Conventional Warfare

My Dearest Love,

I know not whether my last missive was able to break free from this dark hole and find its way to the device in your soft hands. We have been without service and though we can all see the name of a WiFi connection its password is withheld from us. I am starting to see the lights in the eyes of brave men and women go out as they see their phone's batteries die away, so I am writing this last message and then will turn off my phone so that perchance even if I do not survive this ordeal perhaps this last message will be brought to you with my remains. I know you will remember my password, your middle name with second letter capitalized and the digits 80, which would be a funny smiley face with one eye if you had held the shift key. I recall your laugh when I showed it you.

Though our captors brook no direct physical torment, their presentations and talks and PowerPoints go on and on and on without end. The chairs are not soft and seem to all be fixed at unnatural angles so as to destroy the posture of even the most conscientious. It becomes agony for the young and strong, and I can only imagine how the older members of this audience are feeling.

Bathroom breaks are permitted at irregular intervals but they are impossibly short and the facilities are too scarce for all to use in the time allotted.

We were kept awake most all of last night while they plied us with alcohol and surrounded us with strobing lights and pounding music. They called it a party and said we should be networking, but you could not see an other's face or hear their voice which may well have been their plan for all we would have done was create a network to enable escape.

Then this morning we were hauled back, unrested, many still poisoned from the prior evenings imbibery and too confused and weak to break for freedom. A heavy plastic placard hangs around our necks to identify us to any local resident should be ever break away and they would surely see that we were returned to this sorry group.

It is worse for the women whose shoes have fiendish spikes on their heels but are pressured to move with the same agility and alacrity as the sensibly shod. For many of them their time of rest was also diminished as their daily preparations were also more labor intensive.

Our focus and attention seems to be all that they crave, and soon they will have it all out of us. Once it is gone and they have no more use for us I do not know what they will do.

If they free us I will strive to come back to you, though they have spoken so much of eye contact that I fear they will take mine out before they release me. I pray that though I return blind our love will survive and you will find some place in your heart and your life for the wretch I will be.

To thee I commit these words and my eternal love,