A head nudges about, avian eyelids open to reveal black glassy orbs that try to comprehend the waking state. Dark wings stretch wide, rising from a midnight sea of feathers, two thin, naked poles attached to the bottom of the feathery tar ball lifted their owner off the ground, the poles three split ends at their base maintaining balance.

The small bird was a crow, a curious crow that had awoke as if it were just born for the first time. Inspecting the area to the right brought immediate misfortune when the bird’s beak smacked into a transparent wall. Following the wall as far as he could, the crow had to step backward to see the barrier curved into a ceiling. Behind where the bird awoke was another wall, and to the left another wall, and in front of him was a wall, but this wall was different: there was a cramped passage that led onward.

Spreading his wings, the crow began to peck at the walls and the ceiling, but it proved futile. Looking beyond the walls, a feat easier then actually seeing the walls, was a white lab. The floors were white tile, the walls were white and flat, the ceilings were popcorn but still white. It was blinding, ugly, oppressive, and quite frankly ridiculous as far as the crow was concerned. Looking below revealed, as the avian suspected, a table with a white top, the only table in the otherwise barren room.

Concluding there was no point dawdling any longer, the crow made its way through the passage. The tunnel was reflective of the much bigger room outside: aggravatingly oppressive. Spreading his wings was impossible as the walls were mere an inch or two from being the absolute minimum the bird could squeeze through and the ceiling was just too tall for him to be rubbing his head against.

After walking a few feet, a door blocked the way and would persist to do so until a lever on the right was pulled. The lever was stored in an indent that forced the bird to reach in with an open beak and pull the shy mechanism from its comfort. When the lever was pulled, the crow beheld anxiously as the door behind him closed and the one in front opened. In fear and curiosity -mostly the former- he attempted to reverse time to a few moment prior by pushing the lever back into its hidey hole, but the lever was now content and stubborn with its new place in life.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Many futile attempts to out-stubborn the lever later, the crow proceeded further down the cramped square tube, greeted by the lever’s similarly shy brother, pulling it out and catching déjà vu like a bad virus as the door behind it, to his right while pulling the lever, closed and the one in front, to his left, opened. Going further and further, the black bird felt its patience being tested as it met the rest of the family of levers, the extended family, and the uncle twice removed.

Again and again the crow would pull the lever, the past would close, the future would open. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And then the crow stopped because its beak was getting sore, returning hastily as the inability to spread its wings was driving the bird bananas. And again. And again. And again. And again. And finally the crow was free, or at least he assumed the light ahead was some kind of freedom. It was white, yet the lab around him was white, and there was still the issue of the rectangular prison that kept him cramped and flightless and threatened to have him develop claustrophobia.

As he continued to pursue the bright white that called him forth, the crow’s tunnel took him through the wall of the white lab.

“Ivan Joseph, Day 1: experimenting with the initial area reveals…doesn’t reveal much. The corvids are all successful at making their way through the doors. This is good, there are no stragglers and no complications. Well, some birds are slower than others, but there are no signs of mental deficiencies.

On an unrelated note, I met a man named Max Sharp, he’s apparently the inspector for the goings-on around here. Asked what I was doing, told him it was none of his business. He didn’t take kindly to this, so I quickly retracted my hostility by noting the oddity of working solo. His anger seemed to subside; good. I think he sees my studies as a waste of time. Personally I see his opinion as a waste of time.”