The Honey Trap

Prologue

Introductions leave lasting impressions, this is well known. From the cheesy introductions, “People call me John, but you can call me tonight!” the work introductions, “Hi I’m Sarah and I’ll be your waitress this evening!” to the more traditional “Hi I’m Peter.” Mine goes something like this, “Hi I’m Arden and I’m afraid.”

Being afraid is a fairly habitual occurrence for me. I am always frightened, I’m afraid of being alone but even more so of strangers, I am petrified of dogs, creeped out by fish and continuously terrorised by cats. Young hooded teens alarm me but the envious eyes of old people unnerve me. My life is one continuous state of discomfort to being petrified. Well I am past that now, the sleep deprivation robbed me of my emotions and ‘They’ robbed me of my dignity. There is no escape, I can’t think but for the thoughts ‘They’ allow me in sinister whispers when our sessions start, I can’t think of anyone else but him. How I wish I had done this when he said that, I wish I had said this, I wish I could see him, I wish he would come in and take me away, I wish he hadn’t forsaken me.

 When it gets too tough, when my mind begins to break, when I can feel my sanity cracking, I think back to my living room, I think back to my warm brown walls, my moss growing up the ceiling, the lonely window with it view of the street below but most of all I think of the small box in which most of my life was lived through. I can relive it, relive my shows in which life is simple, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank engine, shows which I should have outgrown but could not tear myself from the simplicity of the life portrayed. Walking through the streets of Sesame Street Murray informs of the Word on the Street. The word of the day is white and like that I am brought crashing back to reality. I am in my prison.

My prison is now the only world I know. My world isn’t large, perhaps slightly bigger then a bathroom. My world is white. The four walls of the room was devoid of all colour, just that blank, soulless white. Bright invasive light shone at all hours blinding me with its evil glare. I quickly found myself detesting the colour, it frayed at the edges of my precious sanity, when I closed my eyes I saw white.

Soon the questions started. First they were easy. What is your name? Arden O’Hare. How old are you? 22. Where were you born? Dublin. The questions would come quicker. What is your rank? What is the name of your leader? How many are there? Where is your base? Give us names? These sessions would flow past me in blur of white and water. The answers would not come. At these moments I would ponder what I did know, where did this all begin? Well, if I was to determine a definite starting point I would say it started a long time ago but since I don’t think I have time left for a biography I will start from the point of no return, the point in which my life was no longer mine, the point I became a pawn in a game I neither understood or liked.

It started with a phone call.