Cecilia smiled at me, the corners of her painted mouth jerking upward in an almost violent motion. “Been exploring again?”
“Taking a walk.”
“Mmm.” Her attempts at a conversational tone were pathetic- no matter how hard she tried, she just ended up sounding like the computers that constantly surrounded her. “Do you want to join the others for a movie?”
“I will join them shortly. I need to fetch my jacket first.”
“Of course, of course.” Another grimace of happiness and she walked away smartly.
There was something fascinating about it. We were allowed to do anything but no one took advantage of that. No one went here. The well-lit, heated or cooled as appropriate, supervised spaces contained them. They could have been fenced-in animals.
Granted, there was not much to see here. There was not much of anything here. Just door after door after door, each a foot away from its neighbors, for a good mile. An uneventful mile. Three-quarters of the way back to the centre, the voices poured into the silence.
It was just one door out of many in an utterly unremarkable corridor
The absence behind it was all that made it different from the rest.
It was not the kind of place people liked, or even knew about. The emptiness felt as much a physical thing as the concrete walls and… I did not know what material the doors were composed of. They were a charcoal color. We had watched a documentary once, about the outdoors. Charcoal, smoke, fire.
Error. The room could not be found.
I stand in front of the door. It is closed but it cannot be locked if there is nothing behind it. I push. Solid.
Error. The room could not be found. I can wait. I am patient because I have learned that patience is the only path to knowledge. If you focus, their constructs tremble, blur. As if the pressure of an enquiring gaze is too much and they must concede defeat. There is no seeing beyond, no clue to what may lie hidden behind the disguise. There is only knowing that what they have made can crack.
The others do not see. They know only instant gratification. They accept.
I imagine Cecilia saying it, her voice cool like metal, impenetrable even as she strives for a personable tone. Error. The room could not be found. The ink space is silent and still, shimmering exactly as much as it supposed to. That stable. There had to be a lie at the core, then. Not found- had the room even been there in the first place? Everything was missing here. It was more of a void than a space.
