The Room continued...

But what was important was that the room had somehow channeled its frustration, its shared loneliness, its anger and its wish to be recognised into a physical act. It would not be long before it could express its views and wishes. But what would those be…?


One day, the room was waiting for its poet, or however one should describe the inhabitant of the room from the room's own non-existant perspective, (intruder? imperialist? invader?) for longer than usual. At least, longer in experience - could it be that the expanding power of the room had allowed it to access that most sacred of human feelings: boredom? - if not actually longer in time.

The room did not have yet a sense of the imperilled nature of its own existence. Unlike a mortal being, conscious of decay and death, the room knew not these things. It had not seen the awesome power of a wrecking ball casually deployed by the signature of some urban developer who had ideas above his station from one of those ghastly shows in Olympia. It knew not the sickly sweet infection of damp, nor the silent gnawing of rats.

In short, it was like the pre-enlightenment Siddhartha Gautama. No sense of death, sickness or old age, blissfully enraptured in the all-consuming light of innocence and happy ignorance. But, like for the canonical Buddha, contented rapture was to be limited, and indeed false in the end without further, and more fundamental understanding.

The room, had it more awareness and understanding, a better sense of the bigger picture being drawn, erased and redrawn in a billion different ways by billions of different hands outside its confines, might have been afraid. What if the poet/invader never returned? Who will live here? But these questions went unasked. It wasn't up to questions, yet.

Perhaps, you are wondering, perhaps the room could no longer sense the poet. Perhaps the room has changed itself and moved beyond the spheres of the mortal realm. Perhaps the poet could not bear to enter the room in its new state. Perhaps the poet had been merged with the growing it that it was.

You must remind yourself that none of these are true. In an older time we would have said 'it was merely a coincidence' or some such uncaring dismissal. But we won't find out here what happened to the poet, oh no. Not for some time.

The room felt a sense of responsibility for itself for the first time. But not very clearly. Mainly just manifested in the spines of the shelves. They were doing a sterling job, after all. Poets like to read.