The Cell

1


  The mirror in the darkened room, cast it’s shady reflection too dark- too dark to see.2

I have only been in the room for what I may only perceive as a short while, yet I have no 3

memory of getting here. I keep searching the darkened cupboards- for a match or candle 4

of some kind. Yet pencil after pencil, paper after paper, no candle do I find. No match—5

Nothing to cast some light in this gloomy room! It’s driving me so slightly over the brink 6

of madness. From what I can make of it, it is a small room, I’ve a size ten shoe and I can 7

count forty paces by fifty. There are no windows, and I cannot figure where to be a 8

door—Alas! Not one can I feel! Yet, if I am here, I presume there to be some sort of 9

hidden door, somewhere around… 10

There are no lights, no candles (at least none that I have yet found), and importantly no 11

matches. There is a regular desk, of antique shape and of some darker brown or 12

mahogany stained wood. It has round wooden knobs upon its drawers, and seems to be 13

filled with reams of paper. A small cup of sharpened pencils sits atop this desk; it is a 14

queer wooden cup, with hand-carved symbols of some kind adorning it. 15


There seems to be an immense library upon the shelves, volumes of books from floor to 16

ceiling, all in wall-to-wall bookcases, yet there is no light to read them. “Dear Father in 17

Heaven!” I exclaimed in my rent frustration, “how long have I been here, in this room?”18

I began to frantically pace, “ too long!” I shouted, only the silence of the dusty moldy 19

books seemed to hear. Back and forth I paced, “too long indeed!” I gasped. 20


I started pulling all the books off the shelves, hoping one would be the key to open up the 21

secret door, at first slowly and respectfully, then more frantic and violently. Faster and 22

faster, smashing the volumes of these ancient tomes to the floor, without a care or notice 23

of it. Too dark to notice a title of a book, as the faster they came down the more deeply I 24

sank into the blind fury of my rage. Till my soul was consumed by this blind fury, white 25

with rage, blind frustration—I had gone over the edge of madness, alone in this dark cell, 26

as I’ve come to think of this room, for it appears to me that I am it’s prisoner.27


There really are no doors, no way out. Yet there is a fresh supply of air and I have yet to 28

figure out just where it is coming from. Now as I look into the mirror and my darkened 29

image, I had forgotten how I look. I can see a general outline of a man in a darkened 30

room—But it is too dark to make out many details. I clumsily step back to the desk, 31

slipping upon the vast number of books, as I make my way back to the dark wooden desk 32

an it’s queer cup of pencils, sitting upon it. I felt for the chair and collapsed into it, as I 33

picked up that cup of pencils. I thought it quite queer, that here in this cell of mine I 34

would have all these books, beautifully bound (a rather nice private library), plenty of 35

time to read—Yet no light! The same for all the paper and sharpened pencils, this cup, 36

was some sort of hand carved wood, rather bumpy yet light in weight. It was an odd 37

feeling emanating from it. The several ironies of my predicament were rather blatantly 38

obvious to me, yet it was the pencils I focused upon. There was no escape from this 39

room, there was no light, yet the pencils—I could write, yet I know not whom I could 40

address a letter too. Or even how to get it out! It was too dark to see, and the other 41

problem—I do not even remember my name. Yet I held the pencil eraser to tip between 42

fingers of each hand, and stared intently at it. After a while it seemed to almost speak to 43

me. I thought for a short while of ending it all, stabbing my self with the pencils, yet I 44

dismissed the gory thought. I disdain suicides. They are most unpleasant, besides there is 45

fresh air getting in! But where—“Come on man think!” I yelled at myself, “ The mirror,” 46

I muttered to myself, “ the mirror!” I laughed like a madman, as I grabbed the chair I was 47

sitting upon, and dragging it with me stumbled back over to the wall, and the mirror. I felt 48

around its edges with my stubby sweaty fingertips—“Air!” Howling like a lunatic, 49

laughing I began to swing the chair at the mirror, at first I stumbled to the ground—I got 50

up dusted myself off, and swung again.51


At first it did not break, superstition tells us that breaking a mirror is seven years bad 52

luck, at this point though any luck is good to me. I would endure a thousand years of bad 53

luck if it meant my freedom from this cell. As I struck the mirror again and again, I was 54

over come by a sense of foreboding, almost as if it was not meant to be. As I pushed 55

those petty fears back I swung again and again…56

WHACK!57

WHACT!58

WHACT!59

WHACK!60

WHACK!61

I heard the first sign of weakness in it, CRACK!62

A marvelous spider web appeared in the mirror, one more good hit should do it…63

WHACK!64


Then it shattered. 65

Suddenly I was standing in a large room, a large bay window to my immediate right let in 66

large amounts of tepid grey light from an over cast day, in a world no very alien to me. I 67

was standing upon the broken fragments of mirror in a spacious office, a large oak desk 68

with its cup of pencils sat upon it with its exotic bumpy texture. The walls were lined 69

with books all leather bound, classics from Cervantes and Hawthorne to Wells, Fitzgerald 70

and Hemingway. I realized now that I had broken through the mirror, and had merely 71

been a reflection. As my body became transparent, I cursed myself some sort of fool. The 72

light I was still reflecting was the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.73


Soon the room filled with a momentary brightness, then as the light abated was empty,74

save from the broken mirror in the corner of the room near the bay window, the study 75

was empty.