Water Torture Karma

I remember as a kid learning techniques of torture once we captured a prisoner in our playground version of war. It was an innocent distraction and we were so far removed from the many wars simmering worldwide that our ignorance could only be described as arrogantly cute.

Pinned to the ground face up, drops of water were deliberately aimed at a spot on the forehead of the captured combatant. It certainly seemed harmless enough.

At first, the one hundred or so droplets were amusing that they could never be considered as torture. The captured combatant would even jostle his head and spear out his tongue in an attempt to capture the falling drop, partly as an act of defiance, and partly as a demonstration of the frivolity in the choice of torture.

At some point, those water drops became irritating and uncomfortable. No longer jostling for position would the prisoner be, but now eyes squinting and face contorting in dread of the next coming droplet. For the lucky few, perhaps even a head turn to deflect the impending splat.

Eventually, real and imagined pain would ensue as the light dew drops would seem heavy as steel as they continued dripping over the small targeted area of the forehead. The pleas from the prisoner would become desperate, urgent, and angry, leading to full submission and tears.

And that's how we declared victory in our little pretend war zone.

Later in life, I would come to learn the power of sustained water flow, at how it could carve its own path through solid rock. I also learned about actual wartime horrors and to this day, still try to reconcile in my mind our very naive approach to war as children blessed with not having to be involved in such grim circumstances as many on the planet were.

Each night, I am reminded of our water torture games as I listen to the incessant dripping of the shower head in my bathroom.

At first, it was just a drip. But eventually, it graduated to such an irritable nuisance that I would place a towel in the basin at the point at which the water drops would splat in order to muffle the sound.

That would work until the towel became saturated. Then the sound would change to an audible splosh, an equally irritable rhythm of dreaded pain, designed by some supreme being designed to be more amplified for what I am convinced is payback for my complicity in the playground antics of my youth.

It's 3:00 am. Namaste. I submit.