Peculiar yet carefree verses left behind by a poor soul trapped in a mysterious room.
A Slowing Air: Backroom
From the desolate wilds and remote towns did I, all solitary, come unto the City of a Thousand Stars, to serve within the Pointer Tower.
At first, I purposed but to subsist by the labor of mine own hands, yet who could foresee that fortune would prove so perverse? For I entered the Backrooms, and was straightway immured therein.
That place was a maze of intersecting corridors and layered walls, where the lamps burned dim and the doors were manifold. All around was an utter silence, as though no path of escape existed, wherefore in anxious haste did I search everywhere for a way to life.
Then there appeared a shadow, trailing a lamp as it drew nigh. I looked upon it intently, and lo, it was a companion from the days of my youth.
He took me by the hand and sighed, saying: "Verily, this place is one of profound stillness and seclusion, whence all men seek to flee, knowing not that to wander in the outer world is to drift asunder and, conversely, to suffer its calamities. Rather than rushing blindly through these endless corridors, it were better that we keep each other company."
Hearing his words, it was as though my blindness were lifted, and I awakened with a sudden realization, whereupon I composed a lyric to the tune of A Slowing Air: Backroom.
The verse reads:
Corridor upon corridor, wall upon dense wall. Wall after wall, lamp after lamp, door upon door. Dim and yellow, I gaze all around and find no place, here trapped, a solitary soul. A single table, sundry chairs, piled upside down. How may I win free? My grief and dread burn like fire! Suddenly a shadow appears, looking upon the comer, behold, 'tis an acquaintance of olden days.
"I heard it said that the Thousand Stars held peace and joy, wherefore I came hither, only to pass through bitter toil. To become a ghost beneath the Pointer Tower, a mere body upon the assembly line. To return whence I came would bring yet deeper sorrow. There should be no path left, why then haste blindly onward?" I shall abide with thee, within this tiny, secluded nook, far removed from the dust of the worldly realm.