SEE ME

I started life off in a field, with so many rooms surrounding me, so many rooms at my disposal. Childhood was easy because it was a lot of searching through different rooms, examining what they had to offer, but knowing the doors would always stay open. But once I reached adulthood, I learned that someone started locking the doors.

I had chosen a couple of rooms in adulthood, hearing the lock click behind me, but never worrying too much. The rooms I had chosen were nice, and they had plenty that I wanted. I was able to participate in plenty of enjoyable activities in the rooms, but eventually, the activities were no longer available and the paint on the walls had peeled and faded.

The doors had always unlocked soon after, and I'd leave the rooms, searching for the next place to wind up.

And then I saw it. A glorious room, tall walls encompassing a rounded, aesthetically pleasing building. The walls were the color of sun-kissed skin and they smelled sweet with a slight musk traced through. I chose that room, and as I entered, it looked like a paradise to me. I was so happy to hear that lock click behind me; I didn't want to ever accidentally leave this new beauty.

It stayed beautiful for a long time. I was truly happy. I had activities to stimulate my mind and my body. I was a fountain of energy and youth. And then the activities evaporated one by one. The paint peeled and faded and cracked. I was sad, and I waited for the doors to unlock, knowing it was time. But they didn't.

The paint peeled away until it had withered into nothingness, and I was left with bleak, foggy glass walls all around me. I couldn't see through them, and I was unsure if anyone could see me from the other side. But I could hear nothing beyond the walls; every sound was trapped and contained inside this box with me.

That was all I had to accompany me, the muted echoes of my sad sounds. They were the worst company, so I stopped making sounds altogether. I sat alone, with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no thoughts to express.

Actually, that wasn't true. I always had thoughts. And no room could trap my mind, even if it had trapped my body.

I moved to a portion of the wall and I breathed on the glass. The foggy bits became foggier, and I traced my finger in the cloud. My fingertip squeaked across the surface, tracing a message for God knows who?

SEE ME.

Yeah, I felt pathetic writing it. But what a pathetic situation I had found myself in. I didn't even know if I was supposed to be here or not. Did I deserve this? I felt like I had been a pretty good person my whole life; I couldn't think of any actions that I had had that would've caused me to be subjected to being trapped in a windowless, activity-less room. Maybe I had done something and I didn't remember it. Maybe I wasn't aware of the things one could do to get themselves in hot water like this. Maybe it was my insistence to use made up words like "activity-less" even though I knew damn well it wasn't right.

Maybe the god running the show didn't appreciate bad grammar, and conceited beings purposely using it wrong.

I might have deserved this, so I didn't want to say HELP ME. I might've been someone who didn't deserve help. But didn't I deserve to be seen?

I heard a soft squeaking on the wall. I turned, and inches away from my message, a new message was being penned from the opposite side of the wall. As if a ghost finger was sketching it out, it was slowly appearing, letter by letter. And though it was backwards, a tiny bit of squinting allowed me to figure it out.

I SEE.

They see? Someone sees? Someone sees me? I searched the premises for a camera and a crew that was about to come out laughing and applauding a successful prank that they had played on me and would be airing on TV later that night. Nope. No crewmembers for me to knock out with my fists. It was probably for the better, I didn't want to go to jail, or get another negative notched on my scorecard next to, Bad With Making Up Words.

There must have been someone who saw my message from the other side. I was elated and confused... and scared. What should I do now?

A portion of the wall morphed and a wooden door was fabricated from the glass, and while it was coming into existence, it was slowly opening. The slow squeak of the door was the loveliest sound I had heard in quite some time. I ran to it, but a pale green orb bubbled out from the opening and restricted me from passing through the doorway. I pushed and punched and kicked the orb, hoping it wasn't some almighty ruler's appendage and that I wasn't racking up charges on my rap sheet, but it was useless. The orb was strong, and it wouldn't budge.

The door remained open, and I could see through it. A sweet, tangy breeze blew through and tickled my nose. The sight beyond the door was something my eyes hadn't experienced before. Colors and shapes and forms shifted and transformed and evaporated constantly. There was no singular thing beyond the door, there were many things. I tried to count, I wasn't sure how many. At least 100, maybe 200, probably infinite. I had no idea, I stopped counting at around 27.

The colors and shapes kept twisting and swaying. They were oranges and yellows to start, but then they moved into a green, blue, purple realm, and then they became so many skin tones. Beautiful skin tones. And the shapes became human-shaped, like hands and arms waving me to come join them.

"I can't join you, faceless shapes! I'm stuck!"

The shapes peeled themselves, from themselves, and became a blend of tans and taupes and reds... deep reds. The wind kept blowing in, still sweet like ice cream and tangy like a summer field filled with fruit trees. The wind grew colder, and I only then just realized that I was sweating. But the sweat was dissipating from the firm, blowing wind, oscillating back and forth through the doorway. I stood still, letting it wash over me and relax me.

My mind eased. My troubles were gone. The door closed.

And I was alone again.

I sat alone in that room for a while, wondering if I had imagined the entire ordeal. I felt my forehead. Nope, it was still delightfully cool, so it wasn't a fever dream.

Whatever that was, it was the most stimulation I had received in a long time. I was breathing heavily from the experience, like you would after an intense workout, one where you managed to do one more rep on every exercise because you had all that pent up energy from... not using energy.

I lay down in my corner that I had dubbed the Sleep Corner, or at least, The Eyesies Closies Corner, and I turned my back to the room. I pushed my face close to the corner so hardly any air could live in the space between, and I allowed for the tight atmosphere to replay the memories in my mind.

When I awoke the next... well, who even knows when the hell morning is anymore... the next time that I woke up, I was exhausted. But it was a good kind of exhausted. Days went by, or hours, again, I had no idea what the hell was going on in this room. It was constantly the same brightness. I had heard that this was what people in Alaska had to deal with in the summertime... and people whose light switches were too high up.

Nothing was happening. I wasn't doing anything. Was nothing happening because I needed to initiate?

I found a place on the wall once again, breathed on it, and I wrote my squeaky message.

SEE ME.

It was silent. My message was a tattoo I immediately regretted, like when young people get their favorite actor's name without considering if that person ever might turn out to be a pervert... you know, the bad kind.

This was stupid.

How do I erase this damn thing?

And then I heard squeaks, and I saw my backwards message.

SEEN.

I'm seen again? I was seen? Is the seeing over already?

A door was fabricated and opened and a heavy croak came along with it this time. I rushed over to it, and again, big, damn, green bubble pushed me out from entering. But I saw another sight beyond the bubble, which eventually faded to translucent. I saw purple stripes waving and wiggling like lines of static. Black and white orbs floated around and bounced off one another like ping pong balls trapped in an anti-gravity chamber. Shapes like big eyeballs and plump lips pushed together, and I was ready to see a face form, but it didn't. But I got the distinct feeling that there was a face beyond it all.

The scene turned green, like leaves in a winter forest. The color faded but remained green all the while, and the purple stripes invited me in. I couldn't cross. I tried, but I couldn't.

"I can't cross! I tried, but I can't!"

Well, it was pointless for me to have told you that if I was just going to scream it.

I sat there and watched the show, exclusively for me, I supposed. Maybe not. Still, I had a front row seat. After a while, the door shut and vanished, and though there were no other doors to open or unlock and I was alone again... I was happy. I went to my corner, I pushed myself as far into it as I could go, and I relived the moment while my steady, rapid breathing lulled me into slumber.

I didn't write another message again, not for a while. I wanted to see if anything else would happen on its own, but it never did. I waited and waited until I was too sad... and desperate. And then I concocted my plan.

I breathed heavily on the wall and wrote my message.

SEE ME.

I shuffled off to the other side of the room and lay there in a ball, eyes closed, hardly moving. It was quiet for a while, and I prayed there were no cameras and no prank crew, because I would have been utterly embarrassed by my own antics. But this was what desperation had brought me to.

I heard the slight squeak; it was small and short and sounded confused. I popped an eye open to see a door materializing and opening in slow-motion. There was a scene of colors beyond it, but no big orb.

I leapt to my feet and raced for the door! It opened fully just as I reached it... and I dove forward...

An orb popped up into the doorway...

But I had already sailed through...

Into colors...

And shapes...

And who knew what else.

I was falling. I saw no bottom. I saw no top. I saw nothing that gave me any sense of depth perception. I wondered if this was a good idea or not. It had to be better than that room... or at least... it was different.