Pain Cages

by Kane, Paul

  Jane, who has just put her last spoonful into her mouth, begins to cough. At first I think she’s choking, but it’s more than that. Her hands are clutching at her belly. She falls over, doubling up. “Awwwhhhh!”

  “Jane? Jane, what is it?” A stupid question, and one Jane’s in no position to answer. But then this is me all over, I’m beginning to realize: stupid.

  Jane’s convulsing, and she brings her fingers up to her mouth––a vain effort to stick them down her throat. But before she can try and make herself sick, another stab of pain strikes and she curls up into a ball, hugging her abdomen tightly.

  I place my hands on the bars of my cage, forgetting for a moment that they might be live. Nothing happens, so I shake them, causing the cage to rattle as well. There’s no hope of escape, let alone helping Jane, but doing something makes me feel slightly better.

  “She’s been poisoned,” Kavi says, staring down at his own bowl.

  Patty places her hands over her ears as Jane cries out again. The younger woman is kicking out, her feet hitting the bars. Her teeth are gritted, but foamy saliva sprays through them, drooling onto the cage floor. Jane’s eyes are turning bright red, blood vessels exploding in the whites––and she’s looking right at me as if expecting me to do something.

  Her body is jerking all over the place, and at some point her tongue has forced its way out through her teeth. I wince as she chomps down on it, the wet end severing completely and flopping to the base of her cage on strings of spit and muscle.

  Her exposed arms are breaking out in welts, huge balls that fill with pus, like some kind of time-elapsed film of a disease. Her face too, once pretty, is ruined by whatever’s ravaging her body––whatever they put in the stew. I know it shouldn’t even enter my mind, but I can’t help wondering if they’ve done the same to all of us.

  You only had a taste, though, remember? Just a taste.

  How can I think about that when Jane is suffering like this? The lumps forming on her brow have closed one eye completely shut. She’s scratching at the raised bits, raking them with her nails as the deformed skin tightens. Jane attempts to speak, but the ragged end of her tongue is swelling––blocking her airway––so all we can hear are disgusting gurglings. She’s like some monster out of a sci-fi movie, transforming from human being into something else. It’s a blessing when she can’t breathe any more, and as she collapses onto the cage floor, her skin tears, leaking in many places.

  I look from her to Kavi, then to Patty. None of us can quite believe what we’ve just seen. But already I can see a hardness in our new guest, the shock less than when they wheeled away Phil. The same is happening with me, I suppose. This is the third person I’ve seen die here. I don’t think it will be the last.

  With a resigned and frustrated grunt, I hurl the rest of my bowl at the bars of my cage. “Let us out of here!” I shout at the ceiling, at the walls. “You bastards, let us out!”

  Interlude:

  One Year and Five Months Ago…

  As you can imagine, Kim didn’t stick around for very long once I started to suspect the truth.

  One day I came back from work (I was just about holding on to the job) and she’d packed her bags again, this time everything. And this time for good. She didn’t even leave me a note, and I didn’t bother ringing. It was all a sham anyway. I’m not just talking about our relationship, but things in general: life, people, work, all of it.

  I was beginning to notice the signs everywhere I went. It was like someone had taken off a blindfold and allowed me to see––or I’d pulled it off myself, struggling to uncover what was right in front of my eyes. Ripping down the illusion of the everyday; not just walking on the cracks in the pavement, but getting down on my hands and knees and putting my eye up against them.

  It didn’t go unnoticed at the call centre. One day my boss, Malone, called me in. I stood there being chastised like a naughty school-kid.

  “I just don’t understand it, Christopher. You have… had a future here with us. What went wrong? I’d say it was trouble at home with Kim but I know this started before that.”

  “What do you know about me and Kim?” I snapped. Already I could picture my hands around his throat, squeezing…

  “We’re still friends. We keep in touch.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” Now they were squeezing harder.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I shook my head to clear it. “Look, it doesn’t matter. You want my resignation, you got it. None of this means anything anyway.”

  Malone sniffed. “Obviously, judging by the smell of your breath. You’re not even trying to hide it, are you? The drinking?”

  “How can I put this politely,” I replied, fighting back the image of strangling him again. “Fuck right off.”

  “Do me a favor, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  I didn’t. But I do remember saying something like, “And you can all get fucked as well!” to the other employees in the centre. They were still asleep, while I had begun to wake.

  It took some time to prove what I already knew. That this phenomenon, the code I’d cracked, was everywhere if you just chose to look.

  I’d walk down the high street and see it on billboards, supposedly promoting the latest cars or perfumes, but in reality… I remember just standing and staring at one poster for most of the day. The advert showed a picture of a man with a tank-top holding up a bowl of cereal, while a woman with a bob-cut was standing behind him beaming, ready to dip her own spoon in. Nothing suspicious whatsoever.

  But the more I examined it, the more I saw the intent behind those eyes. They were saying something much more than: ‘We love the new honey flavor’.

  Several people stopped and asked me what I was looking at.

  “Can’t you see it?” I said to them.

  “See what?”

  “The message behind the message?”

  “All I can see is a guy with a bowl of cereal.”

  So it went on. I’d warn them to walk away before I started shouting. Some did, some didn’t. Some asked where the hidden cameras were, and I had to laugh at that. I came to the conclusion that they couldn’t see past the surface because they didn’t want to; they were just protecting themselves. Jesus, how much simpler would my life have been if I’d never found out?

  I scoured the newspapers day after day. The celebrity gossip columns, the sports pages, the hard factual stories about wars abroad: especially those. Even in the horoscopes it was there. ‘Watch out for overspending, Pisces… Don’t let work pressures get you down, Virgo… You have received some important information, Aquarius, what you choose to do with it is up to you… ’

  Because the internet was now forbidden, a two-way mirror that I didn’t dare use anymore, I visited libraries, museums, seats of learning. I found the message again and again in encyclopedias, in the ideas of famous scholars. Philosophers such as Nietzsche, Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Locke, Kant and so many others hinted at it, though they had no idea they were so close to the truth.

  In the greatest works of literature I saw hidden signs. The plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Byron, the novels of Dickens. And don’t even get me started on parables in the Bible!

  But in works of art, also, it was as plain as the nose on your face: the key in every brushstroke, every chip with the hammer and chisel. People like the Surrealists came the closest to breaking it. You think Dali’s ‘Lobster Telephone’ is just for effect, or Magritte’s men with bowler hats and pictures of pipes? Ceci n’est pas une pipe. You’re damned right it’s not, René.

  Architecture? Sure. The Doric, Ionic and the Corinthian screamed it out, the towers and castles of the Gothic era, the reflective surfaces of the Lloyd building… every single one of them, if you took the trouble to look, to really look as I did, contained some element of the message.

  Let us not forget film and television. Name your favorite movie, it’s there in every line of dialogue, every scene, eve
ry jump-cut or special effects sequence. Charlie Chaplin’s tramp, God love him, Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara’s kiss, Rita Hayward in that dress, the shark in Jaws, the aliens in fucking Independence Day for Christ sakes! And the writers, producers and directors behind them, all unable to see the result of what they’d done. That not only was their stamp on the work, but another as well.

  Should I try to make others see? Could they? Would they? In the end I chose to do what most would have done in my place, armed with the knowledge I had:

  I decided to get drunk. (See, like father like son. Kim’s dad was right after all.)

  I took myself off at night and drank my way through the savings account Kim and I had set up, hitting bar after bar. There you’d find me, with a scotch or vodka, in the corner, observing the mating rituals and ruckuses. It didn’t matter whether it was a nightclub, wine bar or just some downbeat pub, it was all the same.

  Once or twice I’d cause a scene, just to see what happened.

  “Don’t any of you fucking get it? You really don’t, do you? You’re all being used, manipulated!”

  It would usually end in me being thrown out by a very large bouncer.

  Around this time I began to dabble with drugs, too. I figured it would help me to forget, might even make life worth living again.

  I was wrong.

  Some of the trips I had… In one I was communicating with different colored lights: bright reds and yellows, greens and purples. Each color had its own personality and I passed a pleasant evening in conversation until black came along, absorbing the others.

  In another I was lost in a forest of bones, human bones––and beneath my feet I trampled human skeletons into the ground as I ran, trying to get away from something behind me.

  But one in particular struck a chord. I felt myself rising up out of my body and traveling through the stars, until space itself turned white and the pinpricks of light turned black. There I saw a city, with living towers and minarets, surrounded by volcanoes that spat fire––burning white fire––periodically. The snaking streets of this place, connected by juddering bridges and pulsating conduits, were labyrinthine in design. The creatures who inhabited the buildings wore clothes that seemed to be a part of their own bodies: fleshy, covered in veins, protective cowls covering their features. Cowls that glowed a strange azure color.

  Beneath the ground of this city was a huge eye, liquid blue. Swimming in this were all the souls who had ever been and ever would be, floaters in the eye, dispelled whenever it blinked. It looked right at me, that eye: right into me.

  I woke from that one in the Emergency Room, towel wrapped around me. I was soaking wet.

  “He’s finally coming around. Whatever he took was really strong stuff.” This was a doctor who was flashing a torch into my eyes. He clicked his fingers to the side of me and when I reacted, he sighed with relief. “How people can let themselves get into this state, I’ll never know.”

  “How… where…?” I managed.

  “You were found in the lake, guy. Could easily have drowned if that courting couple hadn’t come across you. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  I didn’t feel lucky. “Listen… listen to me… My story… I have to tell you my story.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He grinned. “They all say that. Listen, why don’t you take it easy for a minute.” The doctor pushed me back, about to flash the light in my eyes again. “I just want to take another look at––”

  “You don’t understand. None of you do. They watch and––”

  A nurse appeared with a huge needle and handed it to the doctor. I took one look at that and started to struggle.

  “Easy now. This is for your own good. God, after the crap you put into your own body tonight, you’d think that––”

  I lashed out, knocking him sideways, then pushed the nurse backwards. I stumbled from the bed, tipping over a tray of instruments. I vaguely remember shoving a few people aside in my hurry to reach the door.

  But I made it, out into the dark.

  I ran, just like I did through that forest of bones. When I was exhausted, I hid away in a deserted area of town, in an old abandoned factory the derelicts sometimes use.

  I sat there in the blackness, knees up to my chest, knowing that I’d been seen now for sure.

  That they would do everything in their power to catch me and…

  Well, then they would silence me for good.

  Five

  Jane’s replacement is already well on the way to death when they bring him in.

  The door opens as we’re discussing what happened to her––Kavi and I can at least agree on some kind of biological weapon–– and the ‘monks’ shove the man inside. He is stripped to the waist with his hands bound behind his back. In his mid-fifties perhaps, with long silver-grey hair and a trimmed beard, he has been worked on outside. For starters his eye is missing, in its place just a huge cavity. When he’s pushed to his knees I see two fingers are gone on his right hand, and the thumb of his left. There are marks across his back where a belt or something has been used on him. Scars on his chest, a bit like those Jane tried to hide.

  I look at Kavi and nod towards the newcomer. He shakes his head, telling me silently that he’s never seen this guy before. Patty touches her fingers to her lips, face as white as a shroud. I think she’s finally grasping the fact that this could be her soon, and we can’t do a blessed thing about it. But the more I gaze at her face, the more I recognize not just the look, but the features. There’s something so desperately familiar and I wish I could work out what.

  The new guy looks completely out of it, ribs bruised purple where they’ve beaten him. One of the ‘monks’ kicks him in the direction of the cage he’s about to occupy.

  Roll up, roll up, roll up… for incineration, bleeding to death from a belly wound, emaciation and poisoning.

  The men in robes manhandle him into Jane’s cage, which has only been vacant a short while. As he slumps inside and they undo one lot of shackles, only to replace them with those inside the cage, I see burn marks on the soles of his feet. He’s really been through the wringer.

  With a clang of the cage door, our jailors leave again. The man rolls around groaning.

  “Hey!” I call. “Hey you. Can you hear me?”

  “What are you doing?” Patty asks, biting her nails.

  “He’s been out there.” I point to the door. “He’s seen what’s outside of here. If we’re going to try and escape––”

  “Escape?” she says, a little too loudly for my liking.

  “Christopher, how many more times, there is no escape from here,” says Kavi hanging his head. “Nicholas, Philip and now Jane… Dozens more before you arrived.”

  “I am not going to sit here waiting to buy it on some sadomasochistic production line,” I snap. “Especially when I don’t know why.”

  “People are born, people live, people die, all the time,” Kavi points out. “How many of them know why?”

  “Bet that God of yours knows,” I retort, the sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Now why don’t you––”

  “H-He’s right.” The voice is barely a whisper, but it cuts through our babble like a blade. The man they brought in is leaning up on one elbow. “T-There’s no escaping this.”

  Eyebrows knitting together, I grab the bars of my cage once more––again forgetting they could be charged. It’s just in my nature to rage against captivity. “What are you talking about? There has to be a way out. How many guards are there?”

  He just laughs, then begins to wheeze like an asthmatic in need of an inhaler.

  “Tell me! Tell me anything you can!” I’m beginning to lose patience; I don’t give a shit what state he’s in.

  “Be dead soon, me, and so will all of you lot.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t give up that easily.”

  “You… you will eventually, boy. We all do.”

  I freeze; there’s something about that voice. I’ve heard it befo
re. The man is cleaner than he was the first time we met, though not that much older.

  I’m not going back… You hear me… Never.

  “You’re The Monster,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You know this man?” asks Kavi.

  I nod.

  “How?”

  “When I was a kid, I think. It’s all a bit hazy.”

  “Why did you call him a monster?” Patty chirps up.

  The man in the cage wheezes again. “I’m Dixon. Folks call me Dixon,” he says, as if to prove he’s human.

  “I’m not sure,” I tell Patty. “But I think he knows more about all this than any of us.”

  The man shakes his head, then looks away. “No. Not me. I don’t know nothin’.”

  “Liar!” If I could get to him right now, I’d wring the information out. Then I stop and look at his wounds again. No, he’s been through enough. “Look, just tell us what’s on the other side of that door––how we can get out. You got out before, I know you did. I remember that much.”

  Kavi rubs his chin. “You’re saying that this man escaped and was brought back?”

  “Tell me!” I demand again, ignoring Kavi.

  The man looks around him as if following the trail of a fly. “Can’t. They… they watch.”

  “And they wait?” I state matter of factly. “There are cameras in here, aren’t there? They’re watching us right now.”

  “They’re always watching us,” hisses the man. “Night and day, day and night. You are the one.” He sings this last bit.

  “The man has clearly lost his mind.” Kavi’s pacing up and down in the confines of his cage.

  “Show yourself! Come on!” I’m suddenly shouting. “Let us see you. We know you’re in here!”

  The door opens and two of the ‘monks’ rush in. It’s almost as if they’ve been waiting on the other side, ready to move whenever there’s trouble.

  “Hey!” I shout again.

  “Christopher…” There’s a definite warning in Kavi’s voice.

  “Here! Come over here, I want to talk to you.” I never have been one for learning from my mistakes. I rattle my cage and it succeeds in halting them. But instead of going for me, they make their way over to Kavi’s cage instead. One of them reaches inside his robes.