And all that I knew was the hole in my shoe which Was letting in water

Hungry. Oh, am I ever so hungry. And thirsty, too. I would lick the damp, moldy walls that keep me here, but I already have, hours ago, to no avail. Not a drop of water has soothed my tongue for what feels like days. My stomach has imploded. I must sit here, twisted into a fetal position, to try survive the pain, the hunger. I try not to cry, so as to conserve the little water left inside my dehydrated self. I try to close my eyes, but it is too hard not to look, not to watch. Slowly, my gaze rises and I stare, my lower lip trembling, at the table above. At the food above. My eyes stalk the food, the steaming plates set out with a glorious, gleaming banquet—I will die with the food right there, trapped like a goldfish who has jumped out onto the ground, its nose pressed to its glass bowl filled with water. Mmmm. So thirsty. . . With a last burst of effort, I get up, and run at the table, jumping on it, jumping on the food. The food to make me well again, the food to ease my pain. But yet again, like all the other nights, my fingers only touch hard, immaculate glass, sealed over the feast, my feast. I scrabble to hold on, my dry, brittle tongue presses against the glass, and I fall once more. Desperate, I throw myself again and again at the concrete door. My mind watches my body, is startled to hear a wail, an inhuman wail of the most horrible suffering, and watches as I collapse on the floor, shivering uncontrollably. To be the infant in her mother's arms, to taste the strong milk between my lips, to taste anything, to feel my belly full.

"I'll tell!" I whisper. "I'll tell!" I try to shout. To tell is to get food and water, to tell is to get mercy. I will tell them everything they ever wanted, but for a crust of bread. Why won't they hear me? I'll finally tell, I am hungry. But no one hears. My voice too weak, a thin gossamer thread against iron cables. With one final breath, my voice breaks these cables, informing the world: "I'll tell!" No more breaths are drawn. I feel darkness close in, I succumb, just as I hear the heavy footsteps of my entrapper triumphantly storm into the room. My soul—shriveled as it is—rises and watches as the man comes in with a smug grin on his face that turns to puzzledness as he reaches down to check my pulse. His expression morphs to anger, to rage, to the prize dangling there and now, only just by a hair, lost, as he finds no pulse in my lifeless body. I am much the same in life as in death; shriveled, weak, untelling. Now it is time for him to utter an inhuman scream to tell us "So close, so close!" To make suffer, as he made me. Slowly, I smile, and turn, misting through the glass, to feast on the essence of the sustenance laid on that rough table. Yet I am hungry, oh so hungry.

Title Quote: Traffic, Hole in My Shoe