Blood Shadow
By: Camille Cusumano
Tags: Kafka, Flash Fiction, Torture, Bush, Satire

Dedicated to Franz Kafka

Kafka Sculpture in Prague Photo: C. Cusumano

I’m a pitbull on the pantleg of popportunity. George holds off to the outer perimeter, standing in the shadows, sharpening his diction.

“It’s a remarkable piece of equipment,” Karl says brightly. His eyes glance off Colin, then lock darkly, gleefully with Dick’s. Karl, Dick, and the Russian Technician form the core circle around the apparatus.

“Matter of fact, it is,” says Dick, thinking how he once thought that of Lynnie, his wife. He pets the apparatus that animates under his palm.

George drones on in the shadow, raises his eyebrows in a steeple. He imagines the seductive countenance that he radiates and chuckles nervously.

Colin remains stone still with only a glimmer of interest.

Shame on muh . . . you . . . fool me twice . . . shuh . . . mutters George. Colin cocks his head toward him as if surprised to see the president here.

“They call it the Grolden Gommet,” shoots George, trying to project interest.

“Indeed, Sir, golden,” says Karl, bowing his head. “This is the bed where the prisoner lies during interrogation.” He pets it too, the smooth polycarbon plastic — with all the PCBs one wants, those lovely polychlorinated biphenyls. This is not meant to improve the prisoner’s health.

“What’s that?” Colin darts his eyes up sharply to a horizontal overhang, an abstract pointillist sculpture of the human form composed of thousands of needles. Colin’s nostrils flare as he sucks in his breath, mouth closed tight as a bivalve.

“The Shadow,” says Dick mirthfully as he kneads a spot of brown crust off his hunting vest. A speck from last week no doubt. He sighs. Why’d his friend get in the way of his gunshot?

“Look, Colin. No water, no electricity, no contusions.” Dick reads Colin’s disapproval and sounds impatient. He abhors the idea of having the Grommet held up. Since waterboarding was declared torture, he’s had an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He can hardly bear it. They must harvest confessions from the scum.

The Tech tries to speak but Karl shushes him.

“Have a look from this position at the Shadow,” Karl nods to the Tech who opens his mouth but can’t find his words. “Show Colin how foooolll proof it is. Mr. President, you might want to see this too.”

George looks up from the shadows, a deer caught in headlights.

The Tech obeys. “Nobody get hurt. They get real scared they might get dead from billion puncture wound. They talk. They see Shadow come down, they ’magine their blood squirt, they talk.”

Who knows what evil lurks in the shadow . . .heh, heh . . . . chrisht, crossed, crucshifix, chrishcrosh — George practicing his digraphs and diphthongs.

“Are you for real?” Colin nods in a slow arc, at last expressing his disapproval.

Karl asserts, “Yes. The Golden Grommet is scary but harmless.” He shows Colin the brass spike the length of a pencil that keeps the Shadow from falling onto its victim. “It can descend no further than two inches above the suspect.”

Colin imagines a man in the shadows kneeling. His head is about to explode. Maybe he’s hallucinating.

“It’s so safe, I’ll get on the Bed, you try to make me talk.”

“That’s not necessary, Karl,” says Colin. “Send this contraption back to the Russians.”

But Karl is scooting his butt up on the PCB-rich Bed. He lies down and looks up at billions of needles, distant stars, points of light in his dark life. “I ain’t talking, you can can’t make me. Lower the boom, Tech.”

The Technician obeys. Karl merges with the stars as the Tech, remembers what he was trying to say, trying to recall what Americans call Russian Roulette. About every thousandth time, the spike bounces out and the Shadow obeys gravity.

The sound of a man bled of his Shadow is a harrowing experience.