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\\=The White Box
\\=My name is Canvas. I remember because I wrote it in the corner of the white box. It takes twelve steps to get from the cot to the wall. And the lights hurt my eyes.

---

The lights hurt my eyes.

They’re always too bright. I tried asking the guards to turn them down once. They just ignored me and hit me when I insisted. So the lights are still too bright, and they sting reflecting off the walls of the white box.

Were they always this bright? I can’t remember. I can’t remember much nowadays. I can’t even remember how many steps it takes to get from the cot to the wall, even though I just counted.

The lights really hurt my eyes.

Suddenly, I bolt upright. Name? Name!? Rolling out of my cot, I sprint anxiously to the opposite end of the white box, and peer down into the corner. Squinting my eyes against the painful light, I try to read the rough scratch marks.

Canvas. Canvas. Canvas. I read it several times, just to make sure that I get the word in my head. No, not a word. It’s a name.

Canvas, my name is Canvas. I try to say it out loud. Instead, a feeble croak leaves my throat. I cough out the dust and try again.

“Canvas,” I say out loud, and I flinch. My own voice scares me. I suppose I deserve it though. I’m a bad person, after all; I don’t deserve any comfort, not even my own. Because only bad people end up here.

I read the word scratched into the wall one last time, and then, satisfied, walk back over to my cot. The sound of my feet striking the floor is like hollow bones, the noise echoing off the walls as I take exactly twelve steps from the wall back to my bedding. I’ve counted those steps so many times, trying again and again to make sure I’d gotten it right. But I’m still not too sure. Maybe I’ll go back and count them again later. Or maybe I should make sure that I remember my name, if only for a little bit longer. Or I could sleep, or eat, or drink, or do nothing at all.

There’s too much to do in the white box.

12-Apr-2012 08:06:55

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My ears perk involuntarily as a series of bolts and latches are pulled back, and I turn to face that corner. A small rectangular hole that never seems to be in the same place slides open perfectly against the wall of the white box. Then, gliding from the void beyond the corner, a metal tray filled with packaged plastic food slips through and clatters to the floor. And then the hole is gone.

And it’s just me and the tray and the white box.

I don’t eat yet. There’s too much to do.

“…Yes, all of them! Don’t question it, just do as you’re told!”

“Right away sir. Prisoner 167! Get up immediately!”

I’m ripped from the bosom of deep, dark sleep as a fist strikes me sharply in the ribs. The pain is nothing compared to the loud voices. I look up into the disapproving eyes of a scowling guard dressed in a tight-fitting white vest and leg band.

“I said immediately!” repeats the guard angrily. Another sharp prod and I gingerly uncurl myself from my cot and put my feet on the ground. His voice is too loud to ignore.

Being pushed forward, I realize in my numb, muddled state of half-sleep that corner is now gone, and opened wider than when the trays come through. Another guard, somehow perfectly identical to the one pressing me toward the gaping, unfamiliar doorway, stands there impassively, his cold stare locked with mine. I look away from him as I’m forced out of the white box. The commotion hurts my head. There’s far too much to do to deal with this now.

I’m led to what the guards like to call “the roundup”. It’s just another big white box where all the little white boxes attach. The lights here aren’t so bright, so it’s not too bad. But now I’m not alone out here.

I’m shoved into a line alongside several other people I vaguely recognize. There’s the man with the guitar tattooed on his neck whose name I think is Smooth Song. He has distant, sad eyes and a bandanna tied over his mouth. He told me once that he played music. I did*’t know what that was. I still don’t.

12-Apr-2012 08:07:42

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Then there’s the blank one. He’s a tall, handsome man with skin that’s as white as the boxes. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember the guards calling him an albino or something along those lines. His eyes are scary. But they’re blindfolded right now anyways.

And the girl next to me, her name is Forte. I’ve never heard her say a word before, and that doesn’t bother me at all. We’d met each other briefly before, but I can’t remember when. I feel like I’m about to remember when one of the guards starts shouting at us again.

“Listen up you lot!” he barks, “And listen well! You sorry sacks are going to be meeting someone new, and you better be polite, or I promise you that your life here will be getting far more miserable than it already is!”

None of us say anything. It’s smart not to talk when guards are talking unless they ask for it. But I’m not sure what he means by “miserable”. What’s there to be upset about?

With a satisfied grunt, the noisy guard steps aside, allowing someone to step forward.

She isn’t white like the boxes. I immediately don’t like her.

The girl had a straight cut haircut with streaks running through it. She wore a white bag, with a strange-looking shape on it that I’ve never seen before. It only made me like her less. She gives us all a polite nod. Her eyes turn to mine, and I pretend I don’t notice, looking past her at the white wall instead.

“This is Ms. Eve,” continues the noisy guard, introducing the strange new girl. “She’s a student under our great Princess, and for some reason she’s decided to volunteer her valuable time to deal with you scum. So I don’t want to see any sort of bad behavior from any of you towards her, and you better appreciate this honor.”

“Anyways,” says the noisy guard, clearing his throat, “She’s going start paying the lot of you visits in your cells. Any question she asks, you answer! Anything she wants to know, you tell her! Are we understood?”

12-Apr-2012 08:08:19

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Posts: 318 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

There was silence, to which the noisy guard gave a satisfied nod and a low grunt. Some invisible signal was given, and the other guards started prodding us away back to our boxes. I cast a lingering glance to the new girl that was now talking to the noisy guard. She wasn’t white like the boxes. I did*’t want her to come into mine.

Time passes, and I forget about the strange girl, at least for a while. But eventually, that corner opens again while I’m busy counting the number of steps from the wall to the cot, and a guard enters. Not saying a word, he simply jerks his head toward my bedding, telling me to sit down. I do so, and he takes a pair of cuffs and slides them around one of my wrists, with the other one anchored to the bed’s frame. Stepping back towards the wall, he watches me carefully as that girl, Eve Something-Or-Other, walks into the room. She gives me what seems a forced smile, and waits for a moment. Turning her head to the stoic guard, she gives him a slight nod. Reluctantly, he leaves through the doorway. I hear him mutter something about a vegetable before it seals behind him.

And then it’s just me and the girl I don’t like and the white box.

The lights hurt my eyes.

She glances around the room, and when our stares meet, she gives me another fake smile. I don’t say anything, nor do I look at her. I’m trying to remember how many steps it takes to get from the cot to the wall, because I did*’t get to finish counting. She introduces herself.

“So…Hello there! I’m Eve! And you are…” Her expression turns to one of concentration as she holds up a clipboard from her bag and flips through it. “Ah! Prisoner 167, am I correct?”

I nod. But I don’t look at her.

With a nervous cough, she flips through the clipboard again, levitating a quill out of her bag as she takes a seat on the white floor. “Now then, let’s start off simple. How are you feeling?” she asks me, trying to stir some kind of conversation.

12-Apr-2012 08:08:55

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I don’t like this girl, but I don’t forget what the noisy guard had told us.

“Fine,” I answer. My voice almost makes me flinch again, but I control myself this time. I stare at my hands and impatiently wait for her to finish questioning me.

“Fine? Okay then…Prisoner 167, would you like to tell me why it is you’re here?” she asks, apparently oblivious to my blunt response.

“I’m here because I did something bad.”

“Something bad? Can you remember what that was?”

“No.* That’s the truth.

“How can you not remember how you got yourself in here?”

I don’t know how to answer that. It’s just a fact, there’s no explanation for it. I shrug.

“So...how long have you been here?” Her voice sounds a little more strained this time.

“I don’t know.” This is sort of a lie. But that’s only because I don’t really know what “long” means.

Her nose wrinkles in frustration as she blows a strand of her hair back into place.

“Well can you at least tell me what you did before you got here?” she asks, not disguising the annoyance in her tone.

Now this is a question I don’t know the answer to. I don’t understand what this girl means. Before? There is no before, it’s always been white boxes. And what does she mean by “here”? There’s nothing but the white boxes. This girl makes no sense and I hate her more and more and I just want her to leave.

So I tell her no.

The girl heaves a sigh of heavy frustration, and looks like she’s going to ask me another question. But instead, she just gets up with an irritated expression on her brow, and slips the quill and clipboard back into her bag. Knocking on that corner, it opens briefly, and swallows her up. The guard comes and takes off my cuffs. Once he’s gone, I get up and start counting the steps again.

I don’t see that strange girl for a long time, and I’m very happy about it. Her questions were pointless and did*’t make sense. They made my head hurt, too.

12-Apr-2012 08:09:23

[#QYQ24UHXT]

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I almost forget my name again. But I run to the corner and read Canvas again over and over to make sure that I remember it a little longer. My brain scares me sometimes. It’s like it wants me to forget, but I can’t let it forget my name. I don’t know why I care. It’s just a word isn’t it? And yet, something brings me back to that corner every time I fear that I’m about to lose it. I repeat the name under my breath a few more times. Suddenly, I feel something, and I jump with surprise as a hand pokes me in the side.

In moments, I’m cuffed to my bed as that annoying girl walks in again. She looks about as happy to see me as I am to see her. Her expression indifferent, she sits on the ground without saying a word. Taking out the same clipboard and quill, she starts asking me meaningless questions again. Do you like the food? Do you know the people around here? Are the guards nice? I answer them all in succession with complete nonchalance, but they don’t stop coming. I keep hoping that she’ll give up and leave like the last time, but she’s determined to stay for some reason, even as my answers become mumbled and indistinct.

There’s a light snapping sound as her quill presses into the paper, and a black smear drips onto the floor. Seeing that black spot on the floor of the white box made me want to hurt this girl. I decide it’s smarter to just bite my lip and not get in any trouble. The guards would be merciless.

Cursing quietly, the strange girl grabbed a small glass bottle and another quill from her bag. From the bottle emerges a tiny stick covered in something white, and she rubs it on the clipboard, as well as onto the black stain on the ground. It becomes white.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been so amazed.

“What was that?” I blurt, as the girl put her quill to the paper again. My voice makes her flinch.

“What was what?” she responds, confused, but more so surprised that I had spoken out of turn.

“The white thing that you put on the stain.”

12-Apr-2012 08:09:55

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Puzzled, she raises the glass bottle. “What, this? This is whiteout. It’s for correcting mistakes.”

“I like that,” I say quietly, mesmerized by the bottle. “I like that a lot.” Something that makes white. This is magic beyond my imagining.

The girl smiles, amused. “Do you really like the color white or something?”

Finally, a question I want to answer. I tell her yes.

She asks me why I like it. I ask her what reason there is to not like it. She doesn’t have an answer for that.

“So tell me, Prisoner 167, why do you like white, but not me? Why won’t you be more cooperative?”

I feel I have no choice but to answer honestly, although the answer seems self-evident.

“You aren’t white.”

“Well…no, I’m not white, I’m sort of…purple, I guess,” she says, looking at her blouse. She then points at me. “But you aren’t white either. Do you not like yourself?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Maybe you’re being unreasonable. I mean after all, most people aren’t white.”

“That tall one is.”

“Who, the Princess?”

“No. Not her. Don’t say her name,” I say harshly, feeling something rise in me. “I mean the one with the scary eyes.”

“Oh!” exclaims Eve, remembering the prisoner. “Well, that isn’t the same. He’s an albino, and doesn’t have any pigmentation. So yes, he is white. But that doesn’t make him better or worse than anyone else.*

I try to tell her that isn’t true, but for some reason the words die in my throat, and I look down and stare at my hands again. The girl coughs and tries to continue the conversation by returning to a familiar topic.

“What about your cell? It’* white. Do you like it as well?”

“Yes, I like it very much,” I tell her, but then I change my answer, “Actually, not always. The lights hurt my eyes. They’re too bright. But otherwise I love it here. I have everything. I have white, I have my name written in the corner, and I have so many things to do.”

12-Apr-2012 08:10:41

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Posts: 318 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The strange girl doesn’t say anything. She simply looks at me curiously. This time, instead of looking away, I look right back at her. Her eyes are strange and alien, yet...alluring. I can’t put my hand on why that is, but I hadn’t seen it before. Sheepish, the girl with the strange eyes looks away and begins packing her things.

“It was…lovely to speak with you, Prisoner 167. I look forward to doing it again.”

“Canvas,” I state, as she’s about to knock on that corner.

She stops and turns. “Sorry?”

“My name is Canvas.”

She gives me another awkward smile. “Very well then, Canvas. Thanks for the talk.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Eve.”

After she leaves, I don’t move for a while. I just sit and think about that magical whiteout. And then I think about the strange girl’s eyes. I spend so much time lost in thought that I don’t even have time to count the steps from the wall to the cot.

I sleep strangely that night.

I have a dream. It isn’t like the rest at all. It isn’t blackness and whiteness and silence like it usually is. Somewhere in my mind there’s a pulse, a vibration. It’s something I can’t describe, like the words needed are just out of my reach, coursing through the billowing emptiness of my mind. It’s familiar and comforting. But just as I’m about to remember, just as I’m about to know what those words are, I wake up.

Blinking slowly, my neck muscles strain as I look around the white box. Everything is the same, of course, and yet something feels amiss. Slowly shaking off the thick pastiness of sleep in my eyes and legs, I stand and walk around the white box. My name is still in the corner (I memorize it again quickly), and it’s still twelve steps from the cot to the wall. Then what’s wrong?

I blink again. Then it hits me. The lights don’t hurt my eyes anymore.

12-Apr-2012 08:11:11

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Posts: 318 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

In wonder, I step backward and my foot kicks into something. A tray. My stomach growls for the first time in ages as I admire the plastic-wrapped contents. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be hungry. Gently picking up the tray with my teeth, I take the food to my cot and relish every bite.

I finish eating just as there’s a familiar sound of bolts from that corner again. Pushing my tray off the bed, I sit patiently and wait for the guard. But as he’s about to slip the metal cuffs around my wrists, a voice interrupts him.

“Excuse me! I don’t think that’s going to be necessary, thank you,” says Eve as she enters the white box.

The guard looks like he’s going to give a retort, his eyes switching between myself and Eve. But instead he shrugs, puts the cuffs away, and steps out of the white box. As the strange girl sits down on the ground and begins preparing her things, I look at her questioningly.

“What was that for?” I ask her, uncertain.

“Well, to be honest Canvas, I don’t think you’re a dangerous person. I think you’re just confused, and treating you like a criminal isn’t the right thing to do.”

“But I am a criminal.”

A flicker of doubt crosses the girl’s eyes. A second later, it’s gone, and I wonder if I just imagined it. After all, the lights are different now, and everything feels unfamiliar. I mention this to her.

“Yes, I asked the guards to lower the amount of light in your room when you complained to me last time. Is it better now?*

I nod, and she seems pleased with herself. She puts her quill to the board again.

“Now then, Canvas. What would you like to talk about today?”

That’s a strange question. Up until now, she had been the one leading the conversations; I just followed along. And yet without thinking, I know what I want to talk about. This girl has stirred something in my brain.

“Ms. Eve, I had a dream when I slept.”

“Is that so? Would you like to tell me about it?”

12-Apr-2012 08:11:43

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“Yes. It was like the rest at first. There was white and black everywhere. It was very quiet, like it always is. But then I…saw something. Something in my dream that I can’t explain.”

I’m silent as I try to think of the right words to say. They come to me.

“Ms. Eve, what is ‘purple’?”

The girl puts her quill and clipboard down and gives me a long, confused stare. I try to explain.

“Last time you were here, you said you were ‘purple’. What does that mean?”

The girl stutters, scratching her head. It’s confusing to see this girl that seems to know so many things at a loss for words.

“Purple…? Well, purple is a color. It’s caused by light reflecting back into your eyes. Everything has a color.”

I give her a blank look.

“A color is something that isn’t white or black. It can be green or blue or pink. It’s…it’s a part of what something is. I don’t know how to explain it.”

I’m starting to get a headache. Something that isn’t white or black? Colors? Green, blue, pink, I don’t know what any of those words mean at all. And the girl doesn’t know how to explain it. I moan slightly in pain as things feel like they’re moving in my skull.

She points to her own shirt. “Can we both agree that this is purple? The fact that my shirt is not white and looks like this is color. And this color is purple.”

Her words seem to be become more distant and indistinct, and I can’t pick them out. I stare at her shirt as my headache gets worse and worse and becomes some furious throb that threatens to split my skull. Her shirt seems to expand, shimmer, and pulsate through the room and my head. The feeling of something massive and powerful courses beneath my skin, like there’s some static power that’s making my hair stand on end.

12-Apr-2012 08:13:44

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