The Endurance of Pain

What do you understand when I say "endurance of pain"? A person I know was subject to pain (all kinds) all his life. He is now around 30. Because he can't feel pain anymore, he expects the same from others too. So, even his "touch" hurts people now. I am not kidding. I couldn't help thinking what kind of pain would give a person such coldness in blood. I wrote a short story about the whole thing. It ended up being quite long. But, I can post the opening lines from the story. I called it "the Endurance of Pain". I've not sent it to anyone so far. It may require lots of editing until it's worthy of sending. Well, after reading through this excerpt, I want you to mail me on suhailrasheed@gmail.com about what you really think would happen with endurance of pain. Good Day, Good Night!!!

The sixth full fist on my face brought the first smells of blood to my nose. I couldn’t point out a single place from where the blood could have probably come out. My whole body was shrouded in a pain so uniform that it didn’t really matter where I took the next fist. There are many people in this beautiful world who haven’t known the smell of blood. But, for the many people like me, in a cruel world like this, the smell of blood is only a symptom of worse things to come. I have gone through all this before. Endurance of pain eventually ends up in absence of pain. It’s only the first blow that hurts the most. Thereafter, a kind of numbness sets in and as I’ve already mentioned, it doesn’t really matter where you take the next blow.

I’m Peter Fagin, the son of a millionaire. When I came into this world, I was said to have born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Though, taking it literally, I don’t remember any such thing. My father was not the sort of millionaire who had lots of money. He was a man with a million qualities. That’s the only wealth he had and the only wealth he would ever bequeath to me. I have no idea, then, why a bunch of hoodlums took me in on a nice Sunday evening, so far away from town, where people hardly knew me or my past. I kept saying to my abductors that “you are making a big mistake. You have the wrong person”; but they took it in the wrong sense. But this can’t go on for long, or it would be the end of my life.

“Having done this for so long, I beg you to kill me or I’ll come back for you, each one of you. I’ll hunt you down and get my revenge. So, don’t leave me alive. Kill me if you want a life.” I kept muttering with the little breath I had. I knew it wouldn’t help much. I wanted them to give up. I wanted to show that they had lost. But they didn’t stop.

The next blow came to my stomach; then, my crotch, my calf muscles, my face again, my head, my ….

I must have passed out. When I came to my senses, I could feel that I was being lifted and carried somewhere. I tried to count the number of places on my body where it ached. There was a man holding my hands and another holding my legs. I could feel the wind growing stronger and stronger. The wind kissed my wounds and gave me a sort of pleasure in pain. Then, finally my carriers stopped. The next moment, I could feel the swing. In three swings, I saw my entire life move before me. It was like a movie. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Who among my worst enemies or best friends had thought of this? Who was planning to kill me?

They had, in fact, come to kill me. With the third and final swing, I could feel no more props. The hoodlums, f*** them, had let me go. In what seemed to be eternity, I knew the answer. I knew this was the end. Yet, in that moment, I was happy to know the name of my punisher. And, then, I kept falling down for a long time.