Cage
With her lipstick and pieces of toilet paper, she’s been drawing the world to me.
Picture after picture, nothing is left untouched, and we sit here for hours, maybe even days, just talking to each other.
I’m overwhelmed with information, taking it in like a sponge. I can’t stop listening and looking at everything she’s showing me because I can feel the excitement whenever I think of the possibilities.
She asks me what my father has taught me, and she seems surprised. Apparently, he didn’t teach me many things. Only what was necessary … Like what’s food and what isn’t, he’s shown me a few colors and their names, taught me how to train my body and how to fight, how to talk… and how to fuck.
Her stories are never-ending. She talks about cities and people, what they look like, where they live. Houses and trees, gardens and flowers. All kinds of animals, big and small, mountains and rivers. Summer, winter, fall. I’d never even heard of them before she told me about them.
The world is so big … it’s almost hard to believe.
My father was my teacher, but he never told me anything like this. He never taught me to read the words either. I almost envy her for being able to read and write them with her lipstick when I can’t.
I wish I knew all this before. My father always told me there was only this room and the rooms beyond. The pit where I fight and all the rooms in this place are my home. I don’t know anything else.
But she … she’s seen the world.
She’s lived it all.
I don’t know why he didn’t tell me, but it doesn’t matter right now.
All that matters is that she’s here … showing me life.
Real life.
Inside her eyes, her mouth, her whispers.
Her voice sounds like that of an angel calling out to me from heaven.
It’s too beautiful. Too perfect.
And so is the world.
Where we live now is just a dark, damp hole far away from any of the life she spoke of.
I yearn to see what she’s seen. To watch the fish swim through the sea. To see the birds fly in the sky. To experience the people and their habits. To see where she lives.
I want to learn it all.
But I already know it’s impossible.
Despite telling myself not to think about it, the realization that we’re stuck here still creeps back into my head every time the conversation ends.
Because I know damn well I was born here … in a place where no one will ever know my name … a place that might as well disappear from the world, and no one would notice.
That place is my home. And she doesn’t belong there.
I can’t help but grind my teeth. I’m actually jealous of her even though I don’t want to be.
Because it makes me feel out of place … and it’s not fair to her.
My father put her in here with me.
He took her from that place. That place where the sky is blue and the ground is green. That place she calls home.
He had no right.
Yet I can’t stop wanting to know more. More. More. It’s never enough. I need to know everything there is to know, and I need to know about her. Who she is. What she likes and dislikes. What she wants.
If she could ever want me the way I want her.
And if I could ever give her what she truly needs.
Freedom.
I sigh.
“Talk … more about you,” I say.
“Well … I have parents too. A mom and a dad, like you.” She smiles.
I shake my head. “No mom.”
“Right …” She frowns, rubbing her lips. “Where is she?”
I shrug, not knowing the answer. Father never told me about her. All I remember is him. There was never anyone else but him.
“Oh …” She takes a breath and sniffs. “I’m sorry.”
I bite my lip. “Tell me more about you.”
She looks up, a tentative smile briefly appearing on her lips before a delicious blush overshadows everything.
“I used to have a sister a long time ago …” She looks down at the concrete floor briefly.
“Sister?”
She frowns, surprised at my question. “You were born, right? What if another girl was born from your mom and dad? That’s a sister.”
Interesting. I never realized it was possible to have more than one child. Father always told me that I was the only child who mattered to him, and that he never wanted anyone else but me. And that I was to make a child just as he did. Someone who would follow in my footsteps.
But I am curious … what my sister would’ve been like if I had one.
“And a man?”
“That’s a brother,” she explains.
I wish I had a brother. Or a sister. Doesn’t matter to me. I just want someone to talk to.
I imagine Ella talked with her sister all the time. I wonder why she isn’t here, though. Why Father didn’t take her too.