Stay Strong

July 2021 – Winwoods, Georgia

She sat alone in the damp darkness that now surrounded her, not wishing for freedom, as one might have guessed, but nearly welcoming the chains and shackles that now confined her. The cold steel against her wrists and ankles kept her in the moment. The pain they caused a constant reminder that this was no nightmare. She nearly laughed aloud at the thought. This of all things a nightmare? She had been through much worse than this. Things that would have the world's best horror writers cringe and their biggest fans begging for an intermission.

That intermission never came for her, however. There was no break from the terror that became her life so long ago. Not until now anyways.

She smiled as she looked down at her restraints. They thought they were doing harm to her with this confinement. Little did they know, it was a blessing. Even the cool damp of the dirt she sat upon struck her as positive. It was refreshing.

She laid back against the cement wall and closed her eyes. She knew she wouldn't sleep. Not really. She never did. However, she needed to rest while she could. She knew this calm wouldn't last. Soon they'd realize this was doing no harm. Then they'd come up with some new torture. As they always did. She fought back tears as all the memories came rushing in. The faces she wishes so desperately to see in person stared at her as if asking why she was giving up. "i'll never give up," she said aloud. The words alone gave her strength although she nearly jumped as they shattered the silence her ears had become accustomed to.

She pushed that fear aside with the rest. She had to stay strong. Had to make it back. They couldn't defeat her unless she let them and that's one thing she'd never do. She let a tear roll down her cheek, this time with anger burning behind the eye it fell from. She looked through the re bar window at the moon shinning brightly in the night's sky. Somehow she knew it connected her to where she so longed to be. She closed her eyes again. This time she didn't fight it. She let herself drift as far as she could into a gentle slumber.

As she did, two tiny faces danced through her mind. They smiled at her, genuinely happy to see her, and in the darkness of her current existence, she smiled back as if they could actually see her face. She wasn’t about to take the chance of disappointing them if they somehow could. So she smiled the most sincere and loving smile that had ever graced her face. The same smile she smiled all those years ago, when those two tiny faces weren’t aged by the 70 years that had now passed.

Her eyes shot open. 70 years? That couldn't be right. No. It was much less than that, but as was often the case these days she couldn’t tell just how much less. Someday this thought worried her. Today was not one of those days. She settled back against the cement wall in as near comfort as she could manage and closed her eyes. As those faces returned to her mind so did the smile to her face. She was determined to rest, and as she did she’d enjoy those memories she so longed to return to. Fully knowing this was the only way she was able to, she let herself go back there. Back to where it started, and where she always thought it would end. Back to the only place she ever felt secure, in the only way she ever did these days. For those brief moments everything was OK and Staying Strong wasn’t her main object, or even one at all.

She drifted farther into her slumber, enjoying those moments maybe even too much. For the first time in ages her guard was truly down. As dangerous as she told herself that was, there was no denying how she enjoyed it. Even if it were wasted in the darkness of a dungeon and lost inside her mind. Maybe that was the only way she could safely let it down. So for them she would be strong again tomorrow. Protecting all her loved ones was the only way she knew to be. Being strong for them was all she’d ever known. All she ever would know. And she was ok with that. Maybe even proud of it. After all someone had to be, and weren’t they lucky she was.