Story / It's Just a Room - Part 9
Curious about how this all began? Click here.
03:22
If you sit in a box long enough, if you keep very very still, and don’t make a noise, maybe Schrödinger will forget you ever even existed. There won’t be a question of whether or not you’re dead, because if you’re in here long enough, the whole rest of the world just goes away. There’s nobody out there, beyond the door, above me, below me, wherever you can imagine. I must be surrounded on all sides by millions of miles of sprawling earth, soil, rock, and yet no plants. No animals. No Humans. Not even deep underground roots and slimy little maggots… Nothing but me, and this god damned room. I want to get--
I need to get out.
I need to rip apart the door with my own two hands, never mind chipped fingernails, forget about the ones that come off completely. I need to dig through that wood, rip it all apart, and climb out of this wretched place.
I need to line up facing the door, then break into a sprint and ram it as hard as I can with my shoulder. I need to ram it over and over and over again until the wood begins to splinter, the earth begins to cave in, and I’m free forever. I don’t care if there’s nobody else out there, I just can’t be here.
God only knows, if I ever get out of here I’ll probably be stuck with claustrophobia for the rest of my life. No more public restrooms, or small cabins, or crawlspaces…
But that doesn’t matter, I just need to get out of here.
03:36
The light flickered, at least I’m pretty sure it did. Almost like when you’re sitting in a classroom, or the DMV, or some other big official building, and one of those giant fluorescent bulbs may have flickered, but then again you may have lightly blinked, and not even realized it. Thing is, when you’re in one of those big official buildings, you’ll know right away if it was your eye, or the electricity, because people will either acknowledge it or they won’t. But I’m alone, so there’s nobody here to let me know.
Maybe some day, someone will come. Maybe some day, someone will let me out of here, and carry me away to some place better. Where the sun can rise and set, and I won’t feel trapped in some shitty little box.
04:19
I’ve been sitting around for so long. I started to sing too, it helps pass the time, just singing songs. It lightens up the silence too. I’ve been singing Daisy Bell, What a Wonderful World, some Skynyrd, Beatles, anything I can think of. It definitely helps, but I’m still stuck here.
Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.
I was digging for some more paper a few minutes ago, and in the back of the drawer I found something strange. Something I didn’t even know was in here. A small water bottle, or at least that’s what I thought at first. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it, but it’s just a clear plastic bottle with no label. I pulled it out of the drawer, and twisted the cap.
I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
Here’s the dilemma, it isn’t water. When the cap spun off I could smell it immediately. Very high proof, either Everclear, 151, or something of that caliber. My mouth is so dry from these last few days, I would drink pretty much anything. But “pretty much” ain’t everything, and this shit would probably just scorch my throat. But hey, if I got drunk at least I’d have something to do.
05:22
Yep, drank some. Wasn’t that bad either, tasted like razorblades going down, but all in all it was better than my dry cracky throat, at least for a while. Kinda had to keep myself hydrated, you know, so I didn’t get all dried out. But damn it, the bottle’s empty. I’ve been checking in the drawer, but there wasn’t another bottle. I think I’m just going to take a nap, get my mind off of things.
10:36
Guess what, found another bottle. This one tastes like rum. Reminds of my high school days, drinking with the guys, pretending to be pirates and raiding the high seas of midnight. We had grand times, we wrestled, we gambled, we smoked cigars, we played games, and we drank.
Rum, whiskey, vodka, those were the big three. Every once in a while someone thought they were funny and brought tequila or schnapps, none of us would drink that shit.
We drank, and we chased. Ches was always great at holding his liquor, but I always had a tendency to black out. One morning when I woke up, Chester told me that after I blacked out, I must have fought Victor Edmunds, because Katy had to drive him to a hospital, guess I knocked him on his ass, or his head, one of the two split and he was losing blood. Nobody was sober.
I found out a few minutes later that nobody had called us in the last several hours to tell us how he was doing. An hour after that, we did receive a call, but it wasn’t from Katy.
“Hello?” I heard Justin’s voice from the kitchen. Ches and I were sitting on my bed. “What do you mean?” he said, “Are they--are they okay?” Then he started to sob.
It’s weird, now that I think about it, I remember hearing something then amidst his crying, it was coming from behind me, from the bedroom wall, shaking through my hangover and that incessant buzzing. It was a scratching sound, coming from inside the wall.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
Like a fingernail, trailing across the panels.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
It was alive.
11:21
My friends weren’t.
Katy hadn’t called, but Officer Carl Williams had. He informed Justin that they had found a crashed car with the bodies of:
A. Justin’s brother: Jared
B. Justin’s girlfriend: Katy
C. Justin’s best friend: Victor
Not looking too good for me, eh? Justin had begun to cry, and had hung up the phone. When I heard what was going on, I rushed into the other room, my head still in splitting pain from the night before. I walked over to him, shielding my eyes from the sun, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. He wasn’t even mad…
He was covering his mouth with his hand, and I walked closer to him, and hugged him. He hugged me back, and I told him how sorry I was. How sorry can you be when the reason three of the most important people in your friend’s life are all dead because of something you did? You can be so much more sorry than you would ever imagine.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. And I suppose that was supposed to put me at ease, but of course there was some part of me that said “You were too drunk, you hit him too hard, he lost too much blood, they all lost too much blood.”
But I try not to let it, because I know now what actually happened. Katy, who was driving, had been drinking quite a lot that night, but by the time Vic got hurt, she had pretty much sobered up. That’s the only reason they let her drive to the hospital in the first place, rather than calling an ambulance, because it would be faster to drive directly there. Jared only went with because Justin was too drunk, and had already passed out. He helped apply pressure to Victor’s--head? ass?--in the back of Katy’s van. The problem wasn’t their level of intoxication, or even how much Vic was bleeding, because it turned out he didn’t even bleed that much. Here’s how it went down: Katy was driving around a corner, surrounded by tall pines in the winter snow light. But she didn’t see the deer in her headlights. The beast crept out of the woods that surrounded the pass which led Downtown (and therefore to the hospital). The deer walked stridently forward until the shining beams caught it from the side. It had no idea what to do, it just stood there like a… well you get the gist.
The police told Justin that the beast had been hit by the car, toppled upward, and its antlers pierced the windshield, causing glass to spray inside the car, as Katy lost control of the wheel and swerved left when she should have swerved right, they ended up crashing into a ditch, but everyone inside ‘cept for Vic was dead before the van hit the ditch. It’s hard to think about, but accidents happen. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t Justin’s fault, it wasn’t even Katy’s, or the deer’s. It’s just one of those things that happens, and it sucks. You mourn for a while, and then you get over it. You move on, because you are alive. You understand that things are going to be okay.
Going to be, that is, until you get locked in a god damn wooden box, with nothing but a bottle and a typewriter, and a couple other things you don’t even want.
Jack! Someone stole part 10 and 11...or did the guy in the box run out of paper?
Hey Arthur, if you mean because I haven't posted them yet, that's my bad. I've been super busy and Steemit hasn't really made it on my priorities list. But I'm going to post part 10 now.
Thanks - I guessed, which is why I tried to use humour to let you know I'd love to read more.