A bit of randomness I wrote from the prompt of ‘one room’.  

 

 

Everything exploded in a kaleidoscope of red and orange, and the next thing I knew I was standing in a completely white room with no doors or windows, and I hadn’t the slightest idea how I got there.

I couldn’t tell how big the room was.  There was no source of light and no shadows cast on the corners of the walls or ceiling, so it rather looked as if there were no walls at all, but a great expanse of emptiness stretching to the nonexistent horizon.  

In front of me stood a sign which read in thick black letters, ‘THE LINE STARTS HERE.’  Beyond it was a classy man dressed in a white Italian suit, sitting behind a white mahogany desk.  He couldn’t have been more than thirty, but his hair was snow white, as was his skin, like a marble statue.  He spun around and around in a swivel chair while reading names from a clipboard.

“Clemens, Thomas J.”

The room was empty but for him and me.  

“Briggs, Stacy C.”

Naturally, nobody stepped up.

“Evans, Sheppard H.”

Startled, I raised my hand.  “Uh, here.” 

He waved me over.  His eyes were a dark, unnerving shade of purple, sharp against the pallid tone of his skin.  “Sign here, please,” he said.

I looked down at the paper he handed me.

“I can’t read this.”

“Of course you can’t,” he said.  “It’s in Latin.  Only the dead can read Latin.”

“What’s it say?”

“Hoc scriptum est mortis—”

“In English.”

“Oh.”  He shrugged.  “I have no idea.”

“Okay.”  I looked around, but there was nothing but white white white.  “Who are you?  And where am I?”

“My name is Brink.  You are Halfway Between.”

“Halfway between what?”  

“Who knows?”  He grinned.  His teeth were as white as his skin.  “But you are stuck here, for now, while you wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“Whether or not you are going to die.”  

I blinked.  “Excuse me?”

“This is the waiting room for those who waver on the edge of life and death.  Look there, and you will see.”  He pointed to a window which had not been there before.  

Skeptical, I went to the window and looked out.  

My view was of a street at night, as if I were looking down from a two story building.  Below, the lights of police cars and an ambulance strobed red and blue in the rain.  There was a car on the side of the road with a dented hood, and a man lying motionless on the wet asphalt beside it.  He wore khakis and a blue collared shirt stained with blood—with a start I realized that was exactly what I was wearing.  

I was looking at myself.

I turned to Brink.  “What—?”

“That’s you,” he said.  “Dying.  Or, trying not to, I suppose.”

I looked back at the window, but it was gone, replaced by a blank wall.

“Take your time,” Brink said cheerfully from somewhere behind me.  “I won’t mind if you stay.” 

When I turned around the desk was gone.  In the center of the room was a small table, where Brink sat in the middle of a chess game.  He no longer wore a suit but was dressed in white slacks and a white polo shirt.  He offered me the chair across from him.  

I sat down.  All the pieces on the chessboard were ivory, and all the squares white.  

“If I am dying, then what are you?” I asked.  

He moved—what I assumed was his—queen.  “Oh, I’m alive, sort of.  Your move.” 

I hesitated, then shifted a knight.

Brink grinned and tipped it over with his queen.  “Checkmate.”

“I don’t want to die,” I said. 

His mouth twitched, then he leaned forward and blew lightly on the chessboard.  All of the pieces toppled over but for one pawn, which he picked up and twirled in his hand.  My brain offhandedly wondered at the symbolism of the action.  Was I the pawn?  Or was he?

“Nobody does.”  Brink threw the pawn into the air, where it blended with the endlessly white ceiling.  It didn’t fall back down.  

“Please,” I said, feeling desperation in my chest.  “Can I go back?” 

“Of course.  There’s the door.”  He motioned vaguely behind him, where stood a door in the wall which had most definitely not been there before.

Relieved, I went to it, eager to leave the blaring white room.      

When I walked through to the other side I entered what seemed to be exactly where I had  came from, only Brink now sat a white sofa, wearing a white bathrobe, drinking pinot blanc.  The door was gone.  My stomach sank.

Brink laughed and raised his wineglass.  “Like I said, Sheppard H. Evans, you can’t leave.  You have to wait and see what happens.”

I rubbed my face.  My eyes hurt from the sterile whiteness of the room, ached from squinting in the bright pale light.  I felt weak.    

“Please, have a seat,” said Brink.  The next thing I knew I was sitting across from him in a colorless leather chair, a glass of wine in my hand.  I didn’t remember sitting down.

My clothes had turned white, as had my skin.  It gave me chills to see it like that.  I glanced around at the untextured slate walls, eyes hungry for color.  “I don’t suppose you are going to redecorate?  Maybe a little paint?”

He laughed.  “If only.  I am as much a prisoner in here as you are, my friend.  Until the decision is made, neither of us are going to leave this room, nor change it.”

“I don’t understand.”

He leaned back in the sofa, swirling his wine.  “This is the in-between place people go when they are hovering between life and death.  I have been here for five years.  In a coma.”

Five years?  I had been here for a few minutes and it seemed like eternity.  To be confined in here in this everlasting blankness, in this single room with no color or life…it was enough to drive a man mad.

“That must be…” I searched for words,  “…lonely.”

His smile turned into a frown.  “It is.  Nobody stays here for long.  In fact, you have been here longer than most.”

“How long have I been here?”

He checked his watch.  “Two and a half seconds.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Time moves differently when you’re dying.  I have been here so long I decided to make the best of it.  I take names, organize files, welcome newcomers.  It’s a homely place once you get used to it.” He shrugged.  “If that’s possible.  Want to play rummy?”  He whipped out a pack of cards from his pocket.  All the suits were the same color…purple.  

We played for a while, but my mind wasn’t on the game.  I started to wonder if dying was a better alternative than this; being trapped in absolute nothingness, alone but for a half-dead friend or two for a few seconds.  It was strange, knowing my body was lying out there on a rainy street, holding onto life by a thread, deciding whether or not to let go.

I wondered if I was strong enough to hold on.   

Somewhere, far away as if it were down a long hallway, a clock chimed.  Brink leaped to his feet, scattering purple cards and wine all over the white shag carpet at his feet.

“Would you look at the time!” he cried, wildly picking up cards.  I bent to help, but before I could they were gone, and in a blink I found myself standing in the middle of the empty white room.  The sofa and the shag carpet were gone.  Brink wore his Italian suit again.  The only color in sight was his purple eyes.

“Time for what?” I asked.  

“Nothing,” he said.  “I just like to pretend I have somewhere to be.  Makes things more interesting.  Oh look.  That’s new.”

I followed his finger and saw a sign on the wall.  The words were white on white, but somehow I could still read them, though I didn’t understand their meaning.

Alea iacta est.

“The die is cast,” Brink translated.  His eyes widened.  “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

“What?” I asked.  

“At last, at last!” He cried.  He shook my hand heartily.  “My friend, it has been lovely knowing you. You might be here a while, but don’t give up hope.  Hope is key.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, startled.  “Where are you going?  Don’t leave me here…”

Brink smiled, his eyes bright, eager.  “It’s time for me to go.  Goodbye, goodbye, good—”  

There was a blinding flash, a glint of purple, then nothing.

When I opened my eyes I stood alone in the white room.  On the ground at my feet was an ivory pawn.  I picked it up.  Somewhere in the illusive distance, a clock chimed.  

But there was nowhere to be. 

Welcome to Halfway Between.

Enjoy your stay.