Davis - Turnscrew

It's been in my pocket the entire time. Lending me acomfort the origins of which I had temporarily forgotten. Iremember it now, and slowly, I begin to realize I mightlive.

Pulling it out of my pocket, I see how it reflects thestrange, dim, purple light of the coffin like room I've beenconfined to. I almost put myself into a trance looking at it, andplaying short films in my head of how I may employ it. The walls ofthis room are curved and feel like skin. I can feel a vibrationthrumming throughout, like a distant, powerful, engine.I'm not sure how long I've been lying here, I'm not even sure howlong I've been awake. It seems I just realized over time I wasconscious and thinking. After what feels like 20 minutes of juststaring at the reflected purple light I explore the walls of thisroom, looking for an opening, a handle, a puff of air telling meI'm not sealed off.

No air, no luck.

The purple light has no source that I can find; it seemsto evenly emanate from the fleshy walls of my prison. I push onthese walls, and find that one of them, the one on my right, hasquite a bit of play, stretching out about a foot. This isinteresting, but I still have no idea on how to open it. It lookslike Im going to need to break it - cut it, I mean - or punctureit and claw my way out.

I try to calm myself before I commit the act thatsprobably going to lead to me getting killed, or at the very least,tortured again. In making my bid for freedom, I can onlyimagine that the price of failure will be the only thing thatI have left - my life.

Looking back at my hands, and once more at the itemstill unbelievably with me, I don't feel the least bit absurdasking for strength and courage from it. It's my talisman. We'llsupport each other in our escape from wherever thisis.

Time to begin Step One - Lying on my side, using my lefthand, I drive the blade of my screwdriver into the wallof the flesh-like substance which I found to be the weakest.Expecting to be soaked to the bone by some vile fluid, I close myeyes to protect them, but it doesnt happen. I open my eyes, thelenses of my glasses still clean, and reverse my grip onmy unlikely talisman. Stabbing at the wall once more, like aslasher in a horror flick, I drag the blade diagonally through theflesh, cutting roughly from my head to about my knees. The walltears open uneven and jagged, and sags like a flag on a windlessday. Without thinking, I roll out, and after a very shortdrop, land on my side on a metal walkway about two and a halffeet wide. Looking up and along the catwalk where I spilled out, Isee pods similar to the one I just rolled out of lining bothwalls. These go up to what Im guessing is about thirty feet, andIm briefly thankful I hadn't blindly rolled out only to be greetedby a thirty foot drop.

I need to be more careful.

At one end of the hallway there is what looks to bea doorway, and I almost start forward, toward this, before Idecide to check behind me. I'm glad I did. One ofthem, standing at what canonly be described as a computer terminal, seems to beintently manipulating some type of vertical interface withits back to me. These unforgiving bastards will never allow mypeaceful exit of their ship. I don't know how I know this, maybe itwas the brutal way in which I was brought onboard.

More memories returning.

Slowly theyre coming back to me. I shudder whenremembering their cruel, inhuman eyes and the way they dissected myhand. This last memory comes to me with a shock, and I pass thescrewdriver to my left hand so I can inspect my right. Theonly evidence that it had been flayed open, was a thin, raised,white line, starting as a circle at the mid point of my bicep,then traveling down my inner elbow and continuing on theinside of my forearm bisecting my leprechaun tattoo! At my palm,the scar splits off to travel down each finger. At each point andintersection, there is another small circle, like the one on mybicep. I dont need to roll up the sleeve of my hoodie to seethis. Most of the sleeve has been removed, whats left falls tojust above the circular scar on my bicep, almost even with thesleeve of my t-shirt.

I remember the pain.

I remember how I had fought against passing out becauseI was unsure if I would ever wake up again. These memories fuel inme a rage that has long been contained. Transferring myscrewdriver, my talisman, back to my right hand, I know what Imgoing to do. Its almost like I knew all along what I was going todo.

I started creeping closer to the short, grey, bastardthat is too busy on his computer to realize that these are his lastmoments.

I can't really say why Istarted carrying it with me. I can't even say why I bought it. I'mnot a handyman, I'm not a mechanic, and the last thing I built wasin sculpture class, in art school - a robot head. I used pieces ofscrap metal I had found roaming around downtownSeattle, looking in trash bins. Definitelyform over function, but even that didnt need a screwdriver. Iguess the first thing I noticed was the colors of the handle,orange and black, caught my eye right away but that wasn't it. Theshape of the handle was interesting, it had a small pommel on theend, above that was the main handle, hexagonal, but with eachside of the hexagon slightly concave. The four inch handle taperednear the top, then flared back out at the point where the stainlesssteel shank had been driven into the handle. Four inches of steelemerged from the handle, making my future talisman a total of 8inches. The steel of the keystone shaped flathead still had itsfactory shine, and before I knew it, I had picked it up to seehow it felt in my hand. It felt good. I guess it was that more thananything else - I liked the feel of it. I didnt even debate withmyself as to why I was going to buy this. It was coming with me,and the price was .88 cents. I've always had a thing for the numbereleven and multiples of it, and seeing the price just furtheraffirmed what I had known anyway it was mine.

After paying for it, I left the store without evengetting what I had originally come for - a silverware basket forthe inside of my dishwasher. I slid the screwdriver into the insidepocket of my fleece hoodie. The pockets are deep and wide so itdidn't sit at an odd angle, and it didn't make any odd shape on theoutside. Maybe I did get what I had come for. Anyway, Iwas already late for work.

Work happened, as it always does and leaves me feelingsoulless - as soulless as an atheist can feel anyway - and beat up.I would not wish a call center job on my worst enemy well, Iprobably would.

That was a little over three weeks ago. I've carried thescrewdriver with me since. I saw a How Its Made episodeon screwdrivers, and even read up on their history. I found thatthey are called "turnscrews" by gunsmiths and so I took to thinkingof my screwdriver as that, but more like a proper name -Turnscrew. I can't say why I carried Turnscrew any more that I cansay why I bought it. I definitely can't say why it made me feelsecure. I had never been in any type of (non-videogame) situationthat I felt I needed a weapon, and I was not prone to violence,well, not outside of my head anyway, but who doesn't think abouthulking-out and destroying their cubicle and every other cubiclein the building and then the building itself followed by theredneck trucks in the parking lot? Anyway, for some reason, I feltbetter when carrying it. When I didn't carry it (which was veryrare, and only by accident), I thought about it. Sometimes Iworried myself that Turnscrew was on my mind so much - but I neverstopped carrying it.