Trap and Release

It was never enough. Even when he pulled out all the stops. Even when he strained his mind to breaking point. It was never enough. The beatings were not so bad as the glares; and theangry staresnot a patch on his private tears. His inner fears.

In his room, where he escaped from darkness into night, he brooded through dreams of silence that sat upon his naked brow as a vulture sits, poised, waiting for movement tocease. And always that smell of burning. He woke to find the ceiling had crept...