After abduction

After Abduction (Short Story)

By JM Diaz Oldenburg.

The agony was horrible, the pain, the hunger, the trauma and the cold in that jungle. He was laying down on the ground semi-naked, trying to breathe after the last kick in the stomach. The kidnapers were screaming at him in Spanish, but he didn’t know the language. One of them had sliced off some of his toenails with scissors. He didn’t even know what he was being tortured for. It was impossible not to cry, Joe would just scream without any words. The guy aimed at his forehead with a .22 gun. “Say adios”, Said the longhaired muddy guy in an arrogant way. The shot made an enormous echo in his head as he jumped out of his seat from that horrible nightmare.

Joe woke up screaming, checking his forehead, the scar was still there. He could feel the cold air on the flesh where his toenails were growing back out.  His dad put a hand on his chest as he smiled to the flight attendant that came down to offer help. “Relax, it is all over, son, try to get back to sleep”. He stayed awake the rest of the flight.

The airport never felt more like home. Joe found his suitcase and opened it in front of everybody fearlessly. “ I’m sure it’s still there, you can get it when we get to the house, honey” said his mom a little ashamed trying to get him to close the bag.

“No mom, I already spent six hours without it, you don’t get it do you? I need it!” As soon as he said that he found a little red pocketknife, kissed it and gave a look to his mom. “ See? Now we can go”.

“Nothing has changed” Said Joe Johnson to his parents with a big smile on his face looking at the house.

“How could anything change, we lived in Colombia the whole time, waiting for you honey” Answered his mom with shine of happiness on her face while walking straight to a glass ballerina, tears on her face, took it and cleaned on her blouse.

Joe was walking to his room; it was strange how the house had a smell to it. It had been years since the last time he felt that smell. His nose was not used to it anymore, it felt like somebody else’s place.  

One night he was in his room, as always laying down and playing with the knife in one hand. As soon as he fell asleep, the walls started falling apart. Instead of a room, there was just jungle. Soldiers were walking all over the places. Joe opened his eyes in the middle of a wall where people were being killed. He screamed and jumped out of it. He was crawling scared all around the soldier’s camp, with his knife in hand. One of the soldiers cut sight of him and alerted the whole place. Joe screamed scared and started running towards his bed, which was there in the middle of the woods along with his room’s desk. Just before he got there, a massive guy got in front of him and grabbed him from the neck. Joe pulled the knife out and stuck it in the guy’s head. But there was no knife, just his hand. He fell in desperation needing the knife. The man pulled out a gun and with a smile on his face, shot him.

Joe woke up with his mom and dad next to him. He moved them out of the way violently and saw the knife at the end of the room. “ I must have dropped it,” He said running to it and taking it with desperation. He realized his mom was crying, he was crying too. “Darling are you ok, you were screaming so hard I didn’t know what to do” She was sobbing still and trying to clean Joe’s scar from a little bit of dry blood it had      “ You ran into the wall, boy” said his father.

“I was having a horrible nightmare, about the abduction, all the people were there”

“What people honey”

“The weird Colombian terrorist army that had me for two years remember!” Said Joe a little more than a bit upset “It was so real, all the guys that tortured me and scared me for two years were there again, like in the plane”

“It’s ok son, you are here now, and you will never have to go back there again,” Said his father “You should try to relax a little bit”

It was impossible for the kid to relax. Eventually after a series of dreams, he found himself trapped in a sleeping problem; he was suffering from insomnia. Joe was always tired, but could never sleep.

Little by little his face turned into a skinny and tired mug. His mom and dad were extremely worried. They were wrong, thinking that the lack of sleep was destroying their son, when in fact it was what happened during sleep what disturbed him.

Joe was always on the computer looking at pictures of friends and listening to music to stay awake, his knife always next to him, sitting there in his desk. He could see the walls become full of trees, his room traveling into the jungle with him. “No” he would whisper with a scared voice getting full of sadness. “Please no” he cried holding the knife as hard as he could. As soon as he saw a chance, he stood up the chair and tried to run; less than five seconds, the strong brown skinned guy was in front of him and shot him to death.

“No!” He woke up crying desperate in the floor of his bedroom, the chair had fallen and the computer too; his knife was not in his hand. Really soon after he screamed his mom was there trying to get him out of his paranoia by giving him the pocket knife she found by the door. “Here it is Joe! take it please its ok! Here it is, you are safe!” She was really scared, not enjoying the idea of giving her son a knife to protect him from himself.

She again thought that the lack of sleep was causing this paranoia so her ways of helping were not helping at all.

Days went by, and the dreams became worst. Joe was practically scared of himself; although he was always tired, he wouldn’t let himself fall asleep. The house was always full of fights; Ms. Johnson felt the need to do something and her husband wanted to let his son let go of the trauma on his own.

She couldn’t resist it, the Valium was there, the water, the dinner, she had to do something. Little after eating the so insisted by mom dinner in bed, Joe felt down like a baby. The terrorists where torturing him, ripping his nails off, kicking his face; hence the screaming and throwing punches and knifes in Joe’s bed. He was so drugged, he couldn’t wake up out of the dream.

Laura was cleaning her glass ballerina when she heard the noises and screaming. The sculpture was placed dangerously on the edge of the coffee table as a frightened mom ran upstairs. Once arriving at the second floor she heard the glass explosion against the floor, for a moment she hesitated between going back down, or entering the room; a part of her, had just died with the ballerina, another would too if she didn’t do anything.

Joe was trying to get away from the terrorist; he couldn’t move very much, suddenly the big brown longhaired guy jumps on top of him. “Here is the knife”, he screams. Joe sees his chance, takes the knife and stabs it as hard as he can in the guy’s chest. The guy screams like a woman, in a disturbing way. “ Take that!” Joe pushes the guy to a side and sits down. He is in his bed, the room is really dark so he turns the lights on “I think I finally got over the dreams”, he says to himself. Just before getting out of bed he sees his mom laying on the floor with a pocketknife straight through her chest; she is breathing heavily. He really, really hoped she didn’t die; but being in complete chock, he was not able to move.

Ms. Johnson laid there, with her hands on the knife, her eyes closing little by little. Thinking about her glass ballerina, and the mistake she had just made with her son. “I’ll take care of you, Joe” were the last words she said before closing her eyes to a graceful glass sculpture moving inside her head.