Walking away never really solves anything, but it seems like an easy escape, and a very appealing one. One could dream about a new beginning, being someone else, anywhere else, just someplace where there is no need to deal with the present, and the damage one can cause in a few simple, unthought out actions. The reality is, though, that this easy “escape” from one’s mistakes, is nothing more than a cleverly disguised trap.
She walks down a long corridor. Illuminescent white walls and ceiling. No windows, and appearing never ending… Her body, graceful yet steely, incandescantly clothed in a flowing white dress. Her eyes, distant, blurred with memories, and far away thoughts. Small, angry, deep red slashes appear on her forearms, but she doesn’t flinch, or acknowledge this in any way. Blood trails down her arms and drips onto the floor, leaving small crimson puddles in her footsteps, trickling droplets down the sides of the dress. She keeps walking. Her feet beating rhythmically on the white tiling. Thinking, nameless faces, and faceless crowds… Masses pushing in, pressuring, all expecting something. All trying to drain something from her steadily drying out existance. Pictures, scenes, dance in her head. Dizzyingly. Her steps falter, and she stops to lean against the shiney flawless surface of the wall. Back against it, eyes closed. Flashing images, too swift to capture, but disturbing all the same. Continue walking to avoid. The corridor grows dim as she reaches it’s end. A small room. Dark, but as she approaches she notices light emanating from the center of the room. From a small, flowering plant. A small child is dancing around this, and it’s doesn’t taker her long to realise that the child is herself. It pauses, advert to her presence, and gestures with it’s small child limbs, drawing her attention to her own lacerated forearms, and she notices the blood, the pain, the interlaced weave of incisions. Water wells in her eyes, and she averts her gaze, looking inquiringly at the child instead. The child stares back, eyes large and innocent, uncomplicated, providing no answers to the many questions aroused by the situation, but at the same time, erasing any need to obtain any. A mixture of puerile contempt and playfulness dances across the childs youthful face, as it holds out it’s hand to invite the girl to dance with it. Dance, and forget, and return to a time when she was carefree. Trouble free. An invitation to escape it all. An easy way out. The sort of solution she had been searching for. The childs eyes flicker to a point over the girls shoulder, indicating her other option. The choice is there. The girl turns her back on the child, instead focusing her attention back towards on the path she had come from. Uncertain about the decision she must make, the girl is aware that time is short. She hestitates, thoughts linger on the way she imagines she could be living, a sideways glance at the child, and which direction she should follow. She takes a step, then pulls her foot back. Ambivalence prevails. The air is so thick with her indecision that it threatens to suffocate, and she can almost hear the ticking of an apocryphal clock. Her heart thuds loudly, snapping her mind back into place, and she is surprised to realise that she had overlooked that intonation the entire time. She walks quickly, hurrying so as leave herself no time to think twice, away from the child. It reaches out and touches her shoulder, beckoning her, but she pulls her arm away, the childs touch cold, yet burning her flesh all at once, and escapes, running back down the everlasting achromatic hallway, preventing herself from looking back, from changing her mind.
As she runs, the walls begin to fade into shapes, and a mumbling, bustling noise surrounds her. The shapes shift and change, developing human-like characteristics, and the noise rearranges into soft voices, far away conversations. Distant, yet growing ever nearer. All these senses, the immaculate hallway disappearing, being consumed by the new smell, the new sound, the new colour and activity, all rushing towards her. And she runs. And she’s on the street, the pavement. Cars driving by, people walking. Odd looks. Stares. None of it matters. She runs. Escaping, but not walking away. Her white dress stained dark red with her senselessness, but long forgotten and no longer important. And she realises she’s running nowhere, she’s sitting against a wall, people surrounding her. Concerned faces. And thoughts escape her, and there’s no more confusion, no more pain, and it grows quiet again… And inside her head there is nothing but darkness.