"But listen," he shouted to the guard, "there's a whole world you don't know anything about . . . here, how about this?" Desperately he grabbed for the only bit of culture he knew offhand--he hummed the first bar of Beethoven's "Fifth."
"Da da da dum! Doesn't that stir anything in you?"
"No," said the guard, "not really. But I'll mention it to my aunt."
If he said anything further after that it was lost. The hatchway sealed itself tight, and all sound was lost except the faint distant hum of the ship's engines.
They were in a brightly polished cylindrical chamber about six feet in diameter and ten feet long.
Ford looked round it, panting.
"Potentially bright lad I thought," he said, and slumped against the curved wall.
Arthur was still lying in the curve of the floor where he had fallen. He didn't look up. He just lay panting.
"We're trapped now, aren't we?"
"Yes," said Ford, "we're trapped."
It's a terrible thing to feel trapped, without any kind of recourse. At the moment, it appears as though Arthur and Ford are trapped in an airlock, waiting to be sucked into the vacuum of space where they will certainly perish. After surviving the demolition of the entire planet Earth, this fate seems a little anticlimactic. One button gets pushed, oxygen disappears, and the two friends cease to exist. The end.
Of course, feeling trapped isn't an unusual state. Lots of people feel trapped. Last night, I felt trapped by a stack of ungraded student essays. I just sat at my kitchen table, bleeding read ink all over those papers. Did the same today, as well. At around 3 p.m., I handed out my last "B-" and was done. It almost felt like I was floating weightless in outer space.
Last night, my wife's car was sitting at a local mechanic's garage, completely dead. Just a few sparks, a whiff of ozone, and, viola!, completely fried battery. Well, this evening, I picked the vehicle up. It was a costly little fix that we don't have the money for. Around three hundred dollars. It's funny. A little over a day ago, my wife and I had been talking about how we were almost caught up with bills and expenses. Now, we are trapped again.
I still haven't secured a new job yet. I've posted for a position. I'm interviewing for another. However, I have nothing definite. It's like being in an airlock, waiting for the oxygen to disappear. Haven't been sleeping all that much--four or five hours a night, if I'm lucky. When it hits the pillow, my head simply begins to spin through the possibilities of loss of job, loss of benefits, loss of health insurance, loss of car, loss of home, loss of . . . well, you get the idea what that rabbit hole is like. It's a trap.
While I'm usually not a person who wallows in self pity, I've found myself wading into that little quagmire a lot recently. It, too, can be a trap, feeling like the entire world has suddenly turned against you. Yesterday evening, after the tow truck picked up my wife's dead car, I allowed myself a few moments of self pity. (I did this in the privacy of my bathroom at home, so nobody would have to witness it. It wasn't pretty.)
The sun has just disappeared from the sky. I'm in my pajamas, and I can feel the pressure of sleep behind my eyes. For the moment, my house is quiet. Everyone is still busy with the day's obligations. Dance lessons. Homework. Scholarship applications. After I'm done typing this post, I will put on a load of laundry.
Anything can feel like a trap, I suppose. My son feels like having to take a shower is a trap. My daughter feels like deadlines for scholarships are traps at the moment. My students feel like writing their research papers is a trap. A job can feel like a trap. Not having a job can feel like a trap. A marriage can feel like a trap. Having children can feel like a trap. It's all a matter of perspective, I suppose.
Tonight, I'm going to allow myself to feel free instead of trapped. No grading. No deadlines. No bills. No car troubles. No looming unemployment. Instead, I'm going to eat some peanuts and grapes. Maybe some cheese. Then I'm going to read a book. Maybe work on a new poem or watch a movie. Then I will go to bed.
All my worries and concerns will be there tomorrow morning when I wake up, waiting to trap me again.
Right now, however, Saint Marty has a date with Netflix.
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