The Encasement

As I lay there, overthinking things, I noticed something out of the ordinary in my new “life”. There was another man in this so-called room, one with a very strange combination of characteristics. His face had a look of worry and fear, the same face I probably had when I discovered where I was, he was wearing a suit with a stain of some alcoholic beverage, and black pants with a tint of gray to them. He looked into my face and I saw deep within his eyes that he had not known why he was here, neither did I. Where were we? In some sort of room of mirrors, I assumed it was like a two way mirror. But I always wondered questions like these. Were we some kind of test subjects to see how long a man could survive this? Or was this simply some sort of amusement for other beings, like animals in a zoo? I still don’t know and don’t remember much of what happened, other than the obvious fact that we were both going insane. As he started bearing his surroundings, the typical half-hour sandwich came down (usually ham) and a small shot-glass of water that came every 10 minutes. They were brought down in a small tray connected by a pole, I often wondered what would happen should I have broken that pole; death was my guess. I also realized that there was still only one serving of each. The sandwich made some sense, but I didn’t understand the water, I guessed that we were to go to war over it. I took the sandwich and split it in half with him, with the water inside my dirty pockets, on the verge of spilling and unveiling itself. The conversation we had is still a little blurry, and all I remember is that I found out his name was Edgar (I still cannot remember my own name, although I’m pretty sure it started with T and ended with E, was it Tommie).

As he was eating I thought his focus was no longer on me, but as it turned out, I was sorely mistaken. I pulled out the glass of water, and he looked up like an animal, a piece of ham hanging out of his mouth, and then that same piece was falling. I remember what he said, word by word, as it was the start of a battle inside a house of mirrors. “Hey! What is that? Don’t even answer, I know what you’re doing, you’re trying to kill me off with dehydration! I won’t let it happen, so if you just hand over that cup of water everything will be fine, or will I have to damage you?” He then proceeded to punch a hole in the mirror and discover only a long row of glass, I’d had found this out long ago. He grabbed the shard that fell and started walking towards me with it in one hand, and at this moment I could tell he was quick to go crazy. And then for some strange reason, as if just to be rebellious, I drank the water and quickly threw the small glass cup on the ground. I didn’t know if I would ever retrieve anymore water, as I always put the same glass on the same stand. Edgar got more than angry, more than pissed, more than furious, I just don’t know the word. He ran over to me, shard in hand, and proceeded to stab me in the stomach, it was lodged in. I screamed in pain, whereas Edgar laughed like a psychopath, looking like a man in a bar who has drunken way too many beers. I grabbed the shard out of my stomach, and proceeded to bring it up to Edgars’ neck… the sight was not pretty. He was still living, but he had a severe cut that went in deeper than my stomach. Then the same routine went on, eat, drink, sleep. However, there were two changes in this routine, it was now eat, sleep, and we both had severe injuries.

One day I discovered Edgar was dead, he had died of what he assumed he would be killed off of, I was not going to let the same happen to me. I did something unthinkable, I escaped. I stripped him nude, took his clothes, and stuffed them inside my open wound. I then proceeded to extend the hole he had made and started a new routine that went like this, crawl and break. It took what felt like a whole day, and it most likely was. When I got out I remember seeing a lonely road in the desert. I walked for about an hour before reaching a small town where I called an ambulance and told them my tale (I could tell how long it took by the sun). They didn’t want to believe me, but they couldn’t deny it due to the marks on my skin and shards of glass found inside me. Perhaps that area still exists, perhaps there are people in it right now, or perhaps I am just insane and this was all a figment of my imagination, to this day I do not know.

Jack Pfeiffer 5/26/13