The Cage

In a darkened room, surrounded by iron bars, I feel trapped, but don't know why. I can't seem to see anyone else, and I know that I'm all alone. My heart begins to sink from some sort of foreboding feeling, and suddenly I hear a sharp, metallic screech. The ground beneath me begins to shake, and as I look at the iron bars around me, they start to close in ever so slightly and suddenly STOP. My eyes gape open as I realise I need to get out, but I don't know how. There's no door, no lock, no key, no way out. I grab one bar with both of my hands and then prop one leg against an opposite bar and push! Despite my greatest efforts, the bars remain unmoved.

Sweating now, my heart begins to flutter as I start to realise my impending doom. A clock somewhere lost in the darkness goes tick-tock-tick-tock and I can't help but start to count the seconds in my mind, "1, 2, 3, 4... 117, 118, 119, 120." Suddenly, the bars start to move again! I try to push and resist all I can, but they oppose me effortlessly. Despite the bars' gaps, the perceived openness, I start to feel claustrophobic. As I count the seconds, and I reach 120 all over again, the bars close a little tighter, just inching along before suddenly halting. Every two minutes, the bars get tighter and tighter with me inside, and I start to give up, accepting the crushing, horrid fate.

Tick-tock-tick-tock, the incessant clock counts down the seconds of life I have left. The space becomes so frighteningly limited that I can't help but curl up and cry, and I feel so helpless and hopeless. Suddenly, I hear noises all around me, like some creatures are hiding and moving in the shadows. I simply listen, and listen, and listen, my eyes as wide as they can be in vigilance as I try to detect the creatures in the darkness. Out of the darkness comes a large, black, furry beast, a monstrosity not of this world, and it lunges forth at me, but it hits the cage before it can get to me. The beast flees back into the shadows, but just seconds later, more beasts lunge at me and hit the cage. This goes on and on until the bars abruptly close in on me further.

Suddenly, a door is formed in the cage with a lock, and in my hand appears a shiny golden key. I think to myself how I could now get out if I wanted to, but if I'd leave, the beasts would surely eat me alive! I start contemplating, and between the two choices froze up. I couldn't decide which fate was the worse fate. Tick-tock-tick-tock, the cage becomes even smaller, and the beasts continue slamming so aggressively into the cage, as if brute force will manage to break through.

"I could get out if I wanted to, but what a horrible world out there," I think to myself. I can't stay in the cage or I'll surely die, and I can't leave the cage or I'll surely die. What sort of sick and twisted dilemma is this? Who would orchestrate such an awful situation?

Suddenly, I hear a voice - an omnipotent voice - echo around me saying, "You did."

I ask the voice, "I did what?"

"You were the one who created this terrible situation," the voice replies.

"But why would I doom myself like this?" I ask frightened and confused.

There is a bit of a pause before the voice whispers, "Is it?"

I scream, "Is it what? Is it what?" as I begin to cry, hopeless and helpless.

The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller. The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller. The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller... Suddenly, my heart begins to pound like an angry war drum, I start to become dizzy and can't think. Panic. The overwhelming feelings of panic overcome me as I start to break down. "I'm dying... I'm dying!" The beasts in the shadows begin to smash into the cage harder and harder, angrier and angrier, but the cage resists without fault. As I fall to the ground, feeling heavy as a rock, and I stare down at the ground, the tears roll down from my cheeks until they hit the ground, looking like raindrops that have fallen from the sky. "This... is a rain I don't like..." I whisper to myself in an unsteady voice.

"Is it?" the voice rings in my head. "Is it? Is it? Is it? IS IT?!" I can't get the terrible, incessant, echoing voice out of my head!

I pick up the golden key from the ground and stare into it for what seems like forever. The cage is nearly so small, now, that I can barely sit. I slowly put the key into the lock, and as I turn, a loud, metallic screeching noise nearly deafens me, and I have to exert all of the strength I can muster just to turn the key. Finally, I hear something snap into place and an immense pressure is released as the door creaks open. I count, "One... two... three," and I run out of the cage.

"I'm with the monsters, now."










***Just a  little metaphorical vignette about anxiety and panic.***