The End of Hell (as i know it)

     The dark frigid water is over my top lip, but if I tiptoe, I can raise another three inches.  There is no way that I can escape, the chains holding me to the wall are to strong.  The skin on my wrists has been torn and bruised by my panicked attempts to escape.  There is not enough time to pull my hands off and if I would, I don't think that I have the strength.  Besides my wrists have gotten bigger in the four years that I have been here, because of the inactivity.  Not only is the water dark, cold and swift, but there are things touching me that aren't supposed to.
     Even though the water is terrifying, it has brought a cleansing to my dark, cold and dirty cell.  With the chains only six or seven feet in length, I soon ran out of room to do away with my bodily wastes.  It took a while to become accustomed to the smell, but I could never become comfortable with the filth and degradation of living in my own waste.  How could I?  Indeed, how did I even get into this mess?  With that question, I forgot the rising water and drifted back to my earliest memory.
     Everyone was standing close together in the cold, small living room.  The out of place bed was highlighted by the flickering light of kerosene lamp, which was the only source of light in the small three room house.  The tired flames in the fireplace gave out a small amount of heat.  If we moved away from the front of the fire, the cold would attack our small fingers and sock less feet.  Mom and Grannie were crying uncontrollably.  Now and again we could hear them sobbing with low moans.  Dad and Grandpa were silent and forlorn, overcome with worry.  My brothers Wayne, Benny and I were too young to understand what was happening, but we did know that something terrible was going on.
     It turns out that mom was going to catch a bus to Mobile. where she would seek treatment for a nervous breakdown.  The Mobile Infirmary was across the state from home and mom was fortunate that her parents  could afford to send her there.  Dad joined her in a few days, just before she received  the shock therapy.  In a few weeks, when she returned home, nothing was ever the same.  We never spoke of it in the family, but I supposed that it was post-partem depression, since I was just a toddler.  Mother and I never bonded as she did with Benny and Wayne.  I blame that on the shock therapy erasing her short term memory of having given birth to me.  It has been a life long struggle for she and I to connect.  In 1950, who knew that this was a risky procedure?
     That and the following years set me up to be an independent and self reliant person.  I did not have good people skills, but I could take care of myself and do things that should not be done by one person.  I had so much confidence in myself that I did not need anyone, much less God.  However I did believe in Him, but why would He be concerned with me?  No one else was and He, being Omnipotent and omniscience, could not be bothered by someone as worthless as I was.
     The coldness of the water brought me back to the reality of the dungeon.  The stench of the cell overpowered me and I held my breath under the water until my lungs screamed out for air. When I raised my head out of the dark water the stench of myself hit me full in the face again.  This time it was mixed with fear and anguish emanating from the only part of my body above water.  Regret has a stench that is truly offensive to the senses.  Green, putrid, oozing, sticky and overpowering, it cannot be removed, no matter how hard you try.  The smell is unbearable and you begin to wonder if you will ever be able to escape it.
     So many regrets, some that were intentional and some that were not.  The end result is the same.  One of the unintentional regrets involved my grandmother and her three ducklings.  She was a kind soul and had a unique way with animals.  They all seemed to realize her kindness and bonded with her.  My great aunt, Collier, who was mom's age brought her three ducklings to stay on the farm.  I was a small child and left outside with the ducklings.  I had never seen anything like them before, but I did know that ducks could swim.  I carried them off to the mule's watering trough and held them underwater for much to long.  When I turned them loose, they sank to the bottom of the trough.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not get them to come to life again.  Even though I was a small child, when I saw the look on Grannie's face, that was a life long regret...............