Welcome to Gaia! ::

Walls. Walls. Impeccably white walls. No imperfections, not a single flaw...Nothing at all wrong with these immaculate white walls. She stared numbly at the walls, as every single molecule of their flawless white paint glared mockingly back at her. Millions and millions of spotless, white eyes stared, laughing at her and her every imperfection. These vindictively faultless walls taunted and ripped her apart every day for each and every weakness and defect she unwittingly held.
But at night, when the white of the walls turned to the dirty gray of shadows, then, she was at last vindicated. At night, these walls were perfect no more. At night, these walls could no longer reflect back at her every erroneous action and quality that she, her spirit, contained. These walls were powerless at night.
During the deepest, most impregnable hours of the dark, if she stared at them long enough, she could see patterns behind the walls. Patterns of old, half-peeled-off wallpapers shining obnoxiously through the thin, shadowy colour of these two-faced walls. Straight, sharp stripes; curving, confused lines of imposing vines, and flowers- these patterns moved. Ebbing and flowing with the light of the moon through her open window, the patterns came alive...these patterns held captive during the night the loathsome perfection that the walls displayed freely during the day.
__

Somewhere there, in the shimmering prison of the darkening walls, there lies the essence of the woman. Plagued with the shackles of perfection, this woman longs frenziedly to break free of these bonds. By day, she is held captive by the layers of white paint, which drinks up her shining will greedily. By night, she is cast into the dungeon of tier after tier of patterned wallpaper behind the paint. While the paint sleeps, the bars of muted colour hold her fast.
__

When the patterns move like that, it is as if a person is behind them, shaking hysterically at the lines behind the white of the walls, as if shaking the bars of a prison cell. But then, sometimes the person will creep around and around the room, across each living wall in its turn. She stands tonight, watching the person behind the papers creep through the walls, shaking the patterns now and then, searching for the weakest spot.
Standing there, she looks at the person. Startled, the person looks back at her.
__

A visitor.. Standing in the middle of her room, surrounded by the walls that hold her captive. A visitor, or a savior?
__

Without warning, the person in the walls began to shake frantically at the patterns behind the wall that she was in. The person looks at her now, as if pleading for her aid. She steps foreward, towards the wall, and reaching out, grasps the murky silhouettes of the papers behind the paint in her own thin fingers, tugging and struggling with it, helping the woman free herself.
Touching the wall for the first time since she had been locked up in this offensively pristine room, she felt the thin ridges of the half-peeled wallpaper beneath the thick layers of paint. Sliding her nails between the ridges and the wall, she peeled off the paint, along with a bit of wallpaper, revealing three small, green mermaids in a sea green background. These mermaids were hideous with age. Sliding her nails under the wallpaper layers again, she began to see a bit of orange?she believed it to actually be pink, that had yellowed with time and being exposed to the sun.
__

The woman behind the paper stopped tugging for a moment, staring at the other with pure and unadulterated amazement. Never had an outsider seen her, much less assisted her like this. No matter what, no one had ever done anything but add layers of either paint or paper to her prison.
She strikes up the struggle once more, thrashing and striking and shaking as hard as she can at the bars, thrusting aside layers of faded grapevines and long pastellized tendrils of morning glory.
__

Funny, she thought, the more layers of paper I peel off, the more clearly I can see her face. Now she could tell; the person in front of her was definitely a woman.
It wasn't hard to get rid of the paper, the glue on the backs of the sheets had become so weak over time that the most difficult part of getting the paper off was getting a good enough grip on it. Once she'd gotten a hold on it good enough, she could peel off strips of it without much effort.
__

Finally, breakthrough. The last confining layer removed. The hole was just barely big enough for the woman to squeeze herself through. Reaching through the gap, she seized the woman on the other side, using her to pull herself through.

__

For a split second, two worlds meet. Two hands grasp each other, and two hearts cry out as one for freedom.
__

A long, shrill scream causes the white-clad doctor's blood to run cold.
Moving as quickly as he can, he runs for the door at the end of the hall... No one has heard that woman speak in days.
He reaches out, thrusting a key into the empty lock. Turning it, he bursts through the door to find the woman standing next to the wall...The wall with the window.
The bars are gone. The glass is no longer a barrier between her and the world outside...She is hanging half-way out.
__

"Your walls can't hold me any longer!"

YES!!

But only because white walls can be just as imposing, if not more so...
I don't understand why more people do not believe this. That and I like my version because the ending is much more fatal, and it has nothing to do with post-partum depression! blaugh

aren't creative writing assignments fun? stare

How did you guess my favourite colour??

And yes, white walls are just so oppressive that they stifle and smother every breath of creativity that one dares to breathe in their presence.

Speaking as someone who has actually spent some time in an asylum cell (Lackland Air Force Base, Wilford Medical Center, Ward 4D), I must say that the feelings expressed in this piece of prose are very accurate. There is one element that I don't feel was conveyed, however, and I personally know from experience that anyone locked in an asylum cell will experience it; unfettered rage. The doctors always think that keeping you in such a room will keep you safe, and the other members of the facility safe. What most don't understand is that putting you in such an environment can make you even worse. As a person with delusional schizophrenia, I am lucky in that my condition isn't very severe. However, when all you see is white walls, they serve only as a set of projector screens for hallucinations.

You have otherwise only made a few mechanical mistakes. You should be proud of what you've accomplished here.

-Joshua T. Calkins-Treworgy