Thinking Inside The Box
I wake up in a Space Capsule Bed. Not in space—in a hotel in Potts Point. A space capsule bed is a white mattress surrounded by white plastic walls, white plastic door, and white plastic ceiling. My iPhone is screaming from outside the compartment. My alarm is always set for 8am. I try to pull open the sliding door, it moves only half a centimetre on its tracks. The banging is out of rhythm with my alarm tune. ‘Morning Rise’ is a song which crescendos. The longer you leave the alarm to play, the more irritating it can become. I turn on the light. The door is the shape of an elongated hexagon; the ridges across its surface do seem space-like. Aesthetically, it is an interesting door but my increasing heartbeat distracts from any appreciation of thermoformed, space-themed polymer panels. The door is stuck.
The door won’t open. I’m locked inside. I’m trapped in a Space Capsule Bed. I can’t get out. I can’t open the door. I need to do something with my hands, I wobble the door three more times. My alarm is getting louder, I swallow rising nausea.
“Help.”
“HELP!”
“My door is stuck!”
The noise of the alarm is screeching. It's insistent, it’s ringing louder than my voice. Somebody else has to hear it. Someone has to find me.
In any situation it is important to stay calm. Even if you have a regular bladder. I rock on my sit bones. I fidget from side to side. I don’t know how long alarms keep ringing before they give up. The bed has a control panel, where the title is written Space Capsule Bed.
The panel includes:
USB-A charging port
USB-C charging port
Lighting control (of three different light sources)
Ventilation controls
Key card slot to activate electricity
Unhelpful instructions, such as “keep quiet”
One particularly unhelpful button, which does not release the door lock, despite saying “Unlock”
The USB-A charging port doesn’t work. If it had worked last night, I would’ve charged my phone inside the capsule. If I had charged it here, I would have my phone to call for help. If I could call for help, I wouldn’t have to be here. I turn on the button for “Anion Disinfection”. I turn off the reading light. In near darkness I lie back down and listen to the persevering alarm.
Is it anions that are intended to be disinfected or are anions useful in the process of disinfection? Anion. Is only one lonely ion responsible for infecting/dis/infecting the coffin-sized volume of air around me? The crack around the edges of the door shows daylight. Is it still a door if it won’t open? The immovable hexagon has become another panel, another separation. I wonder if I’m getting used to it. I think I am. I wonder if everyone else is also getting used to it. To the alarm, to me being missing, to an unopenable door in Potts Point. I turn on the ceiling light, which is dimmer than the reading light was. I notice the dirt underneath my fingernails, but I leave it there. At the moment that seems the safest place for it. The real question is how to pass the time.
The contents of the white cube are:
Foam mattress, white cover
Duvet, white waffle sheet
Pillow, white pillowcase; waffle texture on one side, plain on the other
Control panel
Mirror, reflecting white walls
Myself, red pyjama t-shirt, pink pj shorts
One notebook, green cover, white lined pages
One pen, Uni-ball AIR
Hotel keycard.
Last night I slept badly. I was snuffling and I had nightmares about a remorseless water monitor lizard. The worst part was other lizards had the capacity of moral conscience, only this particular individual had a deviant personality. If I had slept well before, the whole issue would be bearable. If I didn’t have a mosquito bite on the corner of my ankle. If I didn’t need to pee. If the alarm would SHUT OFF.
Things I am grateful for:
I am warm under the duvet
I am clean and dry
I have the opportunity to reflect
I have multiple choices of light sources
The giant lizard isn’t here
I have space to stretch
I can see myself in the mirror (entertainment)
I switch my lighting from overhead to mirror light. The lights on the wall turn white first, I press the button again, turning them yellow, next blue, then green, finally purple, and then off again. I flick through my options a couple of times, settling on purple in the end. The alarm is still going.
I decided to take notice of my breath. I start counting on the inhale. I only get to three before I realise. At five I know for certain—I’m never getting out. The time I spend here will elongate infinitely. Maybe the receptionist is walking up the stairs to check on me as I write this sentence. It doesn’t matter when I’m found. I will have been trapped forever. Time on the outside can continue, but inside we’ve already slipped into forever waiting. I’m drowning in time. It’s thick and sticky and it clogs my throat and it weighs every breath and I inhale, which lasts a lifetime and then I exhale and I’m on the edge of choking, trapped, reeling, falling and outside: the world spins; the sun rises and falls. Inside: the space capsule is adrift from time, untethered, full of emptiness. White walls, white ceiling, white mattress, white light. I wonder what happened...? In the end...to the outside…Was it nuclear warfare? Climate change? Anti-biotic resistance?
Things I’m grateful for:
Once upon a time, getting trapped in a chamber with anion disinfection systems. Getting suspended in space and having the opportunity to exist forever outside of time. A still existence, sat propped up by a white pillow against the wall.