Liminal

Four walls line this room. It takes twenty two steps to walk from one to another.

The only light comes from two windows, set too high to comfortably see through.

A single door, heavy and locked from without.

I have paced these twenty two by twenty two by twenty two by twenty two steps so often that the floor has grown smooth under my bare feet.

Each corner has its own patch of moss. I spend time with each, running my fingers across the cool damp.

Some days I find myself sitting against that plinth in the centre of the room. I stare at the door. Someone will come one day. Someone will poke their head in, a familiar smile spreading across their face as my name slips from their lips.

Someone will remember.

Other days, I see a flicker of something by the windows, an echo of life. I stand on the tips of my toes.

The glass is too clouded with mould.

I hear voices sometimes. Crying. Whispers. Stilted laughter.

I press myself against the cold wrought iron door.

Hand hovering on the handle, waiting for it to slowly tilt.

Waiting for someone to remember.

She is always there, on that plinth in the centre of the room. On cold nights, her breath mists the stale air.

It takes eleven steps to reach her. The dried petals scattered around her have long since lost their fragrance.

Her skin is pale in the darkness. Under the fragile lace shroud, her features were familiar, once, a mirror to my own. But over the years they’ve spread and smeared, like a thumbprint on glass.

I remember a time when those limbs were plump and strong. They danced and they lifted and they spun, blood pulsing high as laughter bubbled on her lips.

I remember what we used to be, and a rage fills me. I want to yank her off that cold plinth. I scream and I wail, trying to rouse her, trying to get her to stand, to do something, anything.

Still she lies.

I sink to the floor and sob. Tears never fall.

How is this what she’s become? She, who always seemed bursting with vitality? She, whose voice was the bright spot at any party?

I want to fling her boneless body at the door. I want to press her featureless face to a window until it splinters, just so she can feel a sliver of sunlight between the piercing shards of glass.

Can’t she see what she’s missing out there?

I pace, the soles of my feet no longer feeling the icy cold of the stone beneath.

Layers of dust gather. A fine veil of it falls across that forgotten body, those ancient wreaths.

One day, the rise and fall of her chest will cease.

One day, I'll finally be able to float away.

For now, I am here.

Tethered to a body that won’t die.

Waiting for this life that isn’t a life to end.