the blue room

i stood in the middle of the empty room, a little girl lost, as i stared around at the four empty walls of my new home. the magnolia paint was flaky in places and punctured by marks from previous pins, which had probably once held in place some other inmate's attempt at decoration. not knowing what to do, i plonked down my suitcase and sat in the middle of the floor feeling bereft. glancing up, i fixated on the one adornment present on the walls. i stared at the clock with such intensity; i became almost positive for a moment that i could have made time slow, or even stop, had i really wanted it to. it was a thought that was both tempting and repellent, for here i was, poised at the cusp of a transformative period in life, the beginning of everything after the painful stasis of the last few months.

i counted down the minutes obsessively, clearing the thick, foggy mess inside my mind with structured sentences, viewing my predicament from the numerous perspectives which clamoured for attention there. the tick tock of the clock marched steadily onwards. it's repetitive rhythm comforted me, yet i no longer wished to see life through the frosted glass of hypnosis. i shook my head and refused to be drawn in, instead turning towards the large bay window. i dragged the heavy, solid, wooden chair from underneath the desk in search of the bright sunlight of the crisp autumn morning. the low grating noise of the chair making contact with the threadbare carpet irritated my frayed nerves, but again, i forced myself to ignore it. getting over these obsessive idiosyncrasies was necessary to lead a normal life, so i had been told.

as i squinted out across the posh, landscaped gardens, the ding dong of the doorbell shocked me back into the here and now. i whirled around. visitors. but I didn’t know anybody here? who could it be? opening the door, i stood face to face with a petite, dwarf-like girl wearing dramatic eye make-up and a long, flowing tie-dye skirt. she had the appearance of something magical. she grinned a wide, toothy smile and told me her name was ella. before i knew it, she had bounded past me towards the window, rabbiting incoherent sentences over her shoulder. squinting past both her and my green surroundings, i could just about make out manchester in the distance. the skyline betrayed the cities industrial history, now also joined by sleek, contemporary architecture. this was the same city in which i had begun university a year before. didn’t get very far, and somehow ended up here instead. looking back, it was doomed from the first.