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I’ve been having a recurring nightmare where I am in reading an ancient religious text that describes hell as being a place where you witness the world go on without you and the only time you hear people talk about you is when they are discussing you what were the secrets you had taken to your grave. The text goes on to describe you how you watch your friends laugh at your most embarrassing perversions.
In the nightmare, I am thinking that that would be the worst thing I could possibly imagine. Within the nightmare, I have a nightmare where I imagine people knowing the depths of how much of an asshole I have behaved within my lifetime not to mention the other secrets I thought were going with me to the grave
You think weird things when you are in military prison.
As punishment for something I’d rather not talk about, I am in the solitary confinement pt wing of military prison.
You know me - I can’t keep my mouth shut during the wrong moments and I’m apt making the wrong people dislike me and now I am in the solitary confinement pt wing. It is a punishment within a punishment. You have to have fucked up exceptionally in order to ever find yourself in this position.
Solitary punishment pt is worse than than any hell pt you have ever imagined. You are cleaning a punishment cell using pt drill movements at the pace instructed to you by pt staff. Failure to keep up with the issued pace my be punishable by time added to your stay in solitary confinement. In solitary confinement, I think the staff misinterpret “pt” as standing for “perpetual torture”.
“Let’s see if you’ve got good abs,” to me says a pt staff.
A punch to the stomach.
I have one positive thing to say about military prison - I am in the best shape of my life for having experienced it. I thought I was in pretty good shape before military prison but that was nothing compared to where I’m at now. The punch is harsh and unforgiving. Had I been the sack of you-know-what that I was before my military incarceration, a punch like that would have brought me to my knees. Today though, the punch does not bring me down.
“My turn,” says a second staff.
There are FIVE of them. I am in for the roughing up of a lifetime. I don’t think they recognize me but I definitely recognize two of them from this tasking I did a while back. I remember they were part of the boxing club and that they won awards at a speed punching contest. Lucky for me, I cannot feel pain.
You (you should know who you are by now - I left enough hints lol)
You surely remember all that stuff I told you earlier about how I was buried alive for science and how I came back sort of better sort of worse.
I live when others would die and I feel no pain but the overall experience has so far sucked. It has really sucked. I had to undergo an immense amount of plastic surgery to repair the major damages incurred. For a while, I was an unrecognizable monster. Therapy has been off the table but if anybody needs therapy, I think it is me. My view of the world is fractured and ill. I do not require breathing, drinking, eating or the release of organic waste and I am rotting away in the military prison solitary confinement pt wing.
Anyway - I am punched again in the stomach. Damn, I’m not the tough guy I think I am and I double over like a damned fool. I thought I could feel no pain but my threshold has finally maxed out. My stomach feels like it’s imploding as it is bludgeoned into my lungs and I try hopeless to gasp for air even though I don’t actually need to breathe.
“Now it’s my turn,” says a third staff.
Three. Ooof. Four. Ow. Five. Argh.
“You need to work on those abs, prisoner,” says a pt staff. Pt staff continues, “five measly little punches to the stomach that weren’t even hard enough to damage your organs, and you’re writhing in agony. You call yourself a man? You aren’t even a boy, now get in the sit up position and pump out a thousand sit ups. NOW!”
I might be in shape but a thousand sit ups after five punches to the stomach will take some time. Reveille was five minutes ago. Breakfast is in two hours. The rest of my day will more or less be like this. Yesterday, I polished the walls, keeping my arms in the up position and doing squats to make the necessary up-down movements involved in polishing the wall. I did that for an hour and then it was burpee floor waxing.
*** 1000 sit ups later - not including the ones that didn’t count ****
“ATTENTION!” somebody yells.
Pt staff come come the position of attention as I scramble to my feet to also come to the position of attention.
What a lucky break. Or maybe not a lucky break.
In walks a staff whose rank I can not identify because they are in pt gear but they are apparently the real deal. All staff are unwaveringly at attention.
“Staff, when I dismiss you, you will leave me to speak alone with the prisoner,” says this mysteriously ranked staff.
Wait, I know this person. They are the highest ranked military person I have ever encountered during my entire military career. It was this person who talked with me regarding taking part in that necromantic science experiment. I had said “no” but they ignored my answer and they forged my signature on a bunch of legal documents before burying me alive in a small coffin filled with bugs.
My bug nightmares are second-worst. After a bug nightmare, I always wake up thinking “lucky for me I am military prison and not in a coffin buried alive with bugs,” a sentence I had never before imagined ever conjuring. My spider nightmares are worst. Waking from a spider nightmare is like having a lease on life. Every moment not spent near a double spider is a blessing.
Staff are dismissed and I remain.
“You can relax,” says high ranking staff. “I had no idea you were still alive. If I had known, you would never have been back in military prison because that was part of our deal - that you would never ever return to military prison in exchange for your contribution to necromantic science. It is shame that all the scientists died but you did a fine job. I’d like to make it up to you by medically releasing you and by giving you a very impressive sum of cash to make up your time unnecessarily spent in military prison and as a bribe for not making a big deal about your human rights violations.”
I am speechless. I am surely dreaming.
“You can say ‘yes’ when you are ready, prisoner,” to me says high ranking staff.
I did not have a religious upbringing and I do not believe in a deity but now I am praying to whomever that I am not dreaming.
The paperwork is already complete, my signature forged in advance - an inside joke between me and high ranking staff. It is the first time I have laughed in years. The amount of cash is staggering - it’s shame they released me at the casino but that’s a story for later
Holy fuck, I just learned that you are dead.
*************
I can’t believe you are dead. I was looking forward to showing up unannounced at your door and ready to get drunk with you while we shot the shit but that is no longer an option because you are dead. I was looking forward to playing video games with you and listening to our favourite albums just like during the good old days but that is no longer an option because you are dead.
In the past, I did not believe in the afterlife but now I want it to be real because I know you would be reading r/nosleep in some ectoplasmic bar, sitting in a cloud for a chair and drinking as much as you want because it’s the fucking afterlife.
In the past, I did not believe in the afterlife but now I want it to be real so that I might get one last chance to talk to you. In the past, I worshipped no deity but now I want one to be real so that it might hear my prayer and bring you peace if you are able to feel it.
I didn’t know you had died because I was in military prison and that’s where I was during your funeral. Nobody had mentioned you in their correspondence so it never occurred to me that you might have been unwell. I hope you are at peace. I will think of you every day. You were my best friend.
I love you.