Sold

Image Courtesy: Pinterest (edited)

Sold

Humans in their daily lives buy and sell a number of items. They don’t wait and prod if they are doing the right thing. By selling something they are gaining money. By buying something they are adding a new installment to their wardrobe or to their homes or somewhere else. It is fine how such a simple word could be the base of human life style. It is no different in my case, especially when I am the object of sale, when a blissfully planned family weekend tarnished everything. My tale starts during a Weekend that Changed my Life (continued from the blog by Apoorva Srivastava)

Life was never served to me in a silver platter. I struggled to survive every day. And although I was content with my life, I did want some peace and quiet, some kind of a smooth life style. Only I was a big fool. I presented myself wrapped in shiny frilly wrappers to those wolves hiding under the façade of humans. I willingly accepted their lies and drowned myself in the poison they fed me because I was completely blind to the tiny cracks in their masks. But now I was trapped. A price tag was put on me marking me as a merchandise for sale.

We have five senses. I have too but their importance was dawned on me under rather terrifying situations. I am not sure if terrifying is enough to describe it given that my brain can hardly interpret the situations, that is the best I can come up with. The first thing that I felt once I gained conscious was that something was surrounding my face, like a black hood covering everything stripping me of my sense of vision- one sense under the control of those monsters. Trying to keep my eyes open must have been the most painful job I’d ever done in my life. Not a single sliver of light could enter through that dark screen covering my face. I tried to feel my hands but I only got response from my wrists to my fingers. They were tied, with what I couldn’t make out. A zip tie? A rope maybe? My best was rope because whatever the restraint was, it was something thick and very strong. My wrists were burning with the way the restrain was digging into my flesh.

I have no recollection of what had transpired, of what that had uprooted my life and was shoving me far inside the pits of hell. It was futile to try and find out my location- my sense of vision was already under their control. I couldn’t move my hands and as for my legs? Strange, I couldn’t feel them as if they don’t even exist. Even though my brain was sending week signals of alarm, all I could do was move my fingers and breathe heavily every time I realized I can’t break free.

The fog in my brain was lifting slowly and the more it got clear there, the more my senses were coming back to life. And with that I felt a sharp pain in my jaws. As the pain got prominent, I tasted something in my mouth. It felt like tasting a towel. I tried pushing it with my tongue which felt heavier than my eye lids, but no use. The ball of cloth or a rag to be exact was too big to push out. On the bright side, I could still hear. However, it didn’t help a lot. Other than a few muffled sobs and some screams from somewhere far there wasn’t much that my ears could make out. The place was humid because I could feel a trickle of sweat -or maybe that was water- falling down my back making the fabric of whatever that I was wearing damp and sticky. What was this place? My brain tried to piece the little bits of information it was getting but nothing came out as a clear result. How far was I from home? Was I in the same city? State? Country? No matter what the answers to those questions would be, I was shipped to some place. That nasty fact was a truth.

Another fact was that I have been drugged. Keeping my eyelids open was like holding bricks on them. I was finally able to feel my toes a little. Slowly, I could feel my heel touching a cold surface. I couldn’t make out if it was marble or tiles, or simply a stone surface. I was lying on the floor- I finally managed to figure out that much. Then I felt like something was pressing on my right arm like pushing it hard against the floor. That was another hint at my posture. I was lying on my right, my entire weight pressed on my right arm and the posture might have been relaxing had my hands been free. I was yet to have full control on my feet in order to at least try to lift my numb body up, but fate seemed to have different plans for me.

I cried out in pain- not that I could make a lot of sound- when someone hauled me up and forced me to stand. My knees, still not having enough strength gave up and I slouched to the floor. The angry grip on my elbows tightened and the person hauled me up, this time dragging me. This person didn’t care if I could stand or even walk, all he wanted was for me to move and that he did. He dragged me until my feet left the stone-cold surface followed by a warm rough floor to a wooly or carpet surface. In this small trip, I could hear screams echoing from every direction, cries threatening to break down the walls of this hellish place. It felt like I was being dragged through a dungeon. The person dragging me had thrown me inside this new room or maybe a cage which was a complete opposite to the one I woke up to. He then pulled off my hood and instantly scorching lights covered my face. I flinched at the sudden light and warmth. He then pulled out the rag from my mouth bruising my lips a little in the process. I was unable to lift my body with my hands still tied and knees still numb, but he was least interested in showing any form sympathy. He spoke to someone in a language I didn’t recognize and it seemed like he was accepting an order. He then came up behind me and pulled my hair with such strength I though he pulled off my scalp. But thanks to him, my eyes locked with a pair of hungry eyes- eyes that were eagerly waiting for their purchased merchandise to arrive. The terror of being sold was like a nightmare, but the thought of being bought was terrifying on so many levels.

Human lives don’t end when they die. Their legacies continue through their successors who come in many forms. But a life like mine was over the moment I was very tactfully transformed from a human being to a product. A product that has an expiration date, a price tag and a bar code and of course a usage, but hardly a life of its own. I was drugged, kidnapped, shipped, sold and finally bought. And that is where my life ends. The remaining part is that of a product. 

The ugliness of the reality fades just a little under the mask of fiction but one cannot shake the terror of the real thing. Funny how I ask you to read more.

Continued in Trap by Sambuddha Chakraborty.