The walls be­tween the re­al­ity of my box and the sur­re­al­ity of my imag­i­na­tion are some­times thin, but I can­not help but imag­ine that, were I to imag­ine some­thing, I’d imag­ine some­thing else. Some­how, for all the vivid­ness of my imag­i­na­tion, and for all my long­ing to for­ever sink into it, the vivid re­al­ity of this box still out­runs my imag­ined at­tempts to es­cape it, and any real at­tempts fare less well still, al­ways cul­mi­nat­ing in an iden­ti­cal event:

I wake up on my bed.

I wake up on my bed, just as I have done be­fore ten thou­sand times over. I wake up on this bed, in this box, alone but for the ants, alone in my box, a large box, fifty feet to a side, twenty to the other, if my feet are a foot long.

It is of­ten warm but rarely stuffy, which as time passes only flum­moxes me more and more, as in all my years in this box I have yet to find any ap­par­ent open­ings through which even air could travel, much less the food which I wake up on my bed and find laid out upon the deep red rose wood of the desk.

Shiny bolts that bolt the desk and the bed to the floor match the large rings mounted upon them, use­less for want of rope, for which I’ve never dis­cerned a use, but have fan­ta­sized aplenty, and which like­wise match the shiny screws se­cur­ing this mon­th’s beau­ti­ful rug into the floor.

Over in the cor­ner where the wood turns to mar­ble, the walls are lined with mir­rors I can­not shat­ter. A mar­ble basin and shiny metal faucets on the floor make a sink, next to the toi­let, which sits, noth­ing to speak of, be­side where the wa­ter falls from the ceil­ing, warm to some­one else’s taste, all with the el­e­gant grav­ity of some­one else’s de­sign.

Their de­sign is that I am here, and here I am, and here I have been, ever since I first woke up on this bed, on a day which some­times, in dreams, I half-re­mem­ber with flashes of gold and a sweet taste I still chase but never find.

Choco­late is not the same, though every night I re­ceive some new choco­late con­coc­tion with a fancy hand-inked cal­li­graphic name pho­to­copied onto a sturdy pa­per menu with al­ready-cho­sen items.

Ex­cept tonight.

I wake up on my bed. I an­tic­i­pate that smell, whether it be a drink or cake, bar or pie, that smell of choco­late…

Upon the desk: fork on the left, knife on the right, fac­ing out, plate in the mid­dle: pro­sciutto lay­ered over as­para­gus with a bal­samic re­duc­tion; a filet of salmon; fried strands of onion; no choco­late.

I will not re­act. I will com­plete my lessons. I will prac­tice my writ­ing. I will be good. I will get choco­late again.