Escape?

The light begins to flood into the world that is my home. Faint images of some distant memory begin to creep into my subconscious thinking and the world becomes a living reality once again. I feel the firm grasp of freedom around me and I am hoisted from my prison. A myriad of images simultaneously reach me and I see for the first time in almost half a year, the outside world. A compilation of foreign sound reaches my ears and the grip around me becomes moistened and slippery. Thoughts of desperation reach my mind but this is good. This is the faint hope that may prove to be my exodus. As the last foreign words escape the mouth of the invigilator, I am lowered to solid ground and swept across it, accomplishing a combination of scratching sounds and ink lines. As I look down at the massive white expanse with black on it, I am dumbfounded as to how these seemingly random marks of ink are meaningful to my captor. I look up and around and see that many of my kin have the same affliction as I, bound to move across the white void and create ink or lead lines and scratching sounds. My eyes lock with those of a HB pencil and her sad gaze wanders to fall on mine. We look at each other, each remembering days when we were not tied to such bonds with our captors and think what could possibly be done to liberate ourselves from such tyranny. Two hours pass in this monotonous task of scratching the white sheet and making ink lines but finally a hope of some salvation glimmers through the silent room. A pen's eyes light up with delight as the grasp of the monstrous captor releases her grip on the pen as it falls to the desktop. The captor gets up and leaves this assembly line of exams, elated at the fact that she will never have to write another school exam. I return my gaze to the paper and a shock trembles my very soul. As I concentrate more on the grasp that has held me captive for the past two hours, I realize that the moist, sweaty and firm grip around me is loosening. Is this the moment of my salvation? Has all my life in captivity been devoted to this small shimmer of hope? Indeed it has. My captor relinquishes his grip on me and I tumble to the ground, knowing that I am now free and the liberty bestowed upon me has allowed me to choose my own path. Thoughts of joy course through me and just as I feel that my captor is gone for good and I am free, I realize I don't have legs. I can't move and am bound for perpetual servitude in the control of my captors. Destined to be trapped in a vortex of swirling hand movements, I am now a permanent part of my captor's culture, portraying emotion and ideas through forced labour. What a cruel end for a pen!