The Room

The familiar chime goes off marking another day has started. I slowly open my eyes feeling that something is going to happen today. As always, I start my day by running around the walls in my room. I like how running makes me feel, I get lost in it and can try to picture a world where there are no rooms, where I can run free. An alarm goes off jolting me back to reality, telling me it is time to eat. The keeper who brings my food is new today. I do not like strangers so I watch him from the furthest point in the room. He starts talking to himself while setting up my food, no not talking, I do not know what to call it. He catches me studying him and smiles at me. Slowly move closer to him, intrigued by him, he is not like any of the other keepers I have seen. His eyes do not study me like the others do, instead they look kind. I decide to ask him what he was doing earlier and he tells me he was singing, making music. He tells me that I shouldn’t be trapped in here like a lab rat, that there is so much more to life. He tells me I should be allowed to see the sunrise and sunset each day, that I should be able to smell the ocean and feels its waves. None of the keepers have spoken of this stuff before, what is he talking about? Before he leaves he promises me that I will get to experience life. After the keeper leaves, I cannot help but think of a world much larger than what I know and have imagined. What else makes music? What do these sunrises and sunsets look like? I want to see this ocean and to feel its waves, whatever those are. All of a sudden my room feels so small, the walls seem to be closing in on me. There has to be more than this. All of a sudden my room goes black and the room feels even smaller now. I lie down on the floor pulling my knees to my chest, paralyzed, suffocating. I need to get out of here, there has to be more than this. I do not know how long it takes, eventually though I hear the lock on my door click. As my door opens, a new kind