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Cold. It's cold in winter. It's not something that's surprising after all, that's how seasons work, as the earth spins around the sun, seasons change and it gets colder. That's just how things are. Thankfully it doesn't stay that way forever. As winter comes to an end it gets warmer and flowers start to bloom and the temperature starts to rise. So why is it that no matter what I do no matter how long I wait I always feel cold.
Well maybe cold isn't how most would describe how I feel. If you think about it I still react to temperature the way humans would. I get hot when I'm in the sun too long and still sweat in the summer or after working out. I think, fundamentally, there must be something wrong with my brain.
The room I sit in is cold. The grey walls feel constricting despite the fact that there is little else aside from me in the room. In the far corner sits a lone broken chair, one of the legs sitting in a broken pile of splinters next to it. The floor is a dusty green shade of tile, something you might see in an older home's bathroom. There is no door. Well there is but not in a normal sense. It sits on the ceiling of the room with no chance at reaching it considering just how tall the walls make the room.
Everything feels wrong.
My skin is too tight and my breathing feels like someone else's. My breathing doesn't feel like my own. I can not hold my legs no matter how hard I try. I vaguely feel the coolness of the tile seeping through my pants as I sit in the middle of the room but I'm not totally sure.
It's like spectating, you know how it's like when you're looking down on a model of something or perhaps you're watching a sports game from the stands, that's how this feels. I'm not in my body, someone else is just watching the events of the evening unfold in front of me but not from my eyes, no I'm seeing it as if I'm slightly floating above.
It is silent. I can hear my heartbeat and it drives me crazy to no end how is it that this is all I ever hear my heartbeat and my thoughts. It's not fair. I feel trapped. I am trapped. There is no real way to escape this room I'm in. I've tried and remain unsuccessful.
I wonder what it would be like to go back to how it was. Back to pretending that I was human and wasn't stuck in this prison. I used to be normal. I like to think I was, although I was always seen as strange and unusual so maybe I've always been this way, just hiding it from both myself and the world around me.
I watch myself as I get up from where I was seated on the floor and start to slowly pace the large almost empty room. I don't really know what I'm thinking , maybe I'm not thinking at all. Ah wouldn't that be nice to be able to stop thinking and never have to worry about things just live life going through the notions other people have outlined for you. But no, that's not in the cards for us is it. There is always more to do, always more to think about. There is always. More. To. Do.
What can I do? I'm all alone. It doesn't matter what I do or if I do nothing at all. So why does it still feel like I am falling behind? Falling behind in what? I don't think I have the answers to my own thoughts. That's a scary thought, isn't it? Not being able to understand something is one thing but not being able to understand yourself well. That's worse because nobody else will ever be able to understand you if you can't even figure out what is wrong with you.
I need to find a way out of this place. I know there has to be some way to escape. Why can’t I seem to figure out how to leave? No matter what I do nothing ever changes, nothing ever comes out of the effort I put in. It feels like a vacuum. Everytime I feel I am making progress it slips away when I'm not watching it.
I am still cold. And empty. I am so empty I don't think there is anything that could fill the void inside myself. That is why I am cold. Constantly. Relentlessly. Cold.
I feel I've been trapped here my whole life. I know this cannot be true because I am still alive or as alive as you can be while being trapped for an unknown amount of time. Maybe it is irrational thinking but perhaps I was never trapped in the first place. Maybe I entered here myself.
I faintly hear footsteps. That can't be right. Oh, it's just me.
I looked up only to find the door that had always been on the ceiling was no longer there. Similarly the chair had gone. When had they vanished, how long had I not noticed their absence?
I frowned thinking how their absence was unexpected and not in the slightest welcomed. They were always there no matter what I had been thinking no matter what I was doing why were they suddenly gone?
I heard something. Hinges. There was a new door. There in front of me was a door. It was an escape. It was all I had ever hoped for. That plain simple white door was all I had dreamed of.
So why is it that now with all that I have ever wanted right in front of me I hesitate.
I reach for the handle. There was never a door. There was never a grey room to begin with, no chair, no hope of escaping.
I was never stuck in a physical place. I have only ever been stuck in the confines of my own mind. A prison of my own making.