N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 0 7 KEVIN HAYES THE INVADED COUNTRY the invaded country was nowhere I wanted to live any
more, so I planned to make my escape over the border even though the
enemy had locked our territory down & tried to keep us all under
constant surveillance considering us all to be prisoners of war. .
.the bad news that foreign armies had attacked & occupied the nation
was announced only after it was much too late to mount any successful
defense, only after they had seized all the weapons depositories & other
centers of power. . .I was not certain whether to attribute our downfall
to the treachery or to the incompetence of the people at the top, but
I also knew the means did not matter one way or the other since, however
the outcome came to be, the grim facts would remain the same: we had
been enslaved by some other tyrant country & I had no recourse
other than to take refuge in the underground & to do all I could
to leave the disaster behind by moving to inhabit some free place.
. . I knew the underground already existed & would
already have a structure in place that could expedite my escape since
an invisible opposition had existed against our government long before
the invasion happened, an opposition that had helped political fugitives
find their way to liberation in lands that had been more than willing
to welcome them. . .still, I was not quite certain how to establish
contact with the underground & I needed to establish contact in
order to have any possibility of accomplishing my escape successfully,
so I had no choice other than to feign obedience to the laws imposed
on upon us by our conquerors, laws designed to keep us walking on a
straight & narrow line & no one walked a line more straight
or more narrow than I appeared to walk. . .lulling my enemies into
a false sense of security, they never suspected that I could prove
to be a source of any trouble instead turning me into a poster boy
demonstrating the desired conformity to the new regime, hiding in plain
sight as it were since they were convinced I had provided them with
the perfect submission they required & therefore, they looked right
past me never staring at me hard. . . contacting the underground proved to be a problem
that kept me stymied for months since the occupying government established
by the enemy favored public execution as the most effective method
for keeping our captive citizens in line & therefore, the underground
conducted invisible operations denying the enemy all opportunity of
penetrating its secrets but also making it difficult for me to find
the help I needed. . .the contact only happened after I had used my
apparent obedience to the new iron law as a means of winning the trust
of the authorities so they would employ me to guard guerillas who had
been captured & sentenced to death, guerillas who had been sent
from the underground to make strategic attacks against our oppressors,
attacks designed to weaken their command over the structures of power
they had erected. . .I distinguished myself as an exception among the
guards since all the others treated the prisoners with extreme brutality
breaking teeth & bones making blood gush with frequency satisfying
their sadistic impulses figuring no scandal would happen if condemned
men died before the dates of their appointed executions arrived. .
.behaving with discreet kindness, I tried to win the trust of the prisoners
never inflicting gratuitous violence upon them sneaking them secret
food in excess of the meager rations allowed them doing everything
I could to ease the lives they suffered before their sentences of death
would be carried out seeking
to develop the reputation of genuine saint so different from their
other captors that they would open up in response to my questions & reveal
to me the information I needed, information that the occupying government
had never been able to find out even when attempts were made to extract
it from them by means of torture. . . of course, despite my best efforts, earning the trust
of the prisoners took me some time since, at first, they were suspicious
that the authorities had assigned me to play the one good cop in a
multitude of bad cops hoping to manipulate them for some sinister purpose,
but, after some months had passed, I became convinced that my constant
stream of good deeds had convinced them that I meant no harm & I
decided to approach them one by one to see if any would give me directions
that would allow me to find access to the underground. . .a great deal
of persistence was required on my part since each & every prisoner
I questioned denied that he possessed the knowledge I was seeking until
I tried the last possibility, a prisoner who was scheduled to die the
next morning, a prisoner who would have died in solitary confinement
except for the bread I smuggled into his cell, & he told me what
should have been obvious, that I had to cast aside a manhole cover & plunge
down into the sewers running beneath the city streets in order to reach
the underground. . .as soon as I had been told what
I needed to do in order to contact the underground, I made the decision
not to report to work the next morning or ever to report to work again
choosing instead to go out under the cover of night, so no one would
see me & I could vanish invisible casting aside a manhole cover
to plunge into the sewers running beneath the city streets determined
to make contact with the rebels who had taken
refuge in those subterranean depths hoping they would help me escape
the oppression that the occupying government had imposed upon us. .
. the streets were absolutely deserted as I had expected
since the occupying government kept the whole nation under a strict
curfew & violators were often executed & left dead on the spot
to provide us with a warning when we looked out of our windows at dawn,
but I had to move with caution & keep to the shadows afraid I would
encounter one of the death squads appointed to enforce that curfew
myself finally reaching the first manhole cover I managed to find prying
it up & vanishing fast as I could down to the relative safety below.
. .once I had entered that refuge underground, I immediately began
searching for the rebels who were hidden beneath our nation’s
surface hoping that they would be able to help me escape the reach
of our occupying government so that I could inhabit some distant free
territory, but I did not find them easy to find since they had retreated
into the most remote depths that subterranean network of tunnels could
offer intent upon evading detection & capture by the authorities
should they ever decide to mount a raid with the objective of eliminating
their guerilla opposition. . .indeed, we knew from hushed rumors that
had been whispered mouth to mouth about occasional mysterious attacks
upon the invaders that had conquered our nation, attacks that had seemed
to come from nowhere before the attackers retreated back to nowhere
quickly as they had come, so I deduced from my failure to find immediate
evidence of a human presence within the underground that the guerillas
had descended deep as they could possibly go. . . I
descended as deep as I could go, but I still did not find any trace
of the rebels I sought until I discovered a secret hole dug in the
city’s lowest tunnel & after I dropped thru it, the faint
light generated by a fire allowed me to realize that I had landed in
the middle of the secret camp established by the guerillas for themselves
so far below the surface of our invaded country they had reason to
hope our foreign enemies would never detect it, no matter how many
times the guerillas used it as a staging ground to carry out assaults
against the forces that had occupied their native land above them.
. .startled by my sudden presence in the middle of their camp, the
guerillas nevertheless recovered almost immediately capturing & binding
me with tight rope since they were suspicious that I might be an advance
scout sent by their enemies, an advance scout who had been successful
in penetrating their secret location, & they did not want to give
me any chance to escape fearing that I would pass on information to
the authorities that would lead to their destruction. . .once I had
been immobilized, the guerillas began to question me, but because they
mistrusted me, they at first refused to believe that I was also a rebel
in opposition to the iron law our invaders had imposed upon us, so
I remained their bound prisoner for weeks before they were convinced
more by familiarity with me than any persuasion I was able to mount
that I would not betray them & they let me go. . . once the guerillas decided that they would trust me,
they asked me if I would join them emerging from the underground at
night to mount periodic attacks against the enemies who had occupied
our nation & I responded by telling them that while I sympathized
with their cause, my preference was to leave the nightmare of this
invasion behind
me telling them that I
had heard of an underground network I might use to reach another country
without the possibility of detection, a network rumor said they had
established & could make available to those they chose to help.
. .the guerillas initially responded to my request with silence no
doubt because they wanted me to stay with them & fight, but even
though I knew what the silence meant, I did not feel inclined to reconsider
what I said instead repeating my desire to leave this nightmare behind
prompting the guerillas to tell me that their ideology demanded that
they respect my right to make a free decision even if that decision
failed to benefit their war of liberation but that they were only willing
to show me the long tunnel I could take to reach another country, a
tunnel dug by refugees who had gone before me, since they could not
spare any men to protect me as I took my journey. . . I had not expected I would not have the support of
the guerillas to help me & guard me along the way, but I nevertheless
decided that since I had to escape, I would take the journey alone,
so I asked the guerillas to show me where the escape tunnel was & they
informed me that I already knew since they had built their camp in
the middle of it pointing out the direction that I needed to take in
order to reach the other country I sought to inhabit. . .I was so eager
to escape the tyranny that had come to devour my invaded country that
I did not hesitate even a moment once I knew the way I needed to take
to leave that tyranny behind expressing my gratitude & saying farewell
to the guerillas on the fly as I began my journey determined to reach
free territory as quickly as I could worried that my failure to report
to the prison would trigger an investigation & that
the authorities would somehow discover & follow my trail hunting
me down before I could reach the border & cross it. . . even though my journey was so long it would take me
at least a year to accomplish, I seldom stopped to eat or sleep only
interrupting motion when I was on the verge of collapse & necessity
demanded that I must or else risk imminent death, & even when the
demands of nature forced me to halt my flight, the demands of terror
soon ignited me to rise up & continue to push ahead hoping to complete
my odyssey before the search party that possibly was in pursuit could
chase me down & capture me knowing that our occupying government would
make an example of me by sentencing me to public execution without
trial since the action I was engaged in would be definite evidence
that I was guilty of attempting to evade the iron regime imposed upon
us by our enemies. . .when I tried to eat, my stomach was so disturbed
by fear that I found it impossible to take more than a few bites at
a sitting & when I tried to sleep, graphic nightmares of my own
possible execution jolted me awake with such force that I could not
remain still, but instead I was left with no choice other than to get
up & move on with as much speed as I was able to muster convinced
that my pursuers were less than a mile away & that I would surely
fall into their hands if I dared to linger even five more minutes,
a conviction that drove me until at last I was so broken by exhaustion
that my legs gave way beneath me & I could not help but plunge
into the deepest slumber as I sprawled across the ground, a slumber
so deep that no nightmare could shatter it.
. .whenever I woke up after one of these collapses, I found it astonishing
to realize that I had not been surrounded by my enemies, but my astonishment
did not cause me to reach the conclusion that no one was pursuing me,
so I needed no longer fear that danger would catch me from behind responding
instead with the firm conviction that my arrest was only a moment away
running away from my hunters even though I had no reason to believe
that anyone was following me. . . even after a year had passed & I could see the
end of the tunnel in the distance with my naked eye, I was still looking
over my shoulder expecting that my hunters would track me down & stop
me before I could reach the border that I desired to cross terrified
that I would not complete my odyssey though I could see no one behind
me believing that I was not so alone as I seemed & that my pursuers
had somehow evolved the ability to travel as phantoms, a
power that they would use to crush me when they suddenly appeared to
prevent me from successfully finishing the escape attempt I had mounted.
. .once I neared the end of the tunnel, however, I began to shed my
fear when no pursuers came to chase me down determined to prevent me
from abandoning the tyranny our invaded country had become as I began
to entertain the hope that soon I would be able to emerge from the
underground to breathe the air of the free territory I had worked so
hard to reach, a hope that ignited a surge of ecstasy inside me, a
feeling that had been unfamiliar to me since the invasion happened.
. .at last, I reached the end of the tunnel & I began the long
climb up from the underground, my heart leaping in celebration now
that I was returning to the surface world & I would see the sun
again after
a long separation from it expecting that it would shine warmer & more
luminous in the new country of liberation I had come to inhabit, an
expectation that was frustrated when I completed my journey only to
find that the invasion had spread & that the country I had worked
so hard to reach would not provide me with the sanctuary I craved,
a fact that was proven to me as soon as I stuck my head up thru the
hole in the ground since I saw the natives were controlled & regulated
by patrols of soldiers dressed in the same uniform worn by the army
that had occupied the nation I came from. . .as soon as I realized
that exposing myself above ground would place me under the yoke of
the tyranny I sought to escape, I beat my retreat before I could be
spotted & captured returning to the underground tunnel I thought
I would be leaving behind me when I began my climb to the surface & as
I was descending, I made the decision that I needed to engage myself
in a reverse odyssey going back to the guerilla camp I abandoned now
that I knew confrontation would be necessary if we were ever to escape
the iron regimen imposed upon us by our enemies since that iron regimen
must be broken, or we would never be free. . . |