom, he pondered on how the tormentor disappeared when the child had supposedly died.
He was always so helpless and powerless before the two people in his life whom he had bothered but was ignored by… His existence no longer mattered to anybody. He was the man who disappeared…
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