The Choice

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

“His room,” she whispered. “His room…his room…His,” she hissed to herself as she tugged at the earthy entanglement of her hair in a useless attempt to comb it.

She gazed out the window. The glass had shattered long ago and lay in a heap of broken sparkles scattered across the floor’s pitted and rotten oak planks. The window’s frame was as equally deteriorated by weather and time. Its once strong square border, tilted obliquely without a single straight edge or angle. The world as seen through this window had undergone a similar transformation. The world had once been new and strong with endless straight lines and sharp angles. It was an intricate repeating pattern of firm boundaries and perfectly formed 90 degree turns that led to more rigidity, more sameness, more of “him.”

She shuttered at the thought of him. His darkly opaque eyes whose constant stare could burn holes through concrete walls and souls but yet had no vision. He never saw her, never. He was still here, somewhere dragging his old heavy frame through the blackness of the world. He only existed in shadows now…in caves…in basements. Despite the abuse of time and war, his eye sockets, cheek bones, chin and jaw retained the same crisp, sharp, pinched lines they had when he was a young man. When he ruled everything…when the rigidity of his body imprinted itself onto the young canvas of the world, transforming endless whirls of intertwining color and wildly sounds into solid uniform blocks that marched to only one sound. But that was over now.

She had been on this floor for the entirety of her memory. She ran her calloused hands over the roughness of the splinters and knots of oak; its cold, lifeless touch and musty smell had been trying to pull her into it for centuries, but she said “No.” She knew there was a peace to be had after giving into it…after losing herself into it. It wasn’t the peace she wanted though. Something else was pulling her. Through the window, she could smell the fires. Finally, there was heat outside and a yellow sun.

He built this house too. The one she had always lived in. It was spring when she woke inside it. The smell of freshly cut wood and the greenness of its bark made her feel like this house was one she never wanted to leave. It seemed alive. He told her she would always be happy here. But he never could see her. She knew he built houses for others as well. She had never been to those houses, but she could imagine they were all built the same since sameness was one of his rules. He was great at building houses and great at making rules.

Her feet moved. They slid slightly towards each other and then away. She looked down. Her feet had become brown-black roots that grounded the oaken floor, anchoring it to her and her to it. They hadn’t moved since the house was built, until now. When she smelled the smoke and thought about the heat outside the window, they moved. Her feet didn’t look so much like roots. She could faintly see the outlines of toes and even a heel. She felt the sensations of a limb trying to rediscover itself. At first, it was a tingly numbness, then a prickly intensity that became the stings of ten thousand bees. She screamed her pain out through the window, and it was gone. She had feet again and could walk.

Suddenly, the door boomed as it dangled from hinges giving way to rust. She quickly sat down and tried to make her feet look like roots again. Maybe he was here, maybe he would see what she had done. Fear poured over her. She held her breath. It wasn’t him… only the wind from the fires.

She was ashamed of herself. Ashamed of her fear. But she had feet now, and the window had no glass.

From the wasted oak floor, she pulled herself up through numberless years using ropes of pain and rivets of tears to give her traction to rise. She willed her muscles to push and pull and for her spine not to break. And then she stood…and looked out the window.

She could see whirls of color and hear wilds of sounds. The war was over, and he was gone. Her feet could carry her anywhere she wanted to go. She wanted to go through the window. She did.