My Cube

I am in a cell of my own making. The curious thing is that although I know, intellectually, that I am in a cell of my own making, for some reason I don’t seem to be able to unmake it. I seem unable to acknowledge that I made the cell, constructed it laboriously, plane by plane, into a cube, a hollow cube with six equal faces bonded indissolubly with six almost invisible seams of glue. In my dreams, I am free. In my dreams, I laugh. In my dreams I run through a cornfield situated improbably on a cliff overlooking a glistening sea. I call gaily to a dog I do not own. I spin dizzyingly and I fall, crushing cornstalks, splaying them in a not quite symmetrical circle. I look down on myself, happy and free, unconcerned by the damage I have wrought, unworried about the dry brown spike which has grazed my thigh, a thin lace of blood stopping an inch from the wound. In my dreams, I roam, I soar, I rise above the everyday worries. I laugh in the face of those minor tribulations which bring down the unliberated. I do not, in conversation with the bright, casual, sparkling individuals I see all around me, retire in search of another can of lager, wondering why I came out when I would have been more comfortable sitting at home, curtains drawn, watching another rerun of The Blue Planet. I laugh my tinkling laugh. I make some insouciant retort to the wholly unintentional conversational barb which has not floored me, has not reddened my face or made me long for my cell. For my cube. For those identical, predictable, blank faces. For those benevolent seals of translucent glue. For the ability to block out the world, to remain unseen within. For imprisonment for my own sake. No, not for imprisonment - for protection. I try not to think about the decision I made, the decision to surrender to him. I try not to think that for a while I thought about what other people would do faced with the possibility of a connection with someone, berated myself, allowed myself to be lured out of safety and into the uncertain open terrain of emotional nakedness. I try not to think that for a while I actually thought that I could do this; that for a while I felt something, something warm and animal and primitive. I try to forget that I surrendered to that feeling, ventured out of my anaesthetising chill to thaw in the aura of a man. I try to forget that I melted. I try to forget how difficult it was, when it all went wrong, to summon back all that molten self and reassemble it, recompose and rearrange it and make it whole again. Fool. What’s important is to know who you are. What’s important is to learn to deal with the hand which life has dealt you. What’s important is not to expose yourself. Life can be wonderful, I know. I’ve seen enough television dramas to know that life can be wonderful, exciting, exhilarating, dizzying. Dangerous. But what’s important is to understand the boundaries, understand how distant a horizon you can cope with. You, yourself, personally. Not other people. And in my case, the boundaries I can cope with are not very far away. I have four horizons, six if I turn, shift, look around. I change position, I look around and I see a different perspective. My cube is reassuring. I can expand or contract it at will. I can change its shape. I can lie down. If I lie down it changes; if I lie down, sleep, dream, some of the borders of my world become utterly different. Utterly. It’s a cube no longer although it’s still... cuboid.