Wake up, stare at the ceiling, then stare at the mirror, see a bright smile and eyes. Notice the brightness coming from the window that makes your eyes squint. The shine never leaves, even when you close the blinds or when you’re deciding on simple everyday things. Take a look around the room, everything seems so far away yet so close, but the floors look so glittery, so that’s a plus. As you’re walking around the room you notice a door. You decide to get closer and try to see if the door can open. But the closer you get, the more warmth you feel.
When you are in front of the door, the warmth starts to feel a little uncomfortable. Then a loud screeching noise is echoing throughout the room. Then for a moment, all of the light is gone. So is the echoing sound. After a few seconds, the brightness comes up again to the point where you can’t keep your eyes open for more than a few seconds.
So for the few moments that you are able to see, you reach towards the door handle and discover that it isn’t locked. Turn the handle and push the door open. As the door is opening, you start to hear laughter and feel a breeze. You shut your eyes as a bright light shines.
When you open your eyes again you see an open field, with people that you once knew talking to each other as if they have known each other for life. You go up to them and start joking and start up a conversation as if you haven’t seen them for a long time. As time goes on, the laughter continues to grow louder and louder. Even with all of the noise around you, there isn’t a suffocating feeling or a feeling of annoyance. All that you feel is happiness and ease, and you start to feel lighter. But as time goes on, you start to realize that everyone has become quiet and all of the known faces somehow seem to have moved miles away from you in an instant.
All of the laughter is replaced with a static sound and then everything goes black. From complete darkness to blurriness to a clear vision of what is in front of you. It is the ceiling again. But the static sound won’t stop. When you turn to the side, all you see is a plain wall and a very dim room and the static sound turns into a screeching sound coming from the entrance, and behold there is a person there staring you down, expressionless but their mouth moving faster than light. The more they talk, the more you feel annoyed, so you just turn over, pull the blanket over your face, and wish you could go back to sleep to keep that nice dream going.
What I want to convey with my piece is that freedom can be represented in many ways in people’s lives. How that representation can be small everyday things that we mostly don’t take account of, and how later on we’ll certainly take them into account when we feel like they’re no longer there. The illusion of open and closed spaces, dim and bright lights, seeing familiar faces, hearing familiar voices—it’s the impact that those small everyday things make on how you feel.
For example, when I was living in Mexico, I would always feel at ease. During that time, one of the things that made me feel at ease was hanging out with some dogs underneath trucks at my mom’s work. But when I moved to the United States, I started to feel restricted, which made me feel uneasy. In my experience, to be free is to feel at ease and feel like you don’t have some type of weight on your shoulders.