The Figure's Edge

“The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.” These are the words that kept running, softly, but insistently through her mind as she tried to focus her attention on a vaguely familiar figure standing at the edge of the trees. She knew it was fate that she'd join the figure, out there, after the meadow ended, right where the sky faded into the forest. Beckoning like the refrain from some long-forgotten verse, she wondered, when? how? These were the questions that would leap at her from the sides of her consciousness. Small questions with big connotations and even bigger consequences.

Jessica Formain worked her way toward the kitchen again, in the same manner as all the days before her. Hands quickly finding what she'd come for, she sat down on the center chair, the third of six, depending on how you counted around the bar. Never wondering why she wasn't sick from eating the same porridge-style bowl of blandness every day, she sat, eyes empty and yet full of longing. Gazing at the wall with a kind of eternal puzzlement, Jessica felt it again, the heat, the desire to go immediately back upstairs. Practically tripping her way up the spiral staircase, she fell forward onto her hands, looking, squinting out the window again toward the edge of the forest.

The figure was still there. Always there. And her senses intensified as they always had, the heat growing, pulsing and now wet with dew from the window, she strained her eyes toward horizon. Her body felt electric, pushing her right to the brink of coming undone, but it never materialized. The figure, out there, had an uncanny way of dipping backward into the trees just as the intensity in her body was about to peak. And then, yet again, she'd settle back onto the couch where the last window sat across the room, about fifteen feet. She'd counted the steps many times, so many she couldn't remember the first time and why, though she instinctively knew in almost the same fashion as having read this in a dusty encyclopedia.

In fact, that's what the entirety of her life felt like. In a word, like ancient history. Everything so solid, but vague and unapproachable, like a retreating rainstorm over the mountains. But this day, she was determined to find a way past that window, and once she did, she'd run to the figure, and her life would finally make sense and her body could peak in the way it so desperately wanted, and had been thwarted for so long. She felt as if she herself were turning to stone, but the sharpness of her longing also lent a sensation like the grinding of tectonic plates deep in the ocean of her subconscious, waiting to rupture.

Seeing that the sun was heading down over the trees at the edge of the meadow, Jessica closed the shutters on the window and laid down in the bed, against the wall, staring at the opening. That phrase kept running through her mind, “The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.” There was something more to this, she knew it the way she knew herself, or so she thought, and this new understanding was right at the door of her mind, waiting to burst in. And then, just as the light outside faded, a bolt of ingenuity, or something like that, flooded her mind, giving way to a kind of thought-river that swept over her with its retreat.

And now that phrase had become crystal clear. Leaping off her bed, she looked around, knowing that he wouldn't be happy, but she would risk it. In fact, Jessica didn't really know exactly who he was, because she'd never even been face to face with him, but it was a deep knowing that kept her from running out of the house at once. She knew, or moreover, was compelled deep inside to stay put in her room, though she wasn't clear why. It was more of sensation that ran through her like an opposing current to the one that made her giddy with heat, and moisture, like the countryside itself. It was his window after all, but it was now clear as the night sky, shimmering with little diamonds of pure thought and spectacular waves of potential that, it was true, she truly could see a "glimpse of it, the outside world, through the window". And that was now more than enough to propel her toward what she knew was next.

Jessica laid in her bed all night long, waiting for the perfect glow of the morning sun, the shimmering dew on the edges of the meadow, and the coming of the figure. The figure's arrival was always felt more than seen, but the feeling was familiar and yet so unorthodox as to seem entirely original and breathtaking each time. And with the figure stationed once again at the edge, Jessica walked toward the window, each step pushing a kind of shaky gleefulness deeper into her center, like a rising tide of tiny cinders, blowing wherever they wanted. This time, as though against the dreadfulness of a thousand years of sameness, she pushed the shutters all the way open and stepped out onto the window ledge overlooking a momentous fall of at least fifty feet, but not a drop of fear could be found anywhere.

Indeed, Jessica didn't even need to look back, she could feel him radiating a kind of disapproval all around her, but she kept her gaze fixed on the figure. And all at once she stepped out, but her feet touched grass almost immediately, and she was running toward the edge, the ground moving as effortlessly beneath her as if she'd become a four-legged animal bounding through the meadow. But when she was a mere stone's throw from the object of her long desire, a loud bang could be heard behind her. With her momentum this barely knocked her from the singleness of her pursuit, but when she had slowed and turned around, the house was on fire behind her.

A magnificent view came into focus, like a mythical, thousand-year-old stone castle with that last window, on the left, just above the ledge, bursting with more flame than anywhere else on the structure. And somehow, she knew that this was meant for her, that he had been a little too late to stop her. As much as this thought thrilled her, pulling in deep lungfuls of air, turning to run again toward the meadow, she was immediately arrested by the rapid advance of a fire overtaking the entirety of the meadow. The figure was not there, and the whole world seemed to cave in, beginning near her temples and radiating outward, all around and then up into the sky.

She grabbed the sides of her head, pulling as though removing a helmet. Now staring deep into blue eyes so kind and still that she'd thought the fullness of the heavens had been concentrated at these two points, Jessica felt as if a millennia had come screeching to a halt, depositing her back onto a familiar shore that was her office. At once, everything began seeping back into the center from the edges of her consciousness. She'd been preparing her art studio, The Connection for a hot, new attraction, a kind of virtual reality exhibit that was the latest breakthrough in neurobiologically-curated art experiences.

At last, she remembered as she stood up and looked around. Her office was not exactly on fire, having only knocked over a candle, but those eyes, they were none other than an unwitting office employee who had just happened to find her before that small flame could get out of hand. And what should come almost immediately next to mind? The fulsome, billionaire software engineer that had lent her the system, had walked into the building. But somehow she already knew and was on her way out, across the office grass to her car. Glancing down the street, there was something different now, a kind of discovery, though it would take some time to understand.