The Room

Tristan McGovern

I gaze out with unseeing eyes at the sombre blue light of the TV screen; images flit past too quick for my eyes to make sense of the shapes and colours. No sound plays, and the cartoon ploughs onward, not caring if I pay attention. The bed creaks, and the crisp, white sheets crinkle as I turn away to face the wall; it strikes me then just how bare the walls are: pristine, unmarred, uninterrupted, white. Or perhaps it’s off-white? Or maybe eggshell white? Who really cares anyway? It’s just paint.

Jordan would, a small voice whispers in my head.

Yes. Jordan would care. She was passionate about the most mundane of things, like the way a tree’s limbs branched out toward the sky; she would draw me over to look more closely. Jordan even once made me stare at an old vending machine with busted and worn-down buttons to help her decipher which was the most broken and therefore the most liked. But she was gone now. She wasn’t dead, just far, far away. Though somehow that made it worse.

Jordan leaving was like losing an essential piece of myself; she was the only person who truly got me. She was the only person who had ever encouraged me out of my shell like a hermit crab when the sea rose to shore. Parts of us bled and swirled together, fused to create something new, golden, and shining. Or maybe that was just me. Maybe my presence was a few brief moments that had little effect on her overall life, like a candle-flame there and then gone.

I shake myself from a stupor; there is no need to dwell on things passed, especially now that I am safe. Protected. Alone.

My eyes land on the solitary book in the room, like opposite ends of a magnet pulling on each other, cast in pale-yellow light from the TV. It is a thin, clothbound book titled “White Nights” – never heard of it. In my few weeks in this room (has it truly been weeks, maybe a month? It is hard to tell without light from a window) I have never picked it up; it sits next to a half-empty glass of water on the linoleum bedside table. Cartoons are a much better distraction than books, I have found.

A heavy, leaden weight settles on my chest and my eyes begin to drift shut; I have never been one to sleep with the TV on. I sweep my arm along the blanket – behind, in front, searching for the remote. My heart beats an asymmetrical rhythm, my eyes are shut tight against the near-blinding white and red flash of the screen. I know the remote is not here. And in this moment, I do not like this room. I want out.

Blindly, my fingers search for anything to stop the incessant flashing. I topple the glass on the bedside table and hear it rebound and shudder against the floor – not glass after all. I hurl the small book at the screen. Darkness and an impenetrable silence stretch on, so dark I can’t tell whether my eyes are open or closed. One thing I do know is that I am no longer tired, and the TV is beyond repair.

In the dark, my mind begins to wander like a ribbon of smoke in the wind, back to the days before this room. Could they even be called days if each one had been the same? I ride the train like a spectre: silent, barely moving for fear of making a sound. I watch as fields of green fly past at a dizzying speed; they seem frozen in time. Flowers bloom and rot, humans mill about their lives, yet the cows remain stationary. And in that moment, I am jealous of them; we both live cyclical lives, but they are at peace; they are free to graze and rest all day. They have never been abandoned, or if they had, maybe they didn’t even realise it. They stare back at me and in their eyes, I see a mocking gleam, as if they feel the prickling gaze of my envy. They may be caged by humans, but they will never feel the crushing force of watching as the only person you’ve ever loved walks away. They simply glut themselves all day, every day, until eventually they get so fat and keel over.

The cows and their lush green fields give way to a dark green forest brimming with life. Vines trail from the branches, soft purple and vibrant orange flowers carpet the floor, and golden sunlight filters through the thick, green leaves above. The scene is truly breath-taking.

I focus on a long, narrow leaf about the same size as my hand; it doesn’t have a glossy sheen like the leaves around it, and its underside is covered in spider-like veins. I watch it until everything else falls away, and before my eyes, the edges begin to crinkle and darken, shrink and bend. The crisp, brown leaf falls – there and then gone in an instant, the end of its brief, beautiful life.

The train car jostles, and I am pulled back inside. Do these people not see the beauty we are passing by? I spare a darting glace around and see that no one else is looking; they all stare down at their phones or a laptop, as if looking up, seeing the people around them, the trees outside, is some abhorrent thing. These people are trying with all their might to distract themselves from everything around them. I want to scream at them. Do they not see the same trees as me, the forest living through cycles of life and death simultaneously? Or if they look, will they simply see the absence of human touch? Does that frighten them? To me it is the most beautiful thing about nature; it is stable and steady; it can not leave you for a better life. Am I truly so different from all these people that we can look at the same thing and see something completely different? When I was born, was a vital piece of me missing, or was I given too much of that thing?

Every day the same questions circled around and around my head. With each rotation they seemed to speed up like a centrifuge, until one day they stopped. I stopped them. Or at least, I tried to.

The train glides to a stop at the next station; I know it is not mine but still I look out. What am I looking for? No clue. On a whim I move to the other side of the train. I stare at everyone passing by, searching. Brisk-walking men in suits rush past, a gang of schoolkids sit in a circle on the floor, backpacks almost the same size as their bodies. The train doors close and I know none of this is right. Dread pools in my limbs and turns my stomach sour. I turn around in my seat and gaze at the vanishing station.

There.

A figure stands at the very edge of the platform, tall and lithe with wild, brown curls. Her face is obscured, though I wonder if she saw me. I stare and stare at her vanishing form. I stare until my eyes burn. I stare until the world falls away,

Now I’m alone in this room. I don’t know when or how I got here, but one thing I do know is that I am happier than ever. I am doing so well. I breathe in two lung-fulls of air and exhale slowly, as if this will ease the constant twisting knots in my stomach.

Blaring, white light stuns all my senses, and I jolt up in my bed. My head spins. The sterile, faintly-buzzing, fluorescent light seems to numb me; it pushes out all feeling and replaces it with one burning desire: I need to get out. Like the falling leaf in the forest, I know it is my time to go.

When my feet hit the white linoleum floor, the room sways around me, as if by getting up, I have set the world off-kilter. With each step I take toward the door, it seems to retreat by three. Finally, my hand closes around the cold metal knob. I breathe once, twice, and turn. The door opens outward, to a hall filled with many more rooms, each the same as my own, and all buzzing with fluorescent light.

Author: Tristan (he/him) is an emerging writer completing his undergraduate in Bachelor of Fine Arts for Creative Writing. 

 

Artist: Phoenix Sunrider (they/she) is an aspiring author with several works in the making. They love all kinds of animals, and add as many as possible into all their works whether that be high fantasy, magical realism, or even fan fiction. They currently have no social media platforms, but hope to develop some when more work is completed.

 

Edited by: Mia Paton