The Experiment

The night sky was becoming different each night. Ever since she got home, the moon seemed to speak to her. Strange as it was, on nights with no moon it didn’t seem to speak so much as beckon for her attention. Tonight, with the moon absent from the sky, the pulling sensation felt as though a thick rope was tied around her belly and the other end drawing her toward something entirely unknown. Yet the weight of its purpose inexorably bringing her closer all the same.

One leg dangled out the window of her small studio apartment. She had adorned it with the unique design of someone who spent her entire life moving from city to city and made a home wherever she was. The walls were plastered tastefully with tapestries and floating shelves she made and installed herself. They bore the weight of small but meaningful treasures from all her adventures, but never so many they couldn’t fit in a box in case she had to leave suddenly. Everywhere you looked there was a candle half its full size, the vanguard of wax having distilled into a base of more wax from candles before it. They all invited the chance to be lit. The apartment relied on natural light. In the evening, the small flickers of flame from each candle kindled shadows to dance on the walls. Her furniture was sparse yet uniquely fit for the space. The deep red and light blues of the carpet brought together chords of color from the deep green chaise, the brown leather loveseat, and weathered red brick to appear as though this was all done on purpose. She always had a knack for turning an empty space into a spectacle.

Comprising almost all of one wall was a large eight-foot-tall and wide window that opened onto an alleyway. It was the most attractive part to the little nook she called home. The window itself was segmented by dozens of smaller square window panes. Some of the panes were clear, others were translucent, and one or two were missing entirely. The whole window slid open using a rusted pulley system that by all accounts should not be operational. The mechanism still worked however and allowed her a makeshift balcony where the abandoned and broken fire escape provided a sense of completion; although perhaps a dangerous one. The fire escape platforms below her floor had ironically all fallen from a fire before she moved in, and the only floor above her was an abandoned workspace.

When she moved in two years ago, the place had seemed so small. Now, after she’d been in a three-foot-wide by ten-foot-tall glass tube, it seemed too large. Her memories of the time spent in The Experiment were fleeting. She remembered being scared as she signed the contract and more so as the glass rose up slowly around her, encapsulating her for a month while they ran tests on her and a dozen other volunteers. In the end there was not a lot of pain, but plenty of isolation. That alone made her think of this apartment as more spacious than she ever remembered it being. Surely, nobody in her position ever wished for less space than what she had. But tonight, she would have given anything for the space between her and the walls, between her and her fears, to be a bit closer and easier to manage. Even sounds of the raucous metropolis in the middle of the night, on a weekend, didn’t have the same soothing effect it once had. It all was terribly unsettling in the sense that she couldn’t seem to vibrate in harmony with it anymore.

She gazed into the night without anything drawing her attention. The city light used to hide most of the stars from her but recently, as day began to fade into darker night, stars began to shine brighter. She accepted that she saw more than she used to. It couldn’t be explained how exactly, but she had changed from the person she was merely a month ago. She was looking for an escape then. Life had been falling into a shamble whenThe Experiment unexpectedly came around. She remembered finding the opportunity on a pamphlet blown by the wind into her lap. Thirty days in a test tube for $20,000? While she had a choice, it felt like her only means to survive.

She glanced down at her small black journal and found that she had written the word survive absentmindedly. She’d done that recently, hadn’t she? Each breath she took felt stolen. As though the air around her had been a gift. She hated that. She spent her life with few confidants and couldn’t stand to ever be in someone’s debt. She repeated the mantra that always visited her when fear of control gripped her:

“I will make this life mine, forever,” she thought to herself. She clung to that emotion, yet something nagged at her from the forefront of her mind. She looked down at the notebook again, and in an artistic script wrote the question, “Now what?”.

Her body balanced on the window ledge with ease, back against the window frame, one leg propped up and the other swung in the cool fall night. Leaves blew through the alley below; back and forth. The wind would drive them up like a bird experiences flight for the first time. Most soared to the same shallow threshold then floated fitfully back to the alley floor to await the next gust and another attempt to fly. But there were a few divergent rebels among them. Those rocketed upward with such force and alacrity, it amazed her. She rarely smiled these days, but this simple thing brought her joy for reasons she didn’t bother trying to understand. She decided to wait all night just to see a single leaf make it up to the sixth story where she was perched, and then hopefully beyond.

Hours went by. Finally, one leaf had made such a journey, only it wasn’t her apartment building that it sprung to but the building directly across the alleyway where her window overlooked. That building was only four stories tall so she could make out the entire roof perfectly. The leaf blew a foot above the white brick ledge before landing with a dancer’s grace upon the parapet.

Since she was located near the center of the city, the buildings beyond her four-story neighbor created a horizon made of brick instead of clouds. There was a crown of taller and taller buildings that mirrored the supreme height of the sky itself. While there was no sun to shine at this time of night, a glow emitted from behind the facades as radiant as any dawn. She knew it was the ambient light from the city that created the effect but tonight it felt like more.

Despite, or perhaps because of this luminescent phenomenon, and perhaps again because of the strangely delicate yet forceful wind at this height, the lone leaf upon the neighboring roof’s ledge began to slowly dance back and forth; an inch one way then the other. Its movements made her feel as though she was in the grand ring of a ballet watching an artist experience her own craft; swaying to music only she could hear.

“To be a leaf….” She said to herself. Her eyes widened slightly at the sound of her own voice. It felt strange hearing it. The realization came to her then that she didn’t know when she had last spoken out loud.

As though her confusion was the swift thrust of a conductor’s baton, the leaf twirled onto one end and began to spin rapidly in place. It pirouetted flawlessly. It was majestic, and her smile deepened. Doubt was drawn from her like poison from a wound. She felt light, she felt it in her toes as much as in her soul. The leaf spun closer and closer to the edge. The sense of danger forgotten by all who harmonized with its rhythm. It was beautiful.

As the leaf reached the precipice, both of her feet had coiled underneath her upon the window’s ledge; hands placed between her lupine toes. She leapt forward, above the gorge of lost leaf wishes. Not trying, not hoping, but knowingly, desperately daring to fly. To be a star among the blackened sky, to answer the Moon’s call. To be whatever the wind asked of her.

Across the alleyway, the leaf fell from the ledge. Its autumn crisped edges twirling over one another as it began to fall back toward the pavement below…Before it dropped more than a few inches, her fingers casually yet sanguinely snatched it from the air. With the dancing leaf safely secured in between her finger and thumb, she rocked back and sat on the ledge of the building opposite her own. One leg propped up on the precipice, the other hung over the side. She laid down on her back in utter relaxation, holding the leaf in the night air by its stem. She raised it to the sky, playfully overlaying it to where the moon should be; the dark circular outline of a new moon in the night sky betraying its hiding place. She looked across the alley at her open apartment window, and the yellow orange glow that came from within. She remembered warmth, she remembered it being nice, but she never remembered it being exactly right no matter what she did to it. In fact, no home had ever felt as good as this cold ledge in the dark hours of night.

Her gaze fell back upon the leaf between her fingertips, it was now the moon to her. She smiled again, and the once foreign gesture finally felt natural. The smile brought a giggle, then laughter. Eventually she filled the night with the sound of her joy. Slowly, and after a time, it came to an end and she was at peace.

Inhaling slowly, she filled her now liberated body with the night. She pursed her lips and blew a strong breath upon the leaf in her hand. She released the stem, and it flew upward. It flew toward the unknown, but undoubtedly toward its purpose. It rose in the air like a child writhing in laughter. The thought created another fit of joy from her and she allowed the laughter to take its rightful place. Tonight, she was not alone, the stars gave her audience, and the moon awaited her arrival.