Gulag

Gulag

Teeth gnash down. Flesh tears. Bones snap. He devours it like his life depends on it and swallows hard.

It’s a rat.

Gagging, I jerk away.

He’s willing to eat a rat to survive in the frozen hell that is a Russian labor camp. If I had to make that choice, I would do the same thing.

Savagely beaten, starved to the brink of death, and freezing in the arctic cold, he endures it all just to survive.

I am stunned by his reversal of fortune and glued to the TV.

In the 1930s, he had been a world-famous boxer from the US. But as he grows disillusioned with the exploitation of the masses by the barons of industry, he defects to Russia to join the revolution.

For a time, he’s a celebrated propaganda puppet. When he’s no longer of use, they ship him off to toil in oblivion. After years of failed attempts, he finally escapes by hiding beneath a supply truck. Once away, he ditches the truck and trudges through a wasteland of bitter cold, ice, and snow.

Wrapped in little more than a ragged coat and holey boots, he stumbles on. First with blue then blackened fingers, he pulls the coat to his face. The wind whips him red and bleeding, but he plunges forward. Mile after endless mile driven by his will to survive. We have the same will.

Exhausted and delirious, he collapses—face-first into the snow, certain to die.
How many times I thought I couldn’t go on... I’d rather not remember.

The tires screech to a halt just before running over him. The driver leaps out of the vegetable truck and finds him barely breathing. He bundles him into the cab and speeds into town, racing against death.

He drags the unconscious body into his neighbor’s warm, welcoming home and the boxer falls to the floor. Taking pity on what’s left of him, she slowly, tenderly nurtures him back to life.

A broad smile spreads across his face as he sits in the bathtub. Steam rises from the water. She gently ladles it over his head and shoulder. He melts down into the bath and into bliss. I feel it as though I were in that bath instead of him.

Standing he towels him off, dresses, and she leads him to the bathroom. She lathers his face and carefully shaves him with a straight edge.

Once clean and shaved, she seats him at the kitchen table and sets the plate before him.

It's been seventeen years, and it’s more than he can take. He weeps and she softly wipes his tears away.

I have shed those tears; felt that hunger that comes from 10 years in sleep. I am ready to know what it is to know.