Friday 19 February 2010

Tortured Silence (#fridayflash)

The sell-out, his face twisted with scars, risked his life to tell me of you.

He said, when he saw you last, my son, you had no fingernails.  He said they'd taken them from you with pliers, one each day, except on the Sabbath.

He said when you slept beside him in the prison cell you shared, you yelped and convulsed.

He said your left arm was broken, snapped backwards at the elbow.

He said he could not tell me of your face.

I asked him how he knew, how he'd escaped. He shrugged. They'd let him go. He didn't know why.

"Sell-out," I hissed. He met the accusation with silence.

I asked about your eyes, your beautiful eyes, your father's eyes.

His shoulder slumped, defeated. He had risked his life to find me and tell me all he could, and he could not tell me this. Instead, he wept.

"Tell me," I screamed.

I had searched and waited years for news of you. But now the sell-out came with news, I was offended at his presence. Why was he here? Why not you?

I slapped him, and he took it. He stood and let me slap him and scream in his face how worthless he was to have given in while you, my son, held silence, while you remained broken and strong.

I slapped him with all the energy of my pain and worry, pent up with years of not knowing. I slapped him because I cannot hold your splintered body. I slapped him and punched him until I collapsed, sobbing.

With each slap I struck across his scarred cheeks I betrayed you. With each slap, I wanted him to explain. Why did you, my son, believe so fiercely? Where did you find such faith? Why couldn't you have sold-out too?

23 comments:

  1. This is so powerful...I love the ambiguity of the sell-out and the speaker - and in the end, the son.

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  2. Really beautiful story, David. Strong storytelling. You never disappoint.

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  3. Heartbreaking, powerful, beautiful.

    I have a friend whose husband was tortured and killed in Chile during the Pinochet regime. They were there doing human rights work.

    So this story hurts, too.

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  4. Woah. Certain parts -- like where you describe his fingernails -- made me cringe inwardly. It's very powerful, very raw.

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  5. Whoah - heavvy stuff! This gave me the shivers
    Very much liked the use of 2nd person here, it adds to the strength of it, to the hand-wringingness (new word!) of it, in my opinion.

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  6. David, I can only add to what the others have said - powerful is almost an understatement. You have packed so much emotion in such a short space.
    Terrific work!

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  7. I'm with Mazz - the second person lends it a lot of weight.

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  8. Amazing piece of work. Such strength and heartache. Just fabulous.

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  9. Very powerful, with so much emotion! Strong piece!

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  10. As others have said, this is quite a powerful piece full of emotion. Great job!

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  11. I have goosebumps. Raw, stark and as the others have said, powerful. Your last name fits your writing.

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  12. That's an incredible little piece of writing. Reminds me of why I love flash fiction.

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  13. The language of this is so right. A weave of criminal mores, father's anguish, with an underlying religiosity - simply wonderful

    marc nash

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  14. This story really got hold of me, that stomach wrenching, heart-breaking feeling. Well done.

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  15. I can only reinforce what the others have said, I am a little speechless - wow - that is powerful and right on the mark - intense & not an extra word anywhere!

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  16. As others have said, the use of second person here adds a certain power/intensity to this piece (not always easily accomplished with the "you"). The repetition of "He said" at the beginning adds power as well.

    The piece overall has a certain mystery to it, with not all things explained fully (works here), and establishes a world all its own. Nice.

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  17. Tremendous and powerful from the title on, David. Knowing people who have been tortured, this has special meaning for me as you have captured the horror I've heard from their testimonies.

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  18. This rises so perfectly. Strong writing which produces an emotional punch. Well done.

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  19. The second person POV works really well here. Strong, strong narrative laden with anger. Your stuff gets better and better. Peace, Linda

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  20. Emotional and very deftly done. Excellent. Took two readings to get the full impact but has definitely left an impression.

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  21. Wonderful. The tension is so tight and the anguish so realistic. Remarkable writing. ~ Olivia

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  22. This is one of those stories you don't _want_ to really get into -- it's just that awful.

    It escapes being torture porn, as so many of these kinds of things are, by eliding a lot of the details and by showing the father's regret in the last paragraph.

    Well done.

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