章節 163: Helplessness
Arabic? He clearly couldn't understand it. After searching through the phone, he found no clues whatsoever. He had no choice but to begin dialing numbers, yet he couldn't remember the phone number. Rifling through his pockets, he found his wallet had been emptied, leaving him with nothing. Besides that, there was only a pile of peanut shells, a medicine bottle, and a small flask.
Taking a deep breath, the man dialed "911" using international long-distance. "911, please hold," the call connected, and a female operator's voice came through.
"I'm buried," the man panted heavily, speaking rapidly without pause. He was so urgent that he didn't even stop to catch his breath. "You have to help me. You have to help me, I can't breathe..."
"Sir?" The operator seemed a bit confused.
"I've been buried alive in a coffin, please come and save me! Send someone to find me!" The man's right hand tightly gripped the phone while his left hand held a lighter over his chest. His gaze kept shifting restlessly to the faint flame. His fingers involuntarily tightened, as if clutching his lifeline.
"Sir, slow down a bit. Can you tell me your name?"
"Paul, Paul Conroy."
"Okay, Mr. Conroy. Can you tell me your location?"
Paul closed his eyes in agony. "I don't know." His voice was terrifyingly hoarse, his gaze darting around in confusion, yet never finding a focal point. "I don't know. I'm in a coffin. I don't know where. I'm scared. Please help me."
"You're in a coffin?"
"Yes." Paul felt like he was about to suffocate, as if an invisible hand was choking his throat. The suffocating sensation made his face flush, and he even lacked the confidence to speak, "Yeah, it's, like, one of those old, wooden ones."
"Are you at funeral home?"
"No, no, no." Paul repeatedly denied, but he couldn't help feeling somewhat perplexed because he had no idea where he was. "I don't know, no."
"How are calling me right now?" The operator still didn't seem to grasp the situation, continuing her questions in a calm and unhurried manner.
Paul was on the brink of suffocation, his mind plunged into complete chaos. "What?"
"If you're buried in a coffin, where are you calling from?" The operator repeated her question.
"Uh... a cell phone. There was an old cell phone in the coffin," Paul instinctively pressed it against his ear, attempting to find a crack to let in a bit of fresh air.
"You're calling from your cell phone?"
"Yes. No. It's not mine, but yes, I'm calling from a cell phone." Paul's mind had turned into mush, relying solely on instincts. He didn't even know what he was doing anymore, his eyes reflecting only bewilderment and distress.
"There was a cell phone in the coffin when you climbed in?"
"Yes." Paul nodded, but then furrowed his brow, "What? I didn't climb in." His frustration was mounting, as he still couldn't breathe fresh air, and the operator was wasting his time.
"How did you end up in the coffin, sir?"
"I was put here." Paul's hands clenched into fists, his eyes tightly shut, each word squeezed out through his gritted teeth.
"In the coffin?" The operator found this somewhat absurd.
"Yes, please, save me!" Paul was no longer able to form complete sentences, just blurting out word by word.
"And you're saying the coffin is buried?" The questions continued endlessly.
Paul raised his left hand to rub his throbbing temple but ended up burning it on the lighter. He grimaced, "I think so." Paul gasped for breath, seemingly unable to continue, "It's... it's so hot in here, I can't breathe."
"Do you know your location, sir?" The operator's voice seemed somewhat exasperated now.
"I... I told you, I don't know. Somewhere in Iraq. Please, please save me!" Paul was completely incoherent, his brain a blank except for "please, save me".
"Iraq?"
"Yes! I'm a truck driver, an American, and I work for CRT." Paul's brain finally started working again, and he spoke quickly.
"Are you a soldier, sir?" The operator's question incensed Paul, and he yelled in one go, "No. Please, please listen to me. I'm a truck driver. I work for CRT. I'm a civilian contractor working in Iraq. We were attacked in Baqubah, they... they shot them. All of them." His coherent speech was suddenly cut off, and Paul gasped heavily, a moment of breathlessness due to his fast heartbeat.
In that moment, he suddenly realized he was the sole survivor. All his colleagues had been shot. The abrupt sense of confusion and loss left him in silence.
"They shot who, sir?"
The operator's question brought Paul back to reality again. "All of the other drivers," Paul couldn't help but chuckle, a sense of surreal absurdity enveloping him, a trace of mockery tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"And you're saying this happened in Iraq? The country?"
Paul chuckled, a melancholic laughter that felt painfully real and urgent, a bitter irony. "Yes, please listen to me, okay? Hear me out!" Paul restrained his smile, speaking earnestly, "The military gave me a secure number, but I had it stored in my wallet and..."
The operator interrupted Paul with resignation, "Mr. Conroy, this is 911 emergency in Youngstown, Ohio."
The rapid rise and fall of his chest suddenly slowed, as if time and space had congealed. "Ohio?" Paul froze outright, every muscle in his body frozen in place.
"Yes, sir." The operator finally resumed smoothly, "I'm not sure exactly how you called here if you're in another country, but if you'd like, I can patch you through to the Sheriff's Department."
"You don't understand, forget it." Paul shook his head and hung up immediately. He checked his battery level and saw it had only three bars left, not good news.
Gavin found a bizarre sense of amusement in this, as if dialing "911" for help had been a mistaken choice from the beginning. The operator hadn't been of any help at all. The endless questioning had never hit the mark, the fragmented conversation had never truly clarified the issue. Not only had it drained the phone's battery, but it had also wasted the oxygen inside the coffin. More ludicrously, in the end, Paul realized that "911" was utterly incapable of solving his problem.
Gavin knew it wasn't the operator's fault, yet he couldn't help but become concerned. After wasting the opportunity, how was Paul going to save himself? On the Iraqi soil, how were the others going to come to his rescue? A sudden surge of suspense arose. Gavin could feel adrenaline pumping, and he unconsciously adjusted his sitting posture. Then he realized his muscles had been tensed for too long; his body had begun to numb. But the urgency of horror and fear remained stuck in his throat, preventing him from shifting his gaze.
Paul extinguished the lighter again, this time without panic. He calmed down and rearranged his thoughts before relighting the lighter and dialing the number again.
He first called his wife, Linda, both the home phone and the cellphone. Unfortunately, Linda didn't answer. He left messages in their respective voicemails, explaining his crisis and hoping Linda would listen and quickly seek help. Then he dialed "411" for directory assistance, hoping to find the FBI's number. The operator relentlessly demanded that Paul specify a particular state and city. In his anger, he mentioned "Chicago." The call was then transferred to the FBI office in Chicago, where he explained the situation.
"Me and a convoy of other drivers were delivering kitchen parts to a community center. As we got closer, a bunch of kids started throwing rocks at our trucks. Then an IED went off up ahead and blew up one of the other trucks. These guys came out from behind the houses with guns and started shooting everybody right there on the street.... I was way in the
back of the convoy. I must have got hit in the head with one of the rocks and got knocked out. That's the last thing I remember. But now I just woke up, and I was tied up and buried in a coffin."
Paul did his best to explain the situation, but the agent on the other end of the line kept fixating on details. Why were the kids throwing stones? Who exactly was shooting? Why were those shooters firing? And why hadn't Paul been shot... The interrogative tone sounded as if Paul were one of the terrorists, calling to harass. The agent even began investigating Paul's personal identity and background.
Anger, calmness, anger, calmness.
Paul's emotions were in a constant state of torment. What's worse, the phone had lost signal! The call had been dropped! Paul held his breath, pressing against the coffin wall, searching for a signal. He painstakingly searched, bit by bit, until he finally found one. After some consideration, he called his company, the operator starting another round of entanglement. Self-introduction, explaining the situation, crisis management explanation, details asked for, continuous entanglement, until finally, he was transferred to the HR director, Alan Davenport. She paid no attention to Paul's protest. He didn't need the HR director now; he needed crisis management!
But the call was transferred nonetheless, and then came the waiting... the prolonged waiting... endless waiting. Finally, the call connected to a voicemail. Another cycle repeated, Paul explained the whole situation again. But he didn't get to finish; the voicemail was full and cut him off.
Staring at his phone with the busy signal, Paul's anger erupted, thoroughly erupted. "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" He madly punched and kicked, venting all his anger with all his might. In an endless abyss of darkness, he released all his emotions indignantly until he was utterly exhausted. Then he lay there, dazed and lost, calm, calm... even his breathing seemed to fade.
Helplessness, it was nothing but helplessness. That profound sense of powerlessness seeped through the endless darkness, more terrifying than even despair. It had grasped the rope of hope, believing that by following it, he could escape this ordeal. Yet, repeated again and again, from 911 to the FBI, even to his own family, every institution, every individual had shut him out. Going around in circles, hope was snuffed out just as it had arisen, its impact truly profound and epic.
Gavin felt it was horribly cruel and ironic. The heaviness in his heart seeped through the horror and fear, slowly permeating.
創作者的想法 
Shallowman
Shallowman For some reason, "F*ck" is always translated "Grass". Imagine a person, confined in a coffin, repeatedly say "Grass" to vent his frustration. I think the word grass is a homonym of a swear word in Chinese.
The song of the chupster is "Arkasia - No More Fear"
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票