14,572 Days

The room is unfamiliar. I don't know how I got here. Even after fourteen thousand, five hundred and seventy-two days, this perfect two-metre cube remains as alien to me as the moment I arrived. 

At some point, I was placed in this sharp, aggressive box. This prison. It is all I know – all I have – yet it remains entirely foreign to me. All I can see, all I can visualise is its obsessive-compulsive right angles creating an illusion of shadows that dance in the bright, white light. 

On the wall is a digital timer, though I doubt it's actually digital as I think this space exists beyond electricity. In fact, I doubt it's accurate too as the cube seems to exist beyond time itself. Nonetheless, the segmented and illuminated font displays 14,572 days and... let me check... twelve hours, seventeen minutes and twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five seconds. Not that I'm counting.

In the centre of the cubed plane sits a singular, off-white radio. You can only tell it's off-white because its somewhat creamy dullness contrasts with the snowy perfection of the walls, floors and ceiling. Like a smudge on an otherwise pristine canvas.

The radio plays one song on repeat – 'O welche Lust' by Beethoven. The announcement comes first, always the same: 'And now, "O welche Lust" by Ludvig van Beethoven.' Every word identical, every syllable a perfect reproduction, like a series of ones and zeros arranged in infinite sequence. After fourteen thousand, five hundred and seventy-two repetitions, I have developed rather strong feelings about the announcer.

After the song, he – or it – will then say 'wasn't that sublime?' before the radio cuts to some static and repeats the process again.

Sometimes I try to drown out the song by thinking loudly about the room. I think about how clean this corner is, or that corner. I think about how pointy they are on the outside – assuming there is an 'outside'. I wonder if there are more cubes, with more mes and how many of those mes are wondering the same thing. 

Though, what me might be is yet to be defined.

Descartes once said 'I think, therefore I am', or, at least, I think he did. When I look down I see the floor – no torso, legs or feet. I am, it seems, floating centrally across a horizontal and vertical plane. I can rotate myself three hundred and sixty degrees, in all directions. This, I have gathered, implies I am without a corporeal form. Or even a real form.

I shouldn't complain. My formlessness has its perks – I never hunger or tire. I can't get ill, and I'll never need to use the toilet. Not that I've got one. Still, I find myself daydreaming of food. Steak, eggs, chips. I imagine the smell: charred umami goodness glazed in golden yolk. I dream of sleep too, that sweet nothingness that might finally silence Beethoven. But even if I could sleep, I'd probably just dream of this space. I can't remember much beyond it anyway.

Maybe Descartes should have revised his famous quote to 'I have memories, therefore I am.' After all, I think, but I can't be sure that I am. I suspect 'memories' was actually the original wording, but it didn't quite roll off the tongue.

All my memories feel – in so far as I can feel – like disembodied facts. Ownership of these flashes seems to belong to some collective understanding. As if all beings without food dream of steak. As if all beings without sleep dream of rest. But even these thoughts tick like a metronome, repeating until they lose all meaning. They emphasise that each minute, each day is identical. My calendar might as well read: two o'clock – remember steak, three o'clock – imagine sleep. 

Nothing changes. Nothing's different. Nothing's—

'Confess.'

Hmm, I stand corrected. That's different. I am fairly confident I just heard someone, or something, say 'confess'.

'Confess.'

I did. Its voice is deep and resonant. Commanding even. In contrast, my voice is clear and calm. Not soft, but distinctly un-commanding. Does my calendar say 'hear new voice at four'?

'Confess.'

'Yes, yes. I heard you the first time', I say, presumably telepathically. 'How does one without memories confess?' I ask.

'Confess.'

This is not an answer. The voice may as well be Beethoven if it's going to act like this. Just another repeated noise in a rigid space of nothingness. Mind you, now that I think about it, where did Beethoven go? Spinning myself around, I cannot hear even an 'O', let alone the 'welche' or 'lust'. I continue scanning, noticing that my radio, my beautiful off-white radio has been replaced with a sheet of paper. I focus, reading every word ...

The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare,

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me – she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me for ever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

I propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!

'Confess', comes the voice once more, carrying a new weight. It speaks as if it sees me studying these words.

'Confess what?!' I shout. 'What can I possibly confess to? You brought the words – you made them exist.' I pause, thoughts briefly tangling before unspooling again. 'How fascinating', I murmur, addressing the emptiness around me. 'You demand a confession from someone who cannot even exist.'

'Confess,' it repeats.

My mind races, trying to piece together the implications of this demand. The poem's words echo in my thoughts, a story of passion and violence that feels both foreign and unsettlingly familiar.

'I do not know what you want from me,' I say, my voice rising with each word. 'I count days. I measure angles. I time Beethoven's eternal repetitions. But these words, this tale of Porphyria and her lover – they are not mine. I have no memories of these events, no connection to these characters. Yet you bring me this poem and demand that I confess. Confess to what? A crime I could not have committed, in a world I do not inhabit?'

I spin slowly, scanning the blank walls for any sign of understanding or respite. 'It seems you wish to damn me with these words, but they are yours, not mine. How can I confess to a sin that exists only in the lines of a poem?'

Silence fills the air, the voice does not respond but its presence feels more overwhelming than before. My attention returns to those damning lines:

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

'Tell me', I say, rotating three hundred and sixty degrees, 'which corner of this perfect cube did I strangle her in? Was it this one or that? Did I use hands I do not possess? Did I leave marks on a neck I cannot touch?'

'Confess.'

The voice fills the space like a physical thing, the first truly new sensation in fourteen thousand, five hundred and seventy-two days. It reminds me of genesis stories – of voices creating existence from void. But if I am to be cast as Cain, it seems my story begins with blood already spilled.

'Am I Porphyria's keeper?' I ask.

'Confess', it responds, right on schedule.