[ WP ] You have been sentenced to 300 years in prison . The catch is that you are an immortal being .

I spent the first thirty days of my sentence freaking out. I mean literally, going insane. The prison was a small room, no more than 10 feet, with stone walls, moist with condensation, 3 solid walls of stone.. and one that did n't exist. There should have been a wall there but there was n't. Instead there was a space, and that space overlooked the sky, and the clouds, as far as I could see. I remember from that time walking over to the edge and peering off for the first time, `` what kind of prison..'' I remember that thought. What kind of people create a prison where freedom is as easy as jumping? Surrounded by freedom, but completely unable to grasp it. The concept in itself was laughable. Was it sadism or was it poetic justice? 
 
 Whatever it was, by the hundredth year it had erased me. 
 
 The first hundred years were the hardest. They'd bring food to me everyday, whoever `` They'' were. The people, the bird people, god knows what they were or who they were. They brought rocks of salt that they'd place through a slot on the door. It was strange, it offered no sustenance, no value, but the variation gave me some reminder of what it was to be alive, to be free. 
 
 I remember realizing, then, that there is a difference between participating in life, in all it's variety, and witnessing it, in its totality. 
 
 Staring out at the shifting clouds, day, after day after day, I became proficient at the second one. 
 
 I used to have dreams at that time of a ladder, scaling down from the open wall that overlooked the sky. I'd look below at the peaks of mountains, and sometimes through the clouds i'd see valleys, and streams, vales, and flocks of birds. But it was all so far away. 
 
 I'd sleep and dream of a ladder, that i'd somehow built, or perhaps it had been placed, in my dream i'd descend it, but I never made it farther than beginning the descent before i'd awaken, stirred, and disappointed, sometimes depressed, sometimes filled with a red rage. But eventually both polarities gave way to an acceptance, and gradual stoicism, and it was like my ability to observe, to understand things had begun to grow, despite there being nothing but the openness and infinity I found myself involved in to urge my growth. 
 
 It turns out, all living things have a certain will to power, to expand, no matter what situation you put them in, and this was no different. I naturally found myself becoming more observant and I realized, about those stone walls, about the valley itself and the sky, and the peaks of those mountains, and the sun hidden behind the clouds, 
 
 All of it was empty. Every part of it was empty. 
 
 And the more I noticed this, the more I tasted it. The more I dreamt it, and my dreams met it as I slept. I never awoke, and I never slept, the line between myself and this emptiness was blurred beyond distinction - I was empty, and the prison was not a prison anylonger, but an openness, 
 
 The prison never changed, but I changed. 
 
 As the days went by, I felt myself overwhelmed with new experiences, Joy, like i'd never felt. 
 
 It felt as though my spirit was revolutionizing, becoming reinvented by my new understanding. 
 
 I found myself gayly touching the stone walls, their stone was rough, but calming, my body would correspond, it was absolute joy to exist, even in such a space. I'd periodicially cheer, i'd moan with sexual pleasures, I'd laugh at my myself. 
 
 After a hundred years I was far past any state of self consciousness. 
 
 The prison became my palace. Only I knew it's music, only I knew it's dance. 
 
 Only those that could endure the prison with me would ever hear the music. 
 
 I never really left that place. 

