I woke up and opened my eyes. I
was feeling refreshed. Was I just born? No, I wasn’t. There was nothing wet on
my body. But I felt alive. Perhaps I have woken up from a deep sleep, a sleep
that didn’t include only one night, but covered my entire existence thus far.
But the joy of breathing again
was short lived. I was now feeling pain throughout my body. I looked down, and
I saw myself in shackles. I had a chain around my neck, which also locked my
arms behind me. I felt sharp pain in my joints, as if someone was constantly stabbing
me. The chain around my neck was tight, but not tight enough to kill me.
Perhaps these fetters were
already here, perhaps since I first came into this world. I was a little boy
then, which is why they didn’t fit too tight. I could move and even play around
in them. And here I was restrained by the same chains. I could see my hands turning
red, as the blood vessels were under pressure.
It is a good thing that human
beings have a growing age. I think I have reached mine. If I grow beyond this,
I will break the chains, or my own neck.
So, what do I do now? Wait? That
was the only thing that could be done. I was alone in the room, which was
surrounded from all sides. But wait, there is no roof. Of course, I couldn’t
turn my head up, but I could roll my eyeballs upwards. The human body is
amazing, and you can do a million things with it, and to it. You can even
hypnotize yourself.
Why was I getting restless? If
these chains were too tight, then perhaps they were not meant for me. Maybe it
was to hold me in place during my early years so I may learn self-control. But
now I had to break away, and so I tried.
To my amazement, I freed my hands
in no time! And since this was the chain that held my neck as well, I easily removed
it. Relief at last! I turned my head sideways, only to hear the sounds of bones
grinding against each other. After all, it has been quite some time.
I moved my hands around. At
first, I couldn’t, but as the circulation restored, I was soon able to lift my
arms and clench my fists. And then I felt something protrude from my sides. I
could not believe my eyes. There were wings, large white wings, on my left and
right.
I took me a while to realize that
they were my own. Did I have them before? Did they grow longer with time, like
hair? Were they given to me, or did I grow them out of necessity?
Whatever the cause, I knew one
thing: I was going to leave this room of irons and fly my way out into the open
sky. I positioned my body for the flight and closed my eyes.
“3, 2……………..1!” I shot
upwards, like a bullet ready to pierce a hole in the sky. As I lifted my arms
to go higher, my flight stopped, instantly.
I was neither going up, nor
falling down. I felt something on my legs. Something was holding me back. I
looked down and saw chains on my feet. I didn’t realize that they were there
before.
I was not going to be held back anymore.
So I closed my eyes once again, and pushed my body harder for the next flight.
“3, 2……1!” The chains
broke, but I didn’t move from my place. I heard a sound, a sound of breaking
bones. Had I cracked my ankles? It didn’t feel that way.
I was hovering in the sky, and
below me was the room. In the middle was the chair on which I had sat for all
these years. But wait, there was a hole beneath the chair, and the chains that
locked my feet were going inside it.
I didn’t want to go back in, but
at the same time I was perplexed by the sound of broken bones I heard a moment
ago. And then I thought to myself: “I have wings now, and I am free. I can
fly out again” With these words in my mind, I descended back into the room,
and down the dark opening.
I followed the trail of the chain
and came down till the end of that dungeon-like space. As I moved towards the
side, sunlight came inside, and soon I saw where the other end of chain was
tied to.
It was a human being. Someone I
knew. Maybe it was my father, or some other relative. The other end of the
chain was in his neck. I broke his neck when I flew upwards. And now the dead
corpse lay there. Did I kill him? So it appeared. But I never knew he was here
and I had no clue that we were tied together.
I thought I had become free. I
thought “at last I am free to fly around as I please, and reach new
heights!” But although I was liberated physically, my mind could not go
over the fact that I had, in essence, killed one of my own in the attempt to
free myself from the shackles that held me captive.
I sat there, thinking to
myself: "What a wretched man am I! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?"
By Suleman John
