Noumenon

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. The rooftops of the buildings that surrounded them. The streets down below, people peppering the sidewalks as though they were ants marching to and fro a million miles away.

They may as well have been, not ants, of course, that is a million miles away. Because she wasn't to ever leave the building, the apartment. Hardly the room even, except for her morning baths and her daily meals. The only person she ever saw was him. Only person she had ever seen, or as far as she could remember. His maids and cooks came and went while she was in the room, the door between them locked tight. She heard them talking occasionally, though rarely could she make out what was being said.

The room. Its walls stark white with nothing on them, except the fourth one. It was greystone brick with one small window in the center of it. She had spent a good portion of her life unable to see over the ledge. This was in the earlier parts. But as she grew, the window seemed to lower. Sometimes she had wondered which was really happening, only knowing it was her changing by how well she fit in the tub. He was a young man when she first remembered him. Now he was a bit older, she wasn't exactly sure how old. But he had prepared her for himself, like all men do as far as she knew. She was now his wife, or that's what he had told her.

They didn't keep a record of her age, nor any events of her life, what would be the point in that? Days were the same, nothing had changed in her life that she could recall. At least not until she had become a wife, then only one thing changed. Those were the nights, but she didn't like to think of that. She was afforded the privilege of reading. Though he didn't know it. He kept books in the room and had never taught her how to read. She had taught herself. He read to her and she memorized the stories. Rereading what he's read to understand the words for herself. He claimed women weren't able to read, no matter how hard they tried. That was the first time she realized that he was a liar.

It was possible that he believed this himself, but that didn't change the fact that he was a liar. It just changed who he was lying to. She read all the books in the room and any new ones that he brought in. He told her the stories he read to her were all pretend. That no one really left the town they were born. That every place looked the same, that all places were just like this. He was selective in the books he read to her, and when she read the ones he skipped, she started to figure out why.

All these things, the things she learned piece by piece, she kept inside. To him, she was happy, blissful, ignorant. That is how he wanted her and that is how she wanted him to see her. But inside she was something else, a storm, swallowed up and churning, growing stronger by the day.

It was almost time for breakfast, she could hear the clanging of the pots and pans in the kitchen. She could smell the meat frying on the stove, whatever kind she was always served. She wasn't quite sure what it was, because she had no way of comparing it to the descriptions of food in her books. He refused to teach her much about her little world, knowing that the not knowing was more of a cage than any walls could ever be.

But she had watched and read and learned and had a plan. There had only been a few times in her life that she had been allowed to go into certain rooms of the apartment. She was forbidden to go into the kitchen, his other bedroom and his bathroom. The only time she'd been allowed in the kitchen was once when he had a headache during dinner and wanted her to get him something from the freezer to hold on it. His bedroom, he had let her sleep in there with him the first night he called her his wife. After that she hadn't again. And his bathroom, she had been allowed to use a few times with the toilet in her room had stopped working properly. Her personal toilet was in the room she stayed in, to avoid her needing to go out at her own whim. Her bathroom had a tub and a sink but no toilet.

The last time she had to use his bathroom, he had made her stay in there while the repairs were taking place in her room. She had the chance to look around. He had a medicine cabinet, his own medications and hers were in there. He gave her a little pill every day. She didn't know what it was or what it was for before that day. She had to take something for anxiety. It slowed the heartrate. So today she tore up a book. Ripped pages out of it.

She balled up several pages and shoved them into the toilet as far as the they would go. She had enough time to get her arm dry before he came to get her for breakfast. After breakfast, she waited a while and then flushed the pages. The water came out the top of the toilet bowl. She knocked on her door three times. Their signal that something was wrong.

She sat in the living room waiting on the repairman. She was put in his bathroom when the repairman came. She was ready. She ran the sink to mask the noise as she got her pills out. She lifted her shirt and pulled the top of her bra where she had torn a hole. She shoved several of her pills into the hole.

After her lecture for breaking her toilet, he left and locked her in the room. She took the pills out and laid them on her desk. She sat in the chair staring at them for hours, waiting. When the maid started to vacuum, she got up and got a book. She smashed them all until they were powder.

She had one bottle of water a day, she only had half of it left. She carefully mixed the powder into the water.

When dinnertime came she made her way into the dining room. Dinner was set. She rushed to the table and grabbed his glass of water and drank some of it. Then poured water from her bottle into it. She smashed the water bottle as small as she could and sat on it in her chair. Dinner was nearly over before he started to lean in his chair. She hoped she'd used enough. His eyes rolled back and he fell. She rushed back to her room and grabbed the bag she had packed.

She ran out to the door that she'd never been through and into the hall. She had to think quickly. She saw the small door on the far wall. She ran to it and hoped she would fit. She slid down the laundry shute praying no one would be down there yet. The next morning was laundry day, there would be enough dirty maids outfits down there now. She landed on a pile of clothing and started to dig. She found an outfit and quickly changed, putting the scarf she'd seen them wear from the window over her head. Laundry day was the only day of the month the maids were permitted to leave the buildings. She hid under a pile of clothes and slept. Hoping she could blend in when they came.

She heard noises the next morning, she quickly tried to blend in with the other maids packing bags with laundry. She assumed all of it would be sorted later once it was clean. She'd never done anything like laundry. She had to clean her own room but that was all. She followed the maids all day, watching them. After they marched to the cleaners, they all were taken by armed gaurds to a movie theatre where they watched a film on the dangers of trying to be assertive women. Then they went back and picked up the clean laundry that had been sorted by building. She followed them back to her building but when they got there, they were stopped. An ambulance was outside and he was being taken out in a body bag. Police were everywhere. Some maids went around, on thier way to their own buildings. She followed those ones.

She picked one at random and followed her. They went in and she rode the elevator to the top. The last maid looked at her strangely when she rode with her to the top floor.

"Oh I was just daydreaming and forgot to get off on my floor," she said. The maid eyed her suspiciously but got off the elevator with her bag of laundry and said nothing. She waited until the doors closed and hit the button for the basement.

Once there she looked around, one room was where laundry was collected. One had cleaning supplies, another held tools and other things. And one was a pantry full of food. She dumped all the clothes out of the laundry bag she'd had all day and filled it with food. As far as she knew, the whole world could be like this town, but she had to try, to look for freedom, had to know. No matter what happened, she had no regrets, because now she really knew herself.