Frozen!

The mental and emotional angst of lying low under the vigil of a hawk who is waiting to devour you. The feeling is paralysing, the morale death is slow - you know you are alive, you know you can fight back, even shoot them down. But you are held down by an unknown fear - a fear that evokes a certain sense of survival, and the limbs don't respond. 

You pick up a dead blade of grass and throw it at the hawk to shoo it away - but it thinks that it is a friendly wave and continues to soar high. 

Everyone praises the hawk, and the hawk tells you that you can also fly, and it can give you the wind beneath your wings. 

You lie there in shock, wanting to get up and fly away, but you are frozen. There are no shackles, no bars, just the weight of your own mind. You have an arsenal of arrows to shoot the hawk down - but you don't, somehow. And you hate yourself for your own debilitation. And you lie like a piece of wood - listless.

You shut your eyes. But the hawk's eyes keep haunting you. You lose track of time lying there.

Such is the emotional effect of moral abuse of a predator! 

Then along comes a friend, places a warm hand on your forehead gives you a sip of water and asks - can you move your thumb? Just the thumb? "Yes!" - you barely speak through a dusty vision. "Okay, move your thumb" - he says. And you do. 

"Now can you move your wrist?" "Yes" - you speak for the first time. 

-"Both?" 

-"Yes!" 

-"Okay, let's see you do that."

You move your wrists. 

He says "Place your palm on the ground, and hold my hand and get up." You do.

"See? It isn't so difficult" - the friend says, holding your hand. 

With one giant heave, you get up and stand. 

You know the hawk is watching. You clasp onto the grip of the rapier slung around your waist, and look up. 

The hawk takes his gaze away, and says that it's a shame since we could have soared higher together. 

You cling onto the friend's hand for dear life. You keep wondering why you cannot kill the hawk, and why it held you captive.

You want to scream. But you don't. 

You start to walk towards home.

The hawk still soars, never really losing sight of you. And even when you don't look up, you feel those eyes on you - still waiting to devour you.

Exhaustion sets in. But you trudge along towards home.

[If you know someone who is under the spell of a hawk, don't ask them why, don't shame them if they are not able to get up, hold their hand. Tell them to move one muscle at a time and make them walk home.]