Suppose you’re trapped. And all you feel is the warm exhalation of your own breath colliding with the translucent glass centimeters away from your pale, innocent face. Your palms are placed flat on the window as you gaze through the see-through wall, your head tilting slightly to one side as your mind wanders. There is no room to move; there is no room to think. Fours walls. Surrounding you. Restraining you. Protecting you.
Protection from what? The outside world. Reality. Call it what you wish. Your mind doesn’t quite understand. What’s wrong with Outside? You see a leaf, slowly turning scarlet as it transforms from its regular pale yellow color. Its skin is dotted with miniscule brown spots. Your eyes zoom out to locate the bigger picture. Trees sway their sturdy branches in the gentle urban breeze, and the soft rush of the wind whistles through the glass and you press your cheek closer to the surface, wanting just a taste of the air brush past your hair, and your face.
Nothing.
Swallowing in dismay, you turn your face so that you could take a glimpse of the realm through the looking glass once more and to your delight, you see small game as two snow white rabbits dart into the thrush. Deer overlook past the thrush, past the trees, and past the breeze; they graze in a small meadow filled with assorted flowers in all shapes. In all sizes. Your lips form an ‘o’ in awe. Overhead, you can barely hear the squawking of the geese as they fly past the sun, creating shadows dancing upon your head. The world is so beautiful. A soft giggle emits your mouth and you blink, startled.
Laughter. You haven’t heard it in so long.
A soft sigh escapes you and you tilt your head back, meeting the back wall in an instant. Your hands slide down from the glass onto your lap and you wring them together, lips pursed in thought. What was so dangerous about Outside, you wonder and your eyebrows crease in concentration. Oh, how I wish I could go explore, you say.
And then you remember: You are trapped. And all you feel is the warm exhalation of your own breath colliding with the translucent glass centimeters away from your pale, innocent face. Frustration rips through you and your hands clench into fists, trembling slightly. An angry tear escapes your left eye. Of course, you snarl, you are trapped because you are not intelligent enough to find a way out. You are trapped because you are too pathetic to find the motivation to escape. You are not beautiful; you are so ordinary that no one would even turn a blind eye to catch your appearance. Worthless, rotten, unwanted.
Trapped.
A scream tears through your throat as the verbal attacks bombard you endlessly, spewing out tormenting phrases and agonizing remarks. You cannot stop them. They come from your own mind. Slowly, you start to deteriorate and your back slides down the back wall as you crumple to a heap on the ground, stuck in an everlasting fetal position as the sobs penetrate the glass walls all around you.
The breeze stops moving. The trees stop swaying. The leaves stop changing. The animals stare at you as the torture continues... and continues... and continues. There is no end once they start. And forever they will abuse you until you are nothing but an empty shell of who you used to be. Every day, every second, and every moment. There is nothing you can do. You are the victim and you are the abuser. It is at that moment that you realize. The walls aren’t protecting you from reality. The walls are protecting reality from you.
So, suppose you’re trapped. And all you feel is the warm exhalation of your own breath colliding with the translucent glass centimeters away from your pale, guilty face.
--
-Disenchanted
Hmm, it's not bad, the initial paragraph is particularly powerful. However it's all a bit wordy and readers get caught up in the description when the story is impeded because of it. That is to say, describing glass as
is really jarring. I know you want find a unique way of expressing the scene, and I understand why you want to avoid cliches and so on, but it shouldn't come at the expense of the flow.SB
Very powerful use of alliteration and a very unique concept. I LOVED IT!!! I really wanted to take a branch and bash the glass away so that the character could be free but then I guess the whole scene would have lost some of it's power then : /