The Room
Here is a piece I wrote for school. I'd love some feedback. I'm also curious what you guys think "they" are.
The Room by Ronen A
At least there’s a window. Some sort of escape from this place. It’s cold out there. Through the window, a field lies bitter and bare, blanketed with clean white snow. There are no trees to break the emptiness, no flaws to blemish the untouched snow, no wind to shatter the calm, only a never-ending stretch of cold thoughtless serenity. Perfect. Above, silent and still, rests an ominous mirror carelessly reflecting what lies below. The window quickly fogs with warm breath. With blank eyes, I watch my fingers slide lazily down the glass. They leave crisp trails in the fog: holes for the white emptiness outside, spaces for the space. My lips aren’t cold anymore, only numb. Another breath fogs the trails but not quite as dark as they were before. Not until the cold clears the window and with only a few smudged scars it is empty. All is forgotten. I can breathe again.
The room is small and empty. Four crisp colourless walls keep me in here. Not a door, not a lock, just blank staring walls, one linking to the next. Nothing can shake the silence of this room, not a heartbeat, not a voice. There isn’t much to do but walk: mindless step after step. The strides leave nothing behind, the floor always remaining as empty as the walls around it, the room always remaining as silent as the cold that confines it. I could pound on the walls but there would be no noise from my bloodless hands. I would think of a way out, but that wouldn’t make much sense. No, it doesn’t work that way. You empty the room when they let you go. Then you’re free.
Most people eat. Good or bad, what you find on your plate you eat. Consistent and mechanical, we hunger, we chew, we swallow, and we hunger again. Most often it is an empty automatic process: broken, crushed and forgotten. At times, we are forcefully distracted from the monotony, stopped to think about that which we consume: by moving disgust or by haunting delight. In here, I am hungry. My sunken stomach starves, frozen in the cycle. It is hollow and unfed but from the void it makes no sound, takes no pain. I hunger for nothing.
You meet them quite young but you never forget them. Each captor unique but many the same. Some are kinder than others. Some are monstrous and loud, some are unnoticeable. Some attack with searing red hot knives, the most painful, no doubt, but their invisible scars are the quickest to fade away. Some are very useful. Some are boring. Some I’d like to get to know. Some I just can’t recall. But none will, for a second, let you go. Those that make us human, are the ones that confine us. They elevate us and they trap us: the cage on our arrogant perch. They are inescapable intangible jail-keepers. They are thoughtful yet they make no judgement, impartial in their confinement. It’s not their fault, really. They don’t have a choice and neither do I. Neither do we. From them, we are destined forever to never be free.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be let go. Nothing to confine me, this room forever behind me. To scream, to run, to leave marks in the snow. Unchained. Empty and complete. Free to go nowhere. But I guess that’s why I’m still here. Not kept by bars but by them - the one thing I have any of. Even if I do get out, it’s only to go to another room as empty as the last. My time will last as long as the snow does stretch. This room, I will get out of, but from this place I will never be free. As long as the window stands, I will stand behind it. It is all in my mind.
The Room by Ronen A
At least there’s a window. Some sort of escape from this place. It’s cold out there. Through the window, a field lies bitter and bare, blanketed with clean white snow. There are no trees to break the emptiness, no flaws to blemish the untouched snow, no wind to shatter the calm, only a never-ending stretch of cold thoughtless serenity. Perfect. Above, silent and still, rests an ominous mirror carelessly reflecting what lies below. The window quickly fogs with warm breath. With blank eyes, I watch my fingers slide lazily down the glass. They leave crisp trails in the fog: holes for the white emptiness outside, spaces for the space. My lips aren’t cold anymore, only numb. Another breath fogs the trails but not quite as dark as they were before. Not until the cold clears the window and with only a few smudged scars it is empty. All is forgotten. I can breathe again.
The room is small and empty. Four crisp colourless walls keep me in here. Not a door, not a lock, just blank staring walls, one linking to the next. Nothing can shake the silence of this room, not a heartbeat, not a voice. There isn’t much to do but walk: mindless step after step. The strides leave nothing behind, the floor always remaining as empty as the walls around it, the room always remaining as silent as the cold that confines it. I could pound on the walls but there would be no noise from my bloodless hands. I would think of a way out, but that wouldn’t make much sense. No, it doesn’t work that way. You empty the room when they let you go. Then you’re free.
Most people eat. Good or bad, what you find on your plate you eat. Consistent and mechanical, we hunger, we chew, we swallow, and we hunger again. Most often it is an empty automatic process: broken, crushed and forgotten. At times, we are forcefully distracted from the monotony, stopped to think about that which we consume: by moving disgust or by haunting delight. In here, I am hungry. My sunken stomach starves, frozen in the cycle. It is hollow and unfed but from the void it makes no sound, takes no pain. I hunger for nothing.
You meet them quite young but you never forget them. Each captor unique but many the same. Some are kinder than others. Some are monstrous and loud, some are unnoticeable. Some attack with searing red hot knives, the most painful, no doubt, but their invisible scars are the quickest to fade away. Some are very useful. Some are boring. Some I’d like to get to know. Some I just can’t recall. But none will, for a second, let you go. Those that make us human, are the ones that confine us. They elevate us and they trap us: the cage on our arrogant perch. They are inescapable intangible jail-keepers. They are thoughtful yet they make no judgement, impartial in their confinement. It’s not their fault, really. They don’t have a choice and neither do I. Neither do we. From them, we are destined forever to never be free.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be let go. Nothing to confine me, this room forever behind me. To scream, to run, to leave marks in the snow. Unchained. Empty and complete. Free to go nowhere. But I guess that’s why I’m still here. Not kept by bars but by them - the one thing I have any of. Even if I do get out, it’s only to go to another room as empty as the last. My time will last as long as the snow does stretch. This room, I will get out of, but from this place I will never be free. As long as the window stands, I will stand behind it. It is all in my mind.
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- tags:
- Literature, Writing, the room
