The White Room

Background: This story was created in the year 2000 at a Women's Writing group in Great Portland Street. Unfortunately the space no longer exists. Thankfully, I kept The White Room.

I am alone in this room. It's flaming white! The bareness of the ceiling mocks my expression, so blank, I peel on the inside. No windows visible but a bare light bulb, sparse furniture, a couple of strong white cane chairs, a low Spanish white neo-classical coffee table, a white tall jug of mineral water if I get bored. I notice the white plastic beaker and grin. Even the cat brushing against my plumb brown legs is white. I love the thick white carpet, the Persian rug bought especially for me, but how can I relax when there is no note book, no pen.

All my thoughts are spinning outward, inward, going nowhere fast. I sail out. Inside I wish to be wafer thin, a white oriental kite to escape through the glass hatch. It's open.

At least I can breathe, at least there is something normal about this room. My experiment is to experience absolute silence but I do not bathe in the bliss. The car purs, I hum. The cat looks up at me, green eyes blazing. I slide down to his level, stroking the innocent white fur.

How long has it been? Thirty minutes, thirty whirling clock hands. I scan the white walls, as bare as winter, so remote. I wonder. Have I dreamt all this? It cannot be real, not this white oblong room and the white cat with the gentle green eyes. I lay as flat as an eel letting the cat use my body like a trampoline.

I want to experience the great outdoors - immerse myself in pure country air. I want to smell it, taste it, even become "air" but not here.

I am like one of the white cane chairs. Hard, still and empty. I don't want to belong to this room, to this moment in time, but the white cat is so soothing, my own personal masseur. The sensation of his paws on my tummy, bliss, on my face, not quite bliss but near enough.

It's so still in this room. It's the year 2000 but I have forgotten how to dream.

Suddenly I am swept away by colourful vibrant images of me and cat, running through waist high ripe yellow meadows, exactly what part of the United Kingdom, I do not know, but the sensation is pleasing, the atmosphere, so idyllic.

I am barefoot, chasing the angry flight of busy red Admiral butterflies. Cat chases them but does not maim.

It is the dizzy height of blazing summer, all the lazy daffodils are out,yellow heads bobbing in unison to the breeze.

The sun yawns wide as we travel across these magical meadows. I can feel the afternoon sweat sticking to my orange T shirt and squirm.

Cat and I trample dandelions and stinging nettles in our delight, roaming the countryside, as carefree as children.