Gitmo 45: Lifeguard

I wasn’t thinking straight. I was dopey, trying to walk myself from the earliest moments of human history I could remember, too out of it to parse religious mythology from the record, some crap about Moses in Egypt. I thought if, maybe, I could talk myself through the course of human events to this moment, I could make sense of my shattered mind.

Of course, that was lunacy. I didn’t have the time that was going to take. If thirty hours really did pass, Hamdi was going to gut me. He had a timeline, and plenty of time to improvise before the end of it came.

Thirty hours may not seem like a lot. You can easily go that long without food, without water. But air? Three minutes, give or take. Around five, I think, you get brain damage. And honestly, that could be worse; see, for trying to murder me, they’d think about hanging Hamdi. But for waterboarding? They wouldn’t even press charges. Because if they did, then they’d be saying it was wrong. And if it was wrong, then they couldn’t do it anymore. And the our justice and defense apparatuses had already given up so much, mostly in terms of prestige, for that. What was a little brain damage for one single man?

I don’t know if I had water in my ears, or if it was because my brain was still soft, like a melting bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but I barely heard it, at first. Hamdi had been taunting me for hours. He’d actually had Mustafa make him some fucking coffee so he could make the most of it, and not sleep. But this voice was different, softer, but stronger somehow. And at first I didn’t dare hope that it was friendly to me.

“This ends, Hamdi, or we end it. People see you for the shallow little powermonger you are. And they know you’ve taken this too far. We aren’t leaving. And you know it; this plan doesn’t even attempt it. It’s just one small man’s attempt at revenge. We can end this with our dignity, or we can bring the old Guantanamo back. Which do you think people want to do?”

“Omar-” that was Hamdi, barely able to get in a word edgewise; it sounded like he’d already lost this argument.

“He isn’t our enemy; he’s the only thing standing between our enemy and our fragile, fragmented peace.

“We’re captives. This isn’t peace, it’s prison. And the agent of my enemy is my enemy.”

“That may be. But the next man they send, and they will send another, will be worse.”

“I’ll kill him, too.”

“And the next, worse still.”

“Then him, too.”

“I believe you would try. But your coup has failed, and this ends, now. If you want him dead, then do it. But no more of this. There is no justice in this. And no peace.”