Gradually my body filled more and more of the cramped space. Several years must have passed. The damp given off my body had started the iron rusting, and I had flakes of rust in my tousled hair. I could no longer move up and down, only sway side to side like a duck. If the doors were to open now, the hole would be too small for me to climb out anyway.
Eventually it became almost unbearable. I couldn't even move from side to side any more. My head was jammed in between my knees. There was no room for my shoulders to grow any broader.
For several weeks I was convinced it was all over.
In the end everything came to a full stop. I occupied the whole of the space. There was no room to breathe properly any more, all I could manage was a series of short gasps. But I kept growing even so.
Then it happened one night. A faint cracking noise. Like when a pocket mirror breaks. A brief pause, then a slow crunching noise from behind me. When I tensed my muscles and pressed backward, the wall gave way. Bulged out, then burst open in a cloud of splinters, and I shot out into the world.
Naked, newly born, I crawled through the rubbish. Stood up on shaky legs and supported myself against a bookcase. To my surprise, I noticed that the whole world had shrunk. No, it was me who'd doubled in size. I'd sprouted pubic hair. I'd grown up.
~ Mikael Niemi
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