Out of Captivity : Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle

118 OUT OF CAPTIVITYimagine what it was like to be in those coffinlike shacks. I began todread nightfall and the sound of the chains being fed through the holesin our doors; the ratcheting metallic clink and the click of the lock werelike being water-tortured.I slept fitfully, if at all, and in the morning, all my pent-up anxietyneeded to be let out somehow. I’d wake at first light and the guardwould open my hooch to let me out. I’d walk a loop around the perimeterof the camp. Every day it seemed to rain at least a bit, and the track Imade grew gradually muddier and muddier. I started with 60 laps andincreased that to 150, walking in circle after circle after circle. I was surethat Keith and Marc were getting sick to death of the sucking sound ofmy boots in the muck and mire, but I had to do something physical.My thoughts were racing out of control. I couldn’t get out of my mindthe idea that we were going to be there for six years. I’d take one stepand I’d hear the word six in my head. I’d take another step and hear theword years. I’d repeat those words and imagine I was tromping theminto the mud, but they’d just keep rising back up like a hand wantingto pull me down beneath the surface.We still couldn’t speak to one another, and even though Keith andMarc were in such close proximity to me, the isolation was really upsetting.About three or four days into what we referred to as “the NewCamp,” I hit a bottom that I didn’t even know existed. I thought I’dmade firm contact with this dark runway before, but I fell even deeper.Even though during the day we were allowed to move freely about ourenclosure, that day I chose to sit off in a corner of the camp on a tablasbench. For a long time, I sat there questioning my ability to make itthrough this, until Keith walked past me and dropped a small scrap ofpaper on the ground within my line of sight. I waited until he was backat the far end of the clearing near Marc. I unfolded it and read, “We arenot forgotten. People are looking for us. One day at a time. We will gohome.”