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The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
-Edgar Allan Poe
My cell is a five-foot diameter sphere of white porcelain. There are six small, smoothly-edged round holes of varying sizes punctuating the cold, hard surface. Two for ventilation, one to dispense water and one for drainage, a larger one for a toilet and one for the regular appearances of a bland nutrient ball wrapped in a soft anti-bacterial paper. A solid, round panel glows brightly from above, illuminating the tiny space.
The only indication of how I entered this cell is the presence of a 360-degree hairline, delineating the two halves of the sphere, which was lowered into a deep tomb and permanently covered in concrete. When my bodily functions eventually cease, my corpse will remain here for all eternity, sealed within this globular sarcophagus. Until then, I am stripped of my clothes and dignity.
There is no stimulation. No hope. I cannot even stand upright. Time has no meaning. The only thing that reveals time's passage is the increasing length of my hair and nails. Judging by that, it has been many months already.
I have screamed at length, until I either dulled my ears or strained my voice. I have beaten the smooth, shiny surface around me as if I were a trout in a goldfish bowl. How many of those bland ball things have I eaten? Hundreds? Thousands? My hunger has been reduced to merely a reflex. Being awake and being asleep have become an amorphous blur.
My own hands fascinate me now. Sometimes it seems as if they are autonomously moving to entertain me. My gnarly, uneven fingernails are curling out like ribbons. My hair is long enough to sleep on now. I can feel my bones changing their shape to conform to the space around them. My basic human identity is seeping into the walls. My ability to reason, to think, is fading away from lack of use.
I hear another food ball roll from the hole. I look down at it as a sharp blade cuts through my sight and into my dulled mind. The paper on the ball is different this time. It has small black shapes on it. I take off the paper and look at it. The shapes are lined up. Letters. I have memories of reading but my mind does not know how until I work the letters back into recognition. Slowly, I regain my cognitive mind enough to understand the message. "YOU WILL BE RELEASED. WE WILL DIG YOU OUT."
In the time since I have received the note, I have heard an increasingly regular rumbling from up above. It has been steadily growing in volume and intensity.
Twenty food balls later, it is so overwhelming; I must hold my hands against my ears until my muscles lock up. It goes on and on until it is unbearable.
I cannot live with this torrent of noise for another second - and then it stops. Something taps loudly from outside. Another tap dislodges a stream of dust next to the light panel.
The following tap forms a crack and more dust. A small piece of the sphere falls next to my toes and for the first time in a seemingly infinite period, I hear a voice other than my own fill the interior of my world. "We need you to get up as close as you can to the wall now. We're going to start cracking open your cell."
I emerge a bent over, crusty, barely human creature. My first words are, "How long?" The answer is... "Five years."
I feel nothing, however I am becoming aware of the limitless space around me and also of the fact that I am free. Slowly, I am beginning to sense a quivering constriction within my throat and chest. It is a strangely familiar feeling. Yes. Yes. I am feeling happiness and gratitude. Can I be smiling? Could I possibly be feeling like a person again? Yes. I am free.
I find my next words being expressed between sobs of joy, "How? Why?"
In continuing silence, they help me hobble over to another area of the prison, passing row after row of plots I know to hold other spherical tombs.
They lead me over to two halves of another sphere, looking exactly like the one I had just left, except much, much smaller in size. We stop. My newly rediscovered mind is suddenly outpacing me, dreadfully anticipating the explanation, which must not be. I am held fast by thickly gloved hands as I hear the following words addressed to me:
"Your sphere was five feet in diameter. It was a luxury you did not warrant. Apparently your sentence required the minimum confinement space of only three feet in diameter. This situation will now be rectified."
Before I can scream, I feel the needle go into my arm.
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