THE DAY OF FAREWELL
13. I encountered deeply ingrained issues. I had been talking to myself for who knows how long, and with each uttered word, I learned new ones. I learned the word ‘birth,’ the word ‘issue,’ the phrase ‘deeply ingrained,’ the word ‘speak,’ the word ‘perhaps,’ the phrase ‘for how long,’ the phrase ‘to oneself,’ the conjunction ‘and,’ the word ‘conjunction,’ the word ‘after,’ the word ‘every,’ the word ‘word,’ the word ‘thus,’ the word ‘learn,’ the word ‘news,’ the word ‘phrase,’ the word ‘enough,’ and many more and many more. Otherwise, how could I even speak, even if just to myself? In truth, the words were the same, but to me, they felt different, entirely different, and I relearned them from scratch, as if they were completely new. However, I managed to open my eyes—somehow, who knows how—and beheld five white walls. Excluding the floor, which was behind me since I was lying down, there were five white walls in the room. It was fortunate there weren’t more than five, because even if there were, they would still be just walls.