The Cage

I am tired.
Tired from running all my life, yet getting nowhere.
I run all day long, yet at the end of the day I am exactly where I started, nothing changed.

What's the point of running all day long when all you have to show for spending all of your energy is a racing heartbeat?
Yes, it's better than sitting still all day long and growing into a big lump of motionless meat, but if running without end never gets you anywhere, it feels like an extravagant waste of energy.

If I step away from the spokes of the big wheel, the limited space does not allow for long sprints, and whether I leap forward, backward or to the side makes no difference.
It's just a small cage, and basically it forces me to stay where I was put.

If I really want to run outside of the spokes, I have to open the door of this cage of my existence, but I can't. 
I am not physically equipped to the point where I can apply the required skill to open this door.
The door only opens when one of the mighty ones unlocks it, but if I move closer to the door after they have opened it, they are quick to push me back.

I have tried to escape a couple of times.
I waited until the mighty one who opened the door was looking away from me, and then I jumped, fell to the ground, and I started running and running and running.
Yet no matter the distance I ran, I discovered that I was simply running in a larger box than my own cage.
Yes, there were parts of the walls which could be opened and shut, yet basically they led to different compartments of the box.
It might be fun for a couple of days to live in the bigger box, because it looks as if you are free, and you have plenty of space to run.
But in the end, the result is the same: you can run and run, but you remain trapped in the box, getting nowhere.

I always end up being caught, because I cannot find the way out of this bigger box.
And when I have been caught, the mighty ones simply put be back in the smaller box.

And so, when a new day begins, I already know that it will be the same as yesterday and the days before that.
Nothing happens, and what else can I do but run on the colored spokes of the treadmill?
At least I get some exercise, and that is always better than just sitting in the cage like a lump of dead meat wrapped in fur.

When I am running I feel a little better, and sometimes when I close my eyes, I can see myself running through the green, breathing in fresh air, and feel the wind against my face.
These moments are the only things which keep me going, chasing after the trail of the wind to take my mind off the dull dead existence in a small cube placed in a bigger cube.

The mighty ones have made some sort of contraption right next to my cage.
They attached a red and a blue cord from my treadmill to this contraption, and on top of it there's a little light bulb.
Every now and then they replace the light bulb with another one with a different color.
Whenever I start running on the treadmill, this light bulb starts to glow, and the mighty ones love that.
The harder I run, the brighter the glow of the light bulb, the louder the sound of their laughter.

They love to be entertained.
They even haven built a large prison of boxes where they keep all kinds of animals.
Then they walk past the boxes and point and shout at the animals, taking pictures, laughing and cheering all the time.

They even have taken the king of the jungle and placed him in a prison.
A lion loves to hunt and chase after his prey, but living in a box has sedated the king.
All he does is lie on the ground, moving to and fro a bit, basically getting nowhere, like me.
They simply don't care anymore, because the mighty ones have taken away their joy and reduced them to trophies hanging on the wall of their entertainment.
Even though such a king might tear me apart in the wild, I feel sorry for him.
Because he reminds me of me.

Why do the mighty ones entertain themselves by stripping away the joy of others?
Is it because they themselves have to live in the bigger boxes, and to take their mind off their imprisonment they distract themselves with all manner of entertainment, even if it comes at the expense of others?

Why do they do to us what has been done to them?
What right do they have to take away our freedom and turn us into slaves for their entertainment?
Surely they know what it feels like if someone is cruel and mean to them just to be entertained by their suffering?

It is so cruel to laugh at the suffering of others.

Maybe because they constantly entertain themselves they are unable to think and realize what they are doing.
Could it be that they have created their own box because they have boxed others?

That is one of the very few advantages of being imprisoned in a small cage: you have all the time in the world to think and philosophize.
And I think a lot.
That is, when the mighty ones don't try to force me to run on the big wheel for their entertainment .

I could go on a strike and do nothing henceforth.
But they would simply get bored with me, and try to sell me, so that they can start the game all over again with another victim.
If I die, they just replace me with another slave to run on the same treadmill so that they can enjoy the spectacle of how his life-force flows through the red and blue cord into the light bulb.

I have never known what it feels like to run in the green, to fall in the streaming water, to feel the rhythm of the rain on my head, to smell the scent of roses.

I was born in a cage, and the only way I know about the existence of a different world of colors is because it exists in an another box here in this room where I am.
It's a box which can take you anywhere in the world, and how I wish I could live in that box: I could go anywhere where my heart would want to go.
At least you do not feel as if you are trapped in a box when you are part of the colors and the pictures of the other box.

But this other box remains sealed.
Once I jumped out of my box in an attempt to escape, and I ran over to this other box.
When I tried to leap into the colors of the image I simply bounced against an invisible wall.
I could not find a way in.
I can only watch what the box with the colors shows me, but I can never be part of it because I am locked out of that world.

I think it probably has two doors, one visible and the other invisible.
If I would push the button on this box, the visible black door lifts and the world of colors lights up in the box.
But there is no button for the invisible door which keeps me from being able to jump into the world in this box.
It always remains shut so that I cannot leap through that door and enter the world of colors.
I can only look at it from a distance, yet never be a part of it.

I am trapped in a cage where I am forced to run on the circle of lies, and the harder I run on it, the more I am drained by the spinning wheel.

And so, here I am in my cage, spending my life-force in service of the entertainment of the mighty ones.

I have decided not to run on the big wheel any longer.
The dream of running through the green as I feed my life-force into the light bulb is just a carrot at the end of the stick.
It takes my mind off the big wheel and my cage existence, but at the same time it keeps me locked into sacrificing my life-force on the big wheel.

So, instead of losing myself in a dream I decided to change my predicament first.
I stopped running on the big wheel.

Instead, I run through my cage, back and forth, back and forth, jumping up and down, longing for the day I will feel the wind blowing in my face.

If I would simply lie down all day long the mighty ones would surely get rid of me.
But now that they see me running, they hope that they can force me back unto the big wheel with the colored spokes of lies so that their precious light bulb lights up again.

They try to maneuver me into the wheel with their magic rods.
They poke them through the bars of my cage and prod me in the direction of the wheel.
But then I simply start running to a different part of my cage, away from their magic rods.
They get some kind of perverse pleasure out of prodding me with their rods.
Why does their entertainment always come at my expense?

They think I have gone crazy when they see me running to and fro in the cage.
Perhaps so, but at least I get some exercise so that I feel better, and I do not end up sacrificing my life-force to some stupid light bulb.
Anyway, I'd rather be considered crazy than normal by the mighty ones.
Their idea of normal always comes at my expense.

How I wish someone would open the door to all boxes and let me be free.
Even if it meant that I could live only one more day, I would rather live that single one day in full enjoyment of freedom than to live out my life running on the great big wheel of lies.

I still believe that one day a mighty one with a kind heart will open the door of my cage, and let me go free into the real world.
Either that, or I will die in my cage.
I will be free either way.

But, right now I am just their hamster, living for the entertainment of the mighty ones to distract them from the ugly reality of life in a cage. 
They don't care.
I am just the light bulb that keeps them distracted.