The Lost Window

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. She was not allowed inside his room, of course. The old man hoarded the window’s light, keeping it all to himself. He would stay in his room for hours without coming out for food or drink. The girl would try the door sometimes in these situations, but carefully. She’d been caught entering the code to open the door before. The emaciated old man had come out and shouted at her with anger intensified by his hunger.

At times, the girl could see it. A creature holding onto the man’s belly. This monster had gray skin covered in eyes that always looked toward the window. The girl knew that this creature made the man forget his hunger. This creature made him hunger for the window instead.

Was it wrong then for her to want to look out the window, too? It was always after a meal that she would check his door and try listening to make sure that the old man was still alive. She feared that he would die one day and she would never see the window again. Doors were locked forever after a person died, the girl knew. She had tried to enter her great-grandmother’s old room to smell her scent one last time. But the door would not open.

Adults tried to tell her not to bother with the old man and his window. They told her she had only to wait and that they would be opening the doors soon. What doors? She lived in a building of cold metal. The only doors she’d seen opened to living quarters stationed throughout the halls. She was not able to open these doors, of course. Only owners could open their doors with a hand, a word, or by staring into a little hole. The old man’s door was different. They told her it was because he was old. Someone needed to be able to get in there if he died or was otherwise in trouble due to his age.

The girl supposed that she could look at the window all she wanted if she got in the room soon after the old man died. She knew that the room would be open long enough to collect his things before it was locked for good. But she did not want him dead. She wanted him to be a kind old man. She wanted to sit and drink hot chocolate with him, just as she did with her mother. Except with him, there would be something else to look at other than marshmallows swirling around in her drink.

The girl’s first thought was to try befriending the old man. He did not eat enough. Everyone said so. So she thought to make him something to eat. She came to his door and knocked, holding the plate up for him to take. Upon answering the door, the old man yelled at her, making her drop the plate and run. She peeked around the corner to find the old man cleaning up her mess, disgust on his face. The girl tried again, bringing a small table in case he startled her again. She was met with the same anger. Though when she peered around the corner this time, the girl saw him try a bite of the cookie she’d brought him.

As much as she wanted to make something that the old man would eat, she knew that he would not be her friend no matter what she tried feeding him. Meaning that her current efforts would not get her inside the room. She needed to do something that would get the old man out.

One time when she was sick, the girl had to stay in the medical ward all day and all night until she felt better. She was told afterward that something had gone wrong with the machine that turned poop into food. The girl was shown how to fix it since she might be expected to make such repairs someday. So it was easy for her to find it and break it again. She only had to break it long enough to make contaminated food before she fixed it again.

The girl took the food and put it on the table she’d left in front of the old man’s room. She took a smaller bowl of it and went off to the vents near the old man’s room. She knew that, if she stood at the right place in front of the vent, the old man should be able to smell the small portion of the food she’d prepared for him. She knew this because she once thought she smelled her mother bringing cookies, and she opened the door in excitement, but it was only the child who lived down the hall.

The girl’s only issue now was that she could not see if her plan was working. She craned her neck, still holding the food in place, but the corner was too far away for her to peek around. She sat there impatient with the food, fanning it with her hand to make sure that it was getting into the vent. A door opened somewhere in the old man’s hall, but the girl could not see if it was his. She waited there with her small bowl of food until it grew cold and was no longer fragrant. Then she hurried to the corner to look.

The table in front of the old man’s door was empty. She watched and waited, wondering when the old man would come out. It had taken time for her to get sick after eating bad food. She couldn’t remember how long. If only she had set a timer to know how long it had been. It felt like it had been an hour, but the girl knew that time moved slowly when she was anxious for something to happen.

A door from another hall opened, and the girl was worried about getting caught staring at the old man’s room again. She scurried away from the sound, heading off to find a place to dispose of her bowl.

Because the girl had stayed in the medical ward through the night when she was sick, she thought to come back to the old man’s room at midnight. A time of day indicated by the corridor lights dimming and by the various clocks around the building. The girl lay awake, staring at her bedside clock, and it was not until it hit twelve that she crept out of bed, heading for the old man’s room.

She knew how to keep quiet at night. Had snuck out of bed for snacks on multiple occasions. Her only concern was the door leading out of her home. She opened it and rushed out, hoping to outrun her parents calling after her if they woke. The girl sped down the corridor, going as fast as she dared without making too much noise, and did not stop until she was out of sight of her own door. She leaned against the wall, panting. Then she held her breath, hearing a door open in her hallway. The girl waited for it to close, waited to hear footsteps from someone chasing her. The door shut. She heard no one coming for her. The girl exhaled, careful not to gasp despite how out of breath she was.

The girl entered his room without hesitation this time, confident that she would not find him there. She was met with the smell of vomit and the sound of the old man groaning. Was he still here? Why hadn’t he gone to the doctor if he was in pain? The girl followed the noise to the old man’s window. He was lying curled up on his couch, his arms clutching at his belly, his desperate face turned toward the window. He didn’t notice the girl’s approach, fixed as he was on the light. And though his arms squeezed tightly, they could not hold back the monster latched onto him. Its oozing tendrils inched up the old man’s chest toward his head. Eyeballs on the tendril watched the window even as the monster reached.

The girl looked to the window. Its light drew her in, calling her to step closer. A great expanse of green plants grew behind that window, their leaves wafting gently in the breeze. Unlike the plants she was used to that grew all around the building, these grew unbound by pots. The girl wanted to go through that window, to run and play through that field of greenery.

At that moment, the first eyeball appeared on the girl’s abdomen. She gasped when she saw it, and she tried to brush it off. But the small monster was like gelatin, and it warped around her hand. It watched the window, heedless of her attempts to remove it. She looked at the window and then searched around for something that could break it. If she could escape through the window, she and the old man could stand in that green landscape instead of sitting here trapped as observers.

The girl’s eyes landed on the metal bowl she had used to give the old man food. She hurled it into the window, which cracked in a spiderweb of pieces, and the room went dark. Three screams filled the darkness; the old man, his monster, and the girl’s little monster all cried out in unison. The girl’s little monster faded into nothing, leaving her belly clear. But the old man’s monster had been there too long and was not so easily killed. It instead gazed around in all directions with its many eyes, searching for the lost window.

The lights came on. Adults next door had heard the old man’s scream and came to check on him. They picked him up and took him out. One of them tried to ask the girl what had happened. She pushed the concerned adult away and went to the window, picking at the glass. There was nothing but a wall behind it. The window had been fake the whole time.

She ran. She had no interest in the words of adults who would offer her empty comfort. Her feet took her to a place she had been before. A quiet place where she used to go to get away from the adults before she knew of the old man and his false window.

The girl collapsed to the ground and cried, her tears echoing off the walls of the large room. She didn’t worry about people hearing her, she had made plenty of noises in this room before, and none had heard her. No one came here. It was a place for ghosts and lost children.

A great rumbling interrupted the girl’s tears, and the floor tilted, sending her backward. The girl searched desperately for a handhold, hands slipping against the floor, trying to slow herself down. Then her feet hit the ground, and she flipped backward onto it. But instead of hitting her head against cold metal, instead of the soft carpet of her room, she felt something else. Something softer.

The girl turned around to find she stood on leafy, red vegetation. Before her was a dark landscape, unlit by cold, electric light. The girl exhaled in wonder. She had not been in a stuffy building at all. She had been in a spaceship taking her to her new home.