A general, who has been imprisoned during war in the middle of a jungle, is released when his men save him.
I awoke to find my head throbbing; seismic pulses were beating throughout my temples, so much so that I could see bright red spots encroaching my vision. I closed my eye, hoping the spots would dissolve into that extreme darkness within my imagination. But when they didn't, I finally resolved to lift myself up off the mud-covered ground with which I'd been repulsively familiar for the past three months. After a few minutes of stumbling, I finally found the wall, which was covered with the slimy moss that, even after months of living with me, still stayed close to the dampest, most shaded section of the cell. The sun, which only encapsulated half of my prison, shone brightly into my gaze, increasing the pounding migraine, breaking its original rhythm like a child banging on a piano. I closed my eye and let the warm rays pierce through my face and through my neck until I could picture my whole body being taken into their assuring embrace. Absorbed in this daily meditation, I did not open my eye when I heard the sound of twigs crumbling nearby, a few yards in front of me.
“I take it the General slept well then?”
“I didn't have any dreams. But my head is sore.”
“That'll go away, too,” he said. “With time.”
I opened my eye now. He was close enough for me to grab the keys that were hanging from his belt. He was close enough for me to accumulate enough energy to strike him, faster than the head of a cobra. I stepped back from the bars, back towards the wall, and slid myself back down to the muddy ground. The cool dampness welcomed me by sending shivers through my whole spine and spreading throughout my arms and legs. I thought I had a fever, but I knew it would pass, just as the sharp pain within my head was starting to. My body always had an extreme aversion to sickness and pain, an immediate liquor that alleviated even the most strongly rooted aches, clenched deep within that ineffable prison. I had closed my eye again, to relax from what my body apparently remembered as an exhausting night. I could still hear him breathing through his nose. He then fell silent, his breathing was slower. I wondered what could have made him inhibit even the most unnoticed act of his body. I opened my eye to find him with his eyes closed and his head tilted in the direction of the sun.
“What is it?” I asked. He signaled for me to stay quiet. Not to make a sound. I closed my eye to see if I could hear what he was hearing. Faint, but as fearful and hopeful as when one is confronted by Death herself, I could hear the sounds of a distant battle: rapid bullet fire from a few miles away with the swiftness of a thunderclap. This could either be divine intervention or the scene of some terrible joke. In an instant, before even he was able to prepare himself, he pulled the pistol that had been strapped on his side and pointed it at me with unflinching determination.
“I am sorry, Sir,” he said to me. And in an instant, his last words rang in my ears as he first fell to his knees and then plopped on the moist grass. Behind him stood a man dressed in green, over six feet tall, and with red eyes. The pain that had ceased from my head before grew stronger again as I continued to see bright red spots invade my vision.
“Sir?” he yelled to me. “General?”
“The keys are on his side,” I said weakly. I had not moved, so my body was still entrenched in the dampness of my prison. He opened the prison door, saluted, and then extended his arm to help me up. As I stood, trying to keep my balance, I saw him step back a little. He was shocked, looking at my face.
“Yes, I know. You are taken back from the eye.”
He nodded, looking around the cell that I had never gotten used to, that I had never made an attempt to think pleasant, not once. I stepped outside the prison and walked past the shaded area, to where the sun was burning through the trees.
“Look,” I heard the soldier who saved me say, as walked back to the rest of the squad. “Three months, and he is still ready to fight!” The men were yelling and cheering as I was still walking towards the sun-marked area.
“Hooya, for the General! Hooya, for the Liberal party!”
In that small fragment in which the sunlight did not fail to illuminate, I closed my eye, and moved my thoughts to the evening before, to what must have been so strong to stop my dreaming during the night, and give me such pain in the morning.
