1: the amount of usable product from raw ingredients.
2: what’s left of you after they’ve taken everything.
I exist in a haze of pain. Everything else has ceased to have meaning.
Somewhere between the third session with the pliers and the cattle prod’s crackling kiss against my ribs, the buzzing tubes overhead transmuted into a burning ball of light and gas, a sun in this subterranean hell. Blood and sweat becomes pancake and syrup. My screams are my daughter’s laughs and my daughter’s laughs are my screams.
I hang from the hook in the darkness as my little girl’s voice echoes in my head.
Then, suddenly, on some silent cue, the men set down their tools, their bloodied scalpels and pliers and blowtorches, and leave.
I sag against my restraints. Every inch of my body throbs with its ow
