The Defense

"Bond of Agony" image by Luca Zontini here on Blogspot!

© Wizards of the Coast 2006

"Honey?" The man called. "Honey will you rub my shoulders? I've had the most terrible week at work. One of my clients just won't let up. Their representatives insist on being belligerent and you know I can't work like that." She came in and rubbed his back and listened to him talk about the slow process of representing criminals, and when he was less stressed, they went to bed, and in the morning, he woke up and returned to work. 

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"Well they don't look like brothers." The lead torturer looked confused. Perhaps his assistants had tied up the wrong men. He was an evil man, no doubting that. When he uncovered the information too quickly, he found himself distinctly disappointed. He knew and accepted his own damnation. Some men were meant to do bad things. It wasn't for a good reason. He worked for the wrong side, and he did not repent. Most of his assistants were much the same. He didn't buy anything the Charismatic said. The nation was pretty straightforward anyway, called the head politician the Charismatic, named them "rules" rather than laws. All the same, voting was important and promises to the voters, euphemisms for evil action, and justification for things the government couldn't hide reigned, and regardless of the force they were delivered with, he didn't believe their side had the right. It wasn't that he didn't want them to win, or didn't think the nation should be acting as it was, it was more that he didn't think they should be feigning righteousness. It seemed a coward's move. A tyrant should rule, not hide behind a curtain. He stepped into the light. Dramatic? Yes. A bit silly? Yes. Occasionally people laughed, but taking yourself seriously and holding the keys to their freedom and their excruciating torment quelled the laughter quite quickly. The brothers had not noticed him, and were arguing amongst themselves.

"I didn't leave behind a glove, you left behind a boot! You must have stepped in that goddamn mud when we were running from the hounds!" 

"It wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't blabbed!", the tall brother yelled, pointing at the smallest one.

"Well you both ratted on me first! Told them about my wife's ring and about my son's business."

"Hello boys. I'm told you're brothers." The head torturer spoke out in a cool, calm voice, and for half a moment everything was calm, and a strange look came over the faces of the older two brothers. 

"Oh, business? As if you could call it that. That's not worth ratting about, if I wanted to rat on you, I'd tell them about that time with Schmitt. That'd put you away good." The tall brother retorted after the quick pause had passed. 

"I guess it would. So why'd you tell them about my wife and son?" 

"Six ratchets!" The torturer screamed, and men pulled the machine to life, stretching the brothers' bodies with ropes.

"Well I didn't tell them about your wife nor your son," the middle-sized man said coolly. "Seems Kelly here must have told them."

"Weren't me," Kelly said. "Seems Sheamus is lyin'. Or what just a minute, suppose neither of us told and they found out by themselves? They'd be--"

"Six more!" The torturer did not like being ignored.

Kelly went on as if the pause had been natural thinking, wild eyes the only indication he could feel the stretch. "They'd be trying to turn us against each other. This one's smarter than the ones in the past. You remember--"

"Three more." He wanted to take it slow.

Kelly never stopped talking this time. "the one who'd try to play off our fraternity? Took Sheamus' finger two knuckles down, I couldn't stop laughing that I was the only one knew the information, they knew that, and yet they tortured him. Just a funny world."

"Damn fool. Should have told them. The location of a lousy silver vase is nothing against the location of two finger joints on the second finger." Shaemus clenched his fist, and for a moment the jailer thought it a moment of weakness, until he saw Sheamus fingering his nub. 

"You've got to have some pride man, it's just a couple of fucking joints. I know a fella, he gave up all the fingers on his left hand just to save the money so his bride and him could get matching rings."

"Two more." Any moment now they would break. All he needed was a grimace, a grunt from one of them.

"But they took it off the wrong hand Kelly," the youngest brother pointed out. "What use was the wedding ring if he'd gotten rid of his wedding ring finger?"

"Bring me a hot iron and the ball peen hammer." Some just didn't feel the pain of stretching. Crazies or some such. He walked forward and hit the youngest brother in the face with his own ring hand.

Sheamus continued on. "Well it warn't any use at all! They had to get an annulment! No ring and all!" All three of the brothers broke out in hysteric laughing, the youngest one sending two teeth and several splatters of blood flying into his tormentor's face and grinning widely. It continued like that for hours til the torturer went home. The next day, it was much the same, and the next, and the next. The best torturers could not keep a man useful, awake, scared, and alive for six days, and they were coming right up on it. The sixth day came and all three men had died of various problems. The youngest went first, after having much trouble drinking sustenance through a twice fractured jaw, though he kept trying to speak with it. Maybe he swallowed too much blood, it was unclear. The other two brothers addressed him as if he were present. When the largest brother fell to the floor burned too brutally by a poker, and died, the middle brother continued to talk to both of them, and, when they had all fallen just at the dawn of the sixth day, the torturer went home.

"The Defense" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V

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