"The Room" by J.L. Campbell

Have you ever had a dream that felt so real?  Did it make you wake up in a puddle of your own perspiration?

The Room by J.L. Campbell

When I woke up in this simple, small, unfamiliar room, I was unsure if I were waking to reality or finally succumbing to the cinemascope of a dream within my slumber.

The room was no larger than ten feet by eight. The single steel-framed twin bed, with a cotton-twilled spread that covered most of my body, stood up against what I’ll call the north wall. The steel tubing of the headboard curved above my head, almost perfectly centered on the northern wall, with my feet pointing to the south. On the west wall, a single opaque-paned window offered light that seemed artificial, certainly not brilliant sunshine. Beyond the obscurity of the glass, I could not distinguish any characteristics of familiarity. No shadows were cast defining any landscape like trees, branches, or bushes. It was simply, blankly, yet somehow unnaturally, white.

The window was decorated with a pair of simple long curtains that could have been almost any color, but appeared light gray to me. It was as if the entire room was in black and white due to the lack of decor. The bed was the only furniture in this room and the frame appeared to be black.

I was suddenly aware that on the two remaining walls, there was no door to allow entrance or exit from this room. I looked at the window again to see if maybe it was a door as well, but it was nothing more than a standard sized window. I was in a room with no door, not even a closet. No pictures hung from the walls. No bed stand beside the bed. No plant or flowers on a small bureau maybe indicating that I was in some hospital room. Nothing. A bed, a window, and a pair of curtains, all in black and white.

On the bed by my side was a writing tablet along with a box of precision sharpened number 2 pencils, ten in the box. I wriggled in the bed as I began to write this and to my mounting horror, I realized I could not move my legs. I touched my right thigh and could feel my hand pressing on it, but I just couldn’t move it. I tried my left with the same results.

Panic began to overwhelm me as I searched my memory banks for clues or answers. That's when I realized I couldn't even remember my own name. This must be a dream. It seems so real, though. I seem so awake and the smell of my own fear is thickly disgusting.

I touched my face with my hands. I was unshaven with what could be a few days growth, but did I always shave daily before? I couldn't remember. My hair was short, and trimmed closely to my scalp. There was no mirror for me to see what I looked like and help remind me who I was.

Copious questions began to swirl around my head as if I was a small boat in a raging whirlpool being sucked down into the bowels of an angry ocean. Who was I? Where was I? How long had I been here? Why couldn't I move my legs, yet still have feeling in them? Vertigo spun my circling head and upset my stomach. I leaned over the side of the bed and vomited. As I lay on my side trying to compose myself, inundating blackness smothered my vision. 

*

I am not sure how long I was asleep. I am horrified to see I am still in this room. Even more horrifying was the fact that the writing tablet was blank and the pencils appeared to be unused, when I woke up. Hadn’t I written in it? I remember writing in it. This seems so unfathomable to me. I really do remember writing, though. I remember vomiting before passing out too, but someone or something had cleaned that up as well.

How were they getting in, I wondered looking around the room again. How long had I been asleep? The same amount of dull, synthetic brilliance lightened the room from the window. It seemed like it was the exact same time of day as when I first awoke in here. No brighter, no darker, just the same. And whoever cleaned my room and replaced the tablet and box of pencils was surely using the window as an entrance and exit. They had to be.

The confusion, the memory loss, and the unfamiliar surroundings were making me feel delusional. How was I supposed to get my questions answered if I couldn't interact with anyone or remember anything? If I was being punished, then I must have done something terrible to deserve this fate. If I was being cared for medically, then this was a strange and morbid way to care for someone. If I was still dreaming, although that seemed unlikely unless I was stuck in a recurring dream, then what message was my mind trying to tell me?  This was the second time I awoke in this room. I don't remember dreaming I had amnesia, but if I did, would I remember? That particular thought made me smile as I wrote it, although I have a feeling if I saw that smile reflected in a mirror, it would have been more of a sneer, close to the edge of insanity. Perhaps, maybe I’m an experiment of some extra-terrestrial scientists traveling across time and space in a flying saucer and I’m lying in the petry dish of their lab.

So, here I lay writing again. Propped up on two pillows. Changing positions from my left side to my right. Passing time. Waiting. Writing. Wondering. This has to be just a dream. No, a nightmare. When I fall asleep again and I wake up, I'll remember my name. I'll know where I am. I'll be in my own bed. But if I don't remember who I am, couldn’t I also forget this might already be my bed? This might be my room. Have I lived my whole life like this? It didn't seem possible. I remember emotions; I remember being hungry and I remember having to go to the bathroom. These are two bodily functions I had yet to experience in this room, which should certainly confirm I was locked in a dream. I had vomited in the dream room, but nothing residual was left behind to prove that. Another confirmation. Yes. I'm dreaming. I am going to put the pencil down and close my eyes and try to sleep again. When I wake, I know I'll be home and this will all be a bad dream. Goodbye cruel dream world!

*

I cried for a while before I started to write this on a clean tablet with a fresh box of pencils. I'm in the same room, but there was something different this time. When I slept, I had a dream that I remember. Is it possible to dream of being asleep and then dream within that dream? How deep in the dormant mind could that take you if it were possible? It boggles my mind.

In the dream, I was with familiar people. There was a pretty girl to my right and we were at some social event, like a party. She had long, light brown hair and the bluest eyes I ever saw. I recognized her as mine. Not that I owned her, but I couldn’t remember to what capacity our relationship was. Were we husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, or was she just someone I had met at a party? She looked into my eyes and smiled and those blue eyes studied me and seemed to beckon me. She stood and whispered to me, tucking her chin into my shoulder. I could feel her breath tickle the tiny hairs of my ear. "I love you, Jeff," she said.

That’s when I awoke. My name is Jeff, or was in that dream, anyway. She looked so familiar to me. I had taken a skinny-dip in those pools of blue eyes before. I had tasted those lips before. I just knew I had. She was more than a one-nighter to me. She loved me, and the feeling that I had towards her in the dream proved to me that I loved her back. At least once I had. Where was she now? What was her name? Why is this happening to me? Who keeps taking the tablets and pencils while I sleep? Why does it never seem to get dark in this room?

Questions. Unbearable, unanswered questions spinning around the cyclone of my mind. I want to sleep again to try and dream again. I need to know who I am and why I'm here. I need to know who she is and where she might be. My dreams within this nightmare seem to be the only resource I have to answer any of these overwhelming questions.

Then, I got an idea. Whoever was swapping my tablets and boxed pencils was only doing so while I slept. What if I pretended to sleep until the person came in, whichever way they did, and tried to swap them? I could grab him or her and demand to know where I was and who I was. Jeff who? Where was my wife or girlfriend? I would make them answer all my questions, or they could consider my wrath as an alternative. Not that I could do much without the use of my legs. But, I can grab them with my arms and punch and pull and yank and pinch. Whatever it takes.

Whoever was doing this had to know more about me than I apparently did about myself right now. So after I write this, I will close the tablet, replace the one pencil from the box of ten. I will lie on my side facing the window, looking into its vast nothingness, and become swallowed by its hypnotic, unnatural light.

*

I closed my eyes and waited. I'm so damn angry with myself. Somehow, someway, I fell asleep again and now as a result, the tablet is clean and a brand new box of number two pencils sit next to it. I missed the sonofabitch. I let myself down and I am emotionally spent. I did dream again, though.

We were still at the party or whatever it was. She was still with me, but she wasn't smiling anymore. I sensed she was not happy with something I had done, but she never told me what it was. We didn't speak to each other in this dream, but we exchanged glances and her eyes seemed to project annoyance at me. I had done something or was doing something that did not or was not making her happy. I felt remorse in the dream as obvious as her facial expression was to me. But, for some reason, she was ignoring it. I had pushed her beyond the point of anger.

That was all I could remember before waking up realizing I had botched my mission. I had let the mystery man or woman come into my room, unnoticed, and swap the writing tablet and the box of pencils. I guess I’m finally submitting to the fact that this might indeed be my room, after all. I wonder if the tablets were actually being swapped or if I was dreaming that I was actually writing in them, but really wasn’t.

I had another idea, now. I took out the other nine pencils and broke all of the tips off, snapped them into pieces, and threw them all over the room. As soon as I’m done writing this, I’ll do the same thing to the pencil I’m using now. I left a couple of pages in the tablet and started to rip the rest out and ball them up and toss them around the room as well. When the mystery person came by again, and I awoke with a new tablet and a new box of pencils, then I knew I had hit the nail on the head with the hammer. If I woke to broken pencils and balls of ripped paper littered about the room, then I was dreaming that I was writing in this tablet and not really writing at all. Would that be definitive proof in a world that seemed to be so unsure of itself as mine did right now, though?

I began to cry again. 

*

How many times had I awakened in this room, now? I write this on a clean and perfectly assembled writing tablet with a fresh selection from a new box of ten number 2 pencils. My room is not littered and there is no evidence of one small broken pencil tip or ball of paper anywhere to be seen. Awakening in here again has brought on such a feeling of despair for me that I almost forgot where my dream had gone this time... Almost forgot.

We were at a party with friends. It was a party in my honor. I'm not sure why I know that except people that seemed familiar to me, but whose identities somehow evaded me, were congratulating me on something I had done. This achievement seemed unimportant, other than it was obviously prestigious enough to celebrate over. Too many other more prominent questions set precedent to me.

It seemed every time I slept, a little more was revealed to me. Each time I woke, I became conscious in this unfamiliar room that seemed to be stuck in perpetual false daylight that poured in from the single window. What on earth had I done to deserve such a fate as this?

She was mad at me for sure in this dream. I think she was mad at me for my indulgence. I was drinking what I think was Southern Comfort on the rocks and smoking grass with other people at the party. How could I have such memories like the names of liquor and know what grass was, but know nothing about myself other than my name. She had left my side and was off in the near distance watching me within an aura of her contempt. I could feel her eyes staring at me with disapproval. But I continued to drink and smoke and socialize. It was a party, wasn't it? I remembered trying to reason that same thought to myself within the dream. I remember thinking she could piss off all she wants. I was getting defensive and perturbed about her displeasure with me. Why had she come with me knowing it was a party if she planned on getting mad at me once I started to enjoy myself? She had claimed she loved me in the first dream at the beginning of the celebration. She had whispered it into my ear. Then, I had a few drinks and smoked some pot and you would have thought I was feeling up all the other women at the party, the way she was treating me. What were you supposed to do at a party? Not party? I started to get frustrated.

I had to try and remember to look at my left ring finger in the next dream to see what my status with her was. For now, the finger displayed no jewelry. The truth is, I wish I could just wake up next to her and suddenly know who she was and who I am. I wish I could wake in our bedroom and wrap my arms around her waist and awaken her. She would stir slightly and I would draw her body next to mine. For a woman who's name I do not remember, I suddenly am aware how much I miss her. 

*

Awakening after another dream with the revelation of having a new writing tablet and a virgin box of pencils to christen has become somewhat mundane to me. Whoever swaps these has to know when I'm really sleeping and the act of me fooling them can seemingly never take place. I still haven't eaten since I can remember, and still haven't experienced a single urge to urinate nor move my bowels. That fact alone certainly justifies that this is not happening. If it is, then I'm dead and in Purgatory. I no longer have the need for human functions other than solve the deep mystery of why I'm here and who I am. And then what? Will I be set free to serve my fate? Of course, that's a mere theory in a world that does not cooperate with normal standards.

This time in the dream, either the party is over or we're leaving and we've gotten as far as my truck. I remember it being a standard transmission and silver colored. But I can't tell you my last name. We were arguing. I remember how beautiful her blue eyes looked flaring at me. I also remember being really pissed off about something. I can't remember what we were arguing about. I think it was about the car keys. She wanted to drive, but we had the truck. She couldn't drive a standard transmission. Yes... that was it! I remember, now. She had wanted to take her car. We obviously hadn't. She thought I was piss-faced. She said so, too. I tried to assure her that we didn't have far to go and that I wasn't too bad. I said that looking into those beautiful pools of deep, blue ocean as I swayed front to rear and side-to-side. She was not convinced.

And then I woke up. And here I am. So f#$& you whoever you are that freshens my tablets and pencils. What do you want from me? Where am I and why are you doing this to me? Why don't you just be a real person who will talk to me and allow me the expense of a mere few questions? Better yet... why don't you choke yourself sucking some big horse @#$%, you barnyard sideshow! Let me out of this warped lab of yours! I’m not an experiment! Are you even reading this? Am I even writing this?

I guess getting mad at you... whomever... whatever you are, is not going to help. I'd erase that if I had the energy to, but in a way, I want you to read it so I can experiment with your reaction to my anger. Let’s see how you like being experimented with.

Isn't it funny how I've gone from writing to myself to help me remember who I am and what I did to get here, to writing to you as if you were an existing entity that could solve this mystery for me with one single meeting? It’s as if you exist only because I awake to a fresh writing tablet and a brand spanking new box of number 2 pencils. That alone confirms your existence. I feel you are watching me like I’m some amoeba under the microscope in your lab and you’re enjoying the simple form of entertainment I offer you. That your own existence is so unexciting, that you've resorted to this as your main source of amusement. May I offer you a suggestion? Get a life! While you’re at it, kindly restore mine to the order in which it came. I'm not writing anymore.

Oh my God! As usual, I'm writing this on a new tablet with a brand new pencil. At some point after my anger tired me, I fell asleep and dreamt again. In this dream came the answers I sought. Not all of them, but enough to put things into perspective for me.

I talked her into getting in the truck. Her name was Lynn. She was my fiancee. She was the love of my life. It was nighttime in my dream. A part of day that is no longer familiar to me in this room. She was telling me to slow down and watch where I was going. I looked at her angrily and muttered something inaudible under my breath. By the time I looked back at the road, there was a dark form in the shape of a man crossing the street. I hit the brakes and cut the wheel hard left to avoid hitting him. It was too late. I was going too fast. I saw his eyes widen with the reality of his own death before the right front corner of my truck struck him and his body flew up on the hood in front of Lynn. He rolled over into the windshield and it imploded, spraying shards of cubed glass all over us. His body looked as light as a rag doll’s as he rolled off the right edge of my truck and fell lifeless to the pavement.

My truck was out of control and headed for the trees on the left. I swung the wheel hard right, fish-tailing, and inadvertently felt the sickening speed bump effect of the right rear tire of the truck running over the victim. Lynn screamed in unison with the screeching tires as I fought the steering wheel back to the left, but misjudged how far. The truck hit the first tree head on. My air bag deployed and I was unable to see anything as the truck tipped on it's left side and rolled once, twice, and thrice down the steep embankment towards the river.

And then I woke up. Surely I have killed my fiancee and the man in the road. But am I dead? Was I correct in thinking this is Purgatory? Does this knowledge enlighten me to the act of paying my penance? I’m not sure I know why my fiancee is dead. Perhaps it’s the way this room already feels like death to me. Perpetual, mundane, routine death. No one could live this way, let alone die this way, day after day.

I know what to do now. There's an artery in your wrist that if severed properly would allow you to bleed to death. I have ten chances of stabbing this artery with the artillery of nine more precisely sharpened number 2 pencils.

Before I go, I would like to say how sorry I am that I killed you, Lynn! I’d like to say I’m sorry for not remembering what I had done at first and for it taking so long for me to figure out how to make things right. I'm sorry for everything! I may not be a smart man, but I never meant to be a killer. You didn't deserve to die that way, nor did the innocent man in the road. But, I definitely deserve to die this way. Please, may the good Lord have mercy on my soul.

The end.

J.L. Campbell

(now for goodness sake... sign my guestbook and let me know what you thought of the tale!) 

Copyright © 2004 by J.L. Campbell at JLCampbellBooks.  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author. The stories that appear on this page are works of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

What people have said about "The Room"

           Date:10/12/2005

           Name:SciFantastic Magazine

           Location:United Kingdom

          Comments: I enjoy this kind of story, where the reader is puzzled about what is real and what is a dream. The story flows well, is very engaging and easy to
read. I developed empathy with the character and his situation and wanted to
read on. Really good ending that I wasn't able to predict, good resolution
without giving away any of the mystery

           Date:4/20/2005
           Time:4:00:10 AM (CST)
           Name:sara cashmere
           E-mail: curvysdc@aol.com
           Location: montana
           Referred by: jlcampbell