The white room

What is time if not an illusion? There are minutes that are hours, hours that are days and days that are eternities. What difference is there between day and night when you have no window through which you can look at the sky? What's the use of the clock when all the hours resemble each other? Here, between the four white walls every day is the same as the one before, same as the one to come tomorrow.

Here, between the four white walls I know every corner, every crack, every shadow. I've counted the white bricks many times. They're 376 to be accurate. Of those 376, fifteen are cracked, although only two of them severely.

Here, between the four white walls I've spoken to all the voices and held conversations with all the ghosts. I have no more stories or jokes to tell. One is lonelier here than outside. I used to have the company of the sounds, the lights and the colors of the streets, I had the confidentiality of my notebook, I talked to my illusions and every now and then I even enjoyed the company of another human being.

Sometimes I think of her...Sophie. I remember her hands and her voice. I remember her words, her touches, I remember her lips and the love in her eyes. I wonder where she might be right now...what she might be doing...I wonder if she thinks of me every once in a while. Does she even remember me? Has she been able to forgive me for all that I've done?

I admit that upon arriving here I felt unbreakable. I even had my fun joking with the doctors, although I was the only one laughing because none of them got me. But as the weeks went by I felt that something inside me was giving in...and I began to die again. One dies slowly between these four walls. Not of hunger, for the stomach can be mastered. What kills is the endlessness. The endlessness is like a big black hole, it's the nothing. The nothing is something that starts by driving a man crazy, then it numbs him and finally it murders him silently without leaving a trace.

The green of my hair is almost gone. Means that I must be here for several weeks by now. It was November when everything happened. I guess we must be close to Christmas. Mmmm... Christmas... I never had a Christmas but I always enjoyed the lights in the trees and the decoration in the streets.

The sound of the door opening disrupts my thoughts.

- Eat!- says a the rude voice of a man and I hear the door closing again.

I look at the food tray without the slightest desire or intention to eat. I turn to face the corner again and rest my forehead on the wall. I close my eyes but I don't try to sleep. I never sleep here. There is no possible rest in here. I feel like I haven't moved from this corner in days. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that I have nowhere to go. Four steps in each direction is a far as I can get. In one corner is a bed, small and cold and in the other is a toilet. Everything is white. The walls, the floor, the sheets...even my clothes are white.

When they locked me up here, they took my few belongings from me. They took my elegant red suite and my beautiful brown shoes. They took my cigarettes and my notebook, they took my blue handkerchief... All I have left from Sophie are the memories. I close my eyes and try to remember the moments I spent with her. I try to reproduce in my mind the date we had on that wonderful day. That fading image becomes real for a few seconds and it takes me far away from here. For a brief moment I feel like I'm free again. I smile.

Somebody opens the door once more. They come to pick up the food I left untouched. It must have gone cold by now.

- He hasn't eaten, Doctor...- says the voice of the man. It's the same voice that brings me the food every day. But today that man comes with the doctor who looked after me on my first night here. I recognize her voice as well.

- He hasn't eaten in a week...

The man comes closer to me , holding the plate and a spoon in his hand.

- Open up!- he commands.

I don't want to. I'm not hungry. I've forgotten what it's like to be hungry. I'm free of that. I turn to the wall and hide my face in the corner. Leave me alone. I just want to be left alone. Go away.

- Come on. If you eat, maybe we'll give you back that weird notebook of yours. Or perhaps that blue cloth that you desire so badly, huh?

I know they're lying. They won't give me any of that, I know. They're just teasing me. I say nothing. I don't even look up.

- Leave him.- says the woman - He's gonna have to eat at some point.-

Now she addresses me.

- It's time for your medication, Arthur. Are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?

On previous occasions I've resisted, I've refused to open my mouth, I've spit them the pills in the face and I've hidden them under my tongue to throw them away later. But all of that has only worsened my situation and I honestly have no more strength to put up a fight. Do what you want to me. I don't care anymore. Whatever I do, I lose.

So I simply accept the pills and swallow them. Their effect is immediate and it leaves me in a state of numbness and at the same time deprives me of the only consolation I have, which is sleep.

My only escape from this labyrinth is blocked, for suicide becomes impossible without a razor, a rope or at least a sharp edge. Sometimes I think about the eternity I have yet to count down inside this prison and I wonder how many more dawns and how many more nightfalls I must live through without even being able to watch them.

Between the hours that seem to be glued to one another, I've cried my despair and in the never ending nights of unrest that haunt me, I've cried out for Sophie's help. But no one has heard me, no one has come. Here, in the white hell even God himself has forgotten about me.