The because of it all escaped him. He did not know why or how he was there. Perhaps if he hadn't been such a bastard, he'd be out in the world now. But there was no way to go back. There was no way to ask for forgiveness. It was too late. If this was a sort of prison, he couldn't pay the bond. All he had were promises. And those he was wont to break.
There were no iron bars, as if he were a beast. Just white blank walls with no doors and no windows. It was as if he'd just appeared there one day. An old four-poster bed with wooden headboard practically filled the room save for the toilet, sink, and couch. It was comfortable enough. Boiled leather sofa, fit for reading. But no books in sight. There was a bookshelf, but no books. Everything was bejeweled by the florescent light. He could not escape it. It glared the wood and blinded him with shine. He did not know night nor day. The light was always on.
At first there were things he could do. They slowly withered into nothingness. Bored of counting ceiling tiles (exactly 25, no half tiles). They must have been nailed to something because they did not budge when he tried to lift them up.
Bored of staring at blank walls. Blank, seamless walls and floor. He knew; he studied every inch. Sometimes he studied the baseboard that bordered the room, and wondered where the door may have been. But there was no crack. It was as if the walls had been built up around him as he slept. But he did not know this room, so that could not be it. There were no bubbles in the carpet, no mouse holes in the corners. No secret passageways. Wishing to bore through the walls did not produce holes or tractors or wrecking balls. The longer he stared, the brighter the light got. It gave him headaches. And so he would sleep.
Sometimes he thought he was in a book, awaiting his beheading. Or a hanging. Or a drowning. Or a trial. He wished for it. That would be something. An answer. That would end the long wait. The forever wait. The indefinite wait.
He made a ball of bread from his last meal so he could have something to throw around. It got crusty though. Why ever he was here, it was not to starve. They were meager, but his meals appeared. He would turn around and there they'd be. No one brought them or took them away. They just were. He would try to invent stories with his meals. Carrots were people; potatoes were mountains. His imagination had run out long ago, however.
He never learned a craft, but perhaps if there was an instrument here, a piano, a flute, a banjo…something to do. Tapping on the walls produced no echo, as if they were thick with insulation. All of the rooms' sounds were missing. The toilet didn't make a whoosh noise when it flushed, the water pouring from the sink didn't drip. The heating and air conditioning (if there was any) did not turn on and off within the walls. He was the only thing there to make noise, and the noises were meager too. This was his noise bubble. He was blocked out from the world around him. Safe, but unsafe from himself. He would go crazy here, he thought.
Voices would come to him from memories, and he would try to reproduce them. He would give anything to have his brother here with him. Or a stranger. Instead, he was bantering with the walls. He hoped someone was listening, studying his mind running away from him. That would at least mean he wasn't talking to himself.
All he had was sleep. He would try to dream of bygone days and the details he took for granted outside of his box. The sounds of people and music. The words in books. The colors and textures. And the feelings. There were no feelings here. Only memories.
He knew he was losing his mind when his thoughts turned to love. In the world he loved many things or nothing. Here he loved the box. It was the only thing to do, loving the box. The box gave him peace and quiet and all the time in the world to sleep. The box was good. These days were the best of his life. He had all the time in the world to sit and appreciate what he could not have.
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