Rectangular

Sometimes we all feel trapped. Sometimes it's as though you're in a room and it's like a riddle; there are no windows or doors and somehow you got inside. Maybe there's a giant block of ice melting in the center of the room, or there's a bird flying in circles around the chandelier--round and round and round. Maybe there was a hidden staircase that brought you here, that you climbed step by step and you entered this room and closed the door behind you and the door disappeared.

Maybe there is someone else in the room and she is pacing back and forth and running a boney hand through her long grey hair and muttering to herself in a language you can't understand. She moves from corner to corner, her eyes to the ground, muttering all the time. You try to talk to her, to stop her for a minute. You reach out to touch her shoulder but your hand swipes straight through thin air and she is no longer there. There is only the bird circling the chandelier.

You wonder if this is a prank. If this room, fluorescent lit, is some joke put on by your friends who all think you're a little crazy anyway. They joke that you should be locked up. They joke that Angela never should have been hit that hard, that you should have taken her to the hospital. This white-walled room is their kind of joke. They are probably laughing about that time you shattered the glass on the bar and held the shard to the bartender's neck until he promised there would be no jalapenos on your nachos. They are probably laughing about the time you tossed Angela down the staircase and she hit her head on the banister and you got the jar of spaghetti sauce out of the fridge and poured it on her and said, "Bleed now bitch." Yea, they're laughing with you.

Your fists punch but don't dent the white walls here. No windows. No door. How did you get in? If you get out, Angela will pay. The bird flies round and round the chandelier.