Someone I know from Jupiter called today.

Someone I know from Jupiter called today. He said he'd been having a hard time with recent events. I'll stick to his immediate plight while leaving the peripherals still scattered, for his safety.

He said the first thing he could…” remember was the blinding red color that the insides of our eyelids can become when they’re splattered with blood and a spotlight or some damned other bright hot thing is just inches from the face. I tried scooting from the light. I felt very weak, tired, and battered. Was I drugged too or just beat up? I was on the floor, assuming then that gravity was normal, I could slide no more than a foot or so when my back hit something. It was the wall. A small blunt point of something pressed into my cheek, followed by a twist and dig. It didn’t break the skin, just burned like all hell when it was turned. Then the same kind of thing hit into my side, another into my shoulder, my side again. I heard a small grunt as the thing landed the last blow on me as though the force was really put into this last one. A shuffle of standing, then footsteps, their sound moving away from me. 6 or 7 steps maybe, slowly. It sounded like just one person. Someone clears their throat, a man, further yet beyond the footsteps. The footsteps stop, I am trying to open my eyes a little but it feels like one is wholly swelled shut or stuck shut by what might be my own dried blood. How long had I been out? The sound of a metal chair on porceline tiles as someone sat on it. The next throat to clear was a woman’s, in the same probable proximity of the chair. My right eye was history; I must have peeled 20 eyelashes out to get my left one open enough to see anything. Through the fuzzy darkness of my strained vision I saw a silhouette of a woman, seated, returning heeled shoes to her feet.

“I thought I was going to have to kill you just to wake you up.” Low, smooth, and damaged, was her voice. “Clean his eyes off” She said then to someone.

I heard the sounds of two sets of feet walking toward me. All I could see were the hands grabbing for my shoulders. Another set grabbed my legs. They pounded my head under water in some large bucket, pulling and pushing me back under 3 or 4 times, they held me under, up, then under quickly. This last time they shook me around with whatever bucket they were using and threw me against the wall. The sound of metal screamed into my ears as it hit. The bucket fell off and crashed to the floor echoing into a very large, empty room. I slid to my seat on the floor. The water mixed with the wet blood, breaking up some of the dried stuff as it burned a path for my eyes to focus. A towel of sorts fell on my shoulder. One of the two who had just “washed my eyes” threw it.

The woman spoke again,” Look at me, (a cough), look at me”

This was a bad day, I didn’t need to see who it was now; I knew.

“I thought you were dead” said I.

She replied, “I was”.”

After that he went on to explain that he was either knocked out or he passed out. He wasn’t sure which but that he was still keeping hold of the situation but could talk no more. He couldn't at that time talk of his means of communication .I suspect he’ll call again when opportunity presents itself.

Tormen Tagain