{"id":1673,"date":"2023-07-05T07:47:13","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T07:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2023-07-05T07:47:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T07:47:19","slug":"a-prisoner-in-the-land-of-silence-and-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/a-prisoner-in-the-land-of-silence-and-darkness\/1673\/","title":{"rendered":"A Prisoner in the Land of Silence and Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"An<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unable to move, unable to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He couldn\u2019t see, hear, feel, smell or taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was isolation in its purest form. Loneliness inescapable. No rescue, no relief, no companionship, no comfort, and no end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How long had he been there? A million years, merely a week? Another agony was that in his sightless, soundless state, he could not even measure time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would never again know fresh air, a good meal or the touch of a warm hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMake me immortal,\u201d he yelled at the Djinn, and it granted his wish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gleefully drank down every poison, feeling no ill effects. He had his armed guards charge at him, and even the sharpest blade never pierced his skin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

His enemies could do no harm. He would outlive them all and his reign could stand for a millennium, maybe even an eternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alas this wasn\u2019t destined to be. In little more than a year, the rebel Shahriyar rose and seized the throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He soon stood before this usurper king when the executioners failed to end his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImmortal?\u201d the pragmatic Shahriyar pondered \u201cNever touched by violence, disease, or age? Oh, that is unlucky, for death can be a merciful exit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in those brown eyes, a glint of sadism flickered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They took him by ship to the middle of the ocean where he was placed into a barrel and the barrel was filled with a grey sludge that soon hardened. He was struck by the panic of enclosure, the agony of suffocation and the primal urge to break free but he knew he couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He felt the barrel sink to the bottom of the sea and knew this was to be his resting place for a very long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll never escape\u201d Shahriyar had said \u201cno one can rescue you. And really why would they? You were never loved, only feared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, he lay in his prison, with the weight of a million gallons crushing down upon him. Would the creatures of the sea eat away at the wood, would the waters erode the cement?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His body was wrenched in agony. Itchy, dizzy, and hot. Relief was unattainable. But as time passed, he forgot he even was a body, as the utter hopelessness broke his soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was now nothing but a mind that could never escape itself, a prisoner in the land of silence and darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the rest of his life. And it would never end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He was now nothing but a mind that could never escape itself, a prisoner in the land of silence and darkness.<\/p>\n

This was the rest of his life. And it would never end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,836],"tags":[847,171,833,510,95,8,122,20,38,148,849,846,848,11,117],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-no-way-out","tag-barrel","tag-could","tag-couldn","tag-even","tag-had","tag-he","tag-him","tag-his","tag-never","tag-no","tag-rescue","tag-shahriyar","tag-unable","tag-was","tag-would"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-qZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}