The Room He Died In

Once upon a time, there was a man who born and died inside a room he never left.

His corpse lies folded up in the north-west corner of this small room.

Opposite him, is the bed he slept in.

Sat neatly on this bed is a thick hardcover book.

It is very new looking and barely seems used.

To add to its freshness, it is covered completely in plain white paperboard.

There’s no title on the front, no abstract artwork or even a blurb on the back.

If you open this book from the front, you won’t find any copyrights page, acknowledgments from the author or a table of contents, all you’ll find are the words you’re currently reading.

Inside these words, are me.

The man in the corner of the room.

Yes I know this sudden shift from third person to first person might be a little shocking, but I have to get my jollies somehow don’t I?

I have a lot of explaining to do so I’ll try my best to paint as clear a picture for you as I can.

I am aware that what I’m trying to get across to you is a little out there.

Let me start from the beginning.

Once upon a time, a sweet little baby was born. He never would meet his mother and father.

His mother gave birth to him in a room prepared for the boy and nursed him there without leaving it until he was one year old.

After that, she left and all his meals from then on would come through a one way hatch in the door.

The boy would often try to make conversation with the person behind the hatch, posting his daily meal through. But he’d never be met with any kind of response. Except for maybe a cough or grunt.

He always assumed that the food handler would be his father but for all he knew they’d left the house he was in long ago.

Because he had no reference point for what a good childhood looks like, or any childhood for that matter, it was neither a happy nor sad way of growing up.

It just was.

Whoever may read this I’m sure will be a little confused by how I’m actually communicating right now, considering I’ve had no reference point from the outside world.

It’s actually quite interesting.

I believe that it is because there is knowledge that I was born with. Knowledge inside my DNA. I know instinctively for example, that whenever my food handlers hands would slip whilst posting my meal, the food would be dirty from the floor it had splat on.

This is just common sense.

I don’t need to read a book about hygiene to know that.

In fact, I am probably the first and last book I’ll ever read.

This is because there is no library of books in my room. There aren’t any games either. It’s just me and the walls.

Besides that, any language I might have picked up could have been from the murmurs I would hear downstairs, or the muffled shouts from outside. Through a crack in the west wall.

I have a love-hate relationship with this room.

Part of me is perfectly happy to stay in the comfort of this room forever, another part of me wishes that my afterlife could have been outside of this place, in the real world.

This is why I’m telling you this story now.

The more I say, the more words appear on these blank pages.

The more words that fill pages, the closer I get to the end.

The end of the book.

This is what I assume anyway, it could just continue adding pages. I have a feeling it won’t though.

Hypothetically speaking, I really could be immortal if I just stop.

But I’ve tried that, it gets too boring.

I suppose you’re wondering where this book came from anyway.

It wasn’t here to begin with.

I made it up.

I was in my mid-30s at that point, doing my mind exercises as usual when an image popped into my head that I’d never seen before.

It was a white block with strange indents and if you folded it out it looked a little bit like a moth.

I get a lot of moths in this room.

After becoming one with this book, sensations have changed quite a bit. I don’t see or hear or smell or taste things anymore, but I can still feel. In fact, I can feel things much further and more acutely than I ever could before.

I can feel the moths wings flapping in corners of the room I wouldn’t normally be aware they were in. I can feel spiders legs tapping around underneath the floorboards and more recently I can feel workmen moving around the house as well as the vibrations their voices bring to the walls and ceilings.

When I first imagined this book, the image stayed with me for days.

I kept thinking about this strange thing and what its uses could be.

For years after that I would often think of this creature that I’d imagined and it must have left such an imprint on my brain because it was the last thing I ever saw.

But this time, it became more and more real the closer I got to death. I was delirious at that point and had fallen over some hours before, struggling to remain conscious.

When the book visited me however, I felt myself struggling less and less, accepting my fate. Accepting that I’d never get out of here.

Finally I melded completely with this creation of mine, visiting me in death like loved ones would a person.

And here we are.

I’m trapped inside this book for however many words I choose to speak.

Unless of course I get a sequel.

Which is another possibility.

One other thing I should tell you about is the workmen.

Since I last mentioned them I had a little time-off speaking. A couple of years must have passed in between one of my sentences. A family has now moved in.

The surprising thing is that the family has a young boy and they’ve redecorated my room for him. They’ve spruced the place up quite a bit I must say. It's a lot less dingy.

Even more surprising is the fact that no one seems to have noticed my twisted corpse in the corner. Perhaps they can’t see it? Maybe I slid into the wardrobe without realising and no ones bothered to open it up and check inside?

Most peculiar.

The young boys noticed me now.

He reminds me of what I used to look like.

Or what I imagined myself to look like - I've never had a mirror you see.

He's picking me up.

I’ll have to be quiet whilst he flicks through my pages.

There.

He’s put me down again now.

Clearly he’s a little illiterate because he didn’t seem too surprised by anything he read.

Maybe, or maybe he knows something that I don't.

I think we’re growing more fond of each other as time goes on actually.

He’s flicked through me a couple more times since a couple sentences back.

He seems more and more enraptured by what I have to say.

His cat doesn’t seem to like me though. He keeps glaring at me and batting me around a little. I’m slightly nervous he might lose his mind and attack my pages one day.

It would be a fitting end to be fair.

Death by domestic-cat.

The boy seems to be spending an awful lot of time on this machine they’ve brought in here. He’s constantly doing things with it that his parents wouldn’t be proud of.

It's a shame they got rid of the hatch.

Thats the one thing they could have left if you ask me

Whats this?

The boy seems to be typing something into the machine. I can’t tell what it is but the letter sequences that he taps with his grubby fingers seems familiar to me.

Ow!

He bit me!

That beast of his has lost his mind and is going for my innards.

Owwww!!

I’ve not felt pain for a very long time - this is unreal.

I lost nearly all of my pages from that attack.

They boy seemed quite upset at first but he quickly moved on much to my disappointment. He's just carried on typing his stories again.

I have only a few pages left so I better make it count.

The cat didn’t get punished of course.

Oh.

Looks like another one of my pages has fallen off.

I think the end might be in sight.

Thought I'd have a little longer to tell you my story.

I would have liked to have been taken out of this room just once by someone. Just once to have felt the sunlight I’ve heard about, the sky the t

Wait.

The page carries on?

How?

Maybe I finally got the sequel I was half-hoping for?

No...

No that’s not it.

The boy!

He typed me up on his machine!

I live in the machine now!

Genius!

A master-stroke!

I guess that means I’ve finally left the room - I can go wherever I want!

I can feel the sun-rays.

Through content on the web that ties this "computer" together.

I can do anything.

I guess it's a bit of a shame to leave such a loyal place behind in a way.

I suppose I’ll manage.