I try to shake my head to get rid of some of the grains, but it doesn’t work.  My eyes burn, and I can’t stop the desperate grunt that escapes my throat.

“You don’t like the sand here?” the leader asks.  “You should get used to it!”

I still can’t open my eyes enough to see, but I feel rough hands on the back of my neck, and my face is shoved into the grains of sand in front of my knees.  He twists and turns my head as I try to hold my breath.

With my hands balled into fists, I opened my eyes and looked to Mark in desperation.  I couldn’t seem to actually say anything as my lungs screamed for oxygen.  I was practically panting, but it wasn’t enough air.  All I could feel going into my chest were grains of sand.

He put his hand on my forearm, but I jumped back away.  The handcuffs bit into the skin of my wrist, and I gasped out loud.  My body tensed—frozen in one spot as additional memories flooded through my brain.

“I’m going to get those off of you,” Mark said.  “Just hang in there a little while longer, okay?”

I tried to nod but had no idea if I was successful or not.

Mark went on to argue with the unit leader about the handcuffs and to ask why I hadn’t been moved to a cell yet.  I only half paid attention to the conversation.  I certainly wanted to be out of the cuffs, but I wasn’t so sure moving from one part of the prison to another was going to make any kind of significant difference.  It wasn’t like I was going to be able to sleep any better on a different cot.

“He’s still supposed to be on suicide watch.”

“I don’t think he’s a threat to himself.”

“You didn’t think he’d blow up a park either.”

“I can’t treat him if he’s nonresponsive, and he’s going to be that way as long as you have him restrained.  Didn’t you read my notes?”

“Yeah, yeah, I saw them.  Shell-shocked.”

“A little outdated on your terminology but essentially correct.”

Sometimes all you really needed was a little happy coincidence, and right at that time, about a dozen people entered the medical center—four guards and a bunch of inmates all holding their stomachs.  It didn’t take long for the nurses to assess the situation and start moving the food-poisoned prisoners to the various cots around me.  A few minutes later, as Mark continued to argue, another batch was brought in.

“We’re going to need all the beds we can get,” the nurse told him.

He let out a long sigh, glared at Mark and then at me.

“Solitary.”

“I’ll take it.”  Mark nodded vigorously.

Hands grabbed my arms, and I was hauled out of the medical unit and into a hallway.  An elevator door opened, and my pair of escorts shoved me inside with Mark following.  When the doors opened again, we walked out into the common area of one of the cell units.

The area was carpeted and painted with warm earth tones.  Several inmates sat around small, round tables in cheap plastic chairs and played cards while a few others stood around a bumper pool table.  A couple of them looked up as I was led up a short flight of stairs and paraded along the curved railing that overlooked the recreation room.

Along the walkway were several numbered doors without windows in them.  I was brought to the last door which contained a small window at eye level and a slotted opening in the center.  The guard unlocked the door to take me inside.

The narrow cell was obviously designed for single occupancy.  I could have walked the length between the door and the tall, narrow window overlooking downtown Chicago in about four steps.  A metal-framed bed in the center took up most of the floor space.  The legs of the bed were bolted to the floor, and I could see four loops that could be used for restraining straps on the sides.  Aside from the obligatory toilet and sink, there was only a small writing desk with a single, thin drawer under the tabletop, a stool, and a locker shoved up against the foot of the bed to complete the room.

As soon as I was inside, the guard removed the cuffs, and I felt nearly dizzy with relief as the weight left me.  I squeezed my hands into fists a couple of times to restore the feeling of blood running freely through my veins and tried to take a few long breaths.

“I’d like to have my session with Mr. Arden now,” Mark said with conviction.

Another long sigh from the guard, but he didn’t protest.  He moved outside the cell, locked the door, and peered at us through the window as Mark ran his hand through his hair and watched me.

Without any other direction, I sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed my wrists.  Once I had myself convinced that the restraints were really gone, I let out a long sigh and closed my eyes.  Now I could wrap my arms around my gut and try to force myself to think of anything but sand.

Mark pulled the stool next to the bed and sat on it.

Glancing back to his face, I could see how distressed he was and felt a little bad about it.  I knew he’d tried to help on more than one occasion; it just wasn’t the kind of help I was seeking.  I needed to be able to sleep—that’s all I had wanted.  He couldn’t do that, though, because he wasn’t going to break that patient-counselor code long enough to lie down in bed with me.

Without the cuffs around my wrists, I managed to find my voice.

“Sorry to disappoint you, sir,” I said.

Another sigh.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow at him.  I didn’t believe a word of it—he was a proud guy and considered himself good at what he did.  It wasn’t his fault I wouldn’t tell him everything that was going on in my head.  It wouldn’t have helped anyway.

“I’m angrier with myself,” Mark claimed, “because I didn’t see this coming.  Not at all.  It’s rare I’m caught so off-guard.”

My chest tightened as memories flooded over my brain like an ice-cold shower.  There was a time I thought I understood people when I really didn’t—not at all.  A single conversation changed everything.

“Do you know what she said to me?” I asked Mark.

“Who?”

I turned my head toward him, but my vision was focused entirely inward.

“The wife of the journalist guy who was killed in the video.  You remember that guy?”

“Yeah, I do.  You told them to kill you instead of him.”

“Yeah, that guy.”  I nodded, remembering.  “His wife came to the hospital in Virginia, and they told me who she was before I ever talked to her.  My stomach was all tied up before she even walked into the room.  I mean, I’d watched her husband die, ya know?  I couldn’t do anything about it.  Even though I told them to kill me, it didn’t make any difference—they wouldn’t listen.  I think they wanted it to be him because he wasn’t military and because he did have a family.”

I shifted and bumped the edge of the metal bed with my shoe.  The clang from the springs reverberated and caught my attention.  I stared down at the base of the bed, saw the loops meant for restraints again, and could nearly feel the sandy walls of the hole around my shoulders.

“What did she say to you, Evan?”

I shook my head a bit to clear it.

“She came up and sat down next to me,” I said as the detail of the memory returned.  “For the longest time we just looked at each other, and eventually I couldn’t take it anymore.  I started blathering about how sorry I was and about how I tried to get them to take me instead, but they wouldn’t listen.  I probably would have dropped down to my knees and started crying, but she stopped me.”

I turned my head to Mark and looked him straight in the eye.

“That’s when she said it was all okay,” I told him.  “I figured she was going to start telling me how it wasn’t my fault and there was nothing I could do—the shrinks in the hospital in Germany had said that—but she didn’t.  She told me it was okay because she was glad.  She was glad he was gone, and now she and her girls could move on with their lives without constantly being in his shadow.  She said he was never there for them, and now that he was dead, she could use the insurance money to start up the flower shop she always wanted and he wouldn’t support.”

Mark’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

“She didn’t fucking care,” I told him.  I could feel the tension in my voice as much as I could hear it.  “She was happy he was dead.  I was willing to die for him—a guy whose name I didn’t even know—and the person who should have cared about him the most didn’t give a shit.”

My sides and stomach tightened up as I remembered the look of…of elation in her eyes as she told me about her business venture and how excited she was to be her own boss and run her own company.  I had watched her and waited for her to tell me he was smacking her around or doing things to their daughters that he shouldn’t, but she said none of that.  He just hadn’t liked the idea of her going into business on her own instead of working her steady, corporate job.

My throat seized up, and I forced myself to swallow.  It hurt, but the pain was nothing compared to what was happening in my head.  I needed to crawl back inside again.  I needed to stop thinking and stop remembering.

But I couldn’t.

“That’s when I figured it out,” I said quietly.  “People live and they die, and it doesn’t fucking matter to anyone around them.  Whatever happens, happens.  People move on, and they’re probably better off because of it.”

“That’s what changed you,” he whispered.  “I knew there was something that made you different from how all the reports from your rescue described you.  I should have pressed you before when I first thought there was something about that video you weren’t telling me.  I assumed it was something they did off camera—something classified.”