Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 46

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

An eternity of darkness. In here. This space. This world of his measured in mere feet. If he flexed his legs, his toes, his arms, his hands, he could brush the edge of his minute universe. He could feel the surface of it, worn smooth now, having been touched so many times.

But he didn’t touch the edges of his universe any more. Not intentionally. He preferred to imagine the walls weren’t there. He preferred to live within the endless corridors of his mind now. Dwelling on memories that were beginning to fade like old photographs pulled out into the daylight too often. He could wander through a few special childhood memories, could almost be there. Feel the sand beneath his bare feet, the warmth of the sun on his face. Smell his mother, hear his father and brother.

Only when he heard the doors creak open, and the ghosts of real daylight stole through the slits between the oak planks of his universe, was he pulled away from his memory-world. Once every day — the grim return to reality as someone, presumably one of the slaves, brought a bowl of water and that bitter-tasting barley gruel. Pulled open the feeding slot to his small cubed universe and pushed it through for him.

As the slot closed, the heavy doors outside creaked shut and his universe became a uniform, blank darkness once again; he would feel with his hands for his bowl of water and his bowl of gruel. If he could have talked… that once daily ritual might be his chance to communicate with someone, even if it was just to say a thank-you.

But he couldn’t talk. He could grunt. He could whimper. He could howl. Oh yes… he could slobber and whine. But he couldn’t talk.

He called the mask Mr Muzzy.

His muzzle. The only other permanent occupant inside this wooden box.

Me and Mr Muzzy.

The iron brace around his jaw with a protuberance, a tube of iron, that kept his teeth prised apart, mouth open, and pressed his tongue back preventing him from forming anything that sounded remotely like words; that was Mr Muzzy.

The gruel could be spooned down into Mr Muzzy’s hollow tube; it slid down inside it and into his mouth where often he gagged on it several times before being able to swallow it. It took a long time to spoon his daily gruel into that. He imagined it probably took hours, but then in complete darkness, in almost complete sensory isolation… how does one measure time?

Mr Muzzy was his tormentor. The always-there taste of iron in his mouth. The sores where the brace rubbed his skin raw. Sores that constantly wept and crusted up, wept and crusted up.

Once — a million years ago, it seemed — Mr Muzzy broke. The brace had weakened: his constantly weeping pus had corroded the thin band of iron around his head enough that waggling it to and fro it had finally buckled and fallen away from his face. And then… oh God then. He’d screamed, hadn’t he? His ragged voice had startled him. Terrified him. The sound of words instead of gurgling sounded alien, strange.

He’d screamed for hours, terrified by the babble of insanity that was coming out of him. Then the creak of the doors. The faint hairlines of light entering his box. And the feeding slot opening.

Later the same day there was a brand-new Mr Muzzy. A much thicker, stronger iron band cinched tight round his head. And back in complete darkness once again he’d wept and wept and wept.

Ever since that time — however long ago it was — he’d learned that the best thing he could do was to try and live as far away as possible from this place. Wander the corridors of his mind and open doors into rooms full of gradually fading memories… and frolic and play in the twilight sunshine that existed in there.

One day those memories would fade completely… every room of his mind would be as empty and featureless and as dark as this place. And when that finally happened, he guessed he was truly going to be insane.