Escape Is for the Weak

Bread wanted to get out. No. He needed to get out. He needed to leave this godforsaken prison cell.

The soggy bread from the floor he had stuffed down his throat had temporarily satiated some of his hunger, but hunger wasn’t the issue anymore. He didn’t want to be here, stuck in this white room like he had been stuck underneath all that snow. What was he supposed to do here? What was his purpose? Why was he always getting trapped somewhere?

He looked around for a way to escape, but there was nothing to look for. No seams, no crevices or cracks in the walls. No weaknesses in security. All he saw was a simple looking table and a chair that looked all too uncomfortably rigid. The room was so perfectly empty and symmetrical that he couldn’t even tell the walls apart if not for the locked door. And suddenly, a realization hit him—

I can’t leave…

And as he fell to his knees, his hands naturally rested on the empty wall. A sudden tune surprised him. He looked up, and his heart skipped a beat.

The wall was gone! No, that wasn’t it. It was still there, but it wasn’t a wall anymore. It was clear, see-through—a window. And beyond it, he saw a familiar sight. It was the city, brightly lit and colorful. The one he had just come from…

He saw the skyscrapers, the five story buses and flying cars. An abundance of speckled dots that were people walking along the sidewalks. He could see an entire world of all the technological marvels that had been ingrained within his records. He could see it all now. It was right in front of his eyes, just beyond the clouds that were floating by his window.

But his focus wasn’t on the city. He had already been there, running through it like some crazed maniac. And the structural wonders of the world only made it feel all the more suffocating. Rather, his focus was on the clouds—those wondrous, translucent cotton candy puffs that peacefully drifted through the sky without a care. They felt so serene and unfettered, unlike his current self. If he were to choose to be reborn, he knew he’d choose to be a bird.

But of course, that wasn’t possible. Common sense told him so. For just a moment though, he peacefully watched the newfound sight. And for just a moment, he forgot about the escape.

Then the door swung open—

“Ah, you’ve found the holoscreen. Good. I was meaning to show you.” The man walked in with another tray full of food. “It’s a window as well as a display for a variety of things. Use it. It may help in discovering your humanity. Now.” He set the tray down. Today, there were a variety of crackers and cheese. “I need you to think carefully, Bread. What comes to mind when you see this?” He tapped a few times on the window. The surrounding walls all suddenly came to life, engulfing the room in a moving image—vast, densely packed tropical trees.

A rainforest. His records told him so.

It was heart-stopping. Almost as if he could breathe in the dampness in the air. So realistic you could just imagine the heat and humidity steaming up from the mossy, forest floor. He hadn’t experienced it before, yet the sight was all the more entrancing to Bread.

The man pointed to the sun. “What does that make you feel?”

“Warm?” Bread answered.

“No, I want more. Give me more.”

Bread thought for a moment, rummaging through his inner records. What more did he know about the sun? “It’s a source of vitamin D?”

“No!” the man cried. “No, not literally. I meant in a figurative sense. It’s bright, I know. I hate it too. But think outside the box. Question it!”

Question it? What did that mean? Bread didn’t know. Common sense told him nothing about questioning an inanimate object such as the sun.

“You know what? Scratch that.” He pointed at a tree. An ipê tree. “Does that incite anything inside you?”

Incite?

“Feelings!” he repeated. “I’m talking about feelings!”

Feelings? Was it common sense to feel something when you looked at a tree? But what was he supposed to feel?

“Anything?”

“Thankful…?” Bread finally answered.

“Thankful? That’s weird.” He tapped his foot incessantly. “Alright. You feel thankful. Why is that?”

“Because trees produce thirty percent of our planet’s oxygen.”

“You’re thankful… for that? What are you? A fun fact dictionary? Damn…” His tapping intensified. “You’re not making this any easier, are you?”

After a while, the man touched the screen again. This time, it changed to an oasis surrounded by a steaming, hot desert. Palm trees waved faintly in the passing wind; the water rippled in return.

It was so real… Almost as if he could actually touch it…

“Does this make you feel anything deep inside? And don’t say ‘hot’ or I’m taking the food away.”

Bread looked at the barren sight. The oasis in the center was providing the palm trees with much needed nutrients and water. There were no other types of plant life in sight; it was most likely a sandy desert eroded over time by wind.

The man tapped his foot louder. “Are you serious? Nothing? You don’t feel overwhelmed, cornered? Lost?” He waited for an answer. “Does it look beautiful at least?”

Bread didn’t feel comfortable with the man staring at him so intently. His foot tapping was also very distracting, but he didn’t dare say anything that would anger him again. However, it felt like anything he did angered the man. Bread didn’t understand what he really wanted from him.

“Fine,” the man reluctantly replied. “Eat the food, sleep. We’ll try again tomorrow.” He looked irritated, but it felt like he was trying his best to hold it all back. But when he left, he still slammed the door loudly…

Later that night, Bread dreamed for the first time…

He dreamed of a place where it was mountainous. Trees were growing, the air was whistling crisp chirps, and the rivers were clear as glass. It was a picturesque painting of what nature in its most perfect form would exhibit.

It brought on a feeling that he had never felt before—a sense of longing, nostalgia. Yearning for something he had never even experienced.