From: pjquin@ee.mu.OZ.AU (patrick james quin)
Subject: Story - Victims
Organization: Electronic and Electrical Engineering - University of Melbourne 
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 16:53:34 GMT



Victims
-------

by Patrick Quin
(23.12.1992)


Dark.
Light.
Dark.
Light.

The inexorable progression of the impenetrable
walls, a pastel yellowy brilliance, and absolute
blackness.

Dark.
Light.

I sleep, stretched out on the hard floor,
comfortable, after all this time. In the blackness,
my eyes may be staring insanely into oblivion or
tightly shut against some monster of the
imagination; it makes no difference, the blackness
is complete.

Dark.
Light.

I pace the cube, three steps this way, three steps
that, carefully stepping over my umbilical cord, my
life-preserving intravenous tube.

Dark.
Light.

I exercise the required amount. Arms and legs
flapping, stretching upwards, downwards, twisting,
turning. If I refuse, I will be charged with
glucose, pumped into me until I am shaking,
hyperactive. The IV is my life and through it, I am
controlled.

Dark.
Light.

I dry swallow my fibre tablets. They will swell in
my gut, simultaneously giving me trace elements
unavailable to the IV. It is one thing to be fed,
another to be kept healthy. Never let it be said
that society killed you, neglected you.

Dark.
Light.

I excrete and urinate in one corner, late in light
time, and sleep promptly. My excreta will vanish
soon. I tried to stay awake during dark, listening,
listening for the sound of it being dealt with.
Waiting, ears straining in the silence, broken only
by my breathing and heartbeat. The black seemed to
go on forever, until I was finally overwhelmed.

Dark.
Light.

I talk to myself, sometimes to fill the silence,
sometimes to entertain my ears. But mostly to avoid
probable aphasia from a decade of incarceration.

Dark.
Light.

I watch tv. Music videos. Physics. News. Language.
Politics. Re-Thinking. Movies. Society will not be
accused of culture-shocking ex-cubans. Society will
educate and re-educate you, whether you wish it or
not. Society has a responsibility to make each cuban
a better person, to ensure that they are integrated
back into society as smoothly as possible.

Dark.
Light.

I am sorry. But that is not enough. I have rejected
society, so it has rejected me. These are my choices
as a cuban. I may suicide during my isolation in the
cube, by simply removing the IV and starving or
strangling myself. That is my sole right as a cuban.
This releases society from its obligation to
maintaining my life. I may go insane. Society,
through the computer monitors, will prevent this
with drugs and tv. I will serve my sentence and
emerge, ready to be accepted back into society,
determined never to return, safe in the knowledge
that all those who rejected the society which
protected them are cubed. 

Dark.
Light.

I am guilty. I left the club, helping her stand with
one arm, clutching at the street sign with another.
I poured her, semi-conscious, into the taxi and took
her home. Then I took her, too drunk to care of
dignity, consequences, protestations, shouts,
struggles or basic humanity. Conscious only of my
own desire, lust, power, strength. She was my
possession, my object, to do with as I pleased. Her
pitiful cries fell on a heart only aware of
irresistible smells and sensations. A non person. In
those few hours I rejected society, built to protect
and serve all. When reality caught up with my
uncontrolled primal self, I jerked from her,
sickened, suddenly nauseous at my inhumanity,
conscious of her moans of frustrated rage and
complete helplessness. She fled screaming, stumbling
into the street, naked, energized by the prospect of
release from the hell of my creation. Incoherent
from the after effects of alcohol and hours of
suffering. She will never recover. She will walk
alone, terrified by the smallest sound. No one can
help her. The demons I planted in her trapped mind
will haunt and torment her forever. 

Dark.


=====================       =====      =====================
Patrick Quin			 pjquin@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU
University of Melbourne 	 pjquin@munagin.cs.mu.OZ.AU
Australia 	"Love is blind, lust has 20/20 vision."			

=====================       =====      =====================
Patrick Quin			 pjquin@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU
University of Melbourne 	 pjquin@munagin.cs.mu.OZ.AU
Australia 	"Love is blind, lust has 20/20 vision."			
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