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Authors: Daniele Mastrogiacomo
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relaxed. The sun is setting and the light is weaker now. My arms have been behind my back all this time and they ache. The fabric is cutting into my wrists. They order me to stand up and they put the blindfold back over my eyes. I repeat that I canât breathe with my eyes covered. Three of them lift me up and pull me, my feet dragging, outside. I only have socks on my feet. They laugh and talk amongst themselves, they seem to be discussing my situation with great mirth. They make me walk along a small path between grass and stones. There are puddles of muddy water, patches of wet earth, then sand, earth again, tufts of plants and grass. My heart is beating hard. Iâm terrified. I ask where theyâre taking me. I ask thousands of questions, one after the other. Iâm afraid theyâre going to kill me. A single shot to the back of the head, my body abandoned in a ditch, eyes blindfolded, hands tied. A lifeless bundle without form, dried blood around the bullet hole. I think of Enzo Baldoni, the Italian journalist who was kidnapped and assassinated in cold blood in Iraq before any negotiations could get started.
Itâs over, I say to myself. I find myself praying. My entire life passes before me as if it were a film. My children, my wife, my mother, the newspaper, the sea, my sailboat, my father, and my siblings. Thereâs no time, I need to see more. The film is running fast, in black and white, the frenzied images pile up. Itâs over, goodbye to this crazy, unpredictable world that I so desperately love and so violently hate. Goodbye to everyone. My hour has come. I raise my eyes, still blindfolded, to the sky and ask for Godâs help and His pardon. I ask that He protect my children. I am no longer afraid. Iâm ready. Then, suddenly, I feel that theyâre not going to kill me. Iâm certain of it. I donât know why. My instincts tell me so. I want to believe it. Maybe my death is too absurd an eventuality for me to imagine, or perhaps Iâm too important for our captors. Iâm convinced that theyâre not going to do it. Not yet, not now. My legs are trembling as we move left. They push my head down and shove me into the trunk of the Corolla. I squirm. Iâve learned to try to keep my wrists apart when they tie me up so the knots will give a little. But this time the knots are too tight.
The blindfold slips down over my nose and mouth. I can see some light, now, but I canât breathe. Iâm going to suffocate to death. I cry out a dozen times, âPlease! Please!â I want them to stop, to take the blindfold off me. My breathing is shallower, faster; the blindfold over my nose and mouth begins to grow damp. My mouth and throat are dry. I make a desperate attempt to get hold of a stray piece of fabric with my teeth and pull it off my nose and then my mouth. It is a long, arduous procedure. I try to control my breathing as if I were underwater. Iâm convinced Iâm going to die. I tell myself that it would be a damned stupid way to die, but I also remind myself that many, many hostages have died like this.
Iâm lying on my back, my knees on my chest. I turn over with difficulty and manage to loosen the knots and free my hands. I search for the cable and open the trunk. Fresh air. Finally. Twice, three times, I am tossed from one side of the trunk to the other as the car drives over particularly rough patches. Itâs torture. I have been taken prisoner by a group of Taliban. I do not know them, nor do I know what their intentions are; Iâm alone, left completely to my own devices; I have no contact with the outside world; I am obliged to do everything these young soldiers want me to do, follow orders issued by people far away from here. Death could come at any moÂment. It is a constant, an obsession that envelops me for fifteen days and fifteen nights with a force, a power that again and again has me gasping for air. I will have to learn to
Itâs over, I say to myself. I find myself praying. My entire life passes before me as if it were a film. My children, my wife, my mother, the newspaper, the sea, my sailboat, my father, and my siblings. Thereâs no time, I need to see more. The film is running fast, in black and white, the frenzied images pile up. Itâs over, goodbye to this crazy, unpredictable world that I so desperately love and so violently hate. Goodbye to everyone. My hour has come. I raise my eyes, still blindfolded, to the sky and ask for Godâs help and His pardon. I ask that He protect my children. I am no longer afraid. Iâm ready. Then, suddenly, I feel that theyâre not going to kill me. Iâm certain of it. I donât know why. My instincts tell me so. I want to believe it. Maybe my death is too absurd an eventuality for me to imagine, or perhaps Iâm too important for our captors. Iâm convinced that theyâre not going to do it. Not yet, not now. My legs are trembling as we move left. They push my head down and shove me into the trunk of the Corolla. I squirm. Iâve learned to try to keep my wrists apart when they tie me up so the knots will give a little. But this time the knots are too tight.
The blindfold slips down over my nose and mouth. I can see some light, now, but I canât breathe. Iâm going to suffocate to death. I cry out a dozen times, âPlease! Please!â I want them to stop, to take the blindfold off me. My breathing is shallower, faster; the blindfold over my nose and mouth begins to grow damp. My mouth and throat are dry. I make a desperate attempt to get hold of a stray piece of fabric with my teeth and pull it off my nose and then my mouth. It is a long, arduous procedure. I try to control my breathing as if I were underwater. Iâm convinced Iâm going to die. I tell myself that it would be a damned stupid way to die, but I also remind myself that many, many hostages have died like this.
Iâm lying on my back, my knees on my chest. I turn over with difficulty and manage to loosen the knots and free my hands. I search for the cable and open the trunk. Fresh air. Finally. Twice, three times, I am tossed from one side of the trunk to the other as the car drives over particularly rough patches. Itâs torture. I have been taken prisoner by a group of Taliban. I do not know them, nor do I know what their intentions are; Iâm alone, left completely to my own devices; I have no contact with the outside world; I am obliged to do everything these young soldiers want me to do, follow orders issued by people far away from here. Death could come at any moÂment. It is a constant, an obsession that envelops me for fifteen days and fifteen nights with a force, a power that again and again has me gasping for air. I will have to learn to
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