The Prisoner
THE PRISONER
I don't remember anything before this room. I don't even remember how I came to know I'm in a "room." I have no trouble identifying things. I know that that is a "floor," and those are "walls," and that is a "ceiling," and that I am a "man." I have no trouble with words, such as "have" and "no" and "trouble." But, as I said, I don't remember how I came to know these words. (Omit all quotes up to this point. Simply use a comma to indicate a short pause, a period a stop, and a paragraph a long stop.)
I know that I am thinking. I could talk, since my lips and my tongue know how to form the words so that my ears can hear and recognize them, but there is no use for that. I see no reason to make sounds with my mouth, which my ears can hear and recognized, when I can think much more quickly, and save the use of my mouth and ears.
(Thought---NEVER mention the word time---)
I have much to think about. I can look at the room around me and think about many things. The walls and the floor and the ceiling and I are all made from the same thing, which is flesh, or skin. I don't know why I should know two words for the same thing. Now that I think of it, I know two words for many things. Maybe after I think of other things, I can see if I know three words for anything. Walls are the same thing as sides, the ceiling is the top, the floor is the bottom, and I am the man. But even though the room is made out of the same thing as I am, there is something very different between the room and me. The walls and the ceiling and the floor are flat and smooth. They meet in straight lines and in corners. I am not flat, and in places where I bend, such as at elbows and knees and fingers and thighs, I have folds, or creases, or wrinkles. Ah, and there is something for which I know three words. Wrinkles or folds or creases are the only things I know three names for. That might mean they're more important than walls, for which I know only two names. But it may be that that doesn't matter. Maybe later I can think of other names for my walls.
The room is just twice my size. If I lay on the floor, along one wall, so that my feet touch the next wall, then put one finger where the top of my head is, and keep my finger in place and move around so that my feet touch the opposite wall, my finger will still be touching the top of my head. This is true for all the walls, and even though I can't measure the distance between the floor and ceiling, it looks as if it were about the same distance. The skin on the walls and the floor and the ceiling is not so hard as the skin on my elbows or knees or skull, which are the places where my skin is the hardest, but it is harder than the skin on my penis or tongue, which are the places where my skin is the softest.
The room has one hole. It is small enough so that I can get my mouth around it to get my liquid, but large enough so that I can get my penis into it to get rid of my liquid. But I will think about that after I think about all the holes I have. It's hard to say how many holes I have. I know I have four, one in my mouth and one in my penis and two in my nose. I know that these are holes because I put much more into my mouth than it can hold at one time, and I get much more out of my penis that it can hold at one time, and the air in and out of my nose goes in and out of my chest, too, so there must be a hole connecting them. So all of these must be holes into my inside. There are six other places that might be holes, but since nothing comes in or out of them, I can't tell if they're really holes or not. I can feel edges of bone around my eyes, but since I can't take my eyes out I don't know if they really fill up holes, or if they are just sitting in shallow depressions in my skull. When I stick my fingers into my ears, different sounds are changed in different ways. My voice sounds about the same, but if I slap my foot against the floor or my other leg, I can't hear it. So, like my eyes, my ears may just be on the surface of my skull.
My navel and my anus are different from my eyes and ears. If I cover my eyes and ears, things change. But if I cover my navel and anus, nothing happens. If I try to push one finger into either, it will go a short distance, and then it is painful and I stop pushing. They may be very small holes which my finger can't get into, like the hole in my penis, but since nothing goes in or comes out, and since covering them doesn't change anything, my navel and my anus couldn't be very important.
Additional Notes on The Prisoner
Existence
Awareness
I think.
I can think. I can walk. I can sit. I can breathe.
Awareness of faculty
I can jump and twist and bend and hit and slap and pinch and kick.
Awareness of state
I can lie down, and I can stand.
I am thinking. I am able to think.
Awareness of location
I am here. I am in the room.
I am standing on the floor in the room.
Awareness of environment
The floor is at the bottom of the room, and the ceiling is at the top of the room, and the wall is between the ceiling and the floor.
Awareness of shape
The floor is circular and the ceiling is circular and the wall is cylindrical.
Awareness of self
I have the head on top, supported by the neck. I have the arms on the sides, attached to the top of the body, and I have the legs on the sides, attached to the bottom of the body.
The head is round. The neck and the body and the arms and the legs are cylinders.
I am covered with skin. Skin is smooth in some places and rough in some places. Skin is rough on the head except between the nose and the chin, where it is smooth. Skin is also smooth in small circles on
The legs are all covered with rough skin, and can bend in three places. They can bend where they are attached to the body, they can bend at the knees in the middle, and they can bend where they are attached to the feet. The feet each have toes, and the skin is rough except near the ends of the toes, where there is a small line of smooth skin.
The ceiling and the floor and the wall are covered with smooth skin, but it is different from the smooth skin which I have on my head and my body and my fingers and thumbs and toes. My smooth skin moves a little when I push it, and if I push it too hard, the skin stretches too far and I stop pushing it. But the smooth skin on the ceiling and the floor and the wall does not stretch.
The ceiling is at arms-length above my head, and when I lay on the floor, the part of the wall above my head is at arms-length when my feet are touching the part of the wall below my feet. One side of the wall is as far from the other side of the wall as the ceiling is far from the floor.
There is air everywhere between me and the wall and the floor and the ceiling. I breathe air. When I breathe air out, there is no air in me, but when I breathe air in, there is air in the body, because the body expands when the air comes in through the double hole in the nose. Air is the only thing which can go in and out of the double hole in the nose; the fingers will not fit, except for the tips. When the fingers are in the nose, the air cannot get in or out. When the air cannot get in or out, the body hurts, so I take the fingers out of the nose. Then the air comes in and goes out faster until I have breathed all the air I couldn't breathe while the tips of the fingers were in the nose.
When I put the hands over the eye, I cannot see. When I cannot see, the air cannot get to my eye, but my body does not hurt. When I put my hands on my body, the air cannot get to that part of the body, but that part of the body doesn't hurt, But my body hurts when the air cannot get through the nose into the body. That is something to think about.
My body also hurts when I sit a long time. My legs hurt when I stand a long time. The body and the head hurt when I have been lying down for a long time. I can lie down longer than I can sit, and I can sit longer than I can stand, and I can stand longer than I can do without air coming in and out of the body through the double hole in the nose.
I have finished looking at my body and my arms and the legs. I cannot see the back of the body, but I can touch all parts of it, and it seems to be just covered with rough skin. I cannot see any part of my neck, and the only part of the head that I can see is the side of the nose. There is a small hole with a little knob in it on the lower part of the body. There is sometimes a little line of skin between the smooth skin and the rough skin. There are little wrinkles where my arms and legs bend, and there are many lines on my hands, but I have also finished looking at those.
Nothing? But what's nothing? Air? But nothing can rest on air. It must rest on, the FLOOR. I can't feel anything in back of the wall. If I push very hard, I can feel something solid, like what I have under my skin. But my skin is outside, and that solid something is inside the skin. This solid something is also INSIDE the wall, but I am inside the wall. What is outside? I push and kick the wall, but I can get nothing of an idea about what's on the other side. But there isn't another side. There can't be another side. The wall and the floor and the ceiling must go on forever. My body and feet and hands feel tired from pushing and kicking the wall. I am breathing faster. I lay down on the floor to change position. I look up at the ceiling until I get tired of lying on my back, then I sit up and look at the wall until I get tired of sitting. Then I stand up again and look at the floor. I lean against the wall and look at the other wall. I look at my body and my legs and the hands, but I've already looked at them.