Four walls, flashes of
white, gray in the corners…Wheel and turn, step, step, step, stop. Wheel and
turn, step, step, step, stop. Too small. Four walls, flashes of white, gray
in the corners…Eyes dart to the side, expecting to see a sheen of silver there,
something real and at least tangible to take the place of the thing that was
stalking him through his mind…stalking about in this too small space. Hands
grip at his sides, nails digging into his palms. Wheel and turn, step, step, step, stop. Walls again, soft, pliable, bendable, even breakable…Breakable like me. Wheel and turn, step, step, step, stop. A padded
shoulder meets padded wall, and they converse, but the conversation is stilted,
and soon turns into an argument. The shoulder shoves the wall, but the wall is
a linebacker, a mountain, immovable. A scream of frustration melts into the
padding, swallowed up by miles and miles of fabric covering four walls with
flashes of white, and gray in the corners.
Wheel and turn, step, step, step, stop. Wheel
and turn, step, step, step, step, WHAM! Force meets force, and still the
mountain is immovable. It hems him in, inside with the animal that glides
behind him, nipping at his heels, sometimes climbing over and inside until he's
wearing a second skin…a skin that itches and crawls, leaving silver streaks
across his padded shoulders and slivers of glass on the floor, but they leave
no mark on his bare feet when he treads on them. He wishes they would. Blood is
a sign of pain, something real that he can put a name to, something that he can
see and combat. Blood is easily wiped away, but the shards of glass remain,
invisible to his eyes, but he knows they are there.
His nose itches, but his
hands are locked at his sides. They clench, and the nails cut into the soft
flesh. They don't come near him anymore, and have forgotten to cut his nails,
and now they are sharp enough to rend. Something warm pools in his hands, and
he smiles. It will stain the padding, and they will be upset. But his nose
itches, and it mocks him. Angrily he tosses his head, and another scream is
muffled by the four walls of white and gray. Wheel and turn,
step, step, step, step, WHAM! Force makes little difference. The padding erases all
pain, cutting if off before it begins. His nose should have been broken,
dripping crimson, never to itch again. But the padding is a pillow, soft and
warm. He wants to pulverize it with his fists, break it, bend it, rip it to
shreds…
A noise at the door halts
him, and he backs away, his feet sliding nervously across the quilted floor.
The door opens, revealing figures clad in white and gray, and there are voices,
but one in particular catches hold of his memory. That voice, warm and mellow,
oozing with concern. If she cared, she would not have forgotten him, left him
to live a waking death in this place. If she cared, she would set him free. If
she cared, she would let him close his hands around her beautiful throat and
squeeze until her head burst like a balloon, her golden skin purpling under the
pressure of his fingers…Anger fades into shame, and something hot pricks the
corners of his eyes. He feels it slide down his cheek, and for a moment he is
afraid, and feels the animal clawing at his insides, knowing that one tear
begets another, until he fades away…But the taste of salt on his tongue
releases him, and the fear ebbs away, skulking back into its corner.
She stands there in front
of him now, hands limp at her side, bare and empty. His eyes remain riveted on
her relaxed fingers, wishing, hoping, trying to imagine the glass and the metal
and the burning blue liquid into being, but…nothing. Her eyes are damp as she
gazes at him, and for a moment he is angered again. Angered that she could
forget, angered that she would fail when she promised…He can feel it gnawing at
him, tearing him apart from the inside out, eating him alive, and he almost
allows the rage to take hold, but then he finally sees that her
eyes are wet, drowning in their own salt, dammed behind long, curving lashes
that slide against her cheeks as she takes a breath and sighs. Trust works both ways. His lips
twitch in the beginnings of a smile, something that he has not done in a while,
but then the reality of her empty hands hits him again. The fear wells up
inside, the fear of being trapped, hunted by his own mind, cornered and left to
rot in a landfill for the soul…He can feel it trickling down his back, his
legs, over the skin of his hands, through his hair, and finally over his eyes,
until the flashes of white fade to shades of gray all over. It encases him,
hemming him in, setting him apart. She can't see him, but he can see the
growing alarm in her eyes, and it pains him. The silver clings to his body, and
he tries to slow the rising tide of fear, but it overwhelms him, crashing over
him, swallowing and burying him. His skin itches and crawls, and all he wants
is to tear it off, to be free of it…His throat works as a stream of anguished
syllables pour from his mouth.
"Get it off me, get if off
me, GET IT OFF ME!" he screams as he tries to tear himself apart before it can,
before it will consume him…He can feel his body protesting as he slams it
against the padding that surrounds him, and he rejoices in the pain that
finally assails his shoulder as he feels something click and drop out of place.
He can hear her pleading with him to stop, and he can see her figure, faint and
hazy and rimmed with light out of the corner of his eye as he whirls and
thrashes…But he can't stop. He wants to hear bones split, he wants to rip his
skin apart, he wants it to fall away to dot the ground in tiny, broken shards where
he can grind it to shimmering dust under his heel. But as the fear and the
desperation grow, so does the pain. It knocks at the base of his skull, harder
now, and more insistent. The rage is growing. It is no longer isolated to a
small aching knot in the back of his mind, where he could at least keep it at
bay for most of the time. Now it is skittering and scrambling through his mind,
like a live thing, preparing to swarm over him and obliterate him. His mind
throbs with the effort to hold it back when all he really wants is to let it
go, knowing that it could destroy him once it was set loose. But she is here,
and now she is gripping his arm. How she can see him, he does not know, but she
is there at his side, coaxing and calling to him, calling him back. The rage
swells, and then abruptly fades, withdrawing into the far corner of his mind to
wait for a better time. For he is tired, and his body is gaunt and worn,
starved from months of pacing about in his little world of white and gray,
surrounded by four walls and a ceiling and a floor that springs and bounces, a
flexible box that refuses to break open and let him out.
He collapses slowly into
her waiting arms, his slight body nothing now for even her to carry. Tiny
shards of silver flake and fall away, and he can see her now as she sees him.
She cradles his head in her lap, while she strokes the side of his face with a
soothing touch. She is saying something, but he cannot hear what she says. His mind
still reels, only now the ache has lodged in his heart. She smiles sadly, and
he can see a single tear at the corner of her eye, and then feels something wet
on his own cheek, only he is unsure if it is hers or his own.