My Cardboard Balcony

The Pit by Belinda Roddie Two days into my self-imposed solitary confinement, I dug a hole through the floor in the hopes that I would reemerge on the other side of the ocean, defying physics long enough to start a dairy farm in Ireland and drink fresh milk in the open air. The taste of cold winter would suit me better away from these walls, these barriers serving as "shelter," as "safety." A prison without bars in its windows. An anxiety as hard and heavy as chains around my ankles. I made a ditch only about three feet deep, then sat in it with the splinters of floorboards encircling my tired body, the dirt clinging to my shirt and collecting around my eternally creased jawline. Light never seemed so absent to me. I pushed my shovel against my chest like a sword protecting my heart, defending myself feebly from external influences, the fears accumulating outside my door, never leaving, and knocking louder and louder each painful pass...

The room was full of stillness. It was the only way to describe it. With the windows closed, the only wind was my own breath, and even that barely made a whistle. With the door locked, no voices or footsteps echoed against the walls. When I sat down in my father's easy chair, I expected the wood to creak and the pillows to exhale like they always had before he had died. But not even a puff of noise came, and my body sank somberly into the green mass as I stared at the silent ceiling fan.