Cloth

“You are free to leave,” says the man, the man with the sinister fingers and the black cloth pulled over his hair. “But…oh, let’s see how long you can last, shall we? ‘Tis a mighty shame that comes from cowardice, my lad…” I hear his callous giggle mingling with the creaking rasp of the door.

My perceptions of time and space have been cracked by agents more powerful than I, and what I know of the world lays in shattered fragments before me, too illusory, too false, to afford any clarity or comfort. Behind my eyes, I see brown-tipped grass; barren trees offer their spindly limbs to an impalpable firmament, as a dying man bears acknowledgment of his sins in a wordless beg for mercy. Someplace deep, someplace true and craggy, I can feel its illusion. But I want it anyway. I want my freedom. But if I make a bid for it, I know the man with the black cloth will put his sinister hands on mine and lead me back to my room. “Stay here now,” he’ll say, almost absurdly gentle. And I, too scared to fight him, just stare.