The Way Out

He looked around his lonely room,

everything seemed the same as always.

The walls were still in need of new paint,

the former light blue, now faded,

to the color of sadness.

“I’m dreaming.” he said aloud,

startling himself,

the words were spoken

before he fully realized the thought.

Once spoken, however,

there was no denying their truth.

He had no idea how he had come

to this revelation,

he still felt the same,

there were no telltale signs

hidden about the room.

Yet, he still knew that he was dreaming,

as sure as he knew he was trapped here.

This thought startled him as well,

and again, the truth of it

was not to be denied.

He walked to the door, still wondering

how he could be so sure this was a dream

when everything seemed so perfectly normal.

He reached for the doorknob,

as his hand closed on it

a mental voice spoke up,

with perfect certainty.

“This is not the way out.”

He tried the door anyway

but the knob wouldn’t turn,

the door remained fast.

There was no lock on this door,

this was fact, immutable,

yet the door couldn’t be opened.

He pounded on it in frustration,

to no avail.

The sound was dull, muted,

and there was no response

from elsewhere in the house.

Not that he had expected one,

he lived alone,

and that fact remained as true

as everything else in this dream.

He turned away from the door,

walked over to one of the windows,

again, the voice in his mind spoke.

“This is not the way out.”

Sure of what would happen,

he tried the window,

it would not open.

He looked out, there was his back yard,

as real and as in need of attention as ever.

He picked up a chair, swung it at the window,

his frustration and growing fear

adding force to the blow.

The chair rebounded, fell to the floor,

with the same muted noise

as his pounding on the door.

The window remained, pristine.

He paused for a moment,

his breath rasping in his throat,

he strove to find his center, his calm.

There had to be a way out,

he only needed to think clearly

to find it.

He reached for his cell phone,

again, that damned inner voice spoke.

“This is not the way out.”

He tried the phone anyway, no service,

he had never had reception problems in here before.

In rage and fear, he hurled the phone at the wall,

watched it shatter and fall to the floor

in a pile of jagged pieces,

all with the same muted sound.

Immediately he regretted it,

he wore no watch

and there were no clocks in his room,

his phone was the only way

he had to check the time.

He glanced at the shelf

where he always kept his phone,

there it was, sitting where it belonged.

Quickly he turned back to where he had thrown it,

there was no mark on the wall,

no pile of debris on the floor.         

He understood.

This was a dream,

his mind created it, his mind could change it.

He willed the windows to fly open,

nothing happened.

He gathered himself,

focused all his will on the door unlocking,

it remained stuck, unmoving.

Trying to shut out his growing fear and anger

he attempted to will an exit to appear.

He looked around, no new doors,

no opening in the walls, or mystical portal.

Then he saw it, on his nightstand,

sitting on his nightstand

that only moments before

held nothing but a book and a lamp,

was a gun.

He reached for it, hesitated,

that mental voice came again.

“This, is the way out.”

So it had come to this,

he should have known.

It had been on his mind for weeks,

his subconscious had made the decision

that his waking mind could not.

All his fear, rage, and frustration left him,

he picked up the gun,

marveling at how right it felt in his hand.

Briefly, he wondered if it’s sound

would have the same muted quality

that everything else had.

Then, he pointed it at his temple

and left the room.