Cageless

Natalya Green

Opening

It’s the clock ticking I hear first before I open my eyes. I don’t remember how I got here.

I am in a room with other versions of myself.

We stand staring at one another, nervous and curious. All with the same face, but slightly off. One has more acne scars, one has a painted face of makeup, and all of them have different hair colors, different hair textures. There are four in total, not including myself. I stand in the middle, as they surround me, looking at me curiously. One of them is tearing up, one has a blank stare. It’s the one with the cold stare that speaks first.

“So, this is what we become?” She gives me a hard stare, and I’m perplexed on how I should answer her. I am unable to find my voice, but I take in my surroundings more. It’s a plain living room, with multiple shut doors. There are a few mirrors hung on the wall, with a couch and a TV. A huge bookshelf next to the window, that only displays unsure clouds and wonder.

What I don’t recognize at all, is a huge clock on the wall, larger than me, its arms slowly circling. It makes no noise but the ticking every second that passes. It was like looking into a black hole, staring at it slowly processing time. It unnerved me the more I looked at it, yet I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from it.

“You could say that,” I tell her, looking back at her face. She raises an eyebrow and rolls her eyes at me.

“We’re happy you’re here” A light voice sounds, and I turn to look at my face again, but with softer features. Her hair has strands of blonde but grown in black roots, a scrunchie holding up half of her locks. She smiles softly at me, and it’s warm, welcoming.

“Yeah ignore Astra, she can be aggressive sometimes” A green-haired me chimes in. She has a toothy grin and thick-rimmed glasses. She almost seems smaller than me, more fragile. She holds hands with another girl with my face, but this time she has purple hair, with the side of her head shaved. She as well looks on with a blank face and an expression that almost grieves.

What is this? I ask myself, I look towards one of the mirrors on the wall, and look at my face. We all had the same face as I thought, and yet they all looked so different from one another. Not only the hair but the way they hold themselves, and the ages. I look at myself, and I looked like me, but are these other girls me as well?

“We are you, you just don’t fully remember yet.” The nice one says. She offers her hand towards me with a smile. I don’t question how she knows what I’m thinking.

“I’m Lou, the chick with green hair is Jade, the other standing next to her is Misty. The other one who talked to you earlier? That’s Astra, she can be a little headstrong, but you’ll know why later”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask her, but she starts pulling me around the room, ignoring my statement.

“We’ve all been in this space for a while now. Jade, arriving first, and then Misty, Astra, and lastly me. You, however, are just visiting, until you’ve come to stay with us.” Lou goes over to the record player and filters through the music. I look around more, and I see some objects on the floor I thought I’d thrown out, like my guitar, or old books. Everything was messy, there was no order to where things held their place. Coffee mugs on bookshelves, various pieces of clothing on the ground. The only thing that seemed off to me was the fact that there were no photographs. All that lined the walls were posters of musicians, but none of the real people that I knew personally.

I hear the beginning sounds of a Jack Stauber album, and I look over to Lou, who’s smiling at me.

“I thought we always put up photos of our friends?” I ask her curiously, feeling uneasy in this weird space. Was I dreaming? Was this some kind of twisted reality of alternate versions of myself? As I stared at myself-or Lou, it was hard to wrap my head around what was going on.

“We don’t like talking about those too much” She simply says, picking at her nails. I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I turn to see Jade, looking up at me.

“Come look at my room!” She pulls my hand, taking me away from Lou and the records, away from Astra’s cold glare and Misty’s blank expression. I’m pulled into a room of reds and grays. There are band posters, upon the wall, and a stack of YA books in the corner. Jade has twenty-one pilots playing on her speaker, and photos of various people are hung up on her wall. She stares at me in wonder, expecting a reaction, and I solely feel awkward in this atmosphere with her.

She tilts my head, waiting for a response to how her room is, and then I take in how young she, well, how young I look here. Her teeth are crooked, and she holds an uncomfortable stance to her, like she’s not exactly sure of me, or even herself. She looks- I look about 14, at the height of puberty and the beginning slope of teenage adolescence.

“Do you like it?” She asks, and it takes all of me not to say anything obscenely rude to her.

“That doesn’t matter, it’s your room,” I tell her, sitting down next to her on the floor.

“Yeah well, some people don’t. Astra thinks it’s pretty cringy, doesn’t like the music I play, or me for the matter.” She picks at the skin around her fingers and seems nervous.

“It doesn’t matter what she thinks, as long as you like it.” I look down on this child, this young version of myself, and begin to feel overwhelmed. All of her insecurities, her negative thinking, her scars were displayed right in front of me. It passes over me in a wave, and I don’t know how else to sit here, with her next to me. Jade begins to walk around the room, with her head down, nervousness spread all over her face. She walks awkwardly like she doesn’t know how to continue the conversation.

“Well, you like me, don’t you?” She looks back up at me, and my throat closes up. I keep eye contact with her and nod.

Yes, yes, yes, believe it. Feel it. I like you. I like you. I like you, but you won’t believe that, will you?

She keeps staring at me, and quietly nods back, looking away from me. We sit in silence, while the music plays softly. It’s then, that we are interrupted by a knock on the door.

“It’s time to switch, we only have so long with her.” It’s Lou, and she motions for me to leave the room. I get up and head for the door, turning back around to glance at Jade, who’s staring at the ground, nose red, and hands clenched behind her back.

“Come on, you need to have some time with Misty. She’s too into what she’s doing to interrupt you though.” Lou leads me to another door in the house, and I see myself-Misty, sitting on the ground, playing the guitar. She’s surrounded by fairy lights hung up on the wall, and there are more photos up. There are not any band photos up though, but random trinkets, I think from school? I’m not exactly sure. Photos of faces I once remember, but bring pain when I look at them too long.

When I kneel on the floor to sit next to her, I recognize the tune of Blackbird by the beetles she’s playing. Her purple hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she was engrossed in her fingerpicking, paying me no attention. I let her finish the song, which seems to bring her peace by the time she’s done. She looks more relaxed than I saw her earlier, but when she looks up to face me, the anxiety shows on her face.

“I don’t know what to say to you.” She whispers, and my heart aches for this version of myself in front of me.

“I know, “ I whisper back. “But that’s okay.”

Misty nodded and started strumming again on her guitar, and we sat in silence, listening to the music she played and let her emotions run through her. Why was she in this place? What was her purpose here? It washes over me that this person is the same as Jade, insecure in her own body, timid and unsure of the world around her, desperately clenching onto the people around her, hoping that they’ll stay. Only just slightly older, too self-aware of her skin, dying to peel it off and examine it. I felt grief for her, for my younger self.

“Get up.” a hard voice says, and I turn to see Astra standing in the doorframe, arms folded. She walks away, and I feel the need to follow her. I take one more glance at Misty, who gives me a light smile and reluctantly get up to follow Astra.

Being in Astra’s space was like being flooded with thoughts of eternity and sorrow. Glow in the dark stars was pasted to the ceiling, paintbrushes scattered, and written words on the walls. Photographs of familiar faces were on the floor, seeming to be ripped off the walls, or simply just kept there. A painting of venus sits framed on the wall, and I can’t take my gaze off of it. Jupiter sits framed underneath, and angelic voices are played softly through a record player. Although it’s supposed to feel comforting, it agitates me.

Astra sits on the bed and simply stares at me while I intake the entire room. This one was more cluttered than the last, and it’s hard to place my emotions in this room, feeling familiarity, while feeling panic arise in my chest.

“Why are you freaking out?” She asks me, her dark eyebrow raised. I look back at her and realize I am unable to speak, my existence overtaking me while in this space. I begin to feel horrified, unable to control my movements. I fall to the floor, at a loss for words, and again, am rushed completely with mixed emotions. Dissatisfaction, the balancing act of fulfillment washing over me, the concept of human nature and reality surrounding my consciousness.

“Are you stupid? Why are you questioning things?” She asks me, and I have many, many reasons to argue with her, but I am unable to speak, my mind flooded with hurt, with anger, with everything and nothing at the same time. Why the fuck am I back in this headspace? Lost in the question of existence, this mixed relationship with spirituality and fulfilled purpose. Why is this happening?

“Why don’t you feel the same way?” She presses on, sounding angrier

“Because I don’t care anymore! None of it matters to me.” I somehow find myself saying, and Astra stares at me, becoming more frustrated.

“You’re stupid to think that way.”

“It sounds stupid to you, but it’s freeing.” I shoot back at her with a hard glare, and we sit staring at her, the hymns filling the absence of relation between the two of us.

“I’m not you anymore,” I tell her, and Astra scoffs.

“You’re more of me than you think.” She simply says, turning away from me, and leaving me helpless on the floor, abandoning me to deal with the struggle of faith and apatheism.

I feel hands on me, and I look up from the ground to see Lou looking at me gently. Wordlessly, she pulls me from the hollow room and into another room. She says nothing, a neutral expression on her face, as she guides me into another extension of emotions with this room.

I look around, and clothes are all over the floor. There are papers with poems taped up onto the wall, painted peach, along with smeared words. There are cans of paint on the floor, some split, some unopened. I look to one wall and feel and I’m whiplashed by a rush of memories floating into my head while staring at the photographs of people. Some are comforting, some are painful, ice skating in winter, a break up in a diner, shades of color I’m unable to look at without tearing up. A painting with glittered hand, an array of planets, paint swatches taped between the words, filling empty spaces. There’s a sense of increasing anxiety as I stand in the middle of this room, and Lou only looks at me, a sad smile on her face.

“We had a lot of friends then, didn’t we?” She asks me, and I can’t answer her.

“We had a lot of interests too, ones we enjoyed.” She continues, and I feel my face become wet. Still frigid from the conversation with Astra, Lou’s room only adds to the frantic emotions that have been building up inside of me. Have I died? Is this some kind of purgatory experience? A hell, where I relive all of my afflictions? All of my doubts, the “wrong” decisions I’ve made among adulthood, is this me being condemned by my younger selves in some way?

“I want to leave” I whisper, but Lou ignores me and continues.

“Do you still connect to God with your paintings?”

“Stop it.”

“Were you ever able to find Venus? I did, it was beautiful.”

“Stop it!” I cry and begin to shake my head. I can’t take this anymore, all of these rooms, all of these lost emotions coming forth again, ones I’ve buried and forgotten.

“Did they all stick around? Did they take anything from you, your purity, your confidence?,” She asks curiously as if it wasn’t causing pain with every word she was saying. I don’t respond to her, and realization crosses over her face.

“Why’d you let it happen? Do you even care anymore?” Lou asks me, and I can only shake my head in response, still overwhelmed by it all.

“How did you do it? Figure out what you wanted? Apart from what they wanted for you?” She asked me, a look of frantic desperation on her face. “How do you make them stay?”

“I didn’t” I answer. “I still don’t know what I want. They didn’t all stay.”

Lou shakes her head at me, and I don’t know what to give her. I dont know if she can find solace in this encounter with me. My anxiety is only increasing the longer I stay in this room, and it’s only shared between the two of us, expanding the longer we sit in each others presence.

“Some of them drained me.” I tell her, looking into her eyes, “But some of them still care about me too. I didn’t want them to leave, but it hurt too much to let them stay ” Her eyes fill with tears, and Lou shakes her head even more.

“No.” She says, and turns away from me.

“It wasn’t a bad thing, losing my purity. It’s all freeing.” I tell her, but she continues to shake her head.

“It’s wrong, what you’ve done with our life.” She says, and it takes everything in me not to scream at her. It feels right, this absence of faith, these loose limbs making reckless decisions. It’s freeing, not caring anymore about what they think, or trying not to care about what they think, about what I’m supposed to do, about how I’m supposed to live my life. Loosening this skin I’m in. I’m a cageless bird, flying without purpose, but still pushing through the wind.

“We aren’t similar at all, aren’t we?” Lou says, and that pain dives deep in me.

“I hate you for saying that,” I tell her, everything feels too much. Because she’s wrong, she’s wrong about it all. But was she? I still have my interests, my desires, the things that keep me going. They are somewhere, embedded under the anxiety, under the loss, under the dread of existing. She’s wrong, I tell myself. She’s wrong, she’s wrong, she’s wrong. We are similar. I’m still similar to all of them. I still care about them, as much as I’d like not to.

“No you don’t,” She says, crouching to my level on the floor. I don’t see her, but I hear her voice closer to my ears when she says;

“You hate that you didn’t have more time as us.”

When I open my eyes, I am alone, in a white room. Lou is gone, and nothing occupies this room. I get up off the ground and look around, but everything is just empty space.

“What is this?” I ask out loud, confused about where I am now.

“Whatever you make it to be.” The voice says exhaustedly. I turn around, and see a faceless figure. They sit on the floor, facing me, but I’m unnerved by it’s presence.

“Who are you?” I asked, suddenly scared of the figure in front of me. The being tilts its head, almost as if in curiosity.

“Who you hate.” It says. I soon recognize this being, and I grow angry at it. I grow upset, frustrated by the fact that it sits casually in front of me.

“Why didn’t you give me enough?” I ask it, clenching my fists. It does not answer, but only stares at me.

“Why are you so limited? You never gave me enough to make decisions, to live out my childhood, you made me forget memories and relive my pain. Why?” I ask, growing more frustrated as I stand in front it.

“I don’t have a say in how much I give.” It tells me, and it seems to look away from me. “I have to give an equal amount to everyone.”

“Why is that?”

“Because if not, none of it would have substance, would it?” It asks me, standing up from its place on the floor.

“None of your healing, none of your growth, I am only a tool for these things. I don’t dictate the contents of your life. You do, you choose what to do with what I give you, you choose how you cherish it.”

“I had very little of it.” I say, and it shakes its head.

“You had plenty, and you still do, you just became aware of it too late” It walks closer towards me.

“Talya.” It whispers, grabbing ahold of my hands in a gentle way. “You still have me” I am comforted and conflicted all at once.

I stand before Time, and I am unsure whether to name it as my abuser or my healer. Perhaps both, or neither. Maybe as I stand here, it becomes my cross I desperately cling to, my Venus in the sky that I hold onto. Maybe it becomes my opportunity of free will, of decision amongst uncertainty, of growth into adulthood. Maybe it becomes my wind that keeps me afloat in this cageless air, beginning once again.