At the end of the tunnel was a door.
I opened the door, I walked through.
I entered a room.
There were desks lined up against the walls,
the room was full of people,
people working,
the chatter of keyboards clattering.
I went amongst them,
they welcomed me.
I took a seat
and I worked.
That was the first door.
After a while I grew tired of typing,
I stood up,
I turned around
and there were cakes on a table,
candles, balloons, a banner that read
‘congratulations’
people clapped me on the back,
they celebrated,
they hugged me, they said
‘you made it’.
I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it
but I ate my cake, I returned the hugs,
and then I saw another door.
I walked through it.
The second room was dark,
there were only a few people inside.
They looked the same: grey faces,
grey suits, a grey miasma
filled the air, their faces were serious,
the had the same eyes and the same mannerisms,
they wrote in identical books with identical pens.
I took my book,
I took my pen.
I sat at a desk and started writing.
They spoke in their grey tones, but they did not listen to me.
When I wrote with my pen, my words came out wrong
in all the wrong colours.
My pen was blue, my voice was all yellow and bright,
my eyes lacked seriousness.
They took the book from me and pushed me towards a door,
they pushed me through it.
Inside it was dark, I was alone.
I knew I had done something wrong, but what?
But what?
A Life More Ordinary 