'The Hole' by Fu'ad Lawal

That was the last thing he heard, or remembered hearing.

The hole was as they said of it, truly dark place. So dark your eyes would never adapt to the dark. So dark that light didn’t even try to sip in from under the steel doors.

Then there was the quiet. It felt so quiet. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the type of quiet that would your gently beating heart pound so loudly that it could drive you mad. The only occasional noise and squeaks was of rats that squeezed through the cracks on the wall of the hole.

Sometimes, to remind himself of his sanity, he would speak to himself just to hear what speaking sounds like. He would rattle the chains on his hands and feet just to hear what real sound sounds like.

And the stench. After what felt like weeks even though it was just a week and two days, it was hard to tell which stunk more, his excreta or his own body.

As the days went by, he pondered about how he ended up here.

“You need to abandon that cause of yours and save this family the disgrace. This family has ruled like this for over three centuries. And you want to destroy that,” his father had thundered. “You are my son and you must obey me!”

But he ended up in the hole, the darkest prison in the land, as punishment for disobedience.

As he rattled his chain, he laughed. He laughed a laugh of fulfillment, because even though he was locked up in a dark cell, with the stench and the insanity it gave the mind, he felt truly free for the first time in his life.

Fuad Lawalis a poet and copy writer. He blogs at rebelliousflash300.wordpress.com

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