Escape

I don't want to be here.

I'm trapped.

I can see out; I can see everyone else. I know what they're doing, and I know that I can't do those things.

I see them smiling, laughing, talking, playing. I see their emotions flit across their faces. I watch them frown, scowl and grin. I know what these expressions mean. I know that these people are feeling things.

But I can't feel any of it.

I'm here, trapped inside a small cell, suffocating under the weight of emptiness.

I walk around, following cement pathways, wandering in and out of buildings. I follow the others, trying to mimic what they do. I wave and turn my lips up when I see someone I know. The people I know wave and smile back at me, but they don't know. They don't know that I don't care. I can't care.

Believe me, I want to care. I want to feel. I want to laugh, bubbling over with mirth, but I can't. I want to frown, feeling my heart fill with sadness, but I can't. I want to cry, letting all of my emotions spill out, but I can't. There are no emotions.

I can't feel anything.

If only there were an escape.

If only there was a way out.

I don't usually dream when I sleep. I don't have nightmares, either. However, every now and then, while I lay sleeping, my mind will fantasize an escape for me.

I'm standing in a tunnel. The walls are rounded grey cobblestone, making an archway that stretches as far as I can see. I'll see a little blue fairy, fluttering in the air, beckoning me, leading me down the tunnel, but the tunnel gets smaller and narrower as I go. When I finally think I can't handle it anymore and I need to turn back, the fairy gets desperate. She starts motioning so hard she can't fly straight. I squeeze myself into the walls, pressing just a little farther, and suddenly everything opens up. The tunnel disappears and I find myself standing in an open field. There's no sign of cobblestone anywhere. The field is covered in bright green grass and dappled with small colourful flowers. The colours are brighter than I've seen in a long time. Everything is so intense, it hurts.

And then I wake up.

The dream always ends there, and I always find myself laying wherever I fell asleep - either in my colourless white-wash bedroom, or splayed on the couch, because I was too tired to get up and go to bed.

I think about that dream while I'm awake. I wonder about that little blue fairy. Why did she care so much? What made her care about me? Why me?

The rest of the time, I find myself trying to navigate this world, wondering if it'll always be like this.