I write this from somewhere within the bowels of the South Tower of the NU library. I believe I am on the 3rd floor, but my physical location is of little importance. I will find my way out of here eventually.

What began as a concerted & desperate effort to find Mary, quickly degenerated into mindless wandering...up the stairs, through the halls, into the towers, around the rows of rigid shelves...and around, and around, and around... My head is aching, as are my stomach, shoulders, back and feet. Perhaps I am only hungry...but I just ate; I have no reason to be tired...I have slept well the past few nights.

The carpet under me is the color of rot. A putrid green. The color one might expect the skin of a corpse left in the sun to acquire. A sea of putrid, rotting green, spotted with rigid, unfeeling shelves, standing at attention, each in its place, reminding me that I have yet to find mine.

But in place of a stench festers an odor one might more commonly attach to a grandfather...vanilla & tobacco...something oddly pleasant, by association.

If one stands in the center of a tower...completely alone...in silence, one feels almost powerful. Surrounded by ranks of soldiers, a putrid moat...and the smell of - man.

Vanilla & tobacco.

But I suppose this is the perfect place for something like me: empty, solitary, unfeeling, ordered, calculated, controlled, COLD, EMOTIONLESS, CRUEL, REPRESSED, rotting, ugly, guarded, tired...hopeless...overlooked.

What rich irony - that I would appear the one most in control. I have long been far from it. It is all just a facade. Feel but a bit beyond the shell, and...

My walls are thin. But made of steel. Cold, unfeeling steel.

I wear my fear on the inside.

~Anne House