Magnus Stanke - Time Lies

But then he makes a new discovery, this one at least as exciting and disturbing as the first. There is a metal alarm clock on the fresh pile of clothes and towels, right in the centre of the table. The flannel swallows the ticking. That’s why he hadn’t heard the intrusive noise in the familiar silence before.

It doesn’t matter if the time on the round display is accurate. What matters is that from now on, as long as he keeps the clock wound up, he can measure absolute time, at least relatively speaking. Starting right now. If this is Hour Zero, from now on he will know how much more time passes, minute by minute.

He is back in time.

He picks up the alarm clock, feels its coolness in his hands, cradles it like a precious stone. According to the clock it’s seven-thirty, half-past seven. In thirty minutes’ time he can open the second envelope. Another half an hour after the timeless eternity he has spent locked up in here. It’s not asking too much, surely. Surely waiting for another thirty clicks of the minute hand whilst doing nothing but listening to the sounds of his growing beard and fingernails is as easy as a junkie prostitute at Bahnhof Zoo. Surely. Except that —

Without thinking another thought Karl tears open the small envelope. If this is really his birthday, he must be within his rights.

In the envelope there is a small piece of cardboard, like a page from a public library’s filing system. On the card there is another typed message.

‘Look under your pillow. Place the chair facing away from the door and apply the found items in a logical way to facilitate your birthday treat.’

Karl turns the card over in his hands after reading it several times. There are no other messages so he proceeds to his bed and lifts up the pillow.

It’s there, all right. The drugs were too strong, the anaesthetic too effective for him to have noticed that a sack the size of a paperback novel was indeed concealed under his resting head. The material is black, shiny satin, and the words ‘Happy Birthday, Friend,’ are embroidered across the sack in golden letters.

When he picks it up Karl is surprised by the weight. He turns the sack over, dumps the contents on the bed. There are only two items inside – a pair of handcuffs and a different piece of black satin cloth. The cuffs are open and there is no key. Under closer examination Karl finds the cloth to be a hood. He tries it on for size and is not disappointed – it fits his head like a glove. There are breathing holes but no slits for his eyes.

So, the man wants him to cuff his arms into the chair facing away from the door, and the hood means Karl won’t be able to see what’s coming. Or who.

More importantly, somebody will be coming in. Another human being.

He glances at the clock – it claims to be seven-thirty four, a.m. or p.m. he doesn’t know and it probably doesn’t matter. Whoever the surprise visitor may be, Karl won’t be able to see, attack or run. The way he is feeling now he probably couldn’t have done either if he tried.

His mood is improved. Curiosity is getting the better of him, a curiosity that he hasn’t experienced for a long time, at least since he started this imprisonment.

He knows that a part of his life is now irrefutably over.

He winds the clock again and sets the alarm to go off at eight o’clock. Then he positions the chair as instructed and puts his left wrist into the cuffs. He wraps the short chain around the back of the chair, thus inhibiting his mobility. He briefly considers the possibility of trying to cheat in this game. Maybe he could close the cuffs behind him but without actually enmeshing his arms into the chair, without actually chaining himself to it.

But what would be the point? He has no intention of attacking the wigged man.

No, let’s do this right, show him I can be trusted.

He threads his left arm into the opening in the back of the chair and places his right wrist inside the other cuff. Once he clicks it shut he will be tied, his arms utterly useless behind his back.

He almost forgets to place the hood over his face.

There, done.

He can’t see behind his back anyway so he relies on his sense of touch to fulfil the remainder of the instructions. The metallic click of the closing cuff has a final ring to it. Unless somebody comes in with a key he will starve to death on this chair.

Trust is what he needs, trust in the man with the wig.

Karl can hear the sound of the ticking clock and nothing else. Gone are the subtle variances he has become so familiar with: his breathing, his heartbeat, his follicle growth. Now the only audible sound is time passing. How much longer will he have to wait until eight o’clock? If he’d adhered to the instructions and hadn’t opened the envelope early, he would still be free to move and look around. Knowing how much time is passing is already making his life harder, not easier.

He tries counting off seconds and minutes, but he loses count all too soon, can’t concentrate on the banal task of counting to sixty and starting again, so he just stops and waits.

It’s agony.

*

After what feels like a long, long while the alarm clock rings. It’s a loud, hollow sound and it reminds Karl of how, as a kid, he used to run along a metal fence with a stick that he pressed against the bars, rattling them like a warder in a prison movie, but faster.

When at last the ringing stops, the silence in the room is not the same, lonely silence that reigned before. Although he can’t hear anything, Karl knows he is not alone now. Somebody has come in.

His neck hair tries to stand up, but is hindered by the smooth material of the hood.

He strains to listen. Isn’t that somebody’s breathing, somebody who isn’t him? Should he call out, try and make conversation? He tries to say ‘hello’ but realises no sound is escaping his parted lips.

Then he feels warm skin touch his hand. It’s not an unpleasant sensation. Quite the contrary, in fact. By touch he recognises an unmistakably round part of the female anatomy. The person in the room is cupping her breast into Karl’s cuffed hand.

Then the pleasurable pressure disappears. He hears her stepping around his chair and feels her hands on his crotch. When she pulls his jogging bottoms over his knees he is tingling with anticipation and does all he can to facilitate the task.

Her hands disappear and Karl feels let down. Did she really stop so soon?

He can’t make out the new few sounds, can’t see how the woman rips off a tiny bit of condom wrapper with her teeth and spits it out.

When she unrolls the latex over his erect member he relaxes and expects that he is in for more than tease.

‘Happy birthday, friend,’ she says.

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