Stillborn and never to be, I awoke in a silence, not alone. The bones in the ends of my fingers vibrated, eager to begin their lives independent of me. I rose my eyes. The room, green in complexion, smiled, and invited me to stand. My hands guided me up and pulled me toward the corner leg of the long dining table beside me.
“Hello,” as quietly as possible, as if to no one but the backs of my teeth, tongue, and roof of my mouth. The walls, green as velvet, absorbed it all. I lay and felt the desire to sob, but resisted, urged on by reality. This was not this place. I was not here. Grumbling, I stood.
The light from the outside broke through the seams along the edges of the thick curtains. I feared what I might find and left them to their task. My fingers rose and moved the hair from my face, over my forehead, left to lie along the crest of my skull where it gathered, waiting for the time to fall and lie over my face again. It was not cold nor hot. My skin felt dry. I remembered a rain I never felt but once considered in my rush to fate. My fingers urged me forward, to the small table beside the door.
“I know,” I said. They ceased to vibrate in acknowledgement.
I padded along the carpet. The legs I used led to this, and of this came my long ago realization. I would be in this room regardless of what I followed or who I became. Born to little and made to feel like less. This was where it led me. My fingers awoke, sensing loss of purpose. I continued to the table. Among the bills and catelogs I found a string, red as the sunset that witnessed me bare as the angels, on the eve of my time here. I sat in a field, felt the grasses lick at the invisible hair on my hips. I played with a thimble I had found on the road, where I had left my car. I ran it along my arm, felt its gritty surface lightly scrape my skin.
“It’s only growing pains. I know it’s nothing more. I tried, I think, I did. It was so trying. But, this is alright. I don’t want to stay here anymore.” I tied the string around the tip of each of my fingers, as tightly as I could. When I was finished, I they looked like berries held together by a crimson web.
I looked back at the room. It was noiser now. I could hear spiders hiding in the corners, spinning falsehoods that they used to catch a meal. There was heavy breathing. The velvet walls triggered a feeling of confinement. It felt like a basement a long time ago. It felt like a basement I should never have been inside of. It felt like fat, greedy fingers, and I stopped, just stopped, because it did not matter. This room was not a basement. No one else was here.
I approached the darkened door, outlined on all sides by a lightness, like the curtains. My hair began to fall again. Fearing little and knowing that it would all be gone, I opened the door and stepped outside. I was in the field again. Each step away from the room was a loss of another memory, one moment at a time. It was strange to lose what can seemingly never be lost. I walked further still. There was no guidance, nor encouraging come hither. I lumbered forward into the space that was not the room, wandering about, caught in the daze of some parhelic distraction.
