Infinite curses! The gentleman with very thick glasses and bad breath had returned again today, as he warned he would.

Curse that man, his thick glasses and his bad breath. Also, the clubbed leg on which he hobbles. Curse him.

And curse as well this room. If only I could leave this four walled prison... if only that, then perhaps I would be free to speak as I please. But it is not to be. And this tether, this 'cord' to which I am forever reliant upon for my own life, would not be pulled from this wall, not if I am yet to breathe.

And so it is: my arms are my arms, my legs my legs, my head may always be my head... but my life does not belong to me.

Alas, alas.

I sign my name,
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It is another day. He did not return today. This fact should not surprise me. I cannot doubt that he is aware of the damage he has caused me, and I can only imagine the guilt he must now experience, but it is a small solace to know this.

Another small comfort: while milling about the room yesterday, he (clumsily, as is his way) knocked against the sole standing lamp of this room. This action caused the lamp to fall against the single small window of my room, brushing aside the muslin curtain. Failing to have noticed, and therefore not having replaced the lamp to its upright position, he has left a tiny view of the world outside: a small, triangular part at the edge of a small square of glass. Were my cord longer, surely I would have pulled the drape aside long ago. If only I could reach it.

At the end of my cord (it pulled taught - so much so that I fear it might pull from the wall again) I stretch my arm toward the window. I am still much too far from the curtain to pull it further aside, but I stretch. And I feel... warmth.

A sun's ray, triangular as it is shaped by the precious gash of the fabric, cuts across my hand. It is warm.

I sign my name,
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