Something Different...
The clinically white room was bright, and had become my room and prison for much longer than I could recall. There was no means for me to tell how long I had been here. There were no clocks, no windows...nothing that indicated time lapse of any sort. I was just here, but my internal clock suggested that it had been more than just a mere few days.
My feet moved across the warm floor beneath me. It was as smooth as glass, but warm to the touch as I glided across it from one end to the other. There was no fear of slipping, though I had tried to see if I could slide across it a time or two in my boredom while I waited to talk to someone who would explain exactly why I was here.
There was a fabricated skin of sorts that nearly covered my entire body, and it seems to provide the friction my feet needed to keep me upright even when I wanted to slide across the floor. From the electrical pulses that it emitted from time to time, I gathered it was collecting and sending data to the powers that be in this crazy facility. Now, if only they would make an appearance so I could figure out what was going on.
As if on cue, the soft and gentle sound something like a can of soda being opened drifted in the room. It was nearly inaudible, but I heard it. My eyes scanned the room, looking for anything out of place.
Letting my eyes move across all the walls, I caught just the faintest signs of a difference in texture from one wall to the next. This was not something I had noticed before, and I had been here long enough to have inspected every inch of this place. It was certainly not the norm, and I approached the juncture of this strange wall and another of the walls that I had come to inspect.
Placing a hand against the wall I had come to expect, it felt like it always had. It was smooth to the touch, just like the floor, but it had a flat feel to it. Running my hand over it, I let my fingers slide over the exterior of it and felt nothing but it’s cool touch against my fingertips.
Without lifting my fingers from the wall, I let them move to the junction of the two walls and slide across to the other wall with the nearly imperceptible difference. As soon as my fingers alighted on the wall, tiny electrical pulses throbbed against my fingertips. There was a difference on another level than just the slight change in appearance. The wall thrummed with small electrical charges, and it felt more alive than I had over the last few months of my life. I envied the damn wall.
My fingers grazed the wall, willing it to grant me the same energy and willingness to thrive. The trek was not a long lived one as my feet suddenly halted on their own, and my will was no match for it. Turning to face the wall, I placed both hands up to it before pressing my forehead between where they now rested. The coolness of it was welcome, and I let my forehead roll one way and then the next in an attempt to absorb the lovely feel.
Finally, I let it come to rest once more as a pleasant surge of energy coursed through me. The energy continued to pulse against my fingertips as it made its way up my arms and over my shoulders. It felt like an old friend, and I felt myself lean into it a fraction.
The words that I had been wanting to say forced their way to my lips on a whisper. “Please, help me.”
To my own ears, they barely registered. It didn’t matter. If I was on this side of the glass wall, and they were on that side of the glass wall, chances were they did not care what I had to say. But still, it was the little shred of hope that I clung to.
The coolness beckoned me closer to it. Though the room was nearly perfect to my liking, it felt heavenly to feel something different…anything different than what had become my norm these last few days. Or was it weeks?
The hospital gown-like covering that kept everything neatly hidden in its gentle and soft cotton-like fabric felt good against my skin. However, it was the coolness that I sought as I pressed my body gently against the smooth surface. When my body could not feel what was being offered there, I grimaced. Pressing even closer, my breasts crushed against my chest. Still, the wall did not offer me what I was hoping for. The skin-like coating over my body continued to keep me at that perfect comfort level, and I cursed it at that moment.
The impulse to look up grabbed my attention as I let my head fall back. Staring at a fixed point above my head, I felt more words I had been wanting to say bubble to the surface. “Please, let me go.”
I continued to stare at that same spot for several long minutes, afraid that if I let my eyes drift from that spot that I might break. Finally, when I dropped my gaze, I turned my head and let my cheek press against the glass. My hands remained next to my head as I continued to feel that pleasant electric sensation thrum through me.
For a moment, an image of being wrapped in loving arms flitted through my mind, and I grabbed on to it and held it for dear life. It felt beautiful, and I wanted to hold on to that as long as I could. It may not be much, but it was something...something different.
