211 - Screensaver

Nervous pacing, scattered echoes and
a room slowly closing in,
constricting
and inhaling, exhaling, pushing and pushing in and down.

I cross the room, following the grout and observing the walls, wishing I just had a ball to bounce about, something freer, something loose, something with some room to breathe. A tangle of nerves and frustration in my gut, I try to fathom the idea of breaking out, pushing out, or building more padding, which one will make the noise and shifts just stop, stay still, everything is so cold and suffocating all at once.

"Hello?"
And suddenly there you are standing, unmoving, and holding
a...scarf?
And my head snaps up to the intrusion, your figure surrounded by walls usually empty and the room fills with my breathing, and it pulses, changing from off-white to eggshell, to bone then ghost, and you're still just standing there. here. How did

"Can I help?" you ask.

I continue to breathe, trying to catch my breath, but a fear overpowers me that you may tear the walls down and bring some sort of blinding bright light to pierce through the darkness, haul a torn wall, the bare stones at me, or worse walk towards me, touch me. Stay away what do you want who are you what do you want where did you come from who are you. You twitch a bit and seem to move forward so I back away, way back, stretching the space between us and you stop immediately.

"I can go," you offer, and turn to leave.

"No, wait," I say before I realize I am. I do. I do want you to go, but I don't want you to leave. Does that make sense? Go. but don't leave. Don't leave me. I observe the room again, make certain the windows are shut, the doors are locked, double-bolted, sealed with liquid nitrogen, taped and plied together. You shift uncomfortably and I look back at you, take a further step away. "How did you get in?"

You lift a hand out from the folded scarf and let a small key jingle out from a gold rope. "You gave me a key," you say so innocently, and clasp your fingers around it, like a child caught doing wrong. "Don't you remember?"