incomplet

forgetting death

The never-ending static hum and bright lights pulsing like a heartbeat were enough to drive a person insane. The tile was rough and cold, as if it were one thick block of ice. The light grey paint had begun falling in flecks off the walls to reveal the steel it had covered so well. The foreboding metal door allowed no eyes to peer beyond what was right here, right now.

Perhaps that's why the only thing I can remember are these repetitive sensations. I can't recall anything but white: white noise, white lights. white tile. Deep down I do know how I got here, but all the white is so overwhelming to the senses, it's become hard to focus on anything else except it and the feeling of my sanity slowly deteriorating.

The lights flickered again. My stomach growled again. How long had it been? Where were they? How many seconds have passed just thinking about how many second have passed? It was easy to keep track when they came twice a day, I could distinguish what time of day it was by the fresh makeup of a worker, or the bags under the eyes of a weary one. The way the uniform was spotless in the morning, of how it was wrinkled and disoriented by night. When there's nothing else to focus on, you begin to pick up those sort of little differences.

And yet, it felt like ages since they last came. The rumbling of my stomach wasn't an unfamiliar noise, but it had usually been satisfied before growing so desperate. How long had it been? I leaned against the corner of the wall, pulling my legs close.

And then I remembered him. Him, the man in the room over. Was he experiencing the same things? All the white? I balled my fist and knocked gently on the steel, which released an echo throughout the cell. That had been our way of communication ever since arriving here; that had been our way of reminding each other we still existed. I longed for the soothing response of a slow knock, knock, knock.

I waited, letting a few seconds pass. Though it felt like a mere few seconds, it may have been more. It may have been minutes, perhaps even half an hour. I had no way of telling anymore. When I wasn't given a response, my stomach sank. The reality of my loneliness collapsed on top of me like a brick wall. Would I ever lay eyes on a human being ever again?

And suddenly, I began to feel the panic of starvation. I noticed the way my shoulder bones stuck out and pierced the wall I was leaning on, the way I could feel the entirety of my spine pressed against the poorly veiled steel. My ribs stuck out as if I had been sucking in my stomach, my collarbones became knives pointed at my throat. Time had passed a lot faster than I thought.

Closing my eyes, I allowed myself to become mindless; I had to stop worrying. They knew what they were doing, and I wouldn't blame them. For the first time since arriving here, I finally thought of myself as a prisoner. That's who I had become, my past torn, tattered, and trailing behind me. I was supposed to be punished.

In an abrupt creak and crash, the large steel door at the front of the door flew open with a force strong and heavy enough to crush a human being.