Black emptiness fades to searing white and Harry can’t seem to get his fat tongue to dislodge from the roof of his mouth. As the spike burns through the back of his head, he can’t help but to damn his best friend Chance for another insane night of drinking the night before, though he knows he only has himself to blame.
Harry squeezes his stinging eyelids shut, hoping to evacuate the waste in his face and follows it up with a slow shoving pair of palms. His hands smear the gunk from his eyes and the straggling fingers clutch Harry’s three day beard like they’re falling over a cliff. Then the realization hits the man and the pain is just as sharp as whatever is burning the back of his head. He hasn’t seen Chance in weeks.
Reality’s slap to the face clears Harry’s vision, along with one more rub from his fingers. This helps the white fog to dissipate which reveals the mortifying clarity of the damaged man’s world, a claustrophobic world pressing on him from five sides with beige plastic walls. The light showing him his world comes from circles perforating two sides and from the sixth wall which is a heavy duty wire grid, a cage door.
The weight of reality lands on Harry solidly, crushing his spirit as he comes to the understanding that he’s locked inside an animal kennel and his head aches from resting crookedly against a clumsy seam. “What the hell?” His raspy voice strains against pain in his throat and while one hand grabs at the sore in his neck, the other weaves through the thin bars barricading his exit.
The other side of his gridded view reveals blistered walls and scarred hardwood floor washed in a blinding fluorescent light. “Hello?” His mouth presses against the small black bars but the room does not reply. Pressing at his throat to push the pain away, he tries again with more volume. “Anybody? Where am I?”
Where am I. These three words bounce from the yellow bubbled walls, daring him to answer his own question but the response he offers is one filled with panic and shaking. His desperate actions rock the kennel and rattle the door on plastic hinges. Harry’s rocking offers no satisfaction so his next attempt is to jam his fingers through the bar in hopes of reaching for the latch on the other side but his hands wedge in the opening, thwarting him yet again.
“Let me out!” He screams, rupturing the tender skin in his air passage and he squirms about inside the kennel. Resting his back against the rear of the plastic box, he throws his bare feet against the resilient bars, jostling the cage but giving no leeway.
With a defeated cough and bloodied spit, he slumps, releasing the air in his lungs and the hope from his heart. “What’s going on?” He whimpers. “Why is this happening?”
