And then she just looked at me, saying nothing: until she wrapped the sheet about herself quickly and, grumbling, scurried for the door—where she paused.
“I like you, Galaren. I really do. But I lied when I said I didn’t know those men—the ones hanging from the Gateway Arch.” She opened the door and whistled through her teeth—loudly, confidently—before turning to look at me again. “They were men like you.”
And then she left and the guards poured in—like water through a dike. Then she left and I was clubbed and kicked and spat upon; as though I were less than an animal. As though I were less than human.
––––––––
The questions began the moment I was alert; the moment I was cognizant enough to know that our so-called “dungeon” was in fact a powerless walk-in freezer in a St. Louis hotel.
