The Confession

Grief floats in every note.

“The Division of the Light from the Darkness” by Paul Nash. Public Domain.

The Confession

Accompanying music: Moonlight Sonata

The hurdy-gurdy man leans on his bovine sized instrument in the corner of the stainless steel room. The polished wood shines under too bright fluorescents. Stooped, bent, and wiry. White hair grown long into his beard. Warped from a lifetime of turning a hand crank at 87 rpm. He’s smoking a cigarette in the cavernous cube when the shadow man drags in the chair you’re strapped to.

“Is that a hurdy-gurdy? I’ve never seen one so big.”

“Don’t look at the hurdy-gurdy man, sir. We’re here to talk about you.”

“Is he allowed to smoke in here? I heard it wasn’t allowed. That’s what your man told me. I want a cigarette. I demand a cigarette. I have ri—”

“No one’s allowed to smoke in here, sir.”

In the corner, the hurdy-gurdy man uses his smoke to light another one. He leans on the barrel of the machine and puffs out a white cloud towards you. You can smell it already, closed in a twenty foot wide cube. Toasted tobacco, not overly sweet, like a mid-afternoon in the sun.

You push meekly against the restraints.

The shadow man across from you tuts, rubs his non-existent face with a non-existent hand. That’s what you’ve taken to calling him, in your head. He’s not so much a shadow as a formlessness, an indistinguishable thing. Like the way a shadow smears anything in the way of the light together, he is some contour of a presence, an outline your gaze jumps over no matter how hard you focus. You can tell his movements in how the meticulous suit moves. Folds of dark navy with faint crosshatching, white cotton shirt underneath, red tie.

Police.

“Fine. What’re we here to talk about? The man who abducted me couldn’t tell me.”

“You’re supposed to tell me.”

The hurdy-gurdy man hacks, and spits brown phlegm onto the polished floor. The shadow man doesn’t react.

“I’m supposed to tell you? How would I know? I was grabbed in the middle of the night.”

“To confess.”

“To confess?”

“Yes, please go ahead. Or I’ll have to resort to other methods.”

“But to what? I don’t understand.”

“Sir, do you see this needle? If you don’t confess, I’ll push this underneath your fingernail.”

You see the thick silver sewing needle. Light glints off the tip. Meant to pierce leather. You can’t see the hand holding it.

In the corner, the hurdy gurdy man grabs an onion from his pocket, and begins to peel it layer by layer. He drops the skin on the floor, littering papery husk. A cigarette dangling in his lips.

“I have nothing to confess! Why am I here?!” You struggle against the leather straps, try to pull your splayed fingers back together. Nothing moves.

“I’m sorry, sir. We’ll do them one finger at a time.”

You watch the needle approach with the folding of a suit jacket. You watch the skin fall. You watch the smoke rise. The hurdy-gurdy man opens his mouth wide. You try to pull your hand away as the needle pricks your fingertip.

“Not my fingers please, not my fingers nonono—”

The hurdy-gurdy man bites into the onion, the horrific crunch stinging your eyes as a needle forces its way under your fingernail in white hot pain deeper and deeper until you feel it up your elbow into your shoulder in every fiber. You’re screaming. Screaming full and throaty and wild and uncontrolled, like a soul escaping lips in a torrent. The man in the corner winds the drum. What starts with a droning C slides into music, quiets your pain with the building of Moonlight Sonata, so haunting in its melodrama to halt you. It draws out in howled tones from the rotating instrument. You feel the way the keys should strike your fingers in muscle memory. You look down to the needle burrowed deep, blood dripping. You feel each note through it like an antenna.

“Are you ready to confess, sir?” The shadow man asks.

“What? About…what? This. Can’t. Be legal.”

“Enhanced interrogation is allowed to secure a confession, sir.”

“WHAT CONFESSION?”

“The law does not specify, sir. Time for the next finger.”

You listen to the music, ride on its current as a needle is forced under the nail of your middle finger. You scream and squirm against the restraints. Push harder than you’ve ever pushed. A lance of pain up your arm and into your teeth, the backs of your eyes. And then, it’s over. You disassociate as the second movement starts. Fingers tracing the keys in your memory, your whole body moving to the flow of the piece under a lit stage. Throbbing pain brings you back.

“Why? Am I? Here?” You pant. Snot and tears cover your face.

“To confess, sir. Are you ready?”

“Okay. Okay, fine. I confess.”

“To what, sir?”

“Whatever it is. Whatever you’ll have me do. Whatever you want me to sign. I confess. To all of it.”

“Sorry sir, that’s not specific enough.”

“No, wait wait wait, not anoth—”

You scream into air filled with Beethoven and onion and smoke in a stainless steel cube as a man made from shadow pushes a needle under the fingernail of your ring finger. Somewhere else, today is a Tuesday. Somewhere else, people sit at cafes in the sunshine, sips of coffee traded with inhaled smoke. Somewhere else, people are wondering why the piano tuner never came to his appointment.

You listen to the notes of blood dripping on steel flooring. How the percussion accentuates the interstices of the piece. Pain was always so important to understanding Beethoven. Grief floats in every note.

The third movement starts with unbridled haste. Insatiable like a wildfire. It leaps out and fills the air. In the corner, sweat pours from the hurdy-gurdy man. He plays like the possessed, his body jerking in violent rhythm. The stench of him fills the space. All onion and cigarette smoke and acrid passion.

“I am innocent!” You cry and the world does not stop. The music continues. The man across from you shakes his non-head.

“Sorry, sir, that’s not a valid confession.” The suit moves forward, another needle outstretched.

“WAIT. Waitwaitwait. Just listen for a minute. How can you know I’m giving a valid confession if you don’t know what confession I’m supposed to give?”

You breathe in tandem with the hurdy-gurdy man, quick shallow heaving.

“Oh that’s easy, I won’t.”

“But, then... how will you know when to stop?”

“Stop, sir? Who said anything about stopping? No sir, I’m just the enhanced interrogation person. I push you for confessions, but I’m really not the one to decide if we should stop. That’s a different department.”

“Where the hell are they? THEY SHOULD BE HERE!”

“Ah, I’m sorry, sir. How do I say this? Your case just wasn’t special enough to warrant so many resources. I do hope you’ll understand, sir.”

You do not understand. You scream spittle flying vein bulging primal noises as the non-thing pushes another needle under your nail. The music dances across your fingers in jolts of pain.

“I see you’re having a tough time with this. I’ll let you know what’s next. So you can mentally prepare, sir. After we finish your fingers we’ll move onto your toes. And then it’s your choice if we do your eyes or eardrums next, but both will have to go.”

In response, you whimper and shut your eyes. Try to shrink in the chair. Moonlight Sonata hits the final crescendo, warping across notes in rapid succession. You sob.

“Anything to confess before we move on, sir?”

In the corner, the hurdy-gurdy man takes another bite of onion.

---

This piece was heavily referential to Kafka’s The Trial, and was initially named Kafka and the Hurdy-Gurdy. It was a lazy name, and I decided to instead pay homage by using Kafka’s own simple naming convention. Thank you for reading. If you want to support me, grab a pre-order of Fruits of Our Labor, share my writing with your friends, send me a virtual high-five. I’ll be starting as a full-time writer this summer and need all the support I can get.

This piece was born in Emil Ottoman’s workshop.