ワンダフルライフ - short story
The long corridor is flooded with fluorescent lights and the faint beeping of electrical machines is heard faintly like the ticking of a clock, continuous and sinister. It is empty and everything feels distant and hollow. The corridor seems endless, the white walls are infinite, and a sudden desire to investigate this strange passage overwhelms you. You walk a step before being interrupted by the cold floor, and glancing down you can feel the coldness seep into the naked soles of your feet. You adjust to the smooth white before walking along this tunnel, the faint beeping rings in your ears as if it is following you closely behind. You look behind as you walk and it is all the same but it is what is ahead of you that pulls you. Your hands instinctively graze along the white walls and you notice a white tag wrapped around your wrist. It feels alien and strange that it is there but also familiar. This confusion hangs over you like a haze and you can do nothing but to walk forward. The beeping still follows you except it is comforting now. The regular monotonous beeping gives each step meaning, it is valid and part of the rhythm of your strides.
Before long you reach a window on the right side of the passage, and it is dark inside. There is no door, just glass looking into black. You peer through the glass and notice your reflection, it doesn’t feel real and yet the continuous beeping forces you to accept a type of reality. You notice that there is dried blood around your nose and you seem tired. It only now dawns on you how tired you are, that there is a deep ache inside you. You exhale and simultaneously feel warmth radiating through the deep blackness. It is hot behind the glass. You tentatively press your hand against the glass and the heat makes you pull away, you step back. The black behind the glass seems to be pulsating as if it cannot be contained. The lights transform into red, and angry and overpowering red flooding the space. The beeping has intensified too and it is loud, you’re sure it is right next to you. But it isn’t and instead the beeping propels you into moving away from the burning black. Your running however, feels innately slow and unsteady as much as you try to run, your limbs betray you. You’re sure the heat will soon engulf you, except your feet find the coldness of the floor and it is bright again.
Unsure of what this place is and what to do, you keep walking. Hands clenched and a sweaty dampness on the nape of your neck, the hazy confusion is mixed with adrenaline and fear. The beeping is still there distant and your only companion in this boundless place. The florescent lights make your head hurt and eyes heavy, the tiredness has only gotten worse and your knees are heavy. You lean onto the wall your hands sticky with sweat and sliding down you fall in a heap onto the floor. You rest for a while, your head against the fall and knees close to your chest wanting the exhaustion and ache to disappear. You close your eyes, seeing flitting colours on your eyelids before you are hit with a strong wave of drowsiness…
You’re sitting on a cold chair in a room with similar walls to that off the corridor. “This must be a dream” you think to yourself although the corridor felt like a dream too. Ignoring the persistent confusion, you lean back into the chair and assess where you are. The room is eerily silent, even your breathing seemed to interrupt the stillness. Then you realise the faint beeping of the corridor had disappeared. “This is a dream” you say aloud with certainty.
The room was small with only two chairs and a small old TV, with a VHS tape laying on top, furnishing the space. These items lay in the centre of the room and with a chair opposite holding the dusty TV and tape. Without finding any reason to you take the tape and insert into the TV and press play. The title “ワンダフルライフ” appears in white lettering before turning black and the tape ejecting. You put the tape back into assuming the old TV was broken yet the foreign letters appear again, “ワンダフルライフ” before turning to black and ejecting. Frustrated and stuck, you stare into the screen of the TV, wondering what this was, what it meant. Willing and wanting to make the tape work you place your hand on the black screen of the TV, not expecting anything. Except the glass screen it is hot, sweltering. You flinch, taking your hand away and a familiar fear takes hold of you. You get up as the heat from the small black box rises, pulsating you can feel its strength. In an effort to flee you put the chair in front of you, wanting to create space between the blackness and you turn, before you realise there is no door…
You wake with a jolt, still leaning against the wall, hoping it was over. But the glaring red lights told you it was not, that the blackness was coming. You get up stumbling, still feeling the residual heat from the TV. The faint beeping was back and urging you to hurry, to run. You try to, pleading with your limbs to hurry and save you. The corridor flooded with red lights mocks you, taunting your fear. Finally, you are at the end and a door appears, you open it just as the black scorching heat is behind you and you close it with force.
“Hello, we’ve been waiting for you”.
You turn around and see a woman dressed in all white, holding a clipboard, with a seemingly pleasant smile. You felt yourself shake as you try to respond, to open your mouth and let words come out, but they don’t. She takes you, ignoring your shaken and nervous state and turns your wrist. She observes the numbers that you had never seen before and proceeds to write it down.
“We’ve been looking for you for a while, but don’t be afraid. Everything will be just right”.
She caringly touches your wrist before guiding you to a door. Her hand placed on your back you feel safe, finally. The fear calms down slightly and your breathing is less sporadic. She opens the door and it is black. You step back and noticing your anxiousness, turns your head affectionately and says again
“Everything will be just right”.
You step in, trusting her, too tired to fight and question anything. The room is black except for a window showing white walls and fluorescent lights on the other side. You walk up to it and understand the woman in white has gone. You look for your reflection in the glass and you watch as you put your hand to the glass but you haven’t. Your hands are by your side and you are not observing your reflection. You are watching her. You. The heat of the black swallows you as you try to scream from the realisation and fear and nothing is audible in this void.
THE END
