THE PRiSONER

 

And I watch as the last blue rectangle of the wall in front of me disappears.

I have been here for a hundred years and I am going to stay here for another thousand. I am a prisoner. Unlike Kafka’s The Trial, I am not here for a crime I have not committed but I was born here. This has been my home and haven ever since. I have seen more than any people, more than a blind. I know more about this room than the hands and heads that constructed it. I know the place better than the insects and souls that inhabit this room. I know this world; as it has been before me and as it is now. But alas, I am a prisoner.

I have no visitors, never. And I like it. I have seen the death of the person who shared this room with me. I have seen the body rot, decay. I have seen the flesh invite guests to the feast, and I have seen the greedy ones licking the bones until the bones starts to eat them up. The bones lie in a heap round the corner. They take up an unusually huge space of this small room and at times I have such a dislike for the dirt that I want to throw it off the window, but the bones are my only connection to the world outside. I am locked and I have the only room to walk around, but I do not complain, I don’t have the habit. Wait, I do have visitors or a visitor, I know, although I have never seen anyone get in or stand outside my wooden bars, but they do come, I know. Whenever I fall asleep (and I have tried a million times not to fall asleep for reasons obvious), someone comes, I know because when I wake up I find a book lying on the floor of my room. But you don’t believe what you’ve not seen, hence I have no visitors. The books now cover the wall in front of me and my room is getting smaller, not that I care about it. The only thing that I care about is my Life; the ambiguity of it. I am not afraid to die, but death comes slow to people like me, and that is the only sane reason I don’t wait for it, neither do I run away from the claws of Death. I have seen Death and have felt it knock on the walls of my heart. I think Death is my only true friend, every time I think about Life Death puts a hand on my burning head and lulls me to sleep, whispers in my ear that Life isn’t something I should think about, Life is leaving me each day, it isn’t faithful. I believe what Death says because Death is the only one who stays with me. It talks to me, gives me company and promises to stay. Death has no end.

The window in my room is high up almost touching the ceiling that holds the lone light bulb. It is not a ventilator, it is a window. I haven’t been to other houses and rooms but I know what a window is. The only thing the window sees is the small piece of the vast blue sky and black night. The only thing the window does is glare, sometimes at me and mostly at things that it is not. I think the window is the only head that has eyes on either side of it. It looks out at the open world outside and at the closed room where I stay, at the same time. The window brings in the freshness of the nature (sometimes it is very difficult to control the obstreperous wind that comes from outside) and takes away the staleness of the inside. The window is an essential part of the room, it is the way to dispose of the things I no longer want in the room; it’s a gargoyle in the shape of a window. I wish I could write someday and throw the pages from the window for the world to read, but I cannot, I don’t know how to write and therefore I think and send my thoughts flying out of the window, I don’t know if anyone has caught them and read. But I know it has passed by everyone, poking them. They don’t care about it, because empiricism doesn’t hold true with me, I have no observations and experiences, I am confined to this room that has no existence, that has no address. Well, I don’t need an address. But you will, if you want to visit me.

I don’t want a name. I don’t have a name. But you will want me to have a name if you want to call me.

 

The above page still hangs by loose threads in the diary, Kashiv’s diary, Delirium.

 

 

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