Don’t Stop Believin’

I think that pain is a fiction. It’s a farce created by the powerful to make the powerless understand that they are worthless, helpless, and beneath them. It’s as fake as my smile and as undeniably real as anything else in this world.

I think it’s useless to pretend I don’t feel it.

They caught me some time ago. I say ‘some time’ because I truly could not differentiate the last minute from the last hour or the last day. Everything has blurred together so perfectly that the red of my anger and passion, the green of my envy, the blue of my tears, the purple of my uniform’s torn insignia, and the crimson of my blood have blurred into black on a worthless pain-ting pallet. (See what I did there?) I think time is a fiction in a torture cell.

I also think I am going insane.

“Round seven, my darling.” The beast says, his voice no longer grating on my ears, but as soft as a mother’s lullaby now that I’m used to the grating of my own screams. This creature has been with me since time became a fantasy, and in all the minutes, hours, or days of our companionship, I have not detecting a single strand of human DNA within his body. But then again, can an insane person detect what is and what is not human?

I think it doesn’t matter.

“Seven?” I whisper, inserting fake bits of strength and snark into my voice. They look like pepper on eggs and sprinkles on chocolate cupcakes. “I can only recall one. Or maybe—you’re too weak for me to notice.”

“Don’t worry.” The beast coos, flicking my cheek and walking his grimy fingers up onto my forehead. He traces a shape there, skating over blood and dried sweat. A letter? A cross? I can’t be sure without a mirror to read it for myself. “You’ll feel this one.”

I think if I looked in a mirror I would throw up.

When the man stops again, I try to count seconds. There’s one, then two, then...six? Or is it four? Words dance through my brain and I think that language might be a fiction as well. A fairy story told by mothers—mothers like this beast when they tuck children into bed at night. When they pull up the covers and blow out the lamp and close the door and tell story after story until dawn says it’s time to burn the midnight oil.

I think I am insane. I think time is a fiction and language goes hand in hand with its fanatical improvisation. I think I no longer believe in reality, except for the pain that is undeniably real. I think I believe in nothing at all, except the beast who believes I won’t survive Round Eight.

My mind is a mess, with things like chocolate and mothers and lamps floating in circles, singing lullabies that never end and lullabies that definitely don’t belong in sleeping. There is something like a drum keeping time with a pounding on my skull. I try to count the beats but the words turn into letters that fly away and form lyrics on top of my thoughts.

I think that I am insane. I believe in nothing at all. And a lyric floats out of the jumble that is my messy, fanatical brain. I read the words again and again, deciding whether the language is a fantasy—or a fiction, or a farce that is a fairy tale before bed.

I think the words are as real as this pain. And I think—maybe, I think—I should remember them. I whisper them to myself just in case I am insane and might forget. My voice sounds worse than the beast when I tell myself,

“Don’t Stop Believin’”