Trapped

The pencil hovered a few centimetres above the blank piece of paper.

I was not going to write. There was no way I was going to write. I was not going to give them the satisfaction of seeing me do what they wanted me to do.

And yet...there was so much on my mind right now. And I was so bored. What else could I do?

The tip of the sharp lead touched the paper.

No!

I jerked it away.

I was Not. Going. To. Write.

This was my life now. I had no way of telling how long I had been in here, nor how long it had been since I woke up and found the food—my guess was that that had been about three hours ago, but there was no way of knowing. Already I could feel hunger within me, and I looked longingly at the apple that I had left. I was not going to eat it until I was provided with more food though; that way I would know how long I had to make each meal last.

I had managed to overcome insanity twice already; once by falling asleep, and once; the most recent time, by absolutely forcing myself to calm down and see through the tornado that was my imagination. But if it came on a third time, what would I do? I was running out of options. There were only so many times that I could outrun delirium.

Subconsciously, I put the tip of the pencil back to the paper again.

I looked down at it, pulling it away with unnecessary viciousness once more.

Giving in, I threw the pencil at the wall, hearing the soft clink as it hit the plasterboard and fell to the ground. I buried my head in my hands on the desk, feeling my black hair fall around me like a blanket.

‘Why?’ I called out in despondence, looking up and willing the tears that clouded my vision back into my body. I would not cry...I would not cry. ‘Why me?’

I clutched at my hair, pulling at it, pulling harder and harder, my heart hammering faster and faster, my vision turning dark and blurry.

The anger passed.

I collapsed back down, my face buried in between my arms, resting against the cold metal of the desk once again as I clutched at my hair.

‘What the fuck is wrong with me?’ I mumbled. ‘Why the fuck am I here?’

It was as though my eyes had left my body and were now looking at it from a distance.

‘You’re talking to yourself,’ I said, stating the blatantly obvious. ‘Why are you talking to yourself.’

First sign of madness.

Well, I didn’t need signs to show me that I was mad by now. I think I could have worked that one out by myself.

I lifted my head up from the desk once again, looking around the room. My eyes rested on the shiny, red apple next to me, and my stomach rumbled. Even in this crazy state, I was still hungry. Some things never changed.

I wasn’t going to eat it though.

‘You’re not touching it,’ I muttered to myself.

‘I’m so hungry,’ I whined.

So, I wasn’t just talking to myself now. I was having bloody arguments with myself! How I hated my own stupid imagination.

I blew out through my lips and sat back far enough so that I stared up at the ceiling. Fear, boredom and anger. Coated with a thick layer of insanity. Which was strongest?

Maybe I wasn’t so afraid; not right now. Of course I still feared being in here; the fear that I may never get out; the fear that anything could happen to me; the fear of the unknown, but it was a dull, lurking fear that crouched, dormant, in the back of my mind, ever-present, yet unmoving.

And the anger of the moment had passed for a while. It would be back shortly; the anger within me surged like a tsunami every so often, rearing its ugly head and crashing into the shore, devastating all in its path, but then it flowed away into the distance and did not surge again for a while. And then, an hour or so later, it would return, looming over me, hand in hand with insanity.

So right now, it was boredom that prevailed. I got up and began to pace. I sat down on the bed, lying on the pillow, tossing and turning. I stood up again and moved back to the desk chair. I picked up another pencil and looked at it longingly. I stubbornly put it down again. I ached inside as I caught sight of the apple but then, just as stubborn as ever, I turned away again.

‘You don’t touch anything until they give you some answers,’ I muttered to myself. ‘Not the apple; not the pencils; not the paper. Don’t you dare touch any of it.’

Yeah, this was my life now.