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

260 OUT OF CAPTIVITYin this place and he was talking about killing himself. That was whatthe FARC did to its own, that was its gift to its members. If you had aconscience, it seemed your only option out of the madness was to endit all. Eliécer had a strong enough sense of self to know that what theywere doing was wrong. He recognized that he was being abused andasked to do inhumane things to others. Unfortunately for him, he wasalso smart enough to realize that there were few choices left for him.He’d been trapped for so long, he could no longer fathom the idea offreedom. What made things worse was that he’d probably never evenknown it to begin with. He was essentially a slave, and the fact that he’drealized this made his life that much harder.My one-less-is-a-good-thing rule was completely out the window atthat point. I walked to the fence.“What are you talking about? Look at us. I mean, look at our futureand what it holds for us. You’ll never see us want to give up living.”Hearing yourself saying words out loud that you didn’t even wantto think was tough—that he had a better chance of getting out of therethan we did, that he just had to make the choice to go. We were worriedabout him, and for the next few nights we listened to hear if he was ina bad way. A few days later, he was on duty to bring us our morningcoffee and food. He looked like shit. His eyes were bloodshot and redrimmedlike he’d been on a two-day alcohol bender, and the bags underhis eyes seemed big enough to pull his entire body down.The next time we got a chance to speak, he said a lot of the samethings. He was tired of being worked like a dog. He just wanted to bereleased or sent to a farm where he could do work that didn’t kill him.He just couldn’t take it anymore. For the rest of our stay there, it wentlike that. With each day that passed, we worried even more about theguy. He didn’t get much better, but he was at least able to keep sloggingaway. I hoped he would be able to hold out until some other optionpresented itself.Another guy whom we connected with over Milton’s oppressiveness