The Chamber---Chapter 1- Extract- Copyright Robert Fullarton

Chapter 1-                        The awakening 

 

Extract from the Chamber......-Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014

He awoke from the seemingly eternal slumber, from the dark tunnels of his unknown origin, in the chamber itself. The chamber was small enough, too small for the subject to venture out beyond the cold concrete walled perimeter. His quarter was roughly separated and partitioned on either size, on each side of the circumference with a stone wall, an impenetrable stonewall. At the exterior of the room lay his bed, beside his piss bucket and his feeding tray. A single omnipresent light shone throughout the vicinity of the room. He could not even speculate on how far the chambers ran and how wide this building stretched beyond this mere single cellular prison. He knew nothing, he did not even have the faintest clue as to why or how he had ended up, detained and quarantined to the cell. Before his bed, stood a black door, that stood ominously throughout the hour as he waited patiently with his back against the legs of his big double bed. His mind ran circuits and rings around itself, questions came, but no answers could immediately precede the query made. 

The chamber could stretch the human will and the amplitude of the mind. At the side of the room, directly opposite, to the extreme right of his bed, there lay several bags of feed, rice, millet and a mashed up concoction of different fishes and portions of meat lay neatly arranged and arrayed on a side plate beside a single solitary cup of water.

How did I get here? What is my purpose being here in this strange place, this illusory nightmare?

Suddenly at the wall he heard the delicate sounds of something or someone gently tapping on the wall to the extreme left of the room. They were the gentle whispers of a young man’s voice.

“Hey don’t panic. I myself once wondered where I stood within my chamber and I worried so much in fact that I struggled to sleep and eat for hours on end.”

“Hey how did you end up in this chamber?”

“Oh that’s your decision entirely!”

“What do you mean? What has this go to do with my question?”

“Oh the chamber is the greatest mystery to us, but beyond it their lies the Grand Hall, and who knows what lies beyond that too?”

“Your mad words seem ludicrous to me, they work as an incentive for me to try and fathom out the easiest possible method I conjure up, for an escape plan.”

“You cant escape from the chamber, that’s the greatest act of cowardice or at least a though of sheer stupidity. You must endure and endear with the facts that are available to you. He who tries to escape will be rendered useless and shall be utterly defeated. This cell is an education, it is a reality, the unknown truth, but also the only state of being we know of or are consciously aware of. I have been here for several years, I squat next to the walls and listen to the sounds of grown men scream themselves to sleep and I watch the spiders daintily scuttle their spindly legs in and out of the faintest cracks and holes. I also try to chant the few remaining nursery rhymes that exist from this memory of mine that I once had once existed, as I am, in a different place and state of mind, far away from this cell of mine. But this might have been a dream within a dream, an illusion of my instinct for self-preservation. It all sounds so strange and puerile to you doesn’t it?”

“Yes it does”, said the awoken subject, feeling somewhat disconcerted in his heart from the news given by the stranger tapping on the wall.

“At first the food is insipid and the bed unmanageable, but eventually given some time and some adjustments, you’ll grow and get quite acquainted with the place. I exercise in the morning, doing push ups, lifting my big heavy bed across the room and sometimes I even chant my hymns and reflect on the dreams I had the previous night, with the greatest entertainment and enjoyment. Perhaps I can even teach you a few of my hymns. Anyway this is my survival manual.”

“Where does the food come from? Who cooks the food? Where are the prison wardens and the authorities to this place? What time will I be released into the exercise yard?”

“Hey wait a minute, don’t ask me too many questions all at once, I get a rush of anxiety when I have to think several things all at once. Anyway don’t call this place a prison. You’ve given this place a title, by making assumptions that asking random questions. You are going ahead of yourself and you are getting completely carried away. This is a state of mind, a place of becoming, self knowing, solitary education- that’s what I call it- because every subject moves from level to level, from one confinement or state of mind to another, anyway that is what I think it is. Why don’t you calm down and we will converse together as two men together alone in our chambers.”

“I awoke from my sleep to find myself imprisoned in this cell. At first my mind was hazy like the dazed effects of some hallucinogenic and after some time had passed I came suddenly to my senses that I was imprisoned, almost fettered in will to the cold confines of the room.”

“You are not fettered, with a chain and ball around your neck, least I don’t think so?”

“No, I’m not.”

“”Your not some convict awaiting the summons charge on some indictable offence. Everything depends on you. You can be reasonable in your assumptions and your actions or you can be classified as a criminal and be incarcerated properly and await your fate in the boiler room, which is the most horrible of places, known to every subject hear. This boiler room is place filled with darkness, a pitched black darkness that would grip and tear your body to shreds and smithereens. Legend has it that upon the closure of the boiler room doors, the only thing visible to the naked eye, are the sights of steam rising through cracks in the doors and the sounds of men screaming unto their own insanity. This is the void of fear and a stage on which I have not reached. I myself know nothing about the doors of knowledge and this concerns all things that are beneficial to the subject and all that are terrible to the poor long suffering subject. Oh by the way what is your name, surely you can remember a vague inclination on what title you were given, once upon a time?”

“Winslow, Jasper Winslow.”

“Nice to meet you, or nice to hear you, or something like that” Laughed the man with a soft burst of laugher that revealed his beautiful, almost poetical way of speaking and orating himself. “I’m Ruben, Karl Ruben.”

“Ruben, where are the others? There must surely be someone closely supervising our activity, monitoring and watching our every movement? Perhaps they could be watching us through security cameras.”

“Oh there’s always someone watching, every thought is counted, every action weighed and all our days are measure through contemplation, which shapes the inevitable discoveries and eventual course of our actions. We are meant to be solitary creatures, but I can’t distinctly remember that in my last existence I lived amongst an entire community of people, they were everywhere, they had moving objects made of tin or something like that, which moved and careered beside a stream of passing people. They were structures and labyrinths that rose up unto the furthest points of which my eyes could reach and their were women too, beautiful, dazzlingly, dangerous and mysteriously drawing women. All I know is that everyone was mad, and it all made less sense than the reality I am now part of. This existence, here present is preserved for solitary education.”

“Ruben, What’s a woman?”

“I can’t really remember all too well, they are another version of us, but more of a dream than a reality. I can only see them in my more comforting dreams, which are fleeing from me as the nights and days go by.”

“Why are we solitary creatures? Have you ever wondered to yourself this demanding question?”

“Oh, well that’s easy. Its because we are the living subjects, we are the test, that has to be left alone with oneself and this is to be in oneness with the chamber itself and it is the only way for any subject to be prepared for their transition through the door that stands in front of them. When subjects converse in mass- for example when one man eavesdropped or reported to another at one side of the wall and pass a message unto another, this simple act inspires rebellion in the minds of many a subject. Many have tried to break through the impregnable will of the chamber, but none have been successful so far. Some have escaped though, that is only another legend that presides in these walls.”

“Ruben, hoe did these men escape?”

“What?”

“I said, how did these men escape, how did these rebels escape with their lives intact?”

“Oh, they did escape the chamber, but at the cost of their very lives and their freedoms. I don’t want to know where these rotten manifestations have gone, but I do know that over a year ago a certain subject called Quincy had awoken in the very cell next to me, to right. He never stopped questioning the authorities. He was a sceptic, if ever I had known one, he would smack his food tray against the walls and he would scream and howl all through the night and through the day- once he had made my acquaintance- he would bicker on through the afternoons asking me every question known to me, presupposing that I knew what exactly awaited in store for all of us?”

“Well what do you know Ruben?”

“I have some pearls of wisdom, which I have cultivated from my own solitude, but I have some genuine facts passed on to me, by word of mouth from subject to subject, during the very course of my time here. I have the ears of a fox. Quincy apparently overheard from Bains- he’s the man to the right of Qunicy- that the cells stretched almost like an infinite labyrinth, beyond comprehension with a column of rows, extensions and cubicles that stretch beyond our capacity to imagine. But this is of course impossible to know, this is a mere legend conceived by another subject-that is what I thought. But I seriously wonder as every subject does while he converses by his very own wall to his fellow subjects on the mystery of his confinement. I assume that every subject likes to gossip and discuss the nature of the chambers, so to contain our state of sanity.”

“Ruben, there’s no way that anyone can prove, whether or not the cells physically and literally stretch for all eternity – seriously- imagine such a notion coming from a bunch of men that never set foot outside of these cruel, pretentious walls. The chamber door will one day, I have some hunch that it could possibly happen.”

“Oh I believe that you are thinking for yourself and such are the statements of courage which we poor cursed men love to dapple in and anyway the authorities applaud such cherry sentiments- that is what I have heard.”

“Ruben, who are the authorities? Do you have gossip concerning the nature or the whereabouts of our illusive masters, captors or whatever you wish to call them?”

“They are workers that exercise the expressed will of some mysterious, unknown master or thing. I don’t know what he or it is. I have never heard anything really concerning him, but what I don know is that he is greater, more intriguing and more powerful than anything I have ever inclined to think on. But as for what, I have no idea. I just call the great thing or the colossal wonder, for that is what it is when it weighs on my mind. The workers anyway, apparently carryout both the menial and the mighty tasks given them by their superiors and their superiors likewise do the biding of the twelve “higher” wardens or guardians of the peace- as they have been dubbed through their legendary status for being something, half human- half something else.”

“What do you mean something else, how can they be half human and half something?”

“Oh sorry, this strange language is failing me, or rather my memory is going. All I know is that they are more highly evolved than us, they have been around, have progressed and advanced across their own destines, have experienced and discovered more than us and have reached their position through their submission to the chamber, the grand hall, the infinite thing himself and of course they have still have not reached the apex of their destiny and their unknown course, for their nature forever changes and their will is forever determined by the pre-existing facts that make them what they are. I believe that they were once subjects like us, and had to earn their privileges through hardship and the slavery of the cell. I also believe that the nature of the administrators will slowly be revealed in tiny proportions through each door crossed but that may never be accomplished or be achieved by men like us, who knows.”

“Do you mean to say that every subject reaches another level and another degree of understanding and that the fundamental law of this chamber is to fulfil the commands exerted by the authorities?”

“Yes, you have grasped the meaning of this exercise, which we are all part of, but living separately as our own lesson for our own benefit and education.”

“When does this exercise end, Ruben?”

“ Jasper, I sigh and stress to tell you that it will never end, from one revelatory door unto another, you the instrument of another authority greater than yourself and you are merely passing through the door, to reach a greater proportion of knowledge than you had previously. It will not end it will endure forever. There is no proof, but idle speculation, to state that we suddenly cease to exist and just simply evaporate like vapour into nothingness.”

“Oh Ruben, cant you see that we are both deceived in this matter. We are both prisoners and this is no chamber, this is some penal institution. There is no growth and no understanding for we are slaves, we are the subordinates to the cruel pretentious game played by the wardens and the workers, who laugh and will not even rear their heads to look at the faces of fools that languish and perish within the confines of dirty old cell.”

“Now don’t come to that hasty and unjust conclusion. I give you my commiserations for your suffering, but you have simply only been here for a little while and you think you have the entire chamber sussed out all by yourself.  You remind of Quincy. He went on hunger strike and refused to serve his purpose as any benevolent subject is driven to fulfil. He would push his bed like a battering ram against the front chamber door trying to force his way through. He through his food trays around and howled for hours on end in madness and when everything else failed he would cry and whimper incessantly for hours to himself, like a little infant deprived of his mother. I grew tired of his cries and I questioned him for his unusual behaviour. He simply told me that he was weary and whispered to me that he was going insane because he had finally come to the conclusion that the doors would never open and its secrets would never be revealed. He thought that he had been imprisoned, just like you and he even gave himself a number. I heard him shouting on the top of his lungs, “I am prisoner 000 and I wont stand for it any longer, will fly through these walls, because they are openly the illusions of my madness, I must become a sane man to see that these walls do not exist, I will fly through them”. I heard him one day shouting the words, “I see you, I see you, I have finally seen the face of gods, I am free from these inseparable walls” and then I heard nothing else, just the constant drone of silence that penetrates these isolated walls on a daily basis. I assume that he saw some of the workers and was instantly silenced, for making such a spectacle. He seemed to believe that the cell was the living epitome of hell itself. He rejected every piece of advice I ever gave him, believing that the chamber was a fantasy all emanating out of his own conscious mind and he also believed that beyond the door there lay nothing, but empty space or perhaps fields and fields of sweet scented grass, filled with women, and magic animals that talk to men in riddles and rivers of great tasting wine flowing from the trunks and the foliage of the tress that grow there. His delusions grew to be more bewilderingly strange as time passed and I refused to eventually answer his queries and his strange “prophesies” concerning the “magic land of wine and women”.

Me and Bains would simply ignore the nonsense and after awhile, as I had said before he was silenced and the madness stopped.”

“Ruben how exactly do they get the food into the cells?”

“Well they slide the meals in under a gap beneath the bed at the back of each cell wall to the left hand side of the room. There is a hatch located there that can be opened with the turning of a key, to work the device that allows them also to slide a large silver cantina of water through.”

“Ruben, have you ever been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of any of the authorities or even any of the kitchen caterers?”

“Not a glimpse of any figure, per se but that of a passing shadow, a silhouette of something living that, leaves its trace, with the sound of the hatch being turned and the mechanism being operated so that they can slide their ordures through and shut the hatch before any subject can get any wild ideas. Sometimes it can make a man feel like he were a worthless guinea pig to be tampered by the illusive authorities, who are never seen and never overcome, that is the ultimate truth, sacrosanct to your survival.”

“Hey Ruben, who were you before your confinement? What I mean to state is, what were working at before this all happened to you? Can you not remember anything dating back to your days before your capture?”

“Jasper, I honestly don’t know, I cannot remember, its all pitch black to me. My amnesia has increased over time, to the point that I doubt I will even remember my own name and my language eventually. Somewhere deep in my psyche, I seem to think rather sentimentally that I might have been someone good, someone that was a law abiding, trustworthy citizen, certainly not a hazard or a menace to society. But for all I know I might be completely mistaken. Every man here sheds his former nature and his old life diminishes like an old stale memory that old haunts our dreams to occasionally remind us of something we cannot even remember. But we all become subjects, we lose the old natural desires and temperamental tastes that men once had in the old reality, we become subjects, we live and die, we wait and wait like good venerable subjects, we are the property of the authorities and are in definition the instruments and the project material for the ongoing work that goes on behind the scenes and the sight of mortal men.”

“Ruben”, said Jasper softly while leaning forward, with his back resting on the solid wall opposite Rubens cell. “Don’t worry Ruben, we can give each other company and keep one another sane. Ruben I myself cannot even remember my own past and when you mention your own predicament to me at least you can be reassured that we are suffering together, universally like all the other men trapped in this situation.”

“Well I am afraid that I am not reassured, but thanks anyway for the kindness shown, which I can sense from your tone of voice. I guess that I do agree with you, that this affliction is universal, but for me, once we are be born that is the beginning of the affliction and the tribulation itself, I ponder to myself often at night when I cannot even sleep and I have often come to realise that it is the meaning of life, that men are squeezed through the battles of life and death, the trials and tribulations, from innocence to guilt and through the untold, inexplicable processes of pain and hardship we are ordered forward to the front line with no liberties, no comforts and no freedoms to our name, but only countless tasks and responsibilities, that weigh us down and break us time and time again and with our few remaining crumbs of hardiness we have to venture onwards and face new challenges and more daunting obstacles. But I have questioned this and judged the few remaining memories of my old existence and have corrected my stance, by believing that all nature itself is pushing every creature on a path, where the finite or the unprepared are stretched to meet to extending needs of the infinite and no squabbling man can lambaste this system, for he must oblige it and accept it, or else its moving current will destroy him. All life itself is an adaptation unto a situation, for endurance and survival; otherwise destruction is liable to occur and because everything changes and man’s mission is the accumulation and culmination of knowledge and wisdom as well as to exemplify and define certain universal standards of both suffering and fulfilment through knowledge. The only comfort for man is not through desire but through this subtle fulfilment for knowledge and truth.”

“How do you know so? You sound like an educated man.”

“I think I was a teacher of some sort in my last life. The memories are with me and the diction itself remains, but they are just a few of my many old thoughts and occurrences.”

“Can you get that smell at the back of your bed”, said Jasper changing the subject and looking for some light conversation.

“Yes, I can why?”

“It smells of cleaning fluid, doesn’t it?”

“Yes I suppose so, almost like a hospital ward, whatever that is.”

“Yes, it smells like the chemicals used during an aesthetic, when the patient is lying out stretched on a bed awaiting an operation.”

“Well lets hope that they aren’t going to operate on us”, said Ruben as both me laughed rather wryly to the comment made.”

“Well it seems to me that you have not completely lost your memory.”

“Well the same can be said for you.”

“By the way Ruben, is there any chance that I could catch a rare momentary glimpse through the black door in front, facing me.”

“Oh no Jasper, that would be rare indeed, let me explain how things work here. The subject is to be assessed, from what I have gathered and how he reacts to the limitations of solitude and this is all down to your interpretation. I once found this place to be a sort of purgatory or a living hell, but eventually I had to train myself to think differently to adapt and to survive and so I have become acclimatized to the growing calm of the day from dawn until dusk. I invented from my wonderful, truly furtive imagination, these brilliant mental exercises to me in good shape and stamina. For example in the morning I have conversations with my imaginary friends- Edward, Patrick, Pee Wee and Michael- we discuss everything we can even consider collectively from politics to the mystery of the shadowy hand that turns the key to slide in the food trays. Later in the morning, at around eleven to be precise, I exercise my self, by swinging my arms on either side and kicking my legs up, one at a time into the air. I listen to carefully, while sitting motionless beside the hatch to hear the faint sound of boots clinking against what appears to be a metal gangway or staircase from behind the door and when I wait I wonder what will be for dinner or for, breakfast or lunch, but it always happens to be same variation every day, the loudly, fish the mouldy red meat, lightly cooked and of course the bags of cereals and millet arranged in order and this systematic ordeal goes on every day. To a fool like me, such occurrences are exciting and sometimes they keep me up awake at night, just to think what will appear in the food trays the next day. In the evening time I converse with Bains beside me and we whisper until midnight, tell stories and speculate whether or not we are worthy to join and amass with the lowest ranking order with the establishment.”

“Ruben, you must so desperate to save yourself from insanity, that you have partake in such acts. You must truly be lonely to have to talk to figments of your imagination.”

“Oh Jasper, you have a lot to learn. This is all done to keep one self from going insane and this is what every subject whom I have ever known has done and it has acted as a perfectly worthy method of preventing madness from occurring. Bains himself believes that the next chamber through the door in front of you, has a gym for each man, with a copious amount of food for each individual and that each man has access to the grand hall of the great master of the chambers himself and that every man passes through about fifty vestibules or tunnels to be tested and tried by a different team of jurors and jurists so to test the purity, the quality and the worthiness of the individual before they pass into the presence of the great one himself. The great hall is apparently adorned with chandeliers that hang apparently in mid air from a golden sky that penetrates through the silvery complexion of the domed roof of the great hall itself. I have also heard that the room is filled with glowing candelabras, crystal mirrors, drooping jewellery that hang above the many tables that are elegantly laid and arranged all for the arrival of the guests that have survived the chamber itself. In all honesty I am sceptic on such matters. For all I know there could be a damn warehouse at the other end of the door or perhaps a watchtower where the authorities can be even more vigilant and careful with us. If any of us every happened to get through that door in front, I would suspect that they would more than likely have us punished in some manner or another, by being sent to the boiler room.”

“Ruben, what do you think happens in the boiler room? Where is it located?”

“Oh jasper, you question me on everything! The boiler room is a mere myth told to me by the oldest and wisest of the subjects, who have since passed on. He is the man who has come closest to unravelling the truth behind the chamber and the tunnel, which he told me, leads unto many more chambers.”

“What do you believe lies beyond our cells?”

“Oh it depends, it may vary depending on the distinction of our actions, the merits of our ways and the destiny designed for each one of us by the great master of the chambers. The mere appearance of the door in front of us is nothing but a mirage or an illusion that hides the truth that there are more and more cells and chambers all behind it and this is what I believe.”

“Ruben, who exactly was this man, whom you spoke of? This man who passed on?”

“He was the man who once occupied the exact cell which you yourself now occupy.

He himself had spent two decades in confinement and yet he still remained the most calm, collected and respectable of all subjects whom I have ever had the pleasure to converse with. He was a wise, amicable, soft spoken old man, who once told me that there are several levels and at least fundamental dimensions to the chamber and that our true nature, the embodiment of all our efforts, beliefs and goodness were the key to the cryptogram itself. He also believed that we were connected to the chamber through our past and future lives and that the present chamber itself was only a period of forgetting, learning, education and moral refinement.”

“Ruben, what was his name?”

“His name was Elijah- aptly named for a man that preached to both subjects at either side of his partitioning walls- and I called him the prophet, because of the extraordinary, insights he gave, into the nature of the chamber, the existence of the subjects and even the illusive authorities themselves. Some subjects, like a man named Thornton, theorized and whispered to others through the cracks in the wall, that the next chamber directly in front of us, contained a state of mind or existence that was fully independent of the physical capabilities of our present body and proclaimed to the prophet to tell me that there was “true replication”, of the old order of nature, where green grass once flourished, thick dense forests grew in mass and things called animals dwelt and lived together for better or for worse and he of course even stated that this dimension or chamber was the product of the highest urges, the strongest inclinations and desires that the subject had accumulated from the purest subject that had accumulated such experiences in accordance with the nature of some functional system which was universal throughout the chambers. In this land of course, Thornton states that the most beautiful, utterly captivating women imaginable, sirens to be precise, await the “enlightened subjects” and accompany them into their next transitory stage of chamber travelling. Both the Prophet and myself differed in opinions over the whole fanciful, rather optimistic theory and for start Thornton was a certified lunatic, who grew more insane as the days went by and was “mysterious carted off” in the night. Well that’s what I suppose must have happened.”

“Interesting!”

“The Prophet told me a little story. One long and tiring day, the prophet waited by the side of the bed, with his mind on edge and near breaking point, he suddenly found himself interested to hear the sound of footsteps pacing up and down by the food hatch. He crawled up and faced the wall, literally sticking his ears against the walls in desperation. He heard them muttering about a certain subject, named Manfred, that had been elevated beyond his twentieth chamber and was summoned to the Great Hall to meet the great unknown. This man was said to have raised the standard, his life was exemplary amongst all subjects, as a figure of almost near perfection. Then the two workers muttering at the door stated that this Manfred would one day be eligible for consideration on becoming one of the authorities, since he had reached his point of enlightenment over a vast period of time and through many tunnels, chambers, cells and they also stated that he had simply “found himself” and had merged his understanding with a universal understanding of the nature of the great and grandiose network of chambers that extend beyond all finite capacities to understand. It was of course the prophet himself who overheard the authorities that very day discussing one particular subject who have to be brought to the boiler room because he had failed his assessment and had become corrupted by the workings of vice and arrogance and they stated that his mind had become dark in its motives.”

“What do you mean dark in motive.”

“It means that he was corrupted by his own hatred, his malevolence for life and that any man who goes from being born innocent into becoming corrupt, has the perversity of man that hates himself with a passion and of course hates all life because of this incalculable necessity to hate. This is the term for what we subjects call evil- which once existed in the old existence- this is simply as I have said, where the subject fails to serve any purpose for the authorities and where he has stirred up more trouble than he is worth. So basically his life will be compromised and it will evade him when he is summoned to the boiler room. I would suspect that the authorities can read our thoughts, like some telepathic device which has been imprinted with in us.”

“Ruben you raise more questions than answers!”

“Well Jasper you will no doubt, eventually have your own accumulated knowledge on such matters and of course you will cerise that knowledge as the one and only saving grace which you possess. I suspect that the authorities know of our habits and our little pastimes- when we whisper and converse by the walls in desperation- because I believe that they probably encourage it. The Prophet himself was just one of many men with apparent insights into the nature of this eternal mystery which we are all part of.”

“Ruben, did the prophet know how each of us awoke within the cells, did he ever mention anything of our capture and imprisonment?”

“Jasper! Yet again, you call this place a prison and I keep telling you that is more like a confinement of subjects, than a prison of men. The Prophet himself is not some all-knowing omnipotent seer, he is just a subject who has learned to live on his wits and survive. He told me that survival is based on recurrent and varying adaptations and preparation for the changes that will more than likely occur. Perhaps the prophet heard something from the kitchen staff whom I suspect may have fraternised down bellow hiss bed and perhaps maybe you may carry on where the prophet left off.”

“Wait a minute Ruben, don’t be preposterous in your presumptions that the authorities can hear our thoughts- as you stated through some telepathic device- that’s impossible!”

“ No not impossible, because its more than likely true, but of course there is no telepathic device, that was me just trying to be articulate. You yourself are the lowest of the low, since you have only just awakened this very day and without my guidance you would simply infuriate the authorities or you would do yourself more harm than good. Every subject needs a mentor that is the truth.”

“What happened to the Prophet?”

“Oh I suppose he either died or succeeded in his lofty ambition of travelling through the door. He was old, I could tell by the way he spoke with his hoarse and gravely voice. He was just one of the few subjects that had some inclination of his old past life. It had become his sole preoccupation here, to simply listen by the bed, with his ear resting against the floor, in hope of hearing some classified information, secrets or truths of some sort from the muttering authorities. I would hearing him sighing at night and knew that he had grown weary with his lot. I wondered what was his fate in the end, did this noble subject surmount the insurmountable?”

“You mean to state that he passed through the doorway?”

“Perhaps he did.”

Jasper suddenly moved himself quickly away from the snowy white laminated cover on the wall, to cross and fold his knees so to inspect his food rations for the afternoon, in its silver aluminium container. Beside the silver container there lay several grams of millet, rice and meal for his breakfast in several plastic bags arranged methodically for another new subject who nothing about the reasons and motives behind his incarceration or the meaning of his new existence which he awoken to.