Dog - 4. Conditioning

Chapter 4

The next few days followed a predictable routine. I would be left alone in the dark for what felt like hours at a time, only to be startled by the whistling sound which inevitably preceded the delivery of food into my cell. After the first few repetitions, I noticed that the amount of time between deliveries was roughly the same, and although I tried not to, I began to anticipate them with intensity that bordered on insane. They were the only break from the monotony, the painful dark silence that pressed down me a little bit harder every passing minute. Besides, the food was good.

Nobody answered my shouting every time the tray with my meal was delivered. Some kind of conveyor mechanism dragged the tray in and out, and it could not be stopped. I tried. The food was usually served on soft rubber plates that could not be used as tools for trying to escape, and the utensils were made of some kind of cardboard that quickly got wet and became useless. I hoarded whatever I could, nevertheless. Just in case.

Now that I wasn’t starving, being alone was simply awful. It was way worse than the time I’d been in juvie, and that’s taking into account the fact that I had constantly been targeted during my time there for being the fresh-faced ex-suburban white kid who had stupidly run away from home. Most nights there I’d cried myself to sleep at night, but in here the tears wouldn’t even come. The loneliness ate away at me in a way that was far worse than the constant threat of violence from other people. It was like fog clouding up my thoughts, making it hard to concentrate. When I thought about how I’d use to sing to myself just a few days ago, it felt like remembering someone else’s life. Now singing seemed pointless. Why bother? The darkness would just swallow my voice.

I kept track of how many times I was fed, and I settled on twice per day since that seemed most likely. I kept count of the days that way, but the motivation left me when I reached eleven. It somehow wouldn’t fit into my brain. I’d been trapped against my will for almost half a month. The one inkling of human contact I had was the happy sounding whistle that preceded my meals. I knew they were trying to make me associate it with good things, and damn was it working. I got excited just imagining the sound, and even though I screamed my throat raw at whoever was whistling every time, it never made any difference. That sound was the brightest thing in my day, though, and I kept looking forward to it through the featureless crawling minutes.

I cried when they decided to turn the lights on in my cell. It happened as I was sleeping, but the sudden change in brightness was so painful that I woke up and I was in immediate agony. I covered my eyes with both hands and squirmed on the floor for the better part of half a feeding cycle. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, I lifted my hands from my eyes. When the whistle came I didn’t throw myself at the wall like I used to because I was still in so much pain. I heard the food being delivered, and I smelled the tantalizing aromas of something that had to be pizza or something similar. The light still hurt too much, though. I was forced to wait.

Eventually, I could open my eyes a little bit. Then a little bit more. The glare was still blinding, but it was at least bearable. If I kept my face down and shaded my eyes with my hand, I could see.

I could see.

It was so shocking that I think my brain ground to a halt. For the first time I could look at my cell properly, but at first I couldn’t even process what my eyes were seeing. I let them roam around the surprisingly tiny room for a while until the shapes started registering in my brain. The toilet was over there. It was black. Funny; I had always imagined it being white. The table was silver, and not very tall. Somehow, in the dark, it had seemed much bigger and taller. Up in the ceiling –

It hurt too much to look up into the light. Instead, I looked at my food.

The whistle came again, loud and clear, and my heart started pumping with anticipation by reflex. It was pizza on my plate, alright. Three slices with cheese and pepperoni on top. A glass of something that look like apple juice nearby.

Everything was so colorful.

I had almost forgotten. Before, my food would be delivered and lit up for just a few moments before I was sent back to the darkness. Now I could look and look, and I marveled at the shapes, tones, and textures. There was red from the pepperoni, dark. A lighter, more vivid red was from the tomato sauce. The cheese was a mixture of golden browns and pastel yellows, the apple juice weirdly transparent.

I was hungry, but I looked at my food for a very long time. I reached for it and touched it, letting my gaze linger on my arm. It looked pale. Had it always been like this? I reached up and touched my face. It felt gaunt, the skin a little rough. My hair felt longer. I had never been able to grow a beard, but now I could feel a few irregular patches of soft fuzz along the side of my cheeks. I wonder how my face looked. Then I decided I didn’t want to know.

After they took my food away, I stood up for the first time and it was really confusing. My entire perspective shifted along with the change in position, and I had to lean against the wall and close my eyes just to recover my bearings. When the confusion cleared, I realized my eyes didn’t hurt anymore. I looked up and saw the dark lens of what had to be a security camera along with a couple of florescent lights. Nothing else.

“Hello?” I asked, more out of habit than anything else. “Anybody there?”

The whistle again.

“Hello, Ryan. This is Max.”

I was so shocked that at first I didn’t know how to react. I tried speaking couple times, but my voice was gone. I realize I was crying, somehow. Hurriedly, I wiped the tears away and tried again.

“Max?” I asked. My voice shook.

“Yes, Ryan. How are you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“I turned the lights on for you, Ryan. Did you like that?”

“Please, let me go. I won’t say anything, I swear. Why are you keeping me here?”

Click.

I was thrown into sudden darkness as the lights were switched off. I screamed.

“You didn’t answer my question, Ryan,” Max told me, his sophisticated voice sounding calm.

Then he whistled. The sound cut right through my panic.

“Your question?” I asked him.

“Did you like that I turned the lights on for you?”

I sniffled. “Yes. I did. Turn them back on again, please. Don’t… Don’t leave me in the dark.”

Click.

I sent down to the floor, my knees trembling with relief. I could see again.

“From now on, when I ask you a question I expected to be answered, okay?”

“Yes, Max.”

“Very well. I have to go now.”

“NO!” I screamed. Then I waited for a response.

And waited.

“Max?” I asked timidly, when I couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Max, are you there?”

I received no response, and the silence that followed was even more terrible for having been able to talk to another person for a little while. I begged, I shouted, I banged against the walls, all in vain. I cried for a little while, then tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come, and now the bright glare in the room seemed almost alien to me, hostile. I longed for the safety of the dark. I asked Max to turn off the lights, but he didn’t do it.

An entire day passed like that.

When the whistle came again, I was sitting underneath the table. I jumped on my feet so fast that I banked my hip against one of the sharp corners of the stupid thing, but I didn’t even care.

“Max? Max, is that you?”

“Hello, Ryan. How are you today?”

“I’m great!”

“You’re not lying to me, are you?”

“Of course not! No, no.”

“Good. I have a task for you today, Ryan. Do it, and next time we speak it will be face-to-face. Would you like that?”

“Yes!” I gushed. “Oh, God, yes.”

“Very well. I would like you to do 1000 push-ups, Ryan. That’s all.”

Click.

I thought I had heard wrong, and ask politely several times, but I received no answer. Then the food came and I realized Max was done talking to me for the day.

1000 push-ups. Didn’t seem so hard. It didn’t even occur to me to refuse to do it. I wanted to see another person again, and that was that.

The first 30 or so were easy. I reached 100 before I started feeling really tired. By 300, my arms were shaking. I was up to 396 when they simply collapsed under me. I fell hard on the floor, panting, drenched in sweat, and realized I had to rest. When my second meal for the day was delivered, I was only able to eat half of it because my arms were so tired it hurt to even move them. Lifting the glass water up to my lips was out of the question.

I felt slightly better after the food was taken away and managed to do another 200 push-ups before my arms gave out again. I waited as long as I could and then did another 57. Then I took a nap and reached 750 afterwards.

My arms hurt by then. A lot. Sleep took hold of me while I was still trying to come up with the strength to go for another hundred repetitions, and when I woke up I panicked. I have no way of knowing how much time had passed, and I didn’t even want to begin to think about what would happen if I didn’t do as Max had asked. I pushed myself beyond the limits and reached 820, but then I could do no more. When the whistle came, I knew I had failed and the realization was devastating.

“I am disappointed, Ryan,” Max said.

My arms were nothing but pain by then. “I’m sorry. I tried, I really did.”

“Maybe you need some more time alone, in the dark.”

Just thinking about it made me start crying. “No, please. I’ll do anything. Anything. Just… Let me go. Please.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” I replied, and at that moment I meant it.

A panel on the wall slid away, growing larger, retreating even more, until I realized it was a door. And it was opening.

I was mute with shock when the door finally stopped moving and revealed Max standing on the threshold, smiling, looking impossibly handsome. It had been so long since I had last seen another person that all I felt in that moment was joy.

“I have a proposition for you, then,” Max told me, walking into the cell.

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