Time passes by and my weekly walks are what I looked forward to. Domino knows this. He uses it as a dangling carrot, and I, the mindless donkey follow it wholeheartedly. Was I a fool for accepting this ploy, knowing it was yet another means to control me? Yes.
I don’t care. I need something to counter the horrors that man inflicts on me. A weekly fifteen minute walk of imagining myself far away from the devastation of a horrid man called Domino and a wretched woman named Jessie is all I get, and I soak it up like a dry sponge coming in contact with water.
I am desperate when I receive my walks. My desire to live is flickering away which is probably why Domino granted them to me. After having enjoyed my new liberty, I become stupid.
That hope I mentioned earlier, yeah, that darn hope. It snuck in and now, I am greedy for more walks. For more time away from the terror of that gross hut. For more freedom. I become stupid, I do something stupid.
I try to escape after I earn my walks. In retaliation, Domino takes them away for two weeks. I nearly die waiting for those fourteen days to end with what feels like an eternity of suffering amongst the cycles of zaps and sessions. I had to be taught a lesson while I keep up my normal duties to Domino. It often amazes me how I lose the track of time. I know it is a tactic to control me. A tactic that works wonders, I can see why they do it. They being the horrible people of this world that capture people like this. To be perfectly clear, the capture of anything and caging it for personal pleasure is a horrible thing, be it me or a parrot taught to sing or a monkey doing a little dance at a carnival.
I behave myself after my misstep. I force my feelings down, and I mean deep down. I made sure Domino is always pleased. His demands continue to grow. The time he wants is getting longer, or it feels that way. The positions he wants are getting more complex, or it feels that way. His aggression is growing, or it feels that way.
Like a trained dog, I suffer through it all for the sake of my walks. Looking back at it, it seems so silly to endure so much, willingly, for something so trivial. Yet my mental peace is nothing trivial, it is essential.
On my walks, we return to the hut when there is one minute left on a timer that One would turn on when we leave.
The walk back is more enjoyable because we stop by what I assume is a little convivence store. It is a small hut, built similarly to the one I stay in only significantly smaller. The owner realized their home is in a prime location far from any other stores and stocked up on essentials then began selling them. A coffee bar comes in after a short while, and he puts a few folding chairs outside. In an instant, he built a perfect café. A café that Jessie asks us to stop by and get her a mocha latte from every week.
By now, number One lets me go in and make the order myself. This way I can walk around and look at all the different things they offer which change every week. I never actually want anything for myself but the act alone is reminiscent of my past life and so, I enjoy it tremendously. I never really appreciated mindlessly walking through store isles, until now.