I awake every morning to the same sound. At precisely the time the sun's first rays appear over the horizon, a stereo just outside my reach begins to play what I believe to be a Ukrainian pop duo's ill-fated attempt to cover the song "It Wasn't Me" by Shaggy. And this is how my day, and my torture, begin.
I must emphasize that the stereo is just out of reach because both my wrists and my ankles are shackled to the sheer rock wall behind me. Though I may strain at my bonds until my skin is red and bloodied, I can never turn off the stereo. The Ukrainian singing will continue on a loop until the sun goes down again that night. In lieu of fighting, most mornings I awake with a yawn, shake my head and say good morning to John, the man similarly chained up a few feet to my left. "Go fuck yourself, Chris," he says, without fail, every morning. About an hour later, at what I believe to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 in the morning a raven will flap down beside me and begin pecking at the soft flesh of my lower torso. I scream and writhe in agony and desperation although its mostly just for show these days. The raven, whom I've fondly dubbed King George VI, and I have become so accustomed to this particular morning routine that when he arrives in the morning to eat out my liver I just begin to go through the motions. Secretly, I think he feels the same way. Once King George VI's job is complete, a gaping hole in my side revealing the bloody mess where my liver once was, he flaps away to do whatever it is that he does with his afternoons. I, on the other hand, remain chained to the rock, listening to thickly accented Eastern European men reciting such inspired lyrics as "Picture this, we were both butt naked, banging on the bathroom floor".
Eventually I'll turn to my fellow prisoner and attempt to make small talk. John, however, is not a talkative fellow and I find most of my attempts at conversation rebuffed with the all too familiar phrase, "Go fuck yourself, Chris." Around noon, when the sun is reaching its peak in the sky, I greet another buddy of mine who is rather more friendly than John. Indeed, when I first see Eric coming up the path towards me, pushing that absurdly large boulder in front of him he always greets my shouts with a hearty laugh and a wave. Eric will always take time out of his work (although just what he's doing pushing that boulder up the hill day after day I'll never know) to stop and chat with me for a few minutes. "Eric! What's new?" I'll ask. "Oh same old, same old," He'll reply, "The daily grind, you know how it is." Once the pleasantries are exchanged and he continues on up the way and out of my sight, I'll turn to John. "Well," I'll say, "He's nice."
Sometime during the afternoon, usually while I'm napping against the wall, I'll hear the sounds of John screaming next to me and I'll turn to see our other friend, a small green mallard I call Max Weinberg, driving his beak violently into John's side. Like King George VI in the morning, Max stops by every afternoon to rip John open and pull out his liver. What's always struck me as weird though is that Max doesn't eat the organ like George does. He'll rip it out, leaving John gasping and bleeding, and then just calmly walk over to me, stick John's liver into my still gaping side and then, quick as a whistle, sow me up. Once this daily ritual is over, Max will flap away without a word. One time I thought it only polite to thank John for donating his liver to me everyday.
"Hey John," I said.
"Shut the fuck up, Chris. Seriously," he replied.
"Well I don't know how to say this but, I mean, I wanted to say thanks. You know for all you've done for me. You know, for the whole liver thing. That's really cool of you. And you know, just for like being my friend."
"Chris?"
"Yeah John?" I could tell he was trying not to get emotional.
"Go fuck yourself."
At sunset, the stereo falls silent, though the sounds of "She saw the marks on my shoulder/It wasn't me" continue to echo off the rocks for a moment longer. A minute or two later, Eric will come running past me, back down the way he came, screaming like a bat out of hell. He is followed only seconds later by his boulder rolling and careening after him. "Goodnight Eric!" I yell, but he is too far away now for me to hear him reply. "Goodnight John." I yawn and doze off into sleep. It's been a productive day.
"Go fuck yourself, Chris"
