Short Story: The Room

The Room
by BW Koontz

I am trapped in this room. Four walls. Bare. Stark. Gleaming white like picked-clean bones.
I do not know how long I’ve been here; how long contained within its embrace.
Scanning for egress, I look for escape. But I cannot find it. No portal. No freedom. Trapped in this room.

Oh, but there are other ways to leave.
Sometimes I flit along the tide of memory, but it is a time-dimmed tide, black and choppy. I cannot resist the call, but ever elusive, it fades before me. All too soon, I am returned to the never-ending tick of time within this room.
Like an off-beat metronome, I feel my heart. Counting. Ever counting, but to what? What good is time with nothing to spend it on? What use is precious currency with no wares to purchase? Still I lie here trapped within this room.
I think I can leave any time I want.
I imagine standing, wrapping my single white sheet around and around, until it becomes a rope. Then I could leave. I could wrap it around my neck and leave forever. But there is nothing to attach my key, my freedom rope, to. I would have a rope with no purpose. A key with no lock. I do not think my strength and stomach strong enough for that gruesome task anyway.
But I must leave.
I must be heard. I must be seen. I must be noticed.
My drawn mouth falls open in a scream, but it is silent. Only the walls hear. And they mock me in their silence.
I reach out. My right hand just grazes the wall. Watching my fingers slide along the surface, I picture leaving trails, as a dragonfly dips across the clear, glassy surface of an evening pool. Envisioning ever-widening ripples, I wonder if they could travel outward, away from this room, and somewhere, someone sitting down to dinner would see the ripples along their kitchen wall. They would trace the wall waves back, back, to the source. And they would free me from my prison. But the wall is cool and still beneath my touch.
Perhaps the window? I turn my head. I watch the sun walk soundless and ephemeral across the hard white floor. Where sunlight inside beams, a window lies beyond. But out of my immediate vision it remains. Taunted by something I cannot define, I strain to move, to seek a vision of freedom, however fleet. As if on gossamer strands, a window slides across the corner of my sight. Ever elusive, it begins to slip away again, and I struggle to remain turned toward its life-giving eyes. I can see a scrap of blue, and I almost weep with joy.
Precious sky. How long has it been since I’ve even stood beneath your canopy? To feel the wind and hear it whispering in my hair, to see the massive yet weightless ships of the sky travel white and full across your tapestry, and to find the horizon clad in stockings of mountains, valleys, seas and trees. It has been too long. The thought strengthens me.
I grip my bedding, prepare my assault. I will break the chains of cloth that weigh me down. I will surge against my own weakness and fear. I will…
But time marches on. It stops for no one. Even me. Especially me. Trapped within these inescapable, unbreachable walls. But I can leave. I only need the strength. I yet live. But living is not enough. I need help. I need a hand, a comforting word. I need time. Time to stop, time to reverse, time to correct my life.
The memories again. Still fleeting, they dance away from my outstretched fingers. I know I regret something. I know I hunger to make it right. But there is no time left. No will left. And no way out of this room.
The sun has long-departed now, that evanescent companion. And now the night has come again. Hello darkness, my old friend. Somehow more faithful than the light, at least within this room. More hungry, more eager.
The darkness does not ease the torture. I cannot see them fully in the deepening gloom, but I know them well, those four walls. If sun my companion and darkness my friend, the walls at least are my constant, maddening sentinels, standing guard around me.
Quiet. So very quiet. During the waking hours, I can easily imagine noise. I think I hear it beyond the confines of this four-cornered shell. I can almost grasp it. Almost trap it in the deep tunnels of my ears. But at night it is so quiet. Even my imagination does not allow me the faint glimmering of hopeful noise. Now I know no one is coming. No knight in shining armor awaits outside.
And yet I wonder. Why not? Surely someone cares that I am missing. Has no one searched for me? Will no one tried to breach my cocoon? Would they, if a butterfly emerged? Perhaps that is it. I am nothing but a moth. Worthless, cast aside. The world has given up. I think that must be it…
And yet I wait. Still trapped, still trying, still begging. Waiting for the sun to return. Searching for hope.


Outside the room, there is life. Bustling activity. Many hands, many feet, many mouths, many hearts, many ears. All ignore the occupant within. There is a door, labeled “Room 104: Jefferson” in neat black printing, but none use it. There is hope, in the form of a chair near the bed within, and an empty table waiting to fulfill its purpose. But none offer flowers, or cards, or a listening ear to brighten the room.
Maybe the clay jars are too busy. Maybe the vessels are already too full. Or maybe too dry. Nothing left to give. Whatever the reason, time itself does not wait for those trapped within the walls. Nor does it offer succor. For time is something the occupants have spent too much of already. Their allotment is almost used; their quota nearly full. It is up to the hands, the feet, the mouths, the hearts, and the ears to provide the time when they themselves no longer freely draw from it.
For eventually, we will all spend time within the room.