CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

HE COULD FEEL his life ebbing away with every breath.

The water had risen to just below his chin, and he was forced to hold his head up to breathe. For all of his earlier despondency, he couldn’t bring himself to lower his face into the water and drown himself. It would bring an end to it all, but when it came to it, the thought of succumbing to that void, to giving in to it, was just too much to bear. He knew it was inevitable, but he was a coward. He was too scared. And so he went on, suffering, struggling with every breath.

He’d grown used to the ragged pain in his wrists now—so much so that he barely felt it—and besides, at least the water had provided some buoyancy, relieving the pressure on his wrists a little.

Water was still pouring in from above, however, and his delirium had continued—he’d daydreamed about being rescued, and been shocked to find himself still here, still chained to the wall, still dying.

Now, he wondered if he’d ever be found. Twenty years from now, would builders happen upon his mouldering corpse while tearing up the old tunnels to lay new foundations? Perhaps a maintenance worker would come to investigate the smell once the water had seeped away, and he’d be discovered here, his corpse bloated and half-eaten by vermin.

He laughed at the idea, sputtering in the water. A maintenance worker. That was what had got him into this mess, wasn’t it? That’s what the man had said. That was why he’d been battered over the back of the head in the street and dragged down here to the rotten heart of the city, amongst the detritus and the effluence: the deal he’d made.

The irony is that he’d done it for the right reasons. Of course, a few brown paper bags had exchanged hands beneath the table; but that was business in this city. And who really got hurt? Not the residents. No, they got to reap the benefits—a rejuvenated city, all shiny and new. They all knew it went on, anyway. It was just like tipping a waiter: a quick backhander to make sure the papers got signed. So what if some poxy maintenance worker loses a contract?

At least, that’s what he used to think. Now, he’d do anything to go back, to do things differently. He’d seen the error of his ways. He’d had his punishment. Did he really have to die? Was that how this worked?

He sighed, and then choked on a mouthful of foul-tasting water. It seems as if he did. This storm—it was his doing. It had been sent for him. He knew that now. And he knew it wouldn’t stop until he was dead and gone. Yet still he couldn’t bring himself to let go. That was the sort of man he was, the sort of man he’d always been. Even now, staring death in the face, knowing that he had brought this storm upon the city, he couldn’t bring himself to do the right thing.

And so he continued to hold his head aloft and cling on to the last vestiges of his life, wondering when God would see fit to end it.