ISO

I was consumed by a darkness I had never seen before. I reached out into the darkness in total confusion. I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know where I was, what my purpose was, and if I deserved whatever was happening. Nothing, I knew nothing. My arm was shaky, or at least I think it was, I whispered a shallow, “Hello?” which filled the space but died quickly. Not even producing an echo, instead being absorbed by whatever was with me in this space. That fact scared me. It was entirely possible that something was with me, in here, in nowhere, where nowhere was somewhere. An abyss I couldn’t escape since I didn’t even know if it existed, but at the same time I knew it did. I was in a state of total confusion and anesthesia-filled delusions. “Something had to bring me here,” I thought to myself. I began to think of the “why?”, “Why was I here? Why would something bring me here?” But in the end, I could think of nothing. I took a step forward and it let out a deep, empty knock that hung in the air and then died quickly. Each sound was like a wave, a wave that would travel the room but then die from nothing, other than the walls, or whatever was inside here, absorbing the vibrations that make up sound. I let out another “Hello?” but again, nothing answered. I took another confused step, then another, and another, each step knocked, traveled, and then died in the same fashion. Then I walked into a wall. I stumbled backward and rubbed my face. I felt something trickle out of my nose and caress my lips before falling off my chin. I placed a hand on the wall and felt its smoothness, its coldness, its totality. Only then did my fear turn to panic. It started as a whisper, “I’m trapped, help…?” With each saying, it gained strength, for each second I stared into the abyss, it gained strength, for each growl of my stomach, it gained strength, “HELP ME!” I screamed, “Help me!” that hopeless cry, the result of an irrational hope, “Help me escape the inescapable! Break me from a prison that no one can see, the one no one can feel, the prison that I can only experience! Save me from it! Despite the fact you can’t!”

I don’t know why, but I continued to yell and scream just out of instinct or out of some hope that my yells were just powerful enough to break through the walls of my cell. They weren’t. I touched the wall again and felt its totality again, its total fullness. It was concrete. A cool and unbreakable amount of concrete. Whatever had put me here never wanted me to escape it. But I kept yelling despite that. In fact, I yelled louder. “HELP! I NEED HELP!” I pranced around the room shouting, moving in straight lines. I walked straight across, hit the wall, turned around 180 degrees, and walked back to where I came from, till I hit the wall again, yelling and coughing as I did so. I heard all of my yells, I could almost see them, the sound waves being absorbed by the dark, concrete walls. I kept walking and screaming till I was left breathing heavily. I made one more cycle before coughing horribly and holding onto the wall for support as I bent over and coughed and gagged. Salvia dripped from my lips and hit the floor, I could hear them hit the floor between my gasps. They sounded like nothingness, but they were still there, in the form of insignificant water splashes. Splashes that no one cares about, that no one hears, and barely any see, but now I hear them. I hear them clearly now. Between my dying grasps of air, I hear them. Then more of them came, and I sniffled and whimpered. I was crying. “I just want to leave,” I crumbled down onto the floor, my head leaning against the wall and, once again, whimpered, “I just want to go home… I want to see my family. Mama… Help me.” I placed both my hands on the wall, just above my head and my fingers weren’t level with my palms. My fingers had found out how the Box was made. My fingers found a depression in the wall, where 2 slabs of concrete were joined. Or at least I think that’s what it meant. I stopped crying and hastily ran my fingers along the depression. I stood and bent over to make my travel easier as my fingers kept going along the depression. It spurred on and on, then, I felt a corner. I traveled more and the line kept going.

The box wasn’t large. It was a surprising size. One too big for a single person. I hadn’t realized the size of the room because the size of it doesn’t come from its length but from its width. It was stupid in that regard, it was so stupid that I forgot all about my entrapment and laughed a little before going back to the brink of tears. I tried to keep thinking of the stupidity of the Box, kept trying to make fun of the situation I was in, “They’re so fucking stupid” I thought, “So stupid. Wasted money and shit.” I tried to laugh, I tried to belittle whoever “they” were. But in the end, I was still trapped in a box. Whether or not I thought them stupid, smart, handsome, powerful, rich, or whatever, I was still trapped in this Box. The Box they made for me. To keep me. To trap me. They won, and I lost the game, I unknowingly played. The blood from my nose still ran down my cheeks. Those droplets mixed with my tears and they fell together, in the arms or bonds of the other. The blood hugged the salty tears, the tears held them back. They fell together, as one. I leaned my head against a wall and let the mixture fall onto the floor. I thought to myself, “One,” My mind reached a conclusion that I couldn’t see, but whatever it was, it destroyed me and I cried harder. “One. I’m the only one. Even my tears have another. Alone. I’m alone. Forever. I’ll die alone. I was born alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry everyone. I’m sorry for being so distant.” I crouched onto the floor and had my back against it and my head on my knees. “I’m sorry for skipping Christmas, New Year, Easter, Mark’s Birthday, Jose’s Birthday! I’m sorry for missing it all! For missing all of your lives!” I had my hands behind my head as my head hid between my knees. “I’m sorry Fernando. Sorry for missing your Wedding. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The sound of tears hitting the ground and my whimpering were pronounced. The only things that could be heard for miles. The only things that existed in the Box, in the Void, were my suffering, my regrets, and my dying mind. “The light,” I thought, “There is no light. They’ll never be light. I’m alone. There’s no hope. I’m sorry.” A candle went out.

I was in bed. The sun was shining through my window and gently caressed my face with its warmth. My blankets were soft and already warmed up from my body heat. My bedroom had a soft orange hue to it and the window was open so the room was filled with a freshness that I hadn’t experienced before. The world outside was lively with conversations that I couldn’t quite hear the words to, only the cheerful echoes of the sounds those words made. I sighed deeply and snuggled into the blanket, or made it snuggle into me as I pressed it under my chin. I rolled onto my side and tried to relax and fall asleep despite not being tired. My pillow conformed to my face and hugged it gently. Birds began to chirp and the warm sun kept shining nicely. The outside world kept moving and its people kept talking lively, what they said, I couldn’t hear. But knowing they were there brought a sense of belonging to me. A sense of community and family. “Family.” I tried to focus on the warm blankets, pillows, and sun, on the lively noises of birds and of happy people, but my mind went back to that word, “Family”, “I miss mom. I miss Fernando. I miss Mark. I don’t want to be lonely anymore.” Then something broke. A mirror broke and that classic sound of glass shattering echoed through my bedroom. I opened my eyes and sat up quickly and saw that the wall before me was broken. It had large, jagged cracks on it, spanning the entirety of the wall. A piece of it fell and revealed a darkness that I’ve never only ever seen once. Then more of the wall began to fall and the cracks began to spread. They spread in waves, each wave was launched after the sound of glass being broken reached my ears. The walls broke, and the walls fell. More and more of my failed attempt at satisfaction was broken, and my reality began to break in. The walls fell and the darkness consumed me. The birds flew away, the happy conversations turned to broken yells and distant cries, then went entirely silent as the darkness reached the window and broke it. It surrounded me, I did nothing. I didn’t yell, I didn’t scream, I let it take me. It broke my bed, my blankets, my pillow, then me. I was falling. I saw the last bit of light shrink smaller and smaller, till it was nothing more than a little flame on a candle, which went out.

Time passed. The only reason I know that is because it will always pass no matter what. Whether I die, sleep, cry, beg, or pray. Time will pass. I saw the darkness still there. I hoped that I would’ve awoken to sunlight, to noise, to color even! But no, fucking nothing.

I was sitting on the floor slumped over. I probably looked like a bridge that crossed a river with my legs being the side walkway to it. My drool and tears were in the river. I cried in my sleep. I apparently cried while I dreamt. Maybe I screamed. If only the walls could talk, I wouldn’t have cried in the first place. But they didn’t talk, so I cried while I dreamt. My face was on the floor and my legs and ass were slightly tilted off the floor. The pool of tears and drool was, of course, next to my face and splattered on the cheek that lay on the floor. I sat up and wiped my face and wiped the saliva on it onto my pants. I wiped again, and again, and again. I did it for an unreasonably long time, I knew that it was stupid of me to keep doing it but I did it anyway. My ears began to ring, drowning the sounds I made as I whipped my face and pants. My blood was loud and rushed quickly to and fro. From my brain, back to my lungs, back to my fingers and arms, back to my lungs. I breathed deeply in and then sighed out the same. There was no more saliva on my face, and my pants felt slightly heavier as I stood up. I walked along the wall with my hands clasping onto its smooth surface. I found the groove in the wall again and followed it around once, twice, then thrice. I kept walking with reason, without purpose other than to walk. I breathed shallowly and my stomach began to growl with hunger. I stopped as my stomach continued its rumbles. “Food,” I thought, “Food, I need food. Where the fuck am I going to get food?!” Then I began to speak, “Food, help? I’m hungry! YO!” I started to yell at the ceiling, “YO GIVE ME SOME FUCKING FOOD, YEA?!” I kept repeating that cry, my stomach kept growling and my eyes saw nothing but blackness. I somehow hoped that something would hear me, “They won’t just keep a dude here for no reason! Right?!” My mind kept rambling on with hope, “They ought to be there, hearing me, seeing me, laughing at me! They ought to keep me! For a little! GIVE ME SOME FUCKING FOOD!” But nothing ever responded. I breathed deeply and fell to the floor again. The last candle that lit my brain, my mind, finally went out. My lungs wheeze.

“I see no light,” I thought, “I feel no air. I feel nothing but staleness. I’m going to die. I’m already dead. Holy shit, I’m going to die! There’s no new air! No oxygen left! I’m going to die! I’m dead! I’m already DEAD!” I breathed heavily and my ears began to ring loudly, no longer was it just my blood flowing, but I was having a panic attack. I fell to the floor unkindly and smashed my tailbone as I landed. I laid straight on the floor and had my hands all over my face, I was crying, breathing hard, and my legs were kicking. My mind kept repeating that statement, the one that was true and total, “I’m dead.” My stomach kept crying and my mouth was dry. “Water! Fucking hell. I have no water...”