Well.

It comes to a full circle tonight. A full circle of light within a circle of darkness.

 

I didn’t expect to live this long. Two things I was sure of when I first came to be here—that I would die, yes, and that if I did not do so in the soonest possible time, then I would go crazy and kill myself instead.

 

It was a question of when. It is a question of when.

 

It wasn’t always a full circle. It was never a full circle until tonight, and I will never forget what the sky looked like on my first night here. Just one dark circle, so far and so unattainable, speckled with tiny dots of light which twinkled as if in mockery of my stupidity, the futility of my situation.

 

When, apparently, was not meant to be soon. And how? How is a question that I have been asking myself, as well. I would die, yes, but perhaps not of starvation, as in a situation such as this, one’s primal nature takes over and you begin to think nothing of grabbing hold of a scampering rat and biting into it raw. No, no, it won’t be starvation for me, as there is an abundance of them here.

 

I would die, yes, of an infection perhaps, or some other illness that would slowly seep the life out of me. It is not very farfetched, after a month of being knee-deep in a pool of filthy, mucky water. And the circle—that one dark circle I cannot help but look up to for practically every breathing moment ever since I got here—it is not always the dark circle that it is now. Half of the time it is a disk that scorches me down to my very bones, more so the ones that I had broken on my way down here. Sometimes it is a basin from which rain would pour and drench me to the same bones I have just spoken of.

 

I could drown myself. Oh, I relish the very thought of it, more so the thought of actually succeeding at it. But no, it would be folly to even hope that it would let go of me that easily.

 

My fingertips have been all but bared to the bone. My knees have been scraped raw. All from vainly trying to climb my way out. My head is all but a soupy mash of gook—I have learned that ramming your head against the wall is not an effective way to kill yourself if you’re not brave enough to smash it as hard as you can.

 

How did I come to be here, you ask? It does not matter. How does one fall into a hellhole such as this, into a deep pit from which escape is seemingly not humanly possible? Silly girl, you’d say, you just have to watch where you’re going. If you had been on the lookout, or if you had even been listening to the wise ones, then you’d have been aware that such a hole, and not just this but several others, exists.

 

Some things, I say, are inescapable. As inescapable as it is inevitable for us to fall into the inescapable. And yet we try, we still try to get out.

 

I look up at the moon. A full circle of light within a circle of darkness. Yes, some things are indeed inescapable, but I don’t see how it can justify being miserable. And so I laugh. I laugh until I double up and fall down.