Blinding & Binding

On Dying

I had been buried alive.

Not truly, but it felt as though I was. I sat in the cold, moulding corner of the cell underneath the deck of the ship. My hands were clamped together in fists. The sharp pierce of my fingernails bit into my skin as they drew blood from my palms and carved crescents that would soon leave scarred tissue.

The floor rocked backwards and forwards. The sea was rough and the journey ahead even more so. I could feel as the ship drifted along the large waves, reaching the top before descending down the deep slope, slamming into the depths. The ferocious, stormy waves threatened to plummet over us.

The room was small, roughly two metres in both length and width. Darkness was the only thing I could see. There were no stars or sun to brighten my gaze or promise a different ending. The only illumination drifted from the rusting lantern that hung from a small hook above the door, though the light was dim. I was left to melt away into the rutted, splinted flooring that I used as a mattress.

The air was filthy. The dam and musty smell was a pervasive waft of saltwater and decay. I coughed continuously between forced breaths and each time I dragged my nails across my swollen neck I felt like I was combing apart the broken threads that held my head on my dying, limp figure. When I open my mouth, it is dry and scarred from dry clotted blood at the area where my tongue meets my tonsils.

Insanity was inescapable in the drunken depths.

My back arched against the rough-hewn wooden walls as the ship lurched forward. Pain ripped through me and I pulled both my arms to my chest. A dizzy sensation settled in the base of my stomach and I inspected the deep burns that covered both my arms in an infected heap of peeling, fried skin. If I was not treated quickly, I was most likely going to end up sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor begging for the fish to eat away at my decomposing carcass.

The only sign of life on the boat that I was given was the occasional creaking and groaning of the upper ships deck under the weight of the soldiers aboard.

Hours had passed since I was shoved into this hell hole and though I could not be sure, I assumed that a new day had arrived. Many soldiers had come down throughout the night to have a look at their new pet, as though I were a foreign animal locked away in a zoo enclosure awaiting the day I would be tamed. Agamemnon was yet to come and pay me a visit in the grotesque room.

A life of solitude was one that I was mostly used to. Being alone with my thoughts to cultivate stories of heroics and familiar endings was the purpose of my birth and nothing else. When I was chosen by Apollo, there was no turning back, even after he twisted my gift.

Through the dark, sullen bars I watched as the rope ladder swayed with the rhythm of the wavering ship. Although I knew it to be purposeful, the delicate weave seemed out of place within the worn down interior where I was imprisoned. The rope was light in colour. It was either a replacement to a previously broken ladder or freshly washed. Perhaps there had been no use for this lonely and miserable place before. Yes. That made sense.

"I see that the little princess has finally fallen quiet." Now perched on the last rung of the wooden and rope ladder was Agamemnon. He was a large man with shoulder length hair that mirrored the colour of a rotting clam shell.

I watched him with careful eyes. I had heard stories about this man over the years that he had spent threatening the walls of my home. All were more horrific than the last, recalling his menacing smile as he slaughtered the infants in the town raids and stole their mothers to lay in his quarters.

His dark pupils watched me, unmoving. I could feel the sway of the ship grow softer against my back. Wind no longer strong outside. The boat was coming to a halt. I squeezed my eyes shut as though this would allow for me to turn invisible so that I was no longer so vulnerable under his penetrating stare.