The White Room

I stepped into the room. Silence.

I hate the silence.

The silence screams at me. It tells me a million things wrong with my life.

It whispers in my ear, it reminds me of my shattered past, my forlorn present, my bleak future.

My past.

My past is this room. Not so much the walls itself, but the very presence of it. I hate it. I hate what it symbolizes. I hate it so much, yet there is nothing I can do about it. It is a part of my life. It is something I could never give up, not even if I wanted to. But even having said that… there is a part of me….one that longs to leave it far behind and never look back.

Its useless. There is no point to coming here. Nothing will ever change. The results are final, unalterable.

But I care to much. I love them. I never knew them. I don’t remember them as they were. But I love them beyond life.

For the past seventeen years, I have spent Christmas here. Every Christmas. It’s bare white washed walls have become the only Christmas decorations I’m accustomed to. There is but a single window here. The window opens to the world outside.

This room symbolizes so much. The room is bare and empty, save two beds and two chairs. Everything is white, there is no colour. It is dull and it’s presence is cold. Just like me. I am bare. I am empty. The window, outside it, the powdery white is so much more than the white of the room. The sun reflects on it, making it shimmer. A parade of children clad in colourful snow suits play happily in it. Life is in its essence.

That room, and that window, it is an analogy of my own life. Just as I stand in the lifeless room and look out, so do I feel empty inside myself, and look out upon those who are carefree.

My Present.

No one knows me. They see me as the annoying boy who is constantly underfoot. The stupid git, whose only strength is Herbology. The boy with no capability for memory. The boy who is always losing things, namely my pet toad. No, they only see my mask. They see me as a person with no nerves. I dare say some of them have even questioned the sorting hat for putting me in Gryffindor. I do not appear brave. Yes, I am afraid of many things. Snape, for instance. But what they don’t realize is that bravely is not lack of fear, it’s acting in spite of it. True, I may not stand up to him but with so many other things in life…. Such as this room. No one knows about this room. No one knows about my inner struggles. They don’t care enough to notice. They are all caught up in their own worlds, they don’t take the time to look past the timid and shy boy to see the inner me. The hurting and empty me.

I go about my days pretending. Forgetting. I force myself to forget the way my life is. I don’t remember what happened that fateful day. I was there. Everyone has told me so. I have no memory of it. I have been told that my memory problems are because of repression. They say I repressed the memory of that day. They said that the repression of such a horrifying memory caused me to be forgetful. Some of them want to bring that memory to the surface. I won’t do it. Not now at least. I am already broken. Recollecting such a memory would do nothing. Everything is forlorn.

My Future.

My future is my past and my present. Nothing will change. My parents will always be… the way they are… I will always come to this hallow room and sit endless hours in it watching them, my parents, as they jabber on about incoherent things. I will never be able to tell them about me. About my life. About the things in it. My dad will never give me girl advice. My mum will never dry my tears. My future is this room. The White Room. This room is my life, in every way; literal and symbolic.

I am broken.