I've studied it. Every crevasse, every strange angle, every subtle nuance of its black hue--I've studied. I've followed the way it turns and flows and connects together but am unable to grasp it, unable to understand it. It seems to lead my eye around teasingly only to drop me off where I began all too abruptly. And when I finally get flustered, I'll try to pick it up and throw it at a wall--but it budges not.

I will tell you how I happened upon this anomaly because it seemed as normal as anything else that I usually do, but first I'll describe it further so you might visualize it better. What is it, you ask? Well, very simply it's a black box. A little, black box at that. A very curious color of black though, almost a lighter hue suggesting faded age. I don't know how many shades of black there are or if there are even any more shades than just one. Sometimes when I'm lying in bed and thinking about it, I'll swear that it is dark purple in my mind. And when I think to ask someone else what color he or she thinks it to be, I pause and reconsider.

The box is approximately four inches deep as well as wide and tall. It has a top that for the life of me, I cannot manage to remove. The very first thing I tried to do with it was to remove the top and I regret to say that it has remained stubbornly tight ever since. I call it a box so that you may understand what I'm talking about, but a box by definition has six sides set at right angles. This box joins impossibly with obtuse and acute angles running into and out of each other. It is very tiresome to look at. If it were wrapped in paper one would mistake it for a Rolex watch or perhaps a piece of fine jewelry--probably a finger ring.

It feels to be bound in velvet because the finger seems to glide across it as if it is not fond of being groped.

A little, black, velvet box. I hope that I have described it well enough for you to visualize its appearance. Now I will briefly explain how I found it....or how it found me.

I woke one morning in a light sweat. May had creeped around awfully fast and the weather was beginning to boil. The rituals of my morning were so embedded into my brain that I could have performed them blind-folded. Swiftly out of the shower, I ran up the creaky stairs and dressed myself (along with the usual morning hygienic preparations). When I arrived on campus, I unconsciously proceeded to my 8:00am English class. Entering college at a young age was sort of difficult for me. I've always felt as if school walled me in, like I could never realize my full potential in a place like this. The class ended early with the professor waving his pedantic hand, so I walked quickly back to my vehicle. I was just about to maneuver into the driver's seat when I saw something glowing over the hood of the car. At first I just looked but when my curiosity had been whetted enough, I threw my book bag into the back seat and went to check it out. With my establishing glance, I saw nothing. Then I went walking through the grassy area, kicking as I went--certainly I was not about to drop to my knees to search for this thing. Before I could react, my left knee hit the soiled ground and my hands went running through the blades. I don't know why I wanted to find it so bad, whatever it was, and when I think back to that moment I see it only through a hazy fog as I often see things in my past. After a moment or two or three--I cannot remember--I gave up and rose to my feet. I cursed myself when I saw that my good corduroy pants had been deeply soiled so I shuffled back to my car disgusted.

There it was, on the hood of my car. Directly in the middle. But it was only a little, black box and it was not glowing. I didn't think much of it at the time, so I threw it into my bag and drove home. I ran up the stairs to my room, passing my motionless parents on the way. What a familiar site, I must tell you about them. They do nothing, they know nothing, they don't talk to me--hell, they don't even talk to each other. Dad just sits there reading his newspaper and when I ask him how his day went he usually replies with one word answers like: "Yeah" or "Nah" or the ever popular, "Shitty!" Sometimes I'm not even lucky enough to be serenaded with an actual word, sometimes he'll just grunt: "Hmmmph" or "Eeeyah." And when he's done reading the paper--which is of no use since he knows very little about what goes on in the world--he passes it to Mom, who in turn passes him the coffee pot. Then he'll burn his hand and curse at her as if it were her fault. She, of course, takes the abuse and apologizes. Other than these ritualistic skits, they do not converse. That is what really disturbs me. I don't mind that they don't talk to me, but I wish they'd talk to each other instead of sitting at the kitchen table all day constantly wishing it were morning. Mom rarely is seen without her morning attire and Dad hasn't been to work for the last four years. I think if they could cage me up, they would.

All these thoughts went through my mind as I ran by them up to my sanctuary. I took the black box out of my bag and positioned it on the night stand next to my bed. That night I began having the terrible dream. I dreamt of a shadow of some sort, a large, bulky, shadow that would come banging up the stairs and into my room like a hurricane. I would fall on me so that I was unable to move. It would immobilize me, much like a straight jacket would immobilize a mental patient. And it would chuckle into my ear, never putting any words together, just mumbling and chuckling. Every night, it would come rumbling up the stairs. I could never tell exactly when it would come. Sometimes it came as soon as my head touched the pillow and sometimes it would come just before I was about to wake and dress for school. I cannot fully explain how terrifying it is to have this shadowy mass laying on top of me. Very often I would lose my breath, which is usually when it retreated--often times leaping out the window or on rare occasion it would slowly withdraw into one of the corners of my room and dissolve into the dead shadows that never used to frighten me. One night it had come charging up the stairs louder than I had ever heard. I can only guess at the actual mass of this thing that creates such ferocious banging on stairs that are well carpeted. It fell on me very heavily and began to chuckle in my ear and breath into my face, I could only close my eyes and wish for it to leave as soon as possible. It's like not be able to appease a torching itch under a cast--that kind of mind rending feeling.

One night, the box disappeared and I didn't have the horrible dream. That's when I realized that it was the box that was causing this dream. I slept well for several nights until it returned--slightly smaller and darker.

Darker.

Returning from breakfast, I found it sitting on my night stand and smiling. Even though it had no mouth with which to smile, I knew it was smiling and laughing at me as if to pronounce itself victorious. Infuriated, I picked it up and flung it out the window. Yet somehow I knew that when I went to look it wouldn't be there, and it wasn't. Turning, I found it once again planted firmly on my night stand. I thought I should try to set it on fire but when I moved to lift it, the box resisted. Like it weighed a ton. Suddenly, it began to flutter and ripple like gelatin. It miraculously began to form itself into what I took to be a human hand that came thrusting at me. It slowly clenched into a fist--a black, velvet, gelatin-like fist that beckoned to me with its motioning forefinger. Like a furious mother calling for her child. I thought I should run, so I did. Downstairs to where mom and dad were sitting at the kitchen table with the lights off. The room was dark, but I could tell by the reflection coming from dad's glasses that he was there and mom shuffling her feet was a dead give away. I just stood there wondering if they knew I was in the room. I heard mom slurp her coffee followed by a loud crash just above my left ear. Apparently, she had thrown her cup at me, it was her way of wishing me off. When I reluctantly returned upstairs, strange things continued. The box was lying on one of its awkward sides and its top was spinning next to it like a coin. An alien glow emanated from within the box, which is probably what attracted my eye on campus. The glow was golden with purple streaks veining through it and grew brighter and brighter for every inch that I approached. Then, quite unexpectedly, it stopped. And I could see that it was just a plain, old penny. Not even a bright, shiny penny at that. Just sort of a dull, worn coin with its date half obscured. I quickly put the top back on it and threw it out the window again, this time I didn't bother to look. I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised with what ease I had rid myself of it this time.

I hadn't been to school through this entire ordeal, but now since it has been out of my life for the last two weeks I've returned to some semblance of normality.

So one ordinary night--a night on which the little, black box had been driven so far from my mind that I had difficulty recalling what it looked like--I fell to sleep to the steady hush of a gentle Spring breeze.

I woke the next morning feeling thoroughly rested but a little bewildered at the darkness of my room. Mom must have found some hidden energy to have come up here and drawn the shades. I rolled out of bed in the direction of the light switch near the door. Funny though, it didn't respond how I thought it would. I staggered back to my bed to find that it was not here anymore. I moved around in the darkness in hopes of touching something familiar, a lamp, a pair of pants, my computer. Nothing. I could feel all four walls, but it seemed as though everything had gone away. How could this be? I had fallen asleep in this room and had risen in a foreign place. Disgusted, I sat up against a wall in total darkness. I ran my hand over it to find that it felt different. Nothing like the wood panels that I've become so accustomed to. It felt almost like...like velvet. Suddenly, a familiar chuckle came thundering down from nowhere and I knew where I was. This black box that had taken control of my thoughts and imprisoned my mind had dealt me another blow. I'd been imprisoned again, not of the mind but of the body. I was trapped like a rodent in a cage, finally walled in.

I've been imprisoned here for a time that I am unable to determine. My eyes as of yet have not adjusted to this darkness, like they normally would. But this is no common darkness, it is more like blackness--three dimensional blackness.