Part 1
“You’re going to drop it.”
“I can hold it.” My arms shake under the heavy weight of the beam. There’s no point to this exercise - other than to humiliate me.
“You know what happens if you drop it.”
“I won’t,” I say, straightening my arms and locking my elbows.
It feels as if my arms are as frail as twigs and as easy to break, but they hold firm. Sheer willpower and the desire to avoid Adam are the only two things keeping the beam off the ground. I would have happily taken a scolding or a lashing in return for dropping the awkward thing hours ago.
But Adam is a much stronger deterrent. He is the catalyst behind my unwavering determination to outperform the prior day. When I don’t exceed expectations, a visit to Adam is arranged. I think he enjoys it when I visit. He likes unnerving me.
I loathe it.
He makes my skin crawl. It’s as if he commands an army of fire ants, telling them when and where to pepper my skin with tiny bites. It’s a treat for him to watch and torture for me to partake.
“Thirty more seconds.”
My shoulders sag momentarily in relief. Thirty more seconds. I can hold on for thirty more seconds. The beam shifts, forcing me to correct the position. I widen my stance and allow the beam to wobble above me as it finds equilibrium.
“Twenty.”
I straighten my back and inhale deeply. My feet slip slightly on the cold concrete floor. My sweat has created a pool of liquid below me - a recipe for disaster for someone wearing socks. Of course, I wore socks today. It was cold as all hell out. Usually, I’d opt for bare feet during training, but I needed the extra layer today to avoid numb toes.
“Ten.”
My feet are slowly sliding outward, stretching my legs in either direction of my body. But I continue to hold the beam off the floor, focusing on my breathing as the stretch in my legs becomes tight.
“Five. Four.”
The countdown begins, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’ve made it through once again.
“Three. Two. On-”
The last of my balance diminishes in the syllable of that last word. That one damn word. I drop onto the floor with a thud. The beam joins me with a much louder sound of protest.
A dark chuckle is the only reward I receive. “Adam will be waiting for you.”
Leaving the beam behind, I gather my spirits - if I even have spirits remaining after these last few years…The gruelly hours of training have taken most of my pride and passion. The visits with Adam have taken and given me something else entirely.
Fear is ever present around the man. As is another feeling that I can’t quite explain. There is no doubt in my mind that he feeds off my disconcertment. Sometimes I wonder if he is some type of succubus, feeding off the pain of others.
Although, there aren’t any others here to my knowledge - just me. I often pretend there are others wandering around but on different schedules than myself. Maybe they hold the beam when I am not. Maybe they sleep when I am awake.
Other than Adam and his repertoire of employees - who act more like parishioners - I haven’t seen anyone.
I haul myself out of the empty stone building, walking along the exterior to avoid the crosswind. My wet feet chill against the snow-covered ground. I search for the sun, but as usual, there isn’t one. It hides behind the clouds. When it does make an appearance, my presence is always elsewhere. Always inside.
This side of the building is burned to a crisp, yet the old thing is still standing. The brick exterior is chipped and blackened. In some parts, it looks like an animal was trying to rip its way through. Deep gouges streak down the sides.
I like to make up stories about the burned wall.
I imagine a massive beast clawing at the brick. The fire and flame melt its hair and skin away, but the beast keeps clawing. It keeps trying to get inside. Yet, the fire is determined to consume what lies within.
It would take more willpower than I possess to hold that beam for hours on end to fight through the pain and terror of being burned alive. And for what? What could make a person so enraged, so hell-bent on reaching the other side?
At first, I imagined a loved one might make me so crazed as to risk my very life in order to save them. But even that doesn’t make sense. Because in that situation - the fire will burn us both. What favors would I be doing my loved one? What is love if we are both dead and can never remember it?
Then, I began to realize what truly motivates that kind of mad reaction. Fear. Not just the spine-tingling, skin-level fear. The kind of fear that is so deep in your soul that it turns a person into a monster. It makes you forget all reason and sense. It blinds you, overtakes you. It turns you into something so unimaginable that there is no turning back because who you were before is so far out of your line of sight.
It’s easier to be a monster than a person. At least, it might be. If I didn’t have qualms about seeing Adam, I’d never hold the beam up. But I’d rather not have nightly visits with him. So they take me to the beam and see how long I can last. They add one minute every day. And nearly every day, I hold it until the very last second.
Not today, though. I failed today. I blame the socks.
I approach the Unending Stairs - a fitting name for the seemingly never-ending staircase - that lead to Adam’s house at the peak of the jagged rock mountain. The stairs cascade down the mountain like the locks of hair down my back. However, I know the trick. They are designed to make you think you’ll never reach the top, but if you know the path, it’s not as far as it appears.
I’ve been here often enough to know the path.
The sun sets as I finish my mile hike up the mountain. My body aches from a hard day of labor. I should have given up on the beam earlier. Tomorrow will be twice as hard after spending the evening with Adam.
He’ll be up here all day hoping I fail again so that I’m forced to return and pay him attention. I’ve never had to do two days in a row with him, though. The night before is enough motivation to help me surpass my previous times for a week.
