That feeling when you’re staring at the wall.

That feeling when you keep staring at the wall.

That feeling when minutes pass, slowly, silently, uneventfully, while you’re staring at the wall.

You’re sitting on the edge of the bed. You can feel the warm sheet under your naked buttocks.

You’re totally naked. It’s getting a little cold, but you can’t get dressed right now because you’re staring at the wall.

You were told to stare at the wall. The person who told you that only added that you would stare at the wall until further instructions, and you’re obeying that order. You will stare at the wall until that person tells you otherwise. It’s not that you’re making a great effort to keep staring. Right now staring feels like the most natural thing for you to do. It would be much harder for you to do something else. You don’t feel like doing anything else. You don’t even feel like thinking about anything else.

The wall itself is a regular wall. There’s nothing special about it. It’s painted light blue. There is no wallpaper on it, no pictures hanging from it. Nothing but a light blue surface. Even the few imperfections on the plaster are light blue. You have found and looked at all of them within your field of vision.

You look at them again and again. You look at the unblemished, flat blue surface around each imperfection. You do it again. You do it again. And again—

Staring at the wall is so boring!

But you keep staring at the wall because you were told to keep staring at the wall.

Something happened before you started staring at the wall. You know what it was, and you could recall it clearly if you weren’t staring at the wall. Your mind is in a curious state: every time it forms a thought that’s not about the wall, it is incapable of keeping it. The thought slides, disappears from your consciousness.

You can grasp the fact that the person did something to you…

Of course: the person told you to stare at the wall.

So you stare at the wall. You must obey what at that person says. So you keep staring at the wall.

It’s alright. You can remember to blink from time to time. You’re seated and breathing. And you can barely know it now, but it feels so good.

That feeling when you’re staring at the wall.