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Friday, February 19, 2010

A Familiar Room

I

He was imprisoned, voices bearing on him from all around the familiar room. The basketball in the corner complained about its lack of use. The family photograph on the wall demanded an explanation for the lack of communication. The blanket on the ground condescendingly inquired as to the whereabouts of that nice girl who always used to come by. The symphony built up to a crescendo, and he could take no more.

Elias was not mad. The voices were friendlier, usually. Some days, they were more contentious, and on those days, Elias would take a brief walk outside. He shoved his bare hands into the pockets of his faded jeans, to protect them from the outside elements. The night air was frigid, as if the world was encased in an imperceptible tomb. Stolid oak trees lined the street, their vibrant green hues forgotten in the tenebrous pall of night.

There was an abandoned house not far from Elias’ own. Paint had begun to peel from the front months ago. Elias looked at it curiously, its former grandeur permanently seared into his pale green eyes. The house, once the home of a happily married couple and their two energetic young children, was now almost unrecognizable. The children had both left, one to college and one to war. The brightness in the couple’s faces gradually drained, and grew pallid. One day, they received a phone call from the police department in the city of the university to which one of their children had gone. He had died of a heroin overdose. The couple left to identify the body. They never returned.

The wind wailed mournfully, the lone sound assailing an otherwise peaceful silence. Its force hindered Elias’ movement, and he reluctantly turned back, accepting the wind’s guidance as it pushed him back toward his own house. Moisture had accumulated in his eyes, and he hurriedly wiped it away with his sleeve. A strong wind will do that to you, he assured himself.

Translucent light seeped into the room as the day broke. Elias shambled through the house and looked out the kitchen window. The encroaching light unmasked a world shrouded in grey. The light’s source could not be seen; it was as if the clouds themselves emitted what little light there was to be had, and if they dissipated, the world would be reduced to nothing. Water filled the cracks in the pavement below, as a strong rain fell over the street. He listened to the rain’s assault on the windows, and was comforted. It drowned out the voices.

Elias’ stomach felt empty, and he remembered that he had not eaten in over half of a day. He made his way to the refrigerator and scanned its contents. He shook his head. Combining all those ingredients to make something that was going to last a matter of minutes seemed like too much of a hassle. A lone pear had slunk back to the corner of the bottom shelf. He let out a soft, short chuckle. “Thought you could hide?”

Elias sank into his couch, legs outstretched. The television, a portal to worlds uncharted and less mundane than his, came to life on command. He briskly explored a few of these worlds, eagerly. A documentary about bullfighting in Spain, a sitcom set amongst the towering skyscrapers of New York, a movie about lovers in France; they all opened themselves up to him, and he fell into their warm, digital embraces. Wrapped in their warmth, his consciousness floated away piece by piece, until his eyes, unbeknownst to him, closed.

Her face flashed in his mind like an after-image, smiling at him lovingly. Elias opened his eyes. She was gone, but her voice hung in the air, lilting over the hum of the television. A nearby pillow pulled tightly around his ears did nothing to exorcise the voice which currently possessed him. He tried desperately to capture sleep, but found it elusive, like a mouse that taunts a cat by poking its head out of a hole in the wall, only to pull back once the cat raced near. The struggle continued until, at last, sleep caught him instead.

II

He was in a vast, dark cavern, lit only by luminescent rocks that adorned the walls. Rising to his feet slowly, Elias allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only noise to be heard was the sound of his breath, coming and going lightly. He surveyed the yawning expanse before him and was awestruck; the rocks glowed with brilliant shades of indescribable hues spanning the entire spectrum of visible light, illuminating deep pools of crystal clear water and great, towering trees, with trunks wider than the greatest of modern skyscrapers.

The dark, smooth barks of the trees stretched upwards, until the trees disappeared into a seemingly endless darkness. Large, lavender colored fruits fell from the unseen tops of the trees, coming to earth as slowly and gently as snow in late autumn. Elias caught one in midair, and bit into it. The flesh burst with juice, filling his mouth with an unimaginable sweetness and unleashing an intoxicating aroma, finer than the scent of a sea of roses and carnations. He looked around once more, and saw everything he needed in order to survive: water, food, and a safe place to sleep. He smiled, as a feeling of warmth spread through his body, filling him from head to toe. For the first time since he had been a child, he felt like he was home.

“You do not belong here.”

Elias turned his head wildly, looking for the owner of the voice, but the cavern remained undisturbed. No trace of an intruder could be found. He was alone. He must have imagined it. After all, the voice had been so soft, an almost imperceptible whisper. He crept cautiously across the cavern, conducting a cursory investigation. There was no one else but him. He had imagined it! The warmth, which had temporarily drained, returned, and he laughed at his overactive imagination. He approached a nearby pool of water, and began to drink.

“You do not belong here.”

There was no denying it this time. The voice was much clearer and much more audible. Elias strained his eyes in the faint light, searching for answers. Where was this villain hiding? The air around him seemed to shift, and he stood frozen. Beads of sweat formed in his palms and dropped into the pool below, creating small ripples across its once placid surface. He had felt something. It was not a physical sensation, but a feeling of something oppressive in the atmosphere. It permeated his body, and dampened his soul. A faint wind began to blow.

As if carried by it, Elias followed the wind. The piquant charm of the cavern had been irrevocably, if only slightly, tarnished. Elias searched the cavern and still found the rocks, trees, and pools to be pleasant and inviting. Nothing had changed, he told himself. Elias smoldered in defiance of these crass interruptions. This place was hallowed, sacred in some inexplicable way, and he would not be told that he did not belong.

The ground began to slope downward. Elias zealously stormed across the cavern to confront any insipid force that would dare try to undermine his presence. The rocks around him grew brighter, illuminating more of the world around him. Elias could now see that the whole cavern was shaped like a giant amphitheatre, and that he was heading to the stage. He tore past the slabs of stone jutting from the earth, resembling crude seats. In his stupor, he failed to notice a smaller stone directly in his path, and his foot struck the top of it. Elias crashed to the earth and tumbled downward along the incline until he reached the bottom, where his body came to a violent halt. Furious, he pushed himself up, ignoring the drops of crimson falling from his hands, poisoning the ground below.

The stage was a majestic tree, overseeing the entire cavern like a medieval castle lording over its realm. Hundreds of lavender fruits lay scattered under its immediate dominion, in varying states of decay. Most had cracked, their dried skins revealing pale, rotting flesh underneath. The sweet smell was absent. More pieces of fruit floated down from the branches. They withered as soon as their journey downward had ended.

The rocks emitted a strong, fluorescent light that illuminated the entire cavern. The light drained the cavern of all heat, so that the beads of sweat on his body began to freeze, chilling him as the crystals dug into his skin. Elias’ eyes burned as he gravitated towards the great tree, as if being pulled in by a grotesque vacuum. A pall had fallen over the entire cavern, and his footsteps echoed against the desolate silence. At last, he saw the vacuum, the source of the voice, and the source of Elias’ rage.

It was formless. It appeared to be a billowing black cloud, hovering above the ground and towering over him. The cloud somehow resembled a human, or perhaps only gave that impression. The cloud flickered and fluttered like a tattered, ancient cloak which has seen far too many storms. Two hovering, glowing orbs were transfixed on him, boring through his body. Elias’ head felt heavy, and bowed to the haunting presence of this omnipotent specter. Its command over him went far past the sense of sight, as he experienced unfathomable dread in his remaining senses. All he could feel, all he could imagine, were those two awful orbs. There was no escaping them.

“You do not belong here.”

The voice was calm and compassionate, like a doting mother to her small child.

“Yes, I do!”

“You do not belong here!”

A thunderous roar came from all around him, as if from the cavern itself. The fruit had begun to fall as proper gravity on our planet would dictate. Their soft, red insides exploded into unrecognizable stains on the ground below. The snowfall had become a hailstorm.

“You do not belong here!”

A faint hissing rose from underneath him. The pools, once placid, began to bubble and froth, steam erupting into the air. A sulfuric odor intermingled with the floral scent, causing a horrible wave of putrescence to permeate the atmosphere. It was the smell of sweetness tainted, irreversibly.

“You do not belong here!”

The rocks’ gentle glow changed, the myriad hues dulling and emitting beams of a searing red. The cavern had become glacial, and the moisture in his eyes clung to his face. Elias flung his head to and fro desperately, like a cornered fugitive with only one bullet left, to find some part of the cavern that had not been transformed. Despair spread where warmth once did. The cavern still seemed so familiar. It could still be the sanctuary he remembered from such a short time ago.

“You do not belong here!”

A gathering of clouds had formed, watching the lone actor writhe on stage. They leered at him, their voices, in unison, declaring a single, inarguable truth.

“You do not belong here.”

The voice came in a whisper, again, from behind. Elias quailed as the frozen tears melted and flowed down his face and into the ground beneath the great tree. Elias’ eyes slowly rose to meet the orbs, now directly in front of him and glowing with kindness, and without malice. The voice, at last, spoke once more. Pained, it pleaded softly:

“Please leave.”

Elias felt his body jerk upwards, and was thrown from the ground. He hurtled towards the canopy of darkness and saw the fruit fall from the branches and begin their descent, gentle once more, like snow. He was propelled past the top of the great tree, the flurry of fruit falling slowly from it, creating a sea of lavender and emitting a smell sweeter than he could ever have hoped to imagine. Elias passed the tree, and was banished from the cavern.

He continued upward, and looked down at the entrance. Teeth-like cogs began to mesh together at one side. They continued all along the mouth of the cavern, until it was sealed shut. Sinewy green vines as thick as his arm grew up from all around the mouth of the cavern, intertwining and coagulating until the teeth were sealed away from view, the entrance disappearing completely.

III

Elias pushed himself up, the cold sweat from his brow dripping onto the couch. He remained still for a few moments, waiting until he readjusted to reality. The dream came to him now in bits and pieces. There had been harsh light, and bloated fruit, and persecuting demons. It was a nightmare he wished to forget, one with no redeeming values.

The television still glowed brightly, illuminating the room more effectively than the meager offerings of the pallid clouds outside. A commercial peddled something, and in the millisecond between its end and the beginning of another, there was a heavenly silence. He was too busy wiping the crust from his tired, swollen eyes to notice it.

Elias had left the television on a channel dedicated to travel. He enmeshed himself with the program: a guide to the outdoor sights of Eastern Europe. He marveled at forests that could engulf hundreds of his streets, of mountains towering thousands of feet over the highest of the houses surrounding his own. How amazing the rest of the world was! Elias allowed himself to be taken in by the television’s glowing embrace once more. These lands were paradise.

Another commercial break began. His attention broken by the interruption, Elias gingerly rose to his feet. The voices, anxious to resume the trial, became excited by his movement and hurled their contentious accusations and cross-examinations with renewed vigor. The storm outside crashed against the windows and the doors, holding them fast. Anger suddenly bulged inside him, like magma of a volcano long overdue for eruption.

“Enough! Shut up!” Elias screamed at the voices.

Stunned, they fell quiet, shocked to have been addressed in such an unexpected, brusque manner. After all, they were only reminding him of what he once had, and what he had loved. Surely, he did not want to forget how happy he had once been. The voices searched the room and found no one else. They were his only company, his lifeblood. They were protecting his sanity! They were all he had, a bulwark against the desolation banging against the doors and windows. How dare he express such ingratitude!

Eastern Europe was back on. Elias’ craven eyes darted back to the television. He could go, he could fly there. Where, where? To the place in the television, the opposite side of the earth. He had money. He had youth. He did not need these voices, or this room. Clothes strewn across the floor were stuffed into his backpack. He tore through the house, through the ill-ventilated bathroom with the moldy ceiling, through the kitchen rife with the smell of rotting food, through the bedroom with the spotted, ragged carpet, collecting only what he needed to survive. He zipped up his life, and assailed the door. The storm relented at this tremendous force, and allowed its prisoner to escape.

IV

The life that sprang from this new place was pulsating. Elias reached for the nearest rock, grabbing it and pulling himself farther up the mountain. Sweat dripped from his forehead as he paused to take a swig of water from the bottle resting in a pouch on the side of his backpack. He surveyed the part of the mountain he had already conquered and the land below, a rolling sea of green trees. Surely, the voices could not reach him here.

It had been years since he freed himself from that oppressive house. Elias glowered as he recalled it, remembered how his tormentors would taunt him, haunt him. He shook his head dismissively and took in the beautiful sights around him. He would not want to forget this. Elias took off his backpack and rummaged through it for a few minutes before finding his camera. Putting it up to his eyes, he zoomed in on the scene below him, in all its majesty, and captured it.

Elias, satisfied, carefully put the camera back into the backpack and took up the whole load on his shoulders. Climbing the mountain was becoming more difficult. Steep rock faces leered at him, mocking his dedication to his goals of conquest. Elias hauled himself up to those faces, and found more than enough jutting rocks to finish the climb. The summit was just a breath away. His hand enclosed itself around the lowest rock, and he began his final ascent.

Hand over hand and arm over arm, Elias was fighting his way to the top. He was a shade more than halfway up the face when he pulled against a loose rock which came free in his hand. The weight of the backpack fastened to his body caused him to lose his footing and hurtle toward the ground. Elias slammed into the uneven, rocky ground a few feet below. For a few moments, the entire world degraded into a nonsensical blur.

When his eyes regained focus, Elias gingerly rolled over and checked his backpack. It looked like it had held up against the impact. He poked around its contents, concerned for the welfare of his camera. He found it, and pressed the power button anxiously. The screen came to life, and Elias breathed a sigh of relief. His senses returning a little more, he felt a sharp pain in his arm. He looked at his elbow, and saw blood flowing from a wide gash. Frantically, Elias dug through his backpack and pulled out some bandages and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. After disinfecting the wound, he wrapped his arm up tightly. He gingerly moved it up and down, to reassure himself that no bones were broken.

The sun was now disappearing behind the mountain. The final ascent would need to wait. Elias’ arm was far too tender for him to go any further. Elias leaned against the rock face, contemplating his luck. It could have been a lot worse. At least his camera wasn’t broken.

The night air was cold, but a hint of the warmth offered by the day remained. Elias detached his sleeping bag from the top of his backpack, and unfurled it. If he was going to be stuck here for the night, he might as well be comfortable, and the strenuous climb had left his bones and muscles drained of all vigor. Elias was annoyed at the rock face, but he was happy nonetheless just to spend a night in the cool, living air. There was something enchanting about being unfettered, unchained to a single place. He didn’t need a house. He had the entire world.

In the sleeping bag, exhaustion caught up with Elias, at last. His arm was still throbbing, but it would probably feel better in the morning. He would finish what he started. He rolled over on his non-injured side and closed his eyes.

He saw her face. Elias opened his eyes and looked around the familiar room. Voices whispered from the rock face, and the trees, and the sky. He rolled over onto his back, and laid still. Those were good times, weren’t they? He smiled grimly.

Yes, yes they were.

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