ENTRY #717

I lived in The Manhattan. Apartment #101 last door on the left. It was late. I had just come home from work. I had been working full time as an entry level graphic designer at a fortune 500 company making $2 more than I made at a party supply store in high school. Growing up this was all I had dreamed of, so to sustain this dream job I began working two 10 hour shifts on the weekends life-guarding at the local country club. Often watching upper management coworkers I’d  worked with during the work week; float around on pool noodles. I walked through the front door of my apartment throwing my stuff on the floor and sitting on the couch where I quickly fell asleep. 

Hours had passed when I finally woke up. My eyes were blurry from not having taken out my contacts. I sat there realizing my couch had been moved in my living room while I had been asleep on it. I looked around to make sense of the change when I noticed a dozen tiny eyes staring back at me behind objects and knick knacks I had collected over the years. 

“Hello?” The small beings shrunk further behind the objects they hid behind. 

“It’s okay, you can come out.” I said.

I had seen these small creatures before when I had created them for my final college project. A recruiter postcard takeaway that doubled as a foldable alien business card holder. One of the small aliens raised it’s arm from behind a coin safe I had won at Wunderland. Pointing to the corner of the room. What was once a large heater had been replaced with a ladder in this daydream. The ladders placement now gave me access to my neighbor Mr. William’s second floor apartment. Curious, why this mysterious ladder had appeared. I headed up the ladder, poking my head up through the ceiling. 

(Illustration by Felicia Cantu)

Mr. William’s second floor apartment wasn’t a part of this floor plan, rather it had been replaced with a 10 foot hallway lined with small rooms. The rooms emanated a neon glow. I hadn’t acknowledged it but the same glow had also been coming from the beings I met in my living room. Any remnants of Mr. Williams apartment were gone. All except his dog who was sitting at the base of the ceiling opening I crawled out from. He looked at me, turned around and headed towards the last room. When I didn’t follow, he turned back and barked at me. Each room was separated by shear tangerine curtains and white stucco walls. Picture window openings gave view to the bedroom that proceeded it. I was led to the last room on the left- Apartment #404. Artwork hung on the walls of the room and in the center my bed. Next to it a small stool I made in college acting as a nightstand. It caught my attention since the neon glow was radiating from it like a night light. On top of it laid a joint, a glass of liquor and two pill bottles. I sat down at the foot of the bed facing the threshold I had just crossed. Mr. Williams dog stood there looking at me but ran out of the room when the sound of footsteps started to approach. My best friend from college walked in. 

“Have I been here before?” I asked. 

“Sort of” he responded. 

“I don’t understand.” I said. 

“Doesn’t this all look familiar?” he asked. 

“Kind of… but we aren’t friends anymore right?” I trailed back. 

“No, it doesn’t matter though, you’ll always find me here.” he said while raising his arm up, pointing behind me. 

Another ladder appeared before my eyes and an opening in the ceiling that slowly began to grow till it was big enough to crawl through. He watched me as I got up, walking around the bed turning towards the ladder. I placed my hand on the first wrung looking back at him, he was gone and the room was now empty. 

I pulled myself into the ceiling and into a large white walled room. Wooden beams lined the ceiling. There was an oak-colored desk at the end of the large room, a wooden chair, and on top of the desk a small sign with the engraving “Apartment #301”. Art supplies were strewn across the table, paint splattered across the desk and my living room furniture meticulously placed around the room. I sat down observing the space I was brought to. There were no doors and no windows and no neon glow. I looked back to where I had entered, the entrance was gone. I could feel the panic setting when I finally came to the realization that I was trapped and there was no guide to lead me to the exit. 

With nothing to do, I began working on art. I spent 4 years using the art supplies to find a solution out of the room when the neon glow returned. The materials were all but gone. The water I had been using to wash my brushes had stopped replenishing itself and I was on the final drop. I made one last addition to the painting I had been working on and with that a ladder and an opening in the wall appeared. But, to my disappointment a room identical to the last was on the other side. All but a few furniture items had changed, a swim suit and a whistle thrown on the couch and a computer was now on the desk rather than art supplies. The small apartment sign now #504. With nothing but time yet again, and the entrance I came through gone. I realized I had freed myself from one prison just to go into another. I scoured the computer for a clue for my escape,   but the only thing on the computer were hundreds of design projects and a few programs. I worked on the projects for years, hoping one day another ladder would appear. Hoping at the very least one of the rotating Art Directors notated on the briefs; appearing in the work folder everyday would respond back. But nothing changed. The room had become dark and I sat with only the harsh light of the computer screen lighting my face. 

That is until I gave up. It had been 16 years since I woke up in that dream. 16 years trying to get out of this cage. This wasn’t a life or a dream it was a shiny prison. 

I sat in the desk chair thinking of ways to escape; enraged from becoming a ghost of myself, forced into a room never to see the light of day. In the silence my imagination and my memories of life began to run wild. With only the computer to access I stopped dwelling on the dream that initially brought me to this room and began embracing what little life I could remember. The program I used to draft my emails was now a journal, with only emails from myself logging my memories and stories. With every entry the neon glow began to fill the room. Until today, when it began to fill me. I was no longer doing as I was told, no longer following the direction others pointed out. I was embracing what I wanted to do regardless of the circumstances. 

The dream may have brought me here, but my imagination was the key to escape. 

A door is appearing, the ladders are gone. I see now.