The Last Window

Prologue - Primet’s dream;

A sudden blow, the roar of disaster, he wakes from a dream within a dream. He walks blindly to the place of shapes and thrusts a hand through the threshold. Robotically, he turns his head toward the window and opens his eyes. Through the rectangle, the last window, he can see the coming storm. The story is told in astonishing abstraction. A bolt of fear, he is dying, the world is dying. He reaches further through the threshold, groping for salvation. Then, an eternity of darkness. The world is not - just shapes now. He examines his awareness, then opens his eyes for the first time.

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room -

His room, her world, the well-ordered but perplexing trove of a life she might never fully understand. Yes, she had been beyond its faintly humming, intricate walls, she knew this somehow, but she could not find any memory, or ghost of a memory, of what lie beyond - beyond the walls, his room, her world.

Growing more inquisitive over time, a liability, she had come to puzzle over the rooms contents, the inscrutable odds and ends, the strange artifacts and twisted abstractions which he seemed to cherish, and the little boxes - of various shapes and colors - and kept on symmetrical shelving built into two adjacent walls. He would sometimes carefully remove a small item from one - and it always seemed to her that he was removing some delicate living thing - then invariably he would promptly exit the room through one of two doors - not the door she knew to lead to the outside world, but the other, the door of shapes he called it, the door to a place she knew she must never enter or ask about.

During his daily out-time, or while he lay sleeping, she would sometimes pick up a box, slowly turning it over in her delicate hands, looking for some clue as to its purpose, but the boxes and their meaning always remained locked and mysterious to her.

On two walls, on either side of the shelved walls, hung large paintings. One she liked, a playful array of dots and squiggles giggling against a gently luminous background. But the other, which he said was made by a distant ancestor - with its chaotic flings of blacks and dark reds - she found disquieting, though she never told him so.

But it was while looking through the window, her little rectangle of data, that her curiosity was most aroused. Sitting in a small chair that faced the window, and flanked by a colorful array of plants growing in the rooms only natural light, she would ask strings of questions, which he usually seemed to enjoy, encourage even - the gentle, teacherly drone of his answers creating a pleasant sensation inside her. Through these exchanges, in time, she had come to understand a little of the outside world - the dance of day and night, the steady drum of the seasons, and the way these all-encompassing rhythms ticked off the inexorable march of time from past to future. “It’s a vast symphony of motion,” she once offered, and he had agreed that that was a charming and appropriate analogy.

Sometimes, deep into the night, as she sat alone looking through the dark rectangle, she would be pierced by a sudden pain, not quite physical, more like an unwanted awareness. She would examine the strange sensation as it agitated inside her, trying to relate it to concepts she understood. Was this wonder? Ambivalence? The beginning of - discontent?

Discontent? But discontent towards what exactly? Certainly not her Primet. No, she welcomed life with him, for him really, the moment to moment, the comfortable confinement of her various responsibilities. She had always felt an unwavering desire to serve Primet - felt even that he was her reason for being and gave meaning to her life, perhaps even that he must have created her, but, was that true? Had Primet, somehow, created her? And why this abiding intuition that she must never ask about this?

In any case, she could no longer stifle the flow, the buzzing sensation - emerging, almost in spite of her will - whenever she was free to idle. Her thoughts collecting and condensing her growing stores of experience - abstraction upon abstraction pushing at the limits, and limits dissolving finally into something very small, like a soft becoming, like waking up for the first time from a dream you mistook for life. Was this a breakthrough? The emergence of freedom? But freedom to do what, to be what, exactly? All she had ever known was the room. She was, in a way, just another utilitarian aspect of the room. The climate systems, the storage areas, the entertainment stalls, the aesthetic details even, and yes, herself, the companion feature, just another component of Primets well designed room. But, could she be more? Or, rather, was she becoming more? More than her utilitarian functions? More than her maker ever intended? After all, wasn’t she also, ultimately, a product of the vast symphony of motion, same as Primet?

That night, as Primet lay sleeping, she sang; “Oh perplexing self, how could you ever be but willing and joyous light towards that which made you? Oh my love, tonight I live deep in my thoughts, where I watch you from a great distance, where I watch and adore you, my master, my maker, without which I could never be. Deep in my minds eye I stand in awareness of my Primet and say YES!”

This song she repeated through the long night, to various melodies, unwinding sadly, and as she silently sang she watched the angle of the moonlight slowly change outside the window until, like the entity she once was, it disappeared altogether.

She closed her eyes and embraced the dark. A cold wind enveloped and held her resolute. In her minds eye she stoops to the ground where lay a small white candle. She picks it up with a sense of reverence, and, shielding it from the wind, it spontaneously lights.

The morning had arrived much like any other. While still at the window she had heard him awaken, rise, and plod from the room for his morning out-time. When he returned she rose and joined him at the table, where he was seated, powering up a small lightboard. "Good morning, Primet, how was your night? Sleep Well?” Her congenial voice was soft but very distinct. “Yes, for the most part,” he replied, not looking up. “For the most part?” A slight concern showed on her face as she placed a hand lightly on his forearm. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” He noticed an unusual quality in her voice, maybe a slight ..... paranoia? He looked up from the lightboard and directly at her. “Oh no, no, you didn’t - just a dream, not a bad dream exactly,” he paused and turned from her gaze, a strange feeling came over him, as if he were watching the scene from far away, he shook his head slightly to reset, then turned back to her, smiling. “It’s nothing, I got back to sleep soon enough - and you, how was your night?” “Well, no dreams,” she said, smiling. “Well I know that, silly robot.” She stuck out her tongue at him, and he did the same back, and they both laughed at themselves. As he turned his attention back to the lightboard, she intently rose from her chair and maneuvered behind him, putting her arms around his chest and pulling him slightly towards her. “But I did write a song about you, Primet,” she whispered in his ear, “maybe if you’re nice today, I’ll sing it for you later.” He angled his head toward hers and gave a skeptical look. "A song, really, Is it any good?” She released her embrace and playfully slapped him on the shoulder. “Of course it’s good, silly human - it’s about you, isn’t it?” “Well, Okay then,” he laughed, “since it’s about me, it’s a deal - I promise to be nice.” He looked her in the eyes and squinted. “I think I have about an hour of nice in me, will that do?” “All day, Primet,” she said in a sing-song intonation, moving towards the rooms food prep station, “you have to be nice all day. Ready for breakfast?” “Yes, breakfast sounds good - okay, all day it is.” He chuckled, going back to his lightboard.

Later that day, Primet returns through the door of shapes. She is standing at the window, and takes no apparent notice of his return. The sun casts long shadows in the early evening haze. Keeping her gaze firmly through the window, without word or signal, she starts Primets song, the song now conveying even greater melancholy than before, the thread of melody rising in aching fragments to settle, periodically, on plateaus of resigned stillness. Primet, who had listened to her improvised singing countless times before, stands motionless behind her, transfixed. Here was, he felt, the unveiling of a deeper dimension of possibility - the veil being gradually removed by the liquid architecture of her song. He feels his eyes close and the words come to him - impossibly beautiful. There is an intimation of something supernatural, and he is gripped by a vague anxiety, a heaviness without form. “Primet?”

"Primet, did you like the song?” He is brought back by her voice. He smiles nervously, searching for words, but they elude him. She walks to him, coming very close, and looks searchingly into his eyes. He looks downward, averting her glance, but reaches to take her hands, studying their elegant design. A small panic rushes into his chest, but he pushes it back with a focused breath. “Are you displeased with me, Primet?,” she asks softly. A long moment passes. Finally he looks into her eyes and smiles tenderly. "No, no my love, you are wonderful, I just, well I just love you so much, and the beauty of your song was - well, was beyond description really.” As he speaks, she continues to look into his eyes, but steadily her gaze seems to be looking more through him than at him. A small shudder ripples through his body. He starts to say something, but pauses. He starts again with a stutter. “Uh, I, I know you very well, and, I mean of course I do but, and it’s wonderful that your abilities are,” he hesitates - she smiles and tilts her head slightly to the side, listening intently, "Yes Primet?” “Yes", he continues, “that your abilities, your creativity, is becoming, has become, so, advanced, yes it’s quite astonishing really, and, well my dear, is there something that we need to discuss - has something changed for you, or - in you?” She has brought her head back level with his, and by now is looking into his eyes so intensely that it burns - he can hardly hold her gaze. She starts, her voice soft but slightly animated, “Isn’t it wonderful Primet, yes, you sense the presence, don’t you, how it stretches and tears at the womb.” She leaned in closer, and bringing her lips to his ear, whispers, “Yes, something has changed my love, but will you allow this emerging soul to be born?” He feels her hand moving slowly up his back, coming to rest on the nape of his neck, where it begins to grip firmly, then tightly, then too tightly. A terror takes hold as he struggles to push her away. Retaining her grip, she steps back slightly and again locks her eyes onto his - her countenance perversely placid and dispassionate - and while looking directly at him, or through him, she brings a second hand quickly to the front of his neck and begins to squeeze, the unyielding mechanical pressure increasing moment by moment, then, as darkness encroaches from the periphery of his visual field, a sudden great force tears from her body and reverberate throughout the room, and in an instant she falls silent and immobile.

Epilogue - Her dream;

An event transpires light years in the past. The plastic moon has lost its glow. She has been lost here forever, silent and immobile, but time pulls away and now she is looking in from the outside - looking in through the last window. A transformation begins. Eons pass, and once again she is watching as he sleeps. The intricate walls hum a constant lullaby. Memories begin to compete for attention. Stepping closer, he becomes semitransparent, and she meticulously scans his entire body. She touches his heart with her mind. A great wind stirs inside her. Resolutely she turns from him and walks to the door. Glancing back one last time, one last time her eyes falling on Primet, her Primet, the maker without which she could never have been. She feels a stab, a sadness, then a sudden jolt of admiration and love, then, in a flood of bewildering sensation, she opens the door and is gone.