Blank CD

I stare at the ceiling, having melted into the furniture, a crumpled sheet thrown haphazardly across the foot of the bed. Exiguous light leaks through the cracks in the shaded windows, skipping over the pea plants crawling from a line of pots on the sill, mountainous stacks of books, an overturned laundry basket spewing its textile bowels across the floor. A wooden mannequin casts strange shadows. Abandoned pencils and widowed socks huddle between the boxes of sealed history in a hidden society in the darkness beneath the bed.

All of this lies in silence, a thick silence of forgotten things, of late afternoon, of lifelessness. Underneath, however, is a violent storm of emotions, torn with conflict and unhappiness. Eventually, it rises to the surface, and I slowly become alive again, pulling myself up, and staring in bewilderment at the vast, skeleton-littered surroundings. I have no idea how it accumulated, or why. Mentally, physically, I begin clearing, gathering, fixing.

I find myself standing in the center of the room, more human then bed sheet now, with a blank CD in my hand, extracted from a mess of chaos. Turning it, I can catch glimpses of my confusion in its silvery surface, but it shows no writing, no labels. Drawn by the unknown, I feed it into the stereo. The blue display lights up. One track, 3 minutes, 54 seconds. Play.

Instantly, sunshine, brassy and alive, spills out. Drums, guitar, happiness. The skeletons cease to be, as life pours out, and fills everything in the room. The light seeps into everything, like a dusting that I can touch, that I can walk on. And I am human again.