Jeremy woke with a start. “Where am I?” he thought. The room was cold and dark. He could barely see in front of him. He was sitting in a chair. An uncomfortable metal folding chair at that. He tried to look down. As Jeremy's senses cleared he realized a large portion of why he couldn't see was because of the cloth covering his face. It wasn't much of a blindfold and Jeremy was able to take it away from his eyes by shaking his head. He would have used his hands, but they were tied together behind him at the moment.
“Where is it?” asked a woman in a thick European accent. “Where is the chip?” Jeremy couldn't quite believe what he was being asked. What chip could this woman be asking about, and where in the world was she? The woman's voice had come from in front of him, but he could not see anyone standing in the room with him. “”Where is it?” asked the voice again. “Where is the chip?”
“What chip....” began Jeremy, but the gag that had apparently been covering his mouth prevented much more than a muffle to escape. This too wasn't much of a gag, and he was able to get it away from his mouth by working his jaw and tongue. “What chip?!” he repeated. This time it came out as more a loud raspy croak. He sure could have used a glass of water right now. “Where are you? Where am I?” he began. Jeremy was starting to get a little concerned about his situation. Well concerned would be maybe a fraction of what he actually felt at the moment. The voice repeated it's question and it dawned on Jeremy that there might not be anyone there...He might just be the only one in the room right now.
Jeremy began to squirm in his chair, hoping his captors had done as great a job securing him in his seat as they did blindfolding and gagging him. Just his luck! The bindings came lose and fell to the floor behind him. “Now to find a way out,” he whispered. “If they got me in, there's got to be a way out.” Jeremy got up and looked around his hopefully temporary holding cell and did a quick mental inventory. Uncomfortable metal chair, check. Large (and wide) probably two way mirror, check. Dusty flickering light with no shade hanging from the ceiling, check. Jeremy decided that this room was set up like all of the spy interrogation movies he'd seen as a kid. Complete with the ashtray with cigarette butts on a table not too far behind the chair he had been sitting in. The only thing missing was what he desperately needed right now....a door. “This is not looking good J,” he thought as he turned around in the direction the seemingly imaginary voice had come from.
“Where is it?” chimed the woman again.
“Oh, spoke to soon. Listen lady, I don't know what your-” he was interrupted by the sound of the woman once again inquiring the whereabouts of “the chip.” Jeremy sighed. “That's right,” he muttered, “your just a recording. Well if you're supposed to get answers out of me, I suppose playing a tape over and over with the same message might just be enough to get someone to confess.” He chuckled to himself despite his current situation. Mostly because he was VERY uncomfortable and he wasn't even sitting in the chair anymore.
Jeremy was reminded of several jokes as he stood in the center of his confines. One of them a riddle about there being a man hung from a ceiling with nothing but a puddle of water below him and nothing else in the room. Probably not the best thing to be thinking about in a situation like this one.
Then suddenly Jeremy had an idea!
It of course had nothing to do with the riddle, but thinking about something else gave the rest of his brain time to think of what he hoped would be the perfect way to get out of the room! In all of the old crime movies he had watched, the mirror was always a two way mirror, meaning you can only see through one side of the glass and usually on that side was a room with people sitting and watching you while they took notes on how you were giving yourself away or placing bets on how fast you would cave.
“It's worth a shot,” thought Jeremy.
Jeremy picked up the chair he was previously sitting in and with a semi-running start, he lunged the chair right at the mirror with a loud grunt. The sound of shattering glass was music to his ears!
What he saw beyond that was not so amusing though.
© 2009 by Laira Reid
