The past is the New Future
Quiet. That is all that surrounds me. The only excitement in my long day is using a worn out chalk the size of a pencil eraser to write in these crumbling yellow walls. Tally mark number 1,825 makes it exactly five years inside this place where one is supposed to recover, so much for that. The forceful banging of a metal against the steel bars made Ryan jump out of his thought process and turn to the only door that one day he will be walking out of. It was time for his meal; today's menu consisted of yellow stale bread and what looked like tomato soup without any sign of tomatoes. The tray was still on the lifeless concrete floor and Ryan was still curled up tightly a few feet from it hoping that the past will let him move forward with was now his life. Funny thing about this place, he thought, this room being scary is a cliché, but what is scary is how much one grows to hate it. He got up from the hard comforting bed and dreadfully dragged his feet across the floor only to stop a few feet away from the mirror. Rarely did he ever look at the mirror; he spent the majority of the time in bed staring up blankly at the high radiant white ceiling tiles awaiting his "necessary" cocktail. He was afraid of what was going to be staring back at him. Relentlessly he slowly turned but kept his eyes closed. As he opened them, heavy pale blue eyes, strong, but rugged facial features stared back. A scar running from his right eyebrow then disappearing under his light honey brown hair was his most intriguing feature. It gave him a tougher more independent look but in reality that was not who he was. A shy smirk rose from the corner of his mouth thinking back on how that scar came to be and how he also got his square jaw tattooed by saying the wrong stuff at a wrong time. He almost started to chuckle to himself but it seemed like he almost forgot to, since being enclosed from the outside world changed him completely. He wondered how all of the joy he once had had all turned him into an unknown older figure in a matter of a few years. As he was questioning if he was still 23, he dropped his hand from his rugged face as he was staring at something unusual under a bulky broken lamp that was reflected in the mirror. Taking skeptical steps towards this flat piece of paper, he pushed the lamp aside and now held a small fancy red envelope that had his name written in cursive very professionally. He did not recognize who the letter might have been written by but then a shiver ran down his spine as he dropped the letter. It couldn't be he though, it was humanly impossible. Those tired eyes now filled with fear and panic glazed at that envelope for what must have been hours. He needed to know if it was true. Almost fearing to pick up the letter itself, Ryan slowly approached a crouching position until his knees were completely plastered against that unforgiving concrete floor. Holding it like a fragile antique that might collapse at any moment, he opened it and read:
You are right. It is not your imagination playing tricks on you. I never really left and now you are here. –C.A
"C.A?" Ryan mouthed loudly as if he never put those letters together.
He knew exactly who those initials belonged to but he was still in denial.
"Carrie Ann, Carrie Ann wrote this but… but it cannot be her, I saw her fall out of that swing 15 years ago and she never woke up!"
"Ryan!" A serious demanding voice echoed the lifeless foam-like room.
Ryan's reflexes reacted alertly as a heavy worn out black bag now lay noisily in his shaky arms. "Get dressed!" The source of the cold voice emerged from a medium-built military type ma. His scowl and low raised eyebrows meant that his orders were not to be taken lightly. Although permanent wrinkles surrounded his face revealing his age, his straight posture and blankness stare make Ryan uneasy.
As Ryan was dressed in the faded green faded plaid shirt and the rough jeans that he wore 5 years ago before his stay at this place, he caught a glimpse through the slightly cracked door. It belonged to an all too familiar sound of a rusty wheelchair being inhibited by a fellow elderly neighbor. His chewed up dark blown slippers barely lay hanging at a resting position in the wheelchair. Alike his slippers the elderly figure seemed to be absent from reality and it was as if his long tangled grey beard kept his back in a hunched position refusing to expose his face. His pale white robe nearly complimented his thin fragile trembling hands that suddenly pointed at an observing Ryan.
"You are too weak to get out of here! You are not ready to reveal her secret, she's…" The older man collapsed in his wheelchair unresponsive as his medical assistant rapidly pushed him away.
Ryan rapidly got to his feet and nearly stumbled trying to go out into the brightly lighted hallway to demand what was it that that old man meant by not revealing the truth. He did not get far as he felt the air from his chest escape as a forceful push nearly knocked him unconscious and he swore he saw stars flashing before him. It was all a blur from that point on. He remembered reading the perfectly black sown name of a very bulky figure with an expressionless face.
The next blur was him being in some type of vehicle moving who knows where watching rapid colorful things flying past him. After what had seemed like a bad encounter with an angry bull, Ryan half openly got up and a jolt of pain ran up his back. As the pain forced him to come back to consciousness, the pain was the least of his fears. Eyes wide open and a face that resembled a white sheet, he moved his eyes in panic about his new surroundings. He was home, in Carrie Ann's room and had no recollection of why and how he got to be there.