It is dark in the room. You think that it might be light outside though because at the very top of one black wall there is a slither of light, as if it’s emerging from where a pair of curtains don’t quite meet. 

The beam of light creeping into the room illuminates one thing, a picture on the wall of Jesus suffering on the cross. The thorns cut deep into his brow and the pain on his face is evident for all to see.

You reach behind your back again trying to free the muscles in your shoulders which seem to have gone into spasm again. The spasms run like hot itching across your neck and winds down to the top of each arm. The feeling lower in your arms disappeared a long time ago.

Something like frustration wells in your stomach. Bubbles rising to the surface, freed from the restraint and unleashed into the air, but you cannot shout any more. You cannot give vent to this rage that you feel inside your mind. You allow the rage to dissipate into tension and further harden your body.

You look again at the face of Jesus. You envy him. From the stories you remember that he had release soon after that point. Of course there was the ignominy, the sadness and the pain – the real fucking pain of scratches and cuts, of kicks and knives, but soon after there was the release of death.

You figure that you would opt not to be reborn if you were in his sandals. Opt for the release of nothingness. Of course, Jesus didn’t even have that option. Poor bugger, just an eternity of hanging out with his dad.

You shut your eyes out of habit to focus on the noises that have begun again. The sound of a metal bolt dropping somewhere in the darkness and, for a second, you can smell the outside. The wind. The air. A note of dry grasses and dust. It vanishes. Again the sounds. A piece of thin metal being dragged over wood? Or softer metal?

You’ve wondered for a thousand hours what this sound is and the only conclusion that you can draw is that it is some sort of marker. Every fifth scrape takes a fraction longer. Again you have to wonder. You are forced to wonder – why is someone tallying your days? The furthest step thud, the next, the next, the next, the nearest step, the bolt, again.

                                                            **************

S410 stands for Starter for 10 and it’s a daily writing meditation that I do in 10 minutes. Each piece of fiction is written live and teaches me something. Sometimes what it teaches me is that I suck. Other times it gives birth to an entire universe.

Owners of S410 pieces will have access to a range of benefits, from story airdrops and being named and used in my longer fiction works.