I live in a white box, surrounded by nothing in it. I do not see anything, I do not hear anything, and I speak nothing. Everything in this box is pure, halcyon, serene, and empty. I keep walking, and walking, and walking mindlessly. My mind is blank, like a white canvas that is untouched by an artist, like a poet who lost words, like a child who loses their imagination. I keep walking without thinking about anything. However, my legs do not tire, my body feels nothing. It feels like they are numb even when I regained consciousness.
The longer I walk, the longer I think, the longer I realize. What am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? I keep asking questions that nobody can answer. Nobody? What is a “body”? Is there any other “body” except mine in this world? I keep asking myself questions that I cannot comprehend.
The longer I walk the longer I am lost in my thoughts. I become self-aware of my questions. I keep saying new words that I do not know. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, joy, person, existence. What is that? Am I a person? Am I truly alive? I can’t understand anything.
The longer I walk, the longer I am drowned in the sea of thoughts, my legs become numb, my body feels exhausted, my mind feels overloaded, and my soul fatigued. “Am I alive?” “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?” I keep repeating the questions. I don’t know anything. My head becomes a mess.
From walking, I begin running, looking for a reason behind my existence. I keep running, looking to my right and leave only to see a barren land of absolute white. I keep repeating my question, “Where am I?” “What am I?” “Why do I exist?” while I run.
I run and run until my body can’t take it anymore. Then, I scream, in anguish. That is the first sound that I make. At that moment, I somehow felt joy. Like a kid receiving candy, like a son drawing his parents in stickman form, like a person who’s finally got a job. I scream and scream again; feeling accomplished by nothing.
I begin to run again. At that moment, I begin to try something that I would not do: launching myself with my knees, opening my eyelids and closing them again and again, clenching nothing but air with my hands, breathing, and laying on the land that is filled with nothing but the color of white. At that moment, I felt serenity in my heart.
I begin to run again. I begin to realize that there is something in me, something that I could do. Not just thinking and walking mindlessly, I found something that makes me feel like a person even if I don’t understand that concept completely.
I kept running and running until I bumped into something. I fall to my knees and wonder what’s stopping me. I swing my hand around and I feel something solid in front of me. I guess this is the end of this box. I can’t push my way on the solid object. Yet again, I do something that I don’t do. I swing my leg on the solid object that is in front of me. A loud thud can be heard. However, my leg is in pain. It was so painful that I had to crouch and wince.
However, I begin to realize that there is a dent in the spot where I kick the unknown solid object. I begin to swing my arm as hard as I can on the dent that I made. It works, there’s another dent. Thus, I punch it again, and again, and again, continuously, repeatedly. Until a fluid came out of my hand. The fluid has an unknown color. However, it is not white.
My hand feels in pain. I want to stop, I really do. I want to stop and stay here. I don’t want to feel pain anymore. But I had to. I want to experience new stuff that I cannot experience, to feel alive, so that I can understand why I am here, and what my existence is for. I begin to punch the dents that I make yet again; I am filled with determination.
The object cracked. I see a bright light beneath that crack. I feel hope, a new feeling that I experience. I felt accomplished once again so I kept punching the object repeatedly until it was falling apart. The object crumbles. The wall and floor around me also crumbles. I quickly realized that there was no going back. This is the choice I made.
There I see a light and I feel like it’s pulling me. I accept the light and I am floating toward the light.
The light blinds me. And suddenly I am in a patch of grass, looking down at my feet. I didn’t know that the grass was ticklish around my feet. Then I began to look up, I saw dazzling scenery. I saw a field full of flowers. Some flowers were dancing with the wind. The sky looks so vibrant accompanied by small streaks of clouds.
I didn’t regret leaving the white box. I feel alive just by the scenery. I want to explore the field to see how beautiful the world is.
Writer: M. Walin Geonte
Editor: Vivi Julianti & Cherry Larissa Hendranata (QC)
Illustrator: Ariel Harpa