ISOLATION OVERDRIVE

I’m lying on my rack with my hands clasped behind my head, staring at the stark white ceiling and the alabaster walls of my quasi-home, babbling to myself for the company it brings, just to hear a human voice. I used to try to keep my mind sharp by asking myself questions and answering them. But then I started arguing with myself, so now I don’t even finish my sentences,.. they just trail off, because I am forgetting how to speak. I can’t remember any songs. If I could, I would sing them.
How long have I been here exactly? I’ve lost track. When I first arrived here I tried to make notches in the doorframe with a piece of gravel I had palmed to keep track of the days. But they found the marks, and took my pebble away. I swallowed it, but they removed it from my stool. They also found the ones I scratched along the underside of my rack with a nut I had loosened. Then they spot-welded the frame. I tried making marks in the concrete under the paper thin carpeting by pressing my fingernail into the paint. But when I came back to my room after a test session once, the carpeting was gone, and the concrete had been freshly blasted clean.
I have learned that when they take something away, they usually give something in trade. When I was finally secured in my room, I found a mirror. Actually, it is a shiny plate of warped steel, bolted to the wall, but I can see myself. I hadn’t seen my own reflection in so long, and barely recognized the figure standing before me, with his drawn face, gaunt features, long hair and beard, and the deeply haunted expression in his eyes.
The test sessions are the worst part. They’ll wake me from a sound sleep, take me to a room I’ve never seen before, and expose me to strobe lights or loud noises. Once they opened a door to a blackened room and threw me inside. I found myself waist-deep in icy water. My heart stopped. Then they hauled me out and took me back to my room, never saying a word.
The guards wear full body suits, gloves, and masks. No flesh shows through; not a shred of their humanity. They don’t even touch me. Initially, they used prods; now they just gesture. I rushed at them once, desperate for human contact, but they drove me back with prods and left the room. I didn’t see them again for what I’m guessing was a week. It was kind of a punishment; they wouldn’t even strike me. I used to hold myself at night for the comfort it offered, but then they started strapping me down.
Hours melt into days bleed into weeks. During one of the test sessions, they locked me in a stark white room with a mirror along the wall and a computerized voice asked me one question for hours. “Prove you exist.” No trace of accent; not angry, not gentle. Just a voice boiled down to the basic elements. Completely sterile. At first, I gave the stupidest answers I could think of. Then I tried to play along in hopes that they would let me go. I would give an answer, and they would ask again. Over and over, until I began screaming and beating on the walls and the mirror with my fists, shrieking like an animal, jabbering and wailing.
I lost my voice the last time. And I’m back to stupid answers now, because I don’t think I’ll ever get out of here.