The Gray Room

The walls have been painted gray and they are the flattest, smoothest walls. They cast no shadows and repel any shadow that dares come near. There is one light hanging from the gray ceiling. It is white and bright like a singular star. And on one gray wall hangs a clock, each hand spinning from number to number far too quickly to illustrate the true passage of time. After staring at it, the whole rooms seems to be spinning.

In the center of the room, there is one reclining chair. It is old, worn and tattered, showing the scars of war from years of exposure to the elements. In some places, cushion stuffing pops out like foam popcorn. In many places, threads and chunks of material stick up like harmless cactus needles. The chair is like a mirage in the desert: if you give in to the comfort it advertises, will it disappear?

Skin begins to crawl as the room spins faster and faster. The recliner begins to creak and rock with the rotations of the room. Eyes close but cannot block out the strange vision of the gray walls, the white light, the broken recliner, the spinning hands of the clock. Outside the room, there are the sounds of a world crashing apart. A world sounds like a crying baby, a falling tree, a roaring crowd, an angry ocean, when it falls apart.

Arms cover the ears, fingers clasp behind the bones of the spine, trying to block out the sounds of a world at its end. But the room keeps spinning and the sounds only grow louder to compensate for the muffling. One person, solitary, rocking back and forth, hunched over, barely able to breathe for the weight of the world prying its chest apart.

Then the room stops spinning and the world stops falling apart. A door appears in the opposite wall. It opens. A rush of warm, natural light floods in. Outside of the door are fields of flowers and butterflies, rolling hills and tall, green trees. Outside the clocks tick to the right rhythm, the world is quiet like a trickling stream and there is air and life and color.

Legs stretch to their full length and muscles move beneath the skin. Soon, the room is empty and the world outside has rediscovered its long-lost child.