The last of the traffic
driven passed by, the streets wore an empty look with its electrical
poles making patterns against the night sky. Stray dogs had long settled
down for the night along the sides of street narrow alleyways. Then it
happened without any warning, caught Lhasa off guard in the early hours.
An Earthquake rocked Lhasa; the capital city of Tibet. The tremor was
so powerful that the old houses with weak foundations crumbled to the
ground. Clouds of dust billowed up into the sky temporarily blocking the
clear view. Tall buildings swayed from the impact, lights flickered and
then went out. Electric poles with their hanging spaghetti of cables
crashed one after another along the street each with a loud crash.
Palden Gompo; a political prisoner was being held in solitary confinement in the notorious Drapchi prison and he was thrown off his rickety bed by the force of the earthquake. He landed on the floor between his bed and the wall of his tiny cell. He lifted his skeletal head slowly still heavy with sleep, to see his small world moving around him and his skinny body being tossed about like a ship caught in a storm. Pieces of concrete came loose from the ceiling, fell on his bed along with clouds of dust and grit. He pulled himself onto his feet when a moment of calm came, and rushed to the metal door of his cell while knocking off the mug that was lying by his bed with his feet and renascent of yellowish liquid spilt out from it onto the floor. His head was spinning; he felt as if he couldn’t’t breath the heavy dust filled air. He started banging fiercely.
“Help!”
Palden called out as loud as his throat would allow.
“Earthquake!”
But there wasn’t any immediate response. A few precious minutes passed in eerie stillness. Both his hands were raised against the solid door when another violent tremor hit. It shook the building so hard that he was thrown back onto the rubble and debris on the bed. The bare light bulb that dangled from the ceiling swung round and round before it went out and the room became completely dark.
A silence followed, all he could hear was his heart pounding and the sand pouring from the cracks in the damaged walls. Then, in the darkness, Palden heard a haunting, indistinguishable crackling noise. He couldn’t see anything in the pitch black. But, the noise was getting louder and louder. After a few moments he saw a speck of white light shooting through a tiny spot in the iron door. Somehow it became bigger and brighter, moment by moment. The spot became a crack in the door which appeared to be widening as if a wielder was cutting through the solid metal from the other side. Palden was struck with horror, yet his gaze was fixed in the direction of this ever expanding extraordinary white light. In an attempt to escape he moved his body backward until his back was firmly pressed against the wall. He was trapped within his confinement he thought. His twig-like hands were locked around the edges of his bed. There wasn’t any escape route; all he could do was wait to be consumed. He took in lungs full of dusted air and coughed.
Panicked and horrified yet his curiosity still managed to take the better of him and made him wonder “What is this amazing light?” After a while the light became overwhelming, he had to raise his thin arms over his face to shield his eyes. In this dazzling light Palden’s skeletal torso showed its true frailty; he was covered in dust from head to toe. Once he was a handsome man but his muscular body had now reduced to a skeleton. Peeping through between his fingers what Palden was to see next took his breath away and momentarily he lost sense of his whole body, as though he was suffering a stroke. His heart beats fluctuated; a strange nauseous feeling engulfed him. Drops of sweat surfaced on his dusty forehead before trickling down the sides of his face, leaving zigzag trails on his skin.
Out of the dazzling light appeared a giant silhouetted figure, gradually moving forward towards Palden. He could distinguish the outline of two horns on the giant head, and it appeared to be holding a spike studded club in its right hand as the shadow it cast lingered on the horror struck face of its potential victim. Then adding to Palden’s misery, for some moment it stood over him, staring straight into his eyes like a blood thirsty Dracula inspecting its victim. He tried to scream out of fear, his mouth opened wide but no sound came out, as if there were something knotted around his throat. His chest expanded and contracted in quick successions as he breathed in distress. Then without a warning the giant raised the club wielding hand into the air, and a shadow lingered briefly on the wall behind them. Palden raised his hands to protect himself, and tried to wriggle free before it came crashing down with lightening speed and landed on the side of his head with a force. He felt an excruciating pain shoot through his frail body; his vision blurred from the effect, and he buried his head in his hands. Soon he felt blood pouring out of the gash on his head; a warm mixture of blood, dust and sweat trickled down his hands and face, it started to drip in quick successions from the tip of his nose and chin. A moment later he felt another blow, this time on his arm; he screamed in agony and felt as if his arm had snapped into two. The giant grunted for the third time; and then his club landed on the victim’s knee with such a force that it tore Palden’s trousers and left the knee cap exposed with hanging tissues. All of sudden, beating stopped as abruptly as it started. The giant proudly began to assess the damaged.
But despite the inflicted pain, Palden was overcome with a sudden sense of déjà vu like he knew this pain so well and there was something familiar about his tormentor he thought to himself. After pondering for a while he realised that he had been attacked with an electric prod; since different weapons were often been used to torture him, either to extract confession or just for the sake of entertainment for the guards. So, he had learned to differentiate the pains from the difference weapons and tools.
When he slowly raised his bloodied face using the little strength left in him to have a closer look at the sadist silhouetted figure, like a view through an auto focus camera lens a feature gradually came alive out of the dark figure. It is a human after all he thought when he spotted the slit eyes with a flat nose bridge and a moving mouth with glimpse of rotten teeth. He recognised the face, his eyes blinked a couple of times and he slowly wiped the thick blood from his face with back of his blood red hand.
“Zhang Han”
He thought to himself, the ruthless Han prison guard. Palden let out an audible laugh of relief. He realised that the guard was yelling rather angrily at him. But, because of the severe beating his hearing had temporally impaired, all he could hear was a very distanced and muffled sound like a tape running on near flat batteries. Then he felt Zhang’s hands on his chest, and a strong grip on the collar of his blue prison uniform and a lift into the air before he was violently shaken for few times like he was a rag doll.
“You crazy parasite”
Zhang Han barked at his victim. A strong stench of tobacco entered his helpless victim’s nostrils.
“Why are you screaming in the middle of night? Where is the earthquake, you fool? You must be hallucinating again. Barbarian”.
With that Zhang released his grip, and the battered human carcass dropped on the bed like a chunk of dead animal. From the corner of his eyes he saw his tormentor departing, his hunched shoulder silhouetted briefly before disappearing and the iron door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang.
The confinement was quiet once again apart from the distanced faint scream of other inmates who were suffering the same fate as him. From the iron door his gaze followed onto the concrete walls around him which were still intact and without a single crack in them. An illuminated naked bulb still dangled from the ceiling, which set him wondered what was happening to him. Was he really hallucinating? Was he going insane? With these questions playing over and over again on his mind, he rested his blooded head on the ragged pillow and drifted into a sleep.
P.S. You can also buy N. Dhargyal's poetry book by clicking on the link below
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jasmine-Revolution-other-poems-ebook/dp/B007WFHUZ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337808003&sr=8-1
Palden Gompo; a political prisoner was being held in solitary confinement in the notorious Drapchi prison and he was thrown off his rickety bed by the force of the earthquake. He landed on the floor between his bed and the wall of his tiny cell. He lifted his skeletal head slowly still heavy with sleep, to see his small world moving around him and his skinny body being tossed about like a ship caught in a storm. Pieces of concrete came loose from the ceiling, fell on his bed along with clouds of dust and grit. He pulled himself onto his feet when a moment of calm came, and rushed to the metal door of his cell while knocking off the mug that was lying by his bed with his feet and renascent of yellowish liquid spilt out from it onto the floor. His head was spinning; he felt as if he couldn’t’t breath the heavy dust filled air. He started banging fiercely.
“Help!”
Palden called out as loud as his throat would allow.
“Earthquake!”
But there wasn’t any immediate response. A few precious minutes passed in eerie stillness. Both his hands were raised against the solid door when another violent tremor hit. It shook the building so hard that he was thrown back onto the rubble and debris on the bed. The bare light bulb that dangled from the ceiling swung round and round before it went out and the room became completely dark.
A silence followed, all he could hear was his heart pounding and the sand pouring from the cracks in the damaged walls. Then, in the darkness, Palden heard a haunting, indistinguishable crackling noise. He couldn’t see anything in the pitch black. But, the noise was getting louder and louder. After a few moments he saw a speck of white light shooting through a tiny spot in the iron door. Somehow it became bigger and brighter, moment by moment. The spot became a crack in the door which appeared to be widening as if a wielder was cutting through the solid metal from the other side. Palden was struck with horror, yet his gaze was fixed in the direction of this ever expanding extraordinary white light. In an attempt to escape he moved his body backward until his back was firmly pressed against the wall. He was trapped within his confinement he thought. His twig-like hands were locked around the edges of his bed. There wasn’t any escape route; all he could do was wait to be consumed. He took in lungs full of dusted air and coughed.
Panicked and horrified yet his curiosity still managed to take the better of him and made him wonder “What is this amazing light?” After a while the light became overwhelming, he had to raise his thin arms over his face to shield his eyes. In this dazzling light Palden’s skeletal torso showed its true frailty; he was covered in dust from head to toe. Once he was a handsome man but his muscular body had now reduced to a skeleton. Peeping through between his fingers what Palden was to see next took his breath away and momentarily he lost sense of his whole body, as though he was suffering a stroke. His heart beats fluctuated; a strange nauseous feeling engulfed him. Drops of sweat surfaced on his dusty forehead before trickling down the sides of his face, leaving zigzag trails on his skin.
Out of the dazzling light appeared a giant silhouetted figure, gradually moving forward towards Palden. He could distinguish the outline of two horns on the giant head, and it appeared to be holding a spike studded club in its right hand as the shadow it cast lingered on the horror struck face of its potential victim. Then adding to Palden’s misery, for some moment it stood over him, staring straight into his eyes like a blood thirsty Dracula inspecting its victim. He tried to scream out of fear, his mouth opened wide but no sound came out, as if there were something knotted around his throat. His chest expanded and contracted in quick successions as he breathed in distress. Then without a warning the giant raised the club wielding hand into the air, and a shadow lingered briefly on the wall behind them. Palden raised his hands to protect himself, and tried to wriggle free before it came crashing down with lightening speed and landed on the side of his head with a force. He felt an excruciating pain shoot through his frail body; his vision blurred from the effect, and he buried his head in his hands. Soon he felt blood pouring out of the gash on his head; a warm mixture of blood, dust and sweat trickled down his hands and face, it started to drip in quick successions from the tip of his nose and chin. A moment later he felt another blow, this time on his arm; he screamed in agony and felt as if his arm had snapped into two. The giant grunted for the third time; and then his club landed on the victim’s knee with such a force that it tore Palden’s trousers and left the knee cap exposed with hanging tissues. All of sudden, beating stopped as abruptly as it started. The giant proudly began to assess the damaged.
But despite the inflicted pain, Palden was overcome with a sudden sense of déjà vu like he knew this pain so well and there was something familiar about his tormentor he thought to himself. After pondering for a while he realised that he had been attacked with an electric prod; since different weapons were often been used to torture him, either to extract confession or just for the sake of entertainment for the guards. So, he had learned to differentiate the pains from the difference weapons and tools.
When he slowly raised his bloodied face using the little strength left in him to have a closer look at the sadist silhouetted figure, like a view through an auto focus camera lens a feature gradually came alive out of the dark figure. It is a human after all he thought when he spotted the slit eyes with a flat nose bridge and a moving mouth with glimpse of rotten teeth. He recognised the face, his eyes blinked a couple of times and he slowly wiped the thick blood from his face with back of his blood red hand.
“Zhang Han”
He thought to himself, the ruthless Han prison guard. Palden let out an audible laugh of relief. He realised that the guard was yelling rather angrily at him. But, because of the severe beating his hearing had temporally impaired, all he could hear was a very distanced and muffled sound like a tape running on near flat batteries. Then he felt Zhang’s hands on his chest, and a strong grip on the collar of his blue prison uniform and a lift into the air before he was violently shaken for few times like he was a rag doll.
“You crazy parasite”
Zhang Han barked at his victim. A strong stench of tobacco entered his helpless victim’s nostrils.
“Why are you screaming in the middle of night? Where is the earthquake, you fool? You must be hallucinating again. Barbarian”.
With that Zhang released his grip, and the battered human carcass dropped on the bed like a chunk of dead animal. From the corner of his eyes he saw his tormentor departing, his hunched shoulder silhouetted briefly before disappearing and the iron door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang.
The confinement was quiet once again apart from the distanced faint scream of other inmates who were suffering the same fate as him. From the iron door his gaze followed onto the concrete walls around him which were still intact and without a single crack in them. An illuminated naked bulb still dangled from the ceiling, which set him wondered what was happening to him. Was he really hallucinating? Was he going insane? With these questions playing over and over again on his mind, he rested his blooded head on the ragged pillow and drifted into a sleep.
P.S. You can also buy N. Dhargyal's poetry book by clicking on the link below
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jasmine-Revolution-other-poems-ebook/dp/B007WFHUZ4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337808003&sr=8-1
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