William looked around his room, as if discovering it for the first time, and noticed how the carpet was still just as shaggy and red as it had always been. After so long, he'd expected the carpet to become matted and lose color, yet it was the cleanest thing in the room. His bed consisted of four planks of wood, each one about six inches wide and four and a half feet in length. They were all nailed to the concrete floor below the carpet. On these planks were two sheets and one thin feather pillow, complete with a thin case.

The bed was less than ideal by any stretch of the imagination. William was longer than the bed, meaning much of his body, usually his legs and knees, would be off the end. He would choose to sleep on the carpet instead, but the room was so small that much of the space was taken up by the planks. William had a habit of rolling in his sleep. He often found himself in abnormal, uncomfortable positions between his bed and the desk.

His desk was also bolted to the ground. All items within the room were arranged in a way that purposefully made life uncomfortable and unmovable. That way, William could never hope to find a way to up to the hole or feel completely relaxed. Even the dark metal desk was merely a fraction the size of your average tabletop, only rising about one foot off the ground from its legs to the finished end.

There also was a deposit tray by the door, which was where food and drink were placed. Three times a day, on days when he was not in trouble, he would be fed small portions by Father. Father is what he liked to be called. He never tolerated another name. There was one day of the week that Father let William out of this room. William always thought of that as Sunday, which he learned of in Kindergarten long before the events which led him there had happened.

Sunday was always a special day in William's mind. A day when kids would not have to go to school and many people would congregate in churches or have family get-togethers. William had no idea what most of these things truly were. He had only fragments of these memories, which he questioned often.

"Were they only dreams?" He'd ponder.

He was about five years old back then, he assumed. He could never be sure about his current age. He only knew what Father would tell him. He felt like thirty-five, but Father said he was twenty-eight. That topic was never brought up much, but it seemed to change in answer from time to time. Yes, Sunday was a special day, and so in his mind, that was his Sunday. His special day. The day when he got to leave the room.

In front of the one-sided door was also his waste bucket. This, too, was nailed to the concrete below and was only emptied by a pump. The pumping was done by Father and would lead to a machine. That was the most unbearable thing for William in the beginning. The smell and humiliation of it haunted him for a very long time. If he were to ever need toilet paper, William would have to bang on the door and ask for it. Sometimes he would be told to use his shirt. Eventually, William began to simply not go, for as long as he could muster, just so he wouldn't have to be disappointed again. At that moment though, it was the least of his concerns.

William's clothes were rarely cleaned unless grossly unsanitary. His clothes had changed periodically over the years, going from a grey pair of sweatpants to worn, blue jeans. He preferred the former, as the jeans would never fit quite right over his small waist. After William complained enough, even going through plenty of scrutiny from Father, he eventually received sweatpants again. His shirts always stayed the same, though. Plain, stiff, and black. His feet and head remained bare, and underwear was not even a thought in his mind, having not seen a pair since he was quite young.

He stood up slowly, looking around the room trying to spark up an idea of how to get rid of the beautiful leaf. He knew it was early morning and that tomorrow would be Sunday when Father would come in to search the room and release him for a while. William also knew that one of the planks was slightly farther away than the others, leaving a gap just big enough for something thin.

"I don't want you to die, too," said William, holding it in his trembling palms.

Talking was never easy for him but it had gotten increasingly easier over the years. It was all thanks to Father's simplistic teachings. Never too loudly though. He never dared to raise his voice or sing a tune, because that would not only mean physical punishment but also a Sunday without release. He feared missing Sunday so intensely that he remained paranoid during every second of the day and it only ceased when he slept. Any time spent out of that room, during those years, was as valuable as any man's deepest beliefs and just as necessary to his well-being as water or food.

William pulled back both layers of sheets and tried his best to carefully slide the leaf in between the planks. Father rarely checked thoroughly in certain places. The gap in the planks and inside the waste bucket when full were his best bet to hide something. He covered the bed in his sheets and began to do his stretches. He was not allowed to exercise much; Father would not tolerate any major gain of muscle mass.

William would stretch for a good while and then do no more than a few push-ups. In fact, he could not do more than a few if he wanted. He was weak and malnourished. Sure, William had three meals a day, but those meals were no more than the absolute bare minimum. Only that which was needed to survive. Only on Sunday would he get a special treat, sometimes ice cream. Sometimes pizza.

"Oh, pizza!" William thought, his mouth starting to salivate.

Sometimes, he'd even get a small glass of cold ale. Beer was William's favorite drink. A small glass was all that was needed to bring upon him a sensation of pleasure, due to his severely underweight body.

On Sunday's he would be allowed the use of a mirror. It was a large mirror on the other side of his door, almost as if Father was taunting him with his pale, sick reflection. William would usually not use the mirror though, only every other Sunday and for a brief time. It was nothing but a reminder of his flaws and wretched appearance and brought upon William an overwhelming sense of self-pity. The mirror would often bring tears right to the cusp of his eyes, ready to soar out like a Flying Red from the hole. He never dared show that kind of emotion around Father if he could help it. Late at night or very early in the morning were the best times for that. He had little need for tears after so long, though. They became as useful to him as a one-foot step ladder.

Tears would never solve his problems. They would never help him escape. They'd only lead to more tears and a deeper depression. The leaf may have been useless in the practical sense, but it was perhaps the most important event to happen to William in the last six or seven years, emotionally. The scent was wonderful. It filled him up with a joy he hadn't known in forever. William hadn't smiled in a very, very long time. Until that moment, he never knew that tears could come from something other than pain.

It actually hurt. The muscles that enabled grinning were so underutilized that it was incongruous to think himself able to easily. Today, though, William smiled ear to ear. So powerful a smile you could almost hear it when it burst through the melancholy, straight-across lips they once were. His bony cheeks raised and flushed with color. Tears rushed towards the top of his ducts and were trying to spill over the edge. Not with sadness but absolute relish. A tickling sensation rushed through his gut and up through his lungs where each breath only seemed to whisk it around his body like a whirlpool of joy.

"If a single leaf can make me this happy," William thought, "imagine a tree. A forest."

William knew that these were dangerous thoughts to have. Dangerous thoughts in a dangerous place. With all things considered, he knew that he was no dangerous man. His head rested on the pillow, his smile beginning to wane.

His eyes opened with the sound of wind through the hole, though nothing was on its back that time. It was Sunday and as he leaned onto his right elbow and looked up towards the hole, he saw light filtering through, resting upon his desk. It would be a few hours before Father would come. Still squinting from the grogginess, William used his left hand to rub away the debris beneath his eyes. He sat up and took three long inhales followed by equally long exhales.

William mustered up the strength to stand, giving him a view of the small meal left for him in the tray by the door. One hardboiled egg, one slice of toast, one glass of water, and three small grapes. Before he ate, William followed through with his daily routine of exercise. After his stretches and mediocre push-ups, he grabbed the plate of food and laid it upon the table. No silverware was given with meals as they could be used as weapons. He used to get silverware with his meals until he attempted to murder Father with a fork and failed. William remembered the fork entering Father's neck, halfway up the four sharp prongs, only to be subdued and locked in his room for three and a half days with no food or waste disposal. Water was given to him once a day, only to keep him breathing. It was a dark time in that room. William would make sure to never endure it again.

The lack of food during that time was one thing, the physical torture was another. Father had a few tools at his disposal but only one would claim William's fear more than any other: a thick wire three feet long and covered in small, sharp points here and there along its edges. William could never figure out what it was made of. All he knew was that it brought upon him an excruciating pain that split his perception of reality with each bloody lash and could easily take the flesh off his arms when attempting to block its path.

William resumed eating his breakfast and hastily pushed the thought of Father's wire out of his mind. He put the plate back into the tray by the door and proceeded onto his bed with his back against the wall.

"I can't survive much longer in this place, I'd rather die," William said quietly, "I could bash my head on the end of that table. Refuse to eat. Choke on a damn egg if I had to."

Of course, that was not the first time those thoughts had entered William's head. He only knew that they either wouldn't work and would induce more torture, Father would hear and rush in to stop him, or more than likely he wouldn't be able to go through with it. Out of everything, William just wanted to truly live. To see the sky and clouds one more time before his death. To see a forest or a river or a mountain. He had lived so long in that rotten room that it was unquestionably the last place he wanted to die.