Chained Down

 

The young man awoke with a start. His eyelids opened as he lay flat on his back. He squinted at the sun hanging high overhead but was wondering why it didn’t feel as warm as it should have. The ground was flat and hard, covered with dust almost like he was inexplicably at the bottom of a lake that had dried up years ago. It took more energy to get up than he had anticipated. There was a chain wrapped around his waist. It didn’t restrict his movement at all. He barely noticed it was even there until he got to his feet and felt the weight of the links of steel clinging to his waist. Try as hard as he might, the chains refused to move. It was as if they were some living entity, a steel anaconda refusing to let go of its prey.

“They ain’t budging,” a voice said from behind. “Believe me. I’ve tried.”

“Who are you?” the young man asked.

“Now, that’s a real good question. But ain’t that the darndest thing? You see, I can’t remember for the life of me.”

“Are you a cowboy or something?”

“I reckon. What about you? Do you remember who you are?”

“Well that’s a stupid question! Of course, I--” the young man paused, “actually now that you mention it I really don’t. That’s just crazy.”

“Isn’t it though?”

“So where are we?”

“At first I thought we were in Hell. There’s no denying this isn’t the world of the living. It’s a desert with no warmth, no life. I figured I was paying for some sin I had committed when I was alive. And son, I have my fair share of sins to pay for. I might not remember my name but this place doesn’t let me forget that I’m a murderer.”

“Are you serious? You’ve killed a guy?”

“I’ve killed plenty of people. I fought alongside Stonewall Jackson hisself. But that’s not the death I’m paying for, son.”

“Did you kill a guy for cheating at cards?”

“What kind of crazy person does that?! No, I killed the man who stole my family’s land. I regret it, I do. But I was a young man who let his head get hot before his heart got warm. That’s no excuse though. I made a mistake and I’m here paying for it. What about you, son? If I’m right, you’ll at least remember your sins. This place won’t let you forget.”

“I was shot. There was something in my hand. It was a paper bag; a small brown paper bag full of money. The liquor store! I robbed the corner liquor store. I guess that store owner was a better shot than I thought.”

“So you’re a thief?”

“And you’re a murderer.”

“We make a fine pair.”

“What’s the deal with these chains? I know I didn’t die with them on. They feel different.”

“Look closer at them. They’re not exactly made out of steel. At least not the same steel you or I am used to,” the murderer nodded towards the thief’s chains.

The thief saw a shadow fall on the texture of one of the links. Upon closer inspection it seemed the shadow did not fall on the link but was a part of it. A mysterious glow beckoned. The thief looked closer and there were the last moments of his life being played out like a movie. It was as if moments of his life had been captured in a chain link and used to bind him to this strange place. One was of his first big score, another of the day he stole candy on his first day of kindergarten, and each link made for every moment he had stolen something from someone. He imagined the murderer had a link for every life taken on the battlefield. Just then a wailing shook the very air.

“What the hell was that?” the murderer asked.

“You’ve been here longer than me,” the thief answered. “I was hoping you knew.”

“Well, let’s go check it out.”

The thief and the murderer found the source of the wailing. Initially, they thought it was a rock. But they found it was a mound of chains. And at the top of the mound was a head of a man. They weren’t sure that he was alive until he started moaning again.

“Are you okay?” the thief asked. The face contorted, acknowledging their presence. While the wailing stopped, this mysterious man continued to groan in discomfort. The face seemed frozen in perpetual fear.

The murderer approached this man and looked closely at one of the links in his endless length of chain. The chain seemed to consume this mysterious figure who barely resembled a man at all anymore. But if the shriveled skull sticking out of this pile of memories and steel was once human, the murderer imagined it looked like the face in the one link that caught his attention. It was a face of hope and of promise of a bright future. The eyes were both exhausted and indescribably elated. It was a look the murderer was once familiar with. This moment was the birth of his first born child.

The thief saw a link containing the memory of the same face, again happy and nervous. This person took out a velvet box and in it a diamond ring. It wasn’t anything special. There were no special inscriptions, no indication that it was a family heirloom. It was just what this man could afford. There was no special plan just him and the woman he loved. He got down on one knee and showed her the ring. Her “yes” was a mere formality to what her tear-filled eyes and stifled smile had already answered.

This contorted face seemed to melt into a kind of sadness as the murderer and the thief stepped back a bit to awe at the sheer size of the old man’s chains. The murderer nodded in an unspoken understanding as he and the thief walked away to some indefinable nowhere.

“I don’t get it,” the thief commented. “I thought these chains were our sins, our biggest regrets in life. I would have killed to have moments like that.”

“Looking at all those memories, I reckon may actually have.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“They way I see it you and I have committed sins that have cursed us into perdition or purgatory or wherever the hell we are. Those are the sins that we’re used to hearing about from preachers. But we hardly ever hear about the sins we commit to ourselves. The times we think we’re protecting ourselves but in the end just end up hurting ourselves. No, son, those ain’t sins like you and me have done. He had dedicated an entire life to a sin of regret.”

The thief and the murderer wandered the barren wasteland never once looking back at the life of a man who never was. Neither could imagine a worse hell than having to re-live, for all eternity, the dozen lives that could have been.