Not all people exit a room the same way they’ve entered it.
Some forget why they are there, while others plant a wedge underneath the door, so it doesn’t shut behind them. Anyone can prepare, but what comes might not meet their expectations.
For me, I didn’t see it coming. I was anticipating the doomsday that was occurring in front of me. In a dimension thought only to be mine, I mocked the powerless in aspiration, laying in a hammock hoisted above the ground. My ignorance was airborne. I have weaseled my way out of apertures my whole life, an opportunist’s life.

Despite the landscape of my being having been forged by moral standards, there was barely a margin of leeway for a traveling person like myself to learn. I used to look at the mirror and tell myself I could empower. I used to stand among machinating visionaries, people that were as powerful as I, but I have since spiraled into what is all foreign to me.

I am lost in translation when I stare at a realm of endlessness most would be animated into submission. I feel as if I’m designated to echo a clear message: that misfortune is a blessing in disguise. See, the one I received was likely meant for someone else because now I am in a void of unanswered questions; in a body that’s skin is discomforting. Movement stops around me. The people here, think I am a liability; think I am desperate to find power. The tone in their voices shift, making me feel alienated.

This dimension was not one I thought I would ever answer. I no longer peer from the outside in, but inside out. LED lights overhead constantly flicker, but they finally faded away. Everything I knew has been boarded up with plywood, but out of consideration, is able to slip through cracks like a skylight. The powerful mock me in aspiration now, as I have traded my hammock for a wheelchair; as I clench my fists, decking any mirror I make contact with.

Stripped away my powers were, once I entered the portal from one dimension to another. The noise was silenced, and force fields inhibited the possibility of return. The sound that coursed through thin air was like banshees. They flashed a light in my face and asked if I knew who I was. Do I? I was fed from a tube, strapped to a bed, and put in a gown. This isn’t like me. But who am I? Everyone sitting at my bedside has this moronic look on their face, putting my hands in theirs. They know.

Seems that I knew exactly why I entered the room that I did; that I lodged a wedge underneath the door with intentions of coming back. Things just did not turn out the way I expected. But what did I expect with alcohol surging through my system? So much for empowerment.