Trapped

Screaming, screeching, banging, shattering, pain. Rolling, discombobulation, darkness.

Fog without air. Light without sun. Depersonalized.

“Hello?”

“Hello, hello, hello, hello,” I hear in return.

I walk. The fog gives way to Greek architecture and marble floors. High ceilings and roped off exhibits.

The first exhibit that comes into sight is a statue. It’s of my mother breast feeding me. I’m swaddled tightly, held delicately. She looks at me adoringly. Her hair is long, and her face is young. Not how I normally envision my mother, but that is her, and that is me, chiseled out of stone.

A painting appears on the wall. It’s me, covered in chocolate cake. I have a fork in my left hand. It’s shiny and clean. In my right hand is a massive chunk of cake and it looks like it’s going for my cake covered mouth.

On the other side of the room, roped off is a reconstruction of my nursery when I was a baby. This gives me pause. What was once a faded memory that I could barely conjure from the recesses of my mind, now stands before me vivid and tangible.

In the middle of the room, displayed like a fine piece of jewelry, is a pacifier in a glass case.

As I move along, I realize that I can’t really feel myself, like gravity has no effect on me. There’s no tension in my body, no slight pain. I don’t feel my eyes move or my tongue against my teeth. I don’t even feel air passing through my nostrils. There isn’t even a deviation between me and the temperature in the room.

The next thing I see is a painting of me snuggling in bed with mom and dad as mom reads. I remember this. I would listen to mom's soothing voice while I looked at the colorful pictures until nodding off. Then dad would sweep me up in his arms and carry me off to bed.

Roped off on the other side of the room is a small blue tricycle with a red Radio Flyer wagon hooked to it.

A statue of me wearing a backpack appears next.

There is a glass case with an album filled with Pokémon cards. My mom bought me a pack every time she went to the store. My collection got pretty big. When I turned fifteen, I sold them all for a hundred dollars for date money.

There is a painting of me and my dad at cub scouts. We were camping and he was teaching us how to build a fire.

I see a roped off section that has my first bike on display.

Across the way is another roped off display. This one is of a bookshelf filled with books. It has all my favorites. I particularly enjoyed the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series.

Another display case is next. It contains a baseball autographed by Mike Trout. He hit a homerun on opening day versus the Mariners. My dad caught it and had it signed for me.

In a display case just beyond that is a PlayStation. My cousins used to spend the night and we would stay up past our bedtime and play Spiderman.

There’s a painting of me with my best friends – Jeff Ellis, Brian Kemp, and Danny Long. We are standing atop a hill with our bikes between our legs. We rode our bikes everywhere; into town to visit other friends, to the pool to flirt with girls, down to the creek to hang out and fish, and to the rock quarry where we would do ridiculous stunts to entertain ourselves.

There is an exhibit of the little shack we built as a clubhouse down by the creek. That was where we hid the pornography, booze, and cigarettes we swiped from our parents. When we were bored, we would hang out in there smoking, drinking, and looking at naked women, thinking we were all grown up and cool.

That is followed by a painting of me with Heidi Thomas, the girl I took to our first school dance. She was a pretty little blonde with ringlet curls that I had a crush on. The guys pushed me into asking her out and to my surprise, she said yes. I knew nothing of dance etiquette or how to dance, but mom taught me. It was humiliating dancing with my mom, but in the end, it paid off. Heidi was impressed and we spent more time making out under the bleachers than we did dancing.

Next, encased in glass, is an X-box. I exchanged my PlayStation for an X-box because everyone had an X-box and was playing with each other online. The guys and I started binging video games every night and were walking into school looking like zombies.

Although none of this seems real, it is all stuff that really existed or had happened. It is memory lane. A museum of my life. Artifacts I thought long gone perfectly preserved for me to view again. I’m not sure why I am here or how I got here. It all seems surreal.

Another statue comes into view. This one is of Kathleen Summers and I wrapped in each other’s arms, passionately kissing. Kathleen moved into our school district during my sophomore year. It was love at first sight. She was a gorgeous brunette with hazel eyes who set my heart to flames every time she laughed. She was a cheerleader. I was the tight end on the football team and forward on the basketball team. We hung out with the same crowds and did everything together. Most things leading to sex.

There is a glass case that holds our crowns from when we were voted prom king and queen.

There is a large, framed board on the wall with every photo, ticket stub, and receipt from every date we had been on.

My tux and her dress from prom are on mannequins.

There is a display case with the keys to my first car.

Another display case holds my lettermen’s jacket and class ring.

There is a painting of us with the guys and their girlfriends at graduation.

Another painting of me and my parents at graduation.

Roped off is one of the canoes we all took on a float trip after graduation.

And there is another painting where Kathleen and the guys all came by the house to say goodbye before leaving for college.

As I walk forward the light dissipates. Fog rolls in over my feet. I see another statue. It is of me, sitting on the ground with my legs crossed and my chin on my chest.

In a display case is a bong.

Roped off is a beer keg with a pyramid of beer cans on top.

There is a painting of Kathleen crying. We were seeing each other long distance. She held up her end of the bargain, but I started sleeping with random women. She found out from her sister and broke things off.

In another painting, my mom is sitting on my bed crying. My room is filled with dirty laundry and trash. I had gotten fired from my job and refused to get another one, opting to play video games and partying when I wasn’t sleeping.

The Greek architecture fades away behind the returning fog. It’s now night. I can see red lights up ahead. I run towards them. It’s a car, shriveled up under the impact of a truck, flipped upside down. I go to assist the driver and the driver is me, bloody and unconscious.

I try to run away but cannot go any farther. I try to run to the left and to the right but cannot go anywhere. I run back through the museum of my life, past my teen years, past my childhood, past my infancy, and end up back at the accident.

Everything begins to disintegrate. The car falls through the ground. I run. The marble floor, the wall, and the ceiling of the museum are crumbling behind me. I occasionally look over my shoulder and watch as artifacts fall into the chasm that is chasing me. I run so far that I return to where the chasm begins. I’m trapped. It has overcome me, and I fall.

It seemed like I was falling for an eternity, but when I land, I land in bed with a thud. Doctors and nurses are hurrying around me. There are wires and tubes running around me, attached to me. Machines are making various noises. It is chaos. My parents stand outside my room watching. I’m alive.