The man gasps for air and claws at the plywood siding of his prison. He’s inside a coffin that is six feet long and three feet wide.
Rivulets of sweat pour from his brow. His shirt is soaked. His heart is thumping like he’s just run up a flight of stairs. His skull is throbbing with a nauseating headache.
He has been buried alive.
At gunpoint.
A stranger, disguised with a ski mask and motorcycle helmet, had kidnapped him, had clipped handcuffs around his wrists, and later, when he forced him into the box, he cut the chain between the cuffs but left the circles of metal clasped tightly to his wrists.
The kidnapper left three items in the coffin: a gallon jug of cloudy water, a pile of candy bars, and a car battery attached to a caged lightbulb. He has gulped half the water already but hasn’t touched the candy bars. He isn’t sure how long he’s been in here. The lightbulb is starting to dim.
He looks up at a small piece of PVC pipe sticking through the plywood, and he puts his mouth over the tube, trying to draw big gulps of fresh air. But though he’s in good shape, his lungs strain. No matter how much air he pulls in, his chest is still heaving, still gasping for more.
He knows what’s happening. He’s running out of oxygen. The pipe isn’t doing enough to circulate fresh air into the chamber.
He pushes up against the plywood and pounds on the wood with his fists.
“Help!” he screams.
But his vocal cords are raw from yelling so much. And he can barely catch his breath as it is.
He tries to calm his panicked breathing, taking long, slow breaths. His head is pounding.
Keep it together, he tells himself. Calm down!
He remembered what the masked man said when he put him in here, that this is all about money.
Everything’s going to be fine. I’ve worked out all the details. You’re not going to die.
But he is beginning to think his kidnapper is never coming back.
The air smells of sour sweat, plywood, and caulk. And hidden behind those odors, barely noticeable, is the smell of freshly dug soil—the smell of his grave.
He presses his trembling hands against the plywood again. This time, when he pushes upward, straining with all his strength, he feels some give in the earth. He feels a moment of hope. But when he releases the pressure, the board sags inward, like a mineshaft nearing its inevitable collapse.
The light flickers. He takes deep breaths. Long inhalations. Slow exhalations. He tries to calm his nerves.
He closes his eyes and, as he waits for the light to die and the darkness to envelop him, he thinks of the faces of his children and the woman he loves. He hopes they know how much he loves them.