Five Inches of Glass

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

She had heard a great many stories about the planet on the other side of the five-inch pane of glass, about the vast blue oceans of water, a place of great beauty and greater danger, home to creatures so completely alien to her she thought the stories were lies he told to entertain her. She especially loved the stories he told her about the lush green forests that would turn shades of red, orange and yellow so vibrant you'd think they were on fire, and then become bare and sullen yet somehow peaceful and beautiful when winter came, and then back again to green, but these stories rang hollow to her, for on the other side of the glass she saw no blue oceans or green forests, only the lifeless brown land under a veil of grey clouds.

Whenever she would ask him what happened to the beautiful world in his stories, he would become quiet, his smile vanishing and replaced with an expression she did not know the word for, but she knew it meant she should not ask again, but she would every now and then, whenever she would become so captivated in a story that she would forget. She wished there was someone else she could ask, someone besides the withering man that sat beside the window, staring at the lifeless world in the distance, but it was just the two of them, it always had been as far back as she could remember, sometimes she would ask why, but to the same effect as asking about the world. Eventually she stopped asking.

She hated when he would get like this, not because he was sad or because she hated not knowing, but because it was quiet, too quiet, the kind of quiet that made her ears ring, she tried alleviating the quiet by being near the wall that made noise. He would tell her not to touch the wall, cause if she broke something they would both die painfully, but she figured simply floating near the wall would be fine, anything to make the ear-ringing silence stop. Sometimes he would tell her stories of this thing people did he called "music," where people made noise with objects and sang, when she asked if she could hear some music he began tapping on a wall and sang, and she asked if he would stop.

He said he didn't mind the quiet, what he hated the most was the food they ate, this slimy, grey substance that came in a bag, he would often say it looks the same going into them as it does coming out, and that the same can probably be said about the way it tastes. She didn't mind the food, she had been eating it her whole life and had nothing to compare it to, though she had to admit, when he would tell stories about food he ate as a child, things called "hamburgers," she was curious, but those nostalgic stories he would tell would always dissolve into anger, as he would rant about how "the beef and cheese ran out and they had to use bugs." She stopped paying attention to him after that, his words only having meaning to him, and she knew better than to ask about it, because as much as she hated when he became silent, she was smart enough to avoid him when he was loud.

As time went on, he started repeating himself, evidentially running out of stories, but that was fine, she had grown tired of his stories, hating that that's all they were; stories. She wanted to go to that world from his stories, to taste a hamburger, to hear music, to see the oceans and forests, and just to be anywhere else with anyone else. When she told him he said she was being ridiculous, that the world from his stories was gone, there were no more hamburgers, no music, no oceans or forests, and there were certainly no one else, but she didn't care, because she knew there was a way out. There would be times when the lights went red, and he told her he needed to go, and that she needed to stay where she was, but there would be times when she would follow him, watching as he put on a strange suit and go through a door that led outside. When she told him this, he became angry, saying she wasn't going anywhere, but she was determined to leave. He attacked, lunging at her to keep her here with him even if he had to force her. She bit him, drawing blood, and when she saw an opening she took it, launching herself off the wall and away from him. She saw the suit, rushing to put it on, but he had caught up to her. She struggled against him, flailing wildly with her legs, kicking him into the wall, and as he hit it the door opened, sucking the very air from the room. She held on to the railing as he was taken with the air until the door closed. He was gone, she tried opening the door, but it was stuck, she banged against it until her hands bled, screaming to be let out.

When she stopped, she moved to the window, staring out of it just as he had when he became quiet, now she was quiet, too quiet.