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Description
     I awaken with a startled gasp, drenched in sweat like the heavy rains that I have come to know so well.  It was the dream again.
     Looking out my window I see the sun is at its climax in the sky.  Midday.  The sun is draped heavily with thick cumulus clouds, leaving only a portion of it to shine down on the sea.  Its brilliant rays of light are visible and shimmering as if the heavens were shining on a holy figure, turning the calm ocean into a field of diamonds.
     Walking past the window, my sole outlet to the small world I know, I turn my head and glance to the side and look out at the beauty before me, as a large fish leaps from the water.  At the peak of its jump, the sun's rays catch the fish's wet skin at just the right moment, and it sends a shimmering beam of light that reflects and glistens in my eye.

The floor and walls are built of strong and solid brick and stone and mortar seemingly old as time itself.  Walking slowly and sore from the day of sleeping on the cold, hard floor, my footsteps echo throughout this entire prison as if telling me harshly of how I am alone, for there is nothing more lonely than the sound of one's sole footsteps echoing through an empty hall.  But sometimes, if I stand still and close my eyes and listen closely, eyes shut and mind focused, it seems that a second set of footprints can be heard echoing through the empty hall.
    Wandering through these dark hallways is like being a prisoner walking the mile to his execution.  There is no hope here, no life—only dissonance, only nothingness, only death.  The reaper, some days, walks on my right, as if leading me to hell and back again—to my serenity, to my window.  Sometimes I would swear that I have seen him at my side, skulking in the darkness, his ragged and tattered robe trailing behind him, walking as if with utmost patience at an almost sickeningly leisurely pace, and then, as if provoked, takes dramatic flight and encircles me—I can hear the whip of his cloak and I can feel the breeze of his hidden form sailing by.
     And then he is gone, vanished as if never there before, and I then find myself in the wake of an intense delirium, my breathing urgent and deep as if no air can enter my lungs, and bound by the most unholy fears.
     Leaning against the stone walls resting on my haunches half convulsing and half trying to recall what has happened, I listen to my apparent screams from my startled delusion echo through the long halls through this building, this prison, my tomb.

But today I am alone as I wander through these lonely halls.  There is no stalking presence, no pursuing enemy.  Only a deeply persistent fear hunts me down like a rabid beast as I slowly plod along, staying close to the walls, always, always, with my hand pressed against the cold stone just for reassurance that I am alive and breathing, not slain without recollection of my passing.  The cold sensation of this stone is, other than my window, is my only ally, for I fear cold death as I fear myself.
     The darkness taunts me as it always has, exaggerating the hollow patter and echo of my wary footsteps as I skulk with bare feet through the corridor.  It mocks my every step and I know there is no need to move with such stealth, for I have proven to myself time and time again that I am the sole inmate.
     And yet there is a presence felt, moving in slowly like an approaching fog, blinding my reason, lurking slowly and steadily through the corridor.  It seems to linger and I often am forced to glance over my shoulder, expecting to see in the darkness the glowing eyes of a predator, but then, as if blown away suddenly by a violent wind, the thick fog of presence is gone, disappeared.
     I have now reached my destination, where I spend my waking hours before the sun has begun its descent in the darkening day.  Upon entering the room I feel as if I am entering the crypt of a long- dead malevolent sorcerer.  Very little light shines—that which comes from the randomly placed cracks and holes in the weathered brick and stone, though, serves for enough.  For these small cracks shed brilliant beams of light that become expanded once they hit the ground, as if slowly consuming the cold, dead floor.  I can watch as hour by passing hour the light seeping through the faults of the decrepit ceiling move so slowly across the floor as the sun shifts positions in the sky.  I have etched a crude and jagged line in the stone floor that has been very gradually and minutely softened from the footfalls of many people in years past, with presumably a jagged stone that had fallen from the ceiling at some point in time.  When the sun's beams have crossed over this line it signals the hour—the approaching of nightfall—for me to begin my fated journey back through the hall to my window and watch the night reveal itself before me.
     I spend most of the daylight hours in this room, for it is cool and damp from the rainfall trickling down through the pores of the crumbling ceiling.  In this room I often sleep, dreaming of being out there and sitting on the sand.  The other times in this room when I am not sleeping, I often sit and reflect.  I reflect on the lonely days past and I think about the lonely days to come.  I reflect on my being, my meaning for being here, seemingly serving no purpose, having no life—yet I dohave a life and this is it, but is it worth being lonely day after day, to live this life alone and idly waiting to be broken free of this prison, of my chains?  Yes—I believe the answer is yes—I will always have my window, my serenity, and portal to another world governed by beauty.
     Sitting silently, for there is no one to hear me speak my words of truth, I watch as particles of dust from the decayed stone ceiling flow with the mild breeze that enters through the faults, made visible by the brilliant yellow beams of light peaking through the cracks, and I reflect on how I came to be in this tomb; such a thing is a mystery to me.  But mostly I think about and I reflect upon the door.
     Adjacent to me the door is so simple yet intimidating, almost threatening.  It is the shortest door of the three other doors in this room, all of which are boarded over by a hurried nail driven into the deteriorating yet still solid, still strong wood by hand and hammer, but nevertheless it looms like the long shadows cast by the evening sun.
     Unlike all of the other doors I have come across, this door is not boarded over but is locked, the bolt seeming to be forever steadfast in the frame.  Also unlike the other doors I have come across, this door is not decorated carefully with ornate carvings depicting archaic battles and bloodshed, saints and salvation, but is merely a slab of dark wood, weathered and defeated by time.  Perhaps once this door was a spectacle of beauty, but now it is not, sitting idly and looming, worn and adulterated.
     The doorknob, which is welded onto a plate of presumably once-shining brass, which has now rusted from the rainfall over many years, is, however, forged with intricate designs—flowers, vines, and the head of a lion.  For many rising and settings of the sun I have tried to twist this knob, but have ceased to do so for what I think to be even more days past, for my disappointment is more than to fill this entire bereft yet disturbingly beautiful tomb, my loneliness increased and able to fill the emotional equivalent of as many corridors, perhaps more.  I also used to often gaze and try to look through and beyond the keyhole.  It is useless, for beyond the door darkness reigns over any mentionable or questionable light, hindering my field of vision to that not beyond the very other side of the keyhole.
     Nevertheless, I lean my head back on the corroded stone and brick wall and ponder endlessly about the very mystery of just the door itself, not necessarily what lies beyond it.
     The eroded stone that makes up the walls of this building has become a comfortable and ideal place to rest and lean against, and I reluctantly open my eyes and glance across the chamber to the floor where there exists carvings in the cold stone that I can scarcely remember making.  Setting my hands down on the cold floor, I am reminded again of my loneliness and solidarity.  Crawling on my hands and knees like a wild beast, I do not move more than a few steps until I hear the carnal sound that is associated with the ripping of calloused flesh being dragged and torn open on ridged debris—it seems to echo through this hollow room—and feel the sharp and paralyzing pain that ensues with such a cut, as the cold floor beneath my right hand instantly becomes thick and warm.  I raise my hand and look at the damage with little aid from the muted light, for the beams of sun have nearly reached the etched line.  Blood.  I am still alive.
     There is a subtle shine and luster, causing a reflection in this blood that appears to be on the verge of blending in with the surrounding tinted blackness.  And seeing this, my own blood from this deep laceration blending in with and conforming to the darkness, I realize how I am a part of it.  I see it, I feel it, I hear it, I breathe it.  I touch it, I think it, I speak it, I bleed it.
     I cover and conceal the wound with my left hand, exerting pounds of pressure on it, not to force the blood to clot, but to keep out the darkness, the blackness, the utter loneliness and solitude of this place.  But I know it is too late.  It has already permeated the bleeding wound, circulating through my veins, carried by the ever-flowing current of my bloodstream, being pumped by the ebbing, rhythmic and constant beating of my very own cold and soulless heart and infecting the very cells within me.
     I breathe in this darkness, this place, with every inhale and expel it from my lungs with every exhale.  The air has become thick, unbreatheable with the overwhelming inhabitance yet emptiness of this structure.  I choke on the very aura of my surroundings as it fills my lungs.
     Inhale.
     Exhale.
     Inhale.
     Exhale.
     Inhale. . . .
     Unable to focus, unable to reason, now holding my breath, I feel the welcoming slip of approaching unconsciousness pervading my mind.  Stains of black spot my vision and I can feel the onset of fear as I slowly . . . slip . . . away.