I haven't been posting the most uplifting of fics lately but I hope this one is at least inspiring even though it's still probably one of the darkest I've ever written.
The most striking tape of all is of the girl who sings. She is there for four months before she is gone and she sings her last song the night of her expiration date. It is too easy to become numb to the horror of the tapes they hope to use to provoke action among the government and the people to prevent this from happening ever again. They only wish they had reached Three Mile earlier. That the nameless, but not numberless, children whose sorrows and fears, waning hope and last words are all held on the tapes and, now, in the memories of those who watch the tapes for any clues they might find, might also have been rescued.
Many of the tapes are memorials. All are horrific. But hers takes what is beyond words in each of the others and puts it simply.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."
She sings her first song after being tossed in her cell without a backwards look on the part of her captors. The tape records how her tears ran unhindered down her cheeks and how her voice never wavered as she sung as if to draw the whole world into her music, to forget everything that was dark and scary and remember better times of light and happiness. The tape catches the sound of first one, and then second prisoner, out of sight but not hidden, joining her until the guards reenter and beat her into silence.
"I'm just a jitterbug. A happy jitterbug. A little jitterbug looking for a place to jive."
Her second song is another hymn as is the third. The forth is a jazz tune, incongruously cheerful in the dim setting, but it does the trick. The tape records how she looks almost happy as she belts out her fears to the tune of easy listening.
"I once was lost in darkest night, and thought I knew the way."
There are, of course, periods of inactivity when she is taken away and returned unconscious, shivering from shock, or shaking from injected drugs. But faithfully she whispers the same hymn every time she is returned, as soon as she is able.
"Won't let Satan blow it out, I'm going to let it shine. No won't let Stryker blow it out-"
That song earns her a week muzzled like a dog but she still hums. She whistles too, when she can, old favorites that rebound up and down the metal corridors until the guards bludgeon her into stillness.
"Seized by the opposition, guns aimed to the head; lead away in shackles unknown to what's ahead. Surrounded by the others who were caught before; Bodies defiled by torture; the hell they have endured"
She sings songs of torture and hate late at night when inattentive guards in the video room turn down the volume of the security tapes in order to concentrate on games of chance. At these times the tape records how her eyes flash in the darkness where she stands, perfectly erect and centered in her cell if she can, or dragged upright against a wall if she is weaker, and dares her captors to silence her voice.
"You think that when I'm up upon the pike you'll win. What will they say about you when I'm gone?"
Her lessons and warnings fall on deaf ears. She has been there three weeks and now her cell is soundproof. She is rarely beaten for her music but no longer can she bring hope to her fellow prisoners.
"The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out."
By the fifth week she no longer sings songs of great vocal range or requirement. She rarely moves from where they toss her other than to roll over onto her back and make some attempt to sit up. But the tape records how she still fights to keep the defiance in he r voice and her songs in tune.
". . ."
There is a whole month when she does not sing at all and her silence is darker than any her captors could produce.
"You're on the phone with your girlfriend. She's upset. She's going off about something that you said."
When she sings again it is no longer with any pretense of hope or defiance. The songs are familiar, common childhood and teenage favorites. The tape records how she sings now to bring herself courage, when the pain is too much or the darkness to deep. Her voice falters and hitches, scratches and chokes. She can no longer sing well but she will sing until she is gone. The tape records her promise.
"Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak but he is strong. Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible-"
She sings one song over and over again for three days. By the second she does not so much sing as chant. She has found escape in the emptiness of her mind. The tape records how she does not react when guards enter or when they leave. She chants until drugged incapable and starts again as soon as the drug lessons somewhat in her system.
At the end of the twelfth week the tape jumps from the girl who sings to the same girl stretched out on the floor, bloody and broken. The tape records how she is left there with the cell door swinging open. There is no escape.
Late that night she stirs and looks into the camera. Her eyes are sightless. One is missing entirely, the other lacerated with lines of surgical straightness. The tape records how she tries to roll herself onto her side to ease the blood filling her lungs and dribbling out of her mouth with every hacking breath and fails. The tape records her calls for her mother and father, apologies for small faults left behind four months ago, and the tape records her last song.
"when the sun comes, trumpets from his red house in the east
He will find a standing stone where long I chanted my release
He will send his morning messenger to strike the hammer blow
And I will crumble down uncountable in showers of crimson rubies when I go"
Her voice wavers. She does not have enough air to breath nevermind sing, but she is determined to uphold her vow. She will sing until she is gone. There is nothing more they can do to her now.
"And should you glimpse my wandering form out on the borderline
Between death and resurrection and the council of the pines
Do not worry for my comfort, do not sorrow for me so
All your diamond tears will rise up and adorn the sky beside me when I go"
The song is a promise and a goodbye, a reassurance and a vow of vengeance. It wavers between whispers, trembles in between long spells of dizziness and airlessness, and once or twice even rises above the rattle of dry leaves into the actual tune. The tape record how her eyelids droop and flicker. She is fading in time with the blood pooling under her back. For long minutes she is still and it seems that she is gone.
Then, in a last show of courage and strength she lifts her head and recites a single line. Her head falls limp against the floor. She does not exhale. She has no breath to do so.
"I'll send this message down the wire and hope that someone wise is listening when I go"
The tape records the removal of her body and a brief swab to wash out most of the blood. The next day the tape records two guards throwing a small green skinned child to floor. The boy crouches upright and stares around his cell in fear. He does not sing. The tape records silence.
They who hold the tapes listen to her songs and play them on hacked radio stations. Three weeks after her fellow prisoners are rescued her mother and father hear her songs and message is understood. She is gone but she went out fighting, using the most powerful weapon she had, her voice.
Comments?