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Chapter 1
David sat in the cold metal chair. He felt alone and somewhat frozen. The freezing metalwas burning into his sides. His shirt had been ripped and his backside was exposed to thecold, searing metal, and as it touched his flesh, it caused him to slightly jerk away. In thatsort of painful situation, David had always exerted his own developed mental prowess.He had trained himself that all pain was mental in origin, but right now, his concentrationwas completely shot to hell, and he had not been able to distract the pain away. Asannoying as his present problem was, it was nothing, compared to the blinding sensationhe felt whenever he cocked his head and came face-to-face with the white light in front of him.And then the shrill voice that had always been there came back; it blurted out somethingunintelligible. He turned his face toward it. His focus was still blurred by the beaminglight, which was pointing straight towards his face. It refused to leave him in peace, nomatter where he looked. He squinted, then turned away, and felt a gassy heat hit his rightcheek. Then the voice became a bit clearer, and he made out a few words in his head.The light certainly served its purpose. It virtually made the policeman on the oppositeside of the desk invisible to David. As David struggled with the painful light and tried tocome to, he noticed the shackling noise of moving handcuffs and a hollow wooden noisecoming from the cop’s baton. It made for an enjoyable distraction; as he listened to it, hisfocus on his surroundings became much clearer. David tried hard to fixate on both noisesand forget the unpleasant physical state he was in. As he made his best attempt to do so,he tried to look beyond the light that was so violently smacking him, but even then, hecould barely make out the silhouette in front of him. His left eye was doing all the work;it was his right eye that was having trouble moving. It looked like a swollen hairless rat,curled up in a fetal position, crackling into itself and turning into an overwrought mass of tissue. His eye was swelling up by the minute. He felt it growing unnaturally and gruntedin discomfort at the thought. David then gathered up his strength and stretched out histwo arms flat on the table in front of him; the cop quickly smashed his hands like twohammers right into David’s right knuckle. David squirmed away slowly, and rubbed hishand.“Write it down, kid”, the policeman said.The policeman’s hands disappeared as quickly as they had come into view moments before.Then another shadow approached, and David knew it was a second policeman. Like a blanket of pure sight, both appeared as if by magic, right in front of David. They weremuch closer to him than he thought, not farther away than the length of the table that wasseparating them. By now, with his new-found focus on the table in front him, and the twohuman beings on the other side of the table, David was happy to grasp onto that reality.He was more than content now that his own sight had granted him the quick opportunity
 
to study the room – now that the cop had moved the light to the side for the moment. Sothere, all together, was the table, the chair he was chained on to (his ankles werehandcuffed), the two policemen, one with a tall lanky demeanor, and the other cop – thenumber one guy, the evil one. The evil one looked like a bastard to David. David hadnever imagined what a bastard looked like, but the red-haired crony in front of himresembled what he conjured up as simply a “bastard”.By now, the three of them had been in that small, white room for nearly three hours.David had no notion of time for the moment. It was just then, moments after the policeman spoke that he started to understand that he had been knocked out. Then henoticed that the sides of the room were very square and from his angle, it seemed like thewalls stretched out for miles. After discrediting his illusion, he looked at the cops.The two policemen were out of patience, and were now really starting to feel the room’sdeep stench of still air. The air conditioning was shot, and the repairman hadn’t arrivedyet, or so the cops thought. Like always, the police department assumed someone elsetook care of everything. As to their prisoner, they were very much irritated by his non-cooperation. All strategies had been exhausted by the two policemen, but none of themhad been able to get a word out of David. He had been “the most fucking stubborn pieceof shit” that Murphy, the “bastard” cop who was interrogating him, had ever laid his eyeson.After running out of clever ideas (Murphy’s most effective had been hoisting David up byhis shoulders and forcing him to stand on his talons and hitting him hard on his back every time his feet hit the ground – but in the end, this served no purpose), Murphy hadleft the room, and then later came back with a large yellow note pad and a black ball- point pen.“
Write it down, kid 
” Murphy repeated.David wasn’t sure if he wanted to at first. He had been through so much, and giving themwhat they wanted would be like accepting defeat. It had been three torturous hoursalready, and Murphy hadn’t broken a sweat. It had become clear to David, that Murphywas one of those people that, when in power, did everything and anything to abuse their  position of authority, just to get what they wanted. David deeply resented this sort of  person – largely because he had always followed orders from such tyrants, but he refusedto today.Murphy was fixating his eyes on David, trying to “gaze into his soul”. He thought, maybedoing this will get me
 something 
. It was Murphy’s father, Hiram Murphy Senior, (whohad been a man of many words, but little action) who had inculcated within him thefervor to perform such crazy attempts to get answers and meaning from other people.David wondered what the hell the cop was doing, as Murphy stared him down. YetMurphy lay unfazed and continued to watch him, trying not to blink, all the time thinking“Give me something kid, come one, make my job easier” It was to no avail, David justthought Murphy had gone as crazy as he had earlier. Then Murphy, like a stone statue,
 
kept steady with the same position, his two hands on the table, firmly holding on to hiszombie gaze, and then started drifting into oblivion, and that was when he rememberedhis father.It was in that stupor that Murphy remembered his father’s expressions in great detail, andamongst the set of sayings, his favorite: “Only a true man can gaze into someone’s soul.”It was this same quote that had propelled Murphy to join the police force, for he hadalways searched far and wide for the opportunity to exercise that ability, and here it was.This crazy man, David, was his opportunity to prove this ability, to himself. H. MurphyJr. had tried for years to be a true man, and had often exercised the practice that camewith being one – yet he had failed, according to his own sound judgment. Now, he wastrying to redeem himself and prove everyone wrong. He was completely certain he wasgoing to start to get some answers. He had to, it was necessary now.Murphy lifted his hands from the table, leaving two wet marks behind. He looked at his palms and sighed.David had refused to comply with the threats, the physical assaults, and the mental duressquite well. And then, after much torture, not so much experienced by the victim (for David was quite good at tolerating pain), but as felt by the policemen themselves – Murphy had had it. If the crazed man wasn’t going to speak, he might as well write. The pen was right in front of David, and Murphy held it in place, letting go after his prisoner had finally taken a glance at it. As he did, Murphy looked at his own arms, andremembered his physical self. He had the habit of forgetting who and where he was wheninterrogating prisoners, yet his arms were clearly visible under the strong white light, andas he rescinded them into darkness, he turned to the mirror opposite him, in the far wall.Murphy had been fond of his physical state, and was proud to show off his bodywhenever he was given the chance. Even in the most inopportune moments, he made sureto give a good look at himself in the mirror, not so much too look at his body, but to keephis mind in check.He had dark red hair. It was cropped short, which made his skull look quite angular. The bottom part of his face curiously joined the top part to make a strong jaw. It was just as if a human factory had assembled his face, in perfect symmetry. His arms were bigger thanthe rest of his body, and he had no body hair except on his face and forearms. Murphylooked like a man that was strong naturally, not a product of modern gyms and weight-lifting regimes, like most men he knew. He was proud of that, and flaunted his physiquewhen granted the opportunity. Like Samson’s long hair, this too was his strength, and hegenerated much confidence from it.But his looks were failing him now. This was not a job interview, a pickup bar or acompetition. This was a de-briefing, with a crazed individual, one who was notcooperating.David was now with pen in hand. He too, noticed Murphy’s bigger self and Murphyknew this. David, who looked nothing like himself at that moment, was disgusted with
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02 / 17 / 2011This doucment made it onto the Rising List!
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