The Wait

Ahmad had been waiting in the room for almost 4 years now. The all-too familiar orange and blue paint was now beginning to peel from age. Supposedly they had coloured it this way in an attempt to defend against feelings of despair and self-pity. He had stopped wondering after the second year about how much longer he would have to wait. The dreams however, were the worst. Every now and then, he would dream himself being brought into the room for the first time, and he would relive the same anxiety, the same foolish hopefulness, all over again.

“Every man shall face the wait. Waiting is suffering. Suffering is freedom. Freedom is purpose”, he had been told many times before the wait.

When they had first brought him there, he had hoped, believed even, that his sentencing would be minute. He had always been told, and felt, special. Why then, should the world punish him with a long sentence? No, he would be there only for a few hours, a day, even a week or two, but nothing more - nothing intolerable.

He spent the first few days fantasizing about his release. The door would swing wide open, he’d be congratulated by his peers, his father and mother would be standing on the other side, pride painted in their eyes. Word would be sent to his peers: the others, waiting anxiously in their own rooms, that Ahmad had been released, Ahmad had been successful and his waiting was all-too brief. He relished in the imagination of their jealousy of him. After all, ‘The Wait’ rewarded the special, as was well-known. Finally, he hoped for all of them to be successful too, but after him of course, as he believed that none deserved the cruelty of an eternal Wait.

As the hours wasted on, he’d eventually get out of bed and turn on the ‘iNFOTAINMENT(TM) system’, the presence of which had been made mandatory in every room a year prior to his arrival. The bluish tint on the screen was set to automatically turn to yellow in the nighttime in order to help the inhabitant of the room sleep, and be easier on their eyes. Since any light from the outside world was inconsequential to the room, as it had no windows, this served as the sun’s electronic replacement.

The first page was always the same: it was a ‘news reel’ of sorts, a never-ending page announcing all those whom the inhabitant knew that had been successfully released. It’s intention was to be uplifting; after four years of waiting, it was nothing more than a depressing display of good-news that literally every single person he knew had been successful.

Next, was the option of ‘Entertainment’ or ‘Education’. In his first few days of captivity, he’d opt for ‘Education’, he felt he might as well be productive while he was there, and prepare for freedom. However, as time went on and hope abandoned him, his soul dulled and eventually, to be ‘entertained’ was the only thing he chose to do.

On this particular day, which had nothing special about it, and was just like all the others, he sat in front of the yellow-tinted screen and watched through hours and hours of entertaining footage, the content of which neither interested nor excited him. He felt himself yawn heavily, and decided it should be time to sleep. Rather than switch off the screen, he opted to keep it on. There was something about it that denied the existence of reality; as long as it was there, playing random nonsense, the horrors of his reality weren’t quite fully there.

Ahmad lay down and closed his eyes. This was always the customary invitation for the unwanted thought to penetrate his mind. Usually it went something along the lines of:

“Better get used to it. You will be here, forever.”

Tonight, it spoke of something far more sinister:

“Have you ever even tried?”

Without warning he was violently overcome by the same mixture of anxiety and foolish hopefulness as the first day he had arrived, when he had hoped he wouldn’t be there for more than a few hours. His eyes fixed themselves across the room at the orange door that stood in stark contrast to the blue wall that housed it. He examined it up and down, as if searching for an answer. Was it possible? How had it never occurred to him? Could it really be so simple?

He stood up, walked nervously towards the door, cautiously placed his sweat-soaked hand onto the door handle, and squeezed.