The Broken Man - Chapter 2
"It was my right to die as well
Instead I live... but live in hell."
With the rattle of a chain the figure in the shadows leant forward, reaching out with his shackled wrists to grasp the rusted metal cup that contained his meagre daily ration of drinking water.
His dirty hands retrieved it just as his neck chain pulled his collar, preventing him from leaning any further forward.
He sat back, the cold of the stone wall seeping into every muscle of his aching back as he looked down into the cup.
The dark of the night made it too hard to see but from the weight of it he could tell there was not much left.
He took a deep breath then breathed out slowly, placing the cup down within reach next to him.
His chest rattled as he exhaled, as it had done for the last few days, and within a moment he began to cough violently. His chains chinked as every harsh cough shook them.
Reaching out for the cup, he grasped it with both chained hands and brought it to his mouth.
The water, as ever, tasted dull. His fatigued muscles relaxed as he felt the cold liquid wash it's way down his throat as he drank, soothing - at least temporarily - that which sickened him.
The cup was now almost empty and he placed it back down, acknowledging the need to conserve what little remained of his water until morning when it would be replaced.
He shuffled uncomfortably where he sat on the ground, chains clinking as he moved, turning himself to sit leaning side on to the wall, his head resting against the stone.
Javert sighed. Illness was not something which had regularly afflicted him in life.
On the very rare occasion that he had fallen ill, his attitude had been to simply get on with his job, show no obvious weakness for criminals or victims to see, and to ensure he then got a good nights rest during his own personal time. A subordinate would have to be at deaths door before Javert would dismiss him from duty for the day, and even then it was merely to preserve efficiency by removing a sick man from the company of his men.
His men, he thought... His men were long gone. Perhaps they spoke of him occasionally... Perhaps he was forgotten to them... Or perhaps he was something best not spoken of.
Javert closed his troubled eyes as he leant against the wall, his cold legs bunched up alongside him for warmth.
He reached down with his hands and adjusted an ankle shackle that was rubbing a particularly raw piece of flesh. It stung greatly as it was disturbed but he managed to pull the accursed thing down just enough to relieve the pain, at least a little, from the bloodied sore his ankle bore.
His men might have forgotten him, but what of Valjean?
He wondered deeper, sensing within him that the dark, confused, thoughts that regularly attacked and violated his once proud and rigidly controlled mind were again brimming to the surface.
He fought this powerful demon every night, fighting to be spared from the war within his own personality that tore him between thoughts of an urge to rip his chains from the wall and hunt down his just and legal prey, and thoughts that made him long desperately for his own death, be at his own hands... Or often, those of Valjean. Would that be justice?
"Does he now live like a king?", Javert asked himself as the thoughts stirred like ripples in his mind, "does he take a daily stroll, pressing coins into the hands of gutter life, ever the good Christian?".
He wheezed, his teeth gritting in utter resentment as he envisioned the thought of Valjean, the ever patronising, handing out coins to the filth and pickpockets of the street.
Another ragged cough brought him briefly out of his deepening thoughts, his breathing rasping as his irritation aimed at Valjean tensed him.
He would not fight his infernal chains tonight. His will was ever present yet his strength was not. The smallest of movements were provocation enough for his ailment to rob him of breath.
"Valjean is redeemed...", he whispered, "Valjean is redeemed. Javert... It is Javert who is damned, Javert who MUST be damned."
Even now, months after jumping from the Pont au Change bridge, Javert still struggled to fathom which path - arresting Valjean or allowing him freedom - was correct.
The thoughts twisted and turned, fighting intensely for dominance on a nightly basis, swirling his mind into a turmoil of right mixed with wrong.
"His sins are wiped clean...", he insisted into himself in the darkness, "his life has meaning... Those around him prosper...".
Another cough wracked him harshly, then a hushed silence fell.
His eyes darted in unease, wild like an animal, his traumatised mind processing the torrent of disordered thoughts that ever tormented him.
"Parole...parole breaking", he began as he sat up straight with an air of alertness, "his crime remains! His crime cannot simply be un-committed!".
His chained hands bunched into fists before him, hands that could so easily have grasped Valjean tightly all those months ago like the claws of an eagle swooping on its prey.
"The law says arrest!", he rasped and then suddenly fell back into a dejected position, his shoulders slumped ,"...but morality says no."
Once again his nauseating cough took a hold of him, his ability to breathe once again hindered until it passed.
The sensation, the inability to grasp the smallest of breaths, revived fragmented memories of drowning.
"And Javert...", he gasped, "Javert is no more... Javert must bare this damnation, brought upon himself... This damnation deserved..."
He closed his eyes, his soul feeling as dark as the cell itself.
The cold of the stone emanated into his head as he leant. Opening his eyes Javert could clearly see his own loathsome breath in the tiny amount of moonlight that entered.
It was indeed a very cold night.
Before his tiredness could envelop him he again felt the rattle within his chest as he breathed.
Slowly Javert took one more breath and braced himself before the cough returned.
Each cough again shook his body, a relentless attack that continued unabated, sparing him scarcely any mercy to allow breath.
Reaching out again, Javert grabbed his bucket, an item of humiliation, and spat into it the vile mucus his illness was causing the cough to dredge up from his infected chest.
He sat unmoving for several moments, exhausted, steadying his breathing once again and pushed the bucket away in disgust.
Once more he slumped, leaning his side against the wall. His back had become terribly sore in places where the stone had rubbed over the months during which he had spent chained to this spot.
Once more he leant his head against the stone, his back feeling the obvious relief but his chest aching terribly from the strain of the coughing.
He closed his eyes and tried to breathe slowly. He knew from the last few nights that this was a position he could eventually fall asleep in. His neck chain was slack and his body slowly relaxed as sleep finally took him - although the nightmares never left him.