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Resetting the Scene

    a year later we spoke with the general.
    he wanted to take us all back to the camp 
    where so much of our lives had been wasted.
    most of us didn't want to, but he insisted.

    what stands out most about that humvee trip
    up the gravel road towards the outer gates
    was the clearness and blueness of the sky
    and the brightness and warmth of the sun.
    in the whole time we had been held captive,
    i don't think the sun ever came out once.

    my cell was the same as when i had left it.
    it had the same damp corner from the leaky roof
    and the same bold, white writing on the floor--
    mostly unanswered questions and expletives.

    in fact, it was all the same as when we had left it,
    but the light of the sun gave it all a new truth.
    we saw clearly the paths where they had paraded us,
    the impassive halls that promised us nothing but fear,
    the putrid pits and cages that made us hate the world,
    the auditorium where they humiliated us day after day.

    we saw clearly the lake
    where Louis drowned himself.

    in the light of day, it was all the same,
    but there was a new truth to be seen as well.
    in a very real way, we the survivors realized 
    how very... escapable it had been all along.

    in fact, the camp had always been an ellaborate illusion:
    the cells were separated only by dry-wall;
    the bricks were well-disguised tissue boxes;
    the wire was barbed with mere bread ties;
    even the snakes in the area were harmless.

    in the entire camp,
    perhaps the only thing
    that wasn't a decoration
    was the spotlight.

    then the general told us how it happened
    and the events leading up to our liberation.
    the reason our captors had surrendered so quickly was simple:
    they were virtually unarmed.

    the guns that they had carried around the camp
    were flare guns and starter pistols. 
    some of them were completely empty. 
    didn't even have blanks.

    that was when we realized that all along,
    they had never had any real power over us.
    so the only question that remained was
    how did they get us to stay for so long?

    we were slaves to our own emotions.
    we were drugged by our imaginations.
    the only people that kept us there
    were ourselves.

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© 2007 Mark LaBelle