My solace was accompanied by a single light bulb that hung on a rope attached to the ceiling. My companion never provided enough light for me to see where I was. On occasion, it would flicker with a burst of electricity. Startling my eyes, spiking my adrenaline, setting my body ablaze with hope. When they first brought me here, I would crane my neck upwards and wait for those flashes. What details could I find? How long was the rope? How far from the ceiling did it look? If I couldn’t see, what could I hear? Taste? Smell?

My senses craved input. I longed to reach up to touch the lightbulb, to twist it until it provided me more than a flash of light. My spirit yearned for anything that could help me mount an escape. In those days, my arms were bound to the chair I sat on. My forearms constantly dug into un-sanded wooden pegs. My delicate skin more frayed than the thick ropes that snaked around my arms. They pulled my shoulders down at an awkward angle. No matter how much I pulled or bled, I would never reach that lightbulb.

I gained another companion eventually. A human one. I found this far superior to my friend the lightbulb, who refused to perform its most basic function. The back of another chair was forced up against mine one day. A head rocked against me, and foreign vital signs filled the ever-silent room. 

The panicked panting slowed enough to ask me, “What are you in for?” 

“I don’t even remember” I had said. My voice ached from disuse. I probably sounded more like a dying animal, something guttural and strange, than I did like a human.

His bound hands had scraped against mine. Fingers frantically making contact where he could as he desperately searched for sensation.

“No ropes?”, He asked, “Why don’t you just leave? Fight them?”

“I do not have the strength to reach up for that lightbulb, let alone fight my captors. Ropes don’t matter anymore. Why waste the time to tie and untie me in between my interrogations?” I had answered bitterly.

He did not understand this until he became weak enough to lose the bindings around his arms. Along with a newfound understanding for my lack of hope, it afforded us one cherished freedom. We realized our heads could lean on one another's shoulders instead of the backs of splintering wooden chairs. I am not sure why our captors allowed this; they say human touch speeds up the healing process. It was a comfort certainly, but I think our bodies had lost the ability to heal a long, long time ago. It was the only effort we bothered with, shifting slightly to maintain some form of body contact. I am convinced it kept us sane as it forced us to remember we were human. I never asked my companion for his name, nor did he ask for mine. In hindsight, this probably accelerated our dehumanization process. A vital evil it was though, we both knew that knowledge was dangerous for people in a situation like ours. Why make our predicament harder than it needed to be?

I was ashamed of how much joy I felt the day they brought him; selfishly grateful that someone else was there with me. I had felt equally guilty at the thought of subjecting someone else to the torment. I do not know how long it has been since that day. Time is impossible to trace here. Our only discernible pattern is allowing our heads to fall against one another’s every time we are lugged into this room and heaved back into our chairs. We do not waste energy speaking to one another anymore. Words seem to grate our decaying vocal cords. Unspoken, we decided to spare one body part from being in constant agony or fruitless recovery.  This has been our pattern. This was our pattern.  Until now.

My dull senses register stimuli in the void. The lightbulb crackles to its brief life above us, my closed eyelids registering the few seconds of input. Ears roaring with effort, the static of my brain also informs me that my companion is speaking.  

“Do you remember what it looks like outside?” He says this several times, warming up his obsolete voice.

“It is hard to think of a time we were not in here.” I answer. 

“I have lost so much of myself. Of who I am, I am worried if I forget what the outside is like…” He stops himself, voice thick with bubbling emotions. 

I force my neck to turn, so my forehead presses against his cheek. I feel a tear run from his skin onto mine.

“Rain.” I croak, “I remember how it feels to have the droplets dance on your skin.”

“Warmth.” He whispers back to me. “How it feels to nap in the sun, when your skin is aglow, and you don’t need a blanket.”

“The tapestry of fall.”

“The lights in the snow.”

“The loftiness of life.” 

 We toss images back and forth for a time before he pauses. Almost to himself he says, “I wonder if we will ever see it again.”

“We could try.” I answer finally. I throw my arm backwards, awkwardly smacking into his side. He tangles his arm into mine and we push against one another. Slowly, using our diminishing body weights as leverage, our arms rise. Reaching up fighting fatigue and disuse, our hands land on smooth glass. With tremors, tears, and dewy hope, we turn the bulb slightly. Our prison is bathed in light.