My masked torturer had me in his power strapped to a chair.
I strained with all my force against the manacles but it was in vain. I was powerless.
“You’re mad. You just can’t abduct people to suit your whims. Are you planning to demand a ransom?”
The tall man slowly shook his head.
“You don’t listen very well do you? As I said, Cole, I’m planning to re-educate you. You see, I’m old school—I come from a background that prizes politeness and basic, decent human values like compassion and pity and honor. I don’t know where you went wrong—perhaps it was your upbringing, but faulty learning has brought you to where are today, and sound teaching will correct it.”
“So you plan to torture me until I see things your way?”
The man chuckled. “Electric shocks are a valid technique that can be used in aversion therapy, but I prefer to couple this with an exposure to the best that has been said and thought by human beings. You know, Aristotle believed virtue was practical, Cole, and true wisdom led a man to become good, not merely to know things.”
“So, how long do you intend to keep me here until I become good?”
“As long as it takes, my friend…as long as it takes.”
Three months later, I was no further along in my so-called reformation.
If ever there was an unwilling student, it was I.
My wrists and ankles were blackened and my back bore the marks of the lash.
That’s right—when I stubbornly refused to submit, my torturer had me whipped—and if I continued to rail against his authority, he threatened to use water boarding.
My only respite from my miserable condition was to spend hours gazing at the lake or reading the books he provided.
All of the books were classics in Literature, Philosophy and Ethics, so I took shelter in them as a respite from my harsh environment.
Every night without fail, my torturer would came into my cell and question me at length on what I had read that day, and if I became antagonistic, surly or uncouth, he’d penalize each infraction with electric shocks, or prescribe a certain number of lashes to be administered—always just before lights out, so I would toss and turn all night in pain.
I began keeping a journal chronicling my struggle, and when I was near despair, I would turn to the lake or my books for consolation.
I railed against my torturer and my situation, but I knew deep in my heart it was a just payback for the kind of life I lived.
It was my purgatory—a place of expiation.
Things went on this way for another six months—but by then, I was seldom shocked or whipped. I had become docile, I suppose, but in a sense, I had become another person.