A Chain

[Ann]

Starting in my youth, and working across the decades, I forged a chain, and anchored it to the wall of my cell. No one made me do it; dungeon cells simply aren’t fashionable without chains. One day, I decided to see what was beyond the walls of the dungeon. Part I remembered from youth, part I heard from others, but I knew there was a life outside, and I was sure it had to be brighter than the haze I knew here. I knew I must either become free, or die in this wretched place.

If I was going to be free, I knew I would have to break the chain, and I was afraid I might not be equal to the task. But until I really pulled against it, I never realized how strong I had made it. I put my back, my arms, my legs into the effort; the harder I pulled, the more it hurt; but the chain never budged. Every effort I could manage, over and over again. I cried, I screamed, I groaned against it; I couldn’t even bend a link. I looked at its fastening to the wall - perhaps there was a tool I could use against the anchor. But the only tools I could find would not fit this nut.

I called out for help. Other prisoners called back - They couldn’t come help me pull, for they were busy with their own chains, but we were always there for one another with shouts of encouragement and advice. Once in a while, someone who had become free would shout over the walls, but once free, most never returned to the cells. Occasionally, someone would break loose, only to be recaptured by our common enemy. Some prisoners came to believe that it was impossible to ever be truly free; still, they pulled bravely at their chains, hoping to stretch them a little. `Pull Harder!` `Never quit pulling!` `You made the chain, you can break it!` my comrades yelled. We cheered together each time there was the slightest bend in any chain; cried together whenever someone stumbled in exhaustion.

After so much work and so little gain, I no longer had the strength, the will to pull. Still, I could not escape the dream of making it to that other, brighter world. There had to be another way. Just then, it happened. Someone on the way out, someone who had found his freedom, whispered to me. `Your hands` was all I managed to hear, and he was gone. I scarcely knew what to make of it. I searched. I read. I looked everywhere for the secret. How could my hands have the solution? There was no way I could ever grow them to be strong enough to break the chain. Days later, I did what should have been obvious: I looked at my bruised, bloody, beaten hands. Wrapped inside of them was my chain. All these years, all this turmoil - how could I not have noticed?

Day 10. The day I saw the chain in my hands. It wasn’t holding on to me; I was holding on to it. All that was ever necessary to claim my freedom was to drop the chain and walk away. Yes, it took a while for the wounds to heal, the bruises to clear, the pains to go away. Sometimes when it’s cold, I can still feel a distant ache in my hands. But I will never again pick up that chain. There is no reason, no temptation, no urge to do that ever again. It is a chain I don’t want attached to an anchor I don’t need, in a cell no longer mine. I’m still not sure why I ever made that chain.

A simple story, really. How I forged my chain, hardening it in fires of smoldering tobacco. How I struggled to break the chain, and how the struggle made me weak, but did nothing to the chain. The story of finding that strength of the chain wasn’t the problem, that my own weakness was irrelevant. Only my belief in its power held me; only by refusing to let go was I enslaved.

A simple story, but nine months later, I’m still not done telling it. Then again, maybe I am.

Look at your hands. Why are you still fighting? Why are you still holding on?

Found on Quitnet