The Green Window

Reid could feel it as soon as he opened the door: the humid air clinging to his cheeks and fat raindrops battering relentlessly against his plastic rain jacket.

"Why is the door open?" called Ruby from the kitchen.

"I'm taking the trash out!" Reid yelled back as he closed the door behind him, gripping two black trash bags stuffed with wine bottles and plastic food platters from the housewarming party. He was finally starting to warm up to his new home.

He lugged the trash bags into the alleyway behind the house. "Damn it," he muttered to himself as a wind blew his hoodie off. Raindrops dribbled down his back.

He opened the lid of the trashcan and heaved the trash bags into it. A second wind flung the lid shut again. Reid squinted as he tried, desperately, to see through the icy raindrops slithering down his forehead and into his eyes—he swore the rain was pouring heavier since he had walked out. And he turned around, holding his hoodie in place and preparing to sprint back into the house, when he noticed something across the alleyway.

It was a square brick house with a flat roof. A little boy—not older than seven or eight—played alone in the backyard with what looked like a metal disk. The boy pretended the disk was an airplane or a fighter jet and swooped it through the air; then he plunged it into a puddle. He wore a large T-shirt drenched in mud and rain that clung to his skin. From inside the house, a green light flickered.

"Hey, I'm Reid!" Reid yelled.

The boy looked up, clutching his metal disk close to his chest. He watched warily as Reid hopped over a flood of rainwater pouring down the alleyway, a stranger in rubber flip flops spraying himself with mud puddles, his arms flailing as he caught his balance again. Shivering, Reid approached the tall chain link fence that enclosed the brick house. The boy sat frozen.

"I'm Reid," Reid said again. "I just moved into that house."

He turned and pointed to his house across the alleyway. The boy could make out a woman in the kitchen—Ruby—placing a wine glass into a cabinet. She had wavy black hair and wore a colorful striped sweater.

Then the boy looked at Reid.

"What are you doing out here in the rain by yourself?" Reid asked him.

"Playing," he responded, cautious.

"What's your name?"

The boy shrugged.

"Okay," Reid thought of what to say next. "What are you playing with?"

The boy held up his metal disk.

Reid couldn't help but look around. There were no lawn chairs or fire pits or tomato plants that would suggest a family lived here. There were only puddles of mud and tall weeds that drooped under the rain. There was the boy—alone, soaked, and swinging a metal disk in the air as if it was a UFO. There was the green light coming from inside the brick house's only window; but it was bright enough to make Reid squint and hold out a hand in front of his face to shield his eyes. And perhaps the boy decided that the man in flip flops wasn't a threat because he began to play again.

"Are your parents in there?"

The boy nodded. He hovered the metal disk above his head, balancing it on one finger.

"What are they doing?" Reid asked and nodded toward the house.

"We're going home."

"You don't live here?"

"No."

The boy pointed to something behind Reid, who turned. There was his new house—a skinny yellow house with a brick chimney—and, far in the distance, a hill dotted with specks of yellow light.

"You live in one of those houses?"

"No," the boy said impatiently and pointed again toward the hill. "There."

"Y-you live in the sky?"

"No."

Reid frowned. He was sure those three glasses of wine were disorienting his ability to think.

"Are you here on vacation?" he asked, although he couldn't understand why a small suburban town in Illinois would be a tourist destination.

"No," the boy said and swooped his metal disk through the air like he did earlier.

"Visiting family...or something?"

"No. We fell here."

Reid, confused, wiped his face with the sleeve of his rain jacket.

"D-do your parents know you're out here?" he asked at last and squinted as he looked toward the house. The green light still flickered. He wrapped the rain jacket tighter around himself.

"Yes."

"Why don't you go inside where it's warm?"

"Soon. We are summoning the others."

Reid frowned again, struggling to determine whether or not the boy was making any sense.

"Does your family need a ride somewhere?"

"No," the boy said. He turned and pointed to the window. "We are waiting for the others to see our signal and come rescue us."

"Ar-are you in danger?" Reid asked, now uneasy.

"No."

Reid looked away from the boy and watched the window. He hadn't noticed it earlier, but the green light lit the dark alleyway and the boy's blond, almost white-ish hair in a green glow. It was a lucid green. It was bright, then dim, then brighter again. It spilled abundantly out of that small, single window and illuminated Reid's face, which felt warm as if the light held it tenderly between its hands. As he watched and kept watching, hypnotized, he couldn't decide whether it was the sloshing rain, or the Pinot Noir, or that dense green glow that made him feel suddenly heavy. He felt drowsy, and he clung to the wires of the chain link fence to steady himself.

"What's your name again?" he asked.

But he couldn't hear the boy—if he had said anything—over a sudden ringing in his ears. He closed his eyes, letting the dizziness wane a little.

"You know what—I think I drank one too many glasses of wine," Reid mumbled, pulling himself away from the fence. "I-I should get back home."

But he wasn't sure if the boy had heard him. Nevertheless, he stumbled back across the alleyway and waded half-asleep through that flood of rainwater, his flip flops slapping against the wet gravel and then the pavement, and fumbled for the doorknob with his slippery hands.



...



"You okay?" asked Ruby.

Still drowsy, Reid flinched at the sound of her voice. His head throbbed. He winced as he sat up on the living room couch, still wrapped in his plastic rain jacket. There was a dark wet stain on the throw pillow he had laid his head on.

"What happened?"

"I don't know—you walked in last night and just passed out," Ruby laughed. "You're such a lightweight."

Reid groaned and rose from the couch, pressing one hand to his forehead.

"I need some water."

His eyes still half-closed and heavy, he shuffled into the kitchen. His feet, still clammy and cold, were sticky on the hardwood floor. He leaned over the sink and let the cool water trickle into his mouth and then over the rest of his face. He turned the faucet off but stayed hunched over the sink until his face dried and started to tingle. He kept his eyes closed—and he wanted so bad to keep his eyes closed until it got dark again but he pried his eyelids apart with his fingers. The sunlight coming in through the window made him cringe.

"I'll be back at 7!" Ruby called.

Reid listened for the heavy slide and click of the front door.

He turned to read the clock. It was almost 2 P.M.

He remembered last night: the rain, the drowsiness, the little boy and the green light coming from his square brick house.

He looked out the window. A long muddy trail led to the garage door where his flip flops were. He watched narrow pools of rainwater trickle down the driveway and into the alleyway, where they joined larger pools of rainwater trickling together toward the street.

"I'm never drinking again," he muttered to himself.

And then he saw something that sent a tremor through his chest.

He turned away from the window, thinking, closed his eyes, and told himself to take a deep breath. In. Out. He turned toward the window again. Was he still drunk?

He went to the back door, through which he had stumbled in unconscious last night. He went out into the alleyway. He froze. He tried to remember last night again: the rain, the drowsiness, clinging to the chain link fence, the little boy and the green light coming from the square brick house. The strange little boy and that green light coming from his square brick house.

Reid's bare feet stung as he teetered across the rough gravel. Just three glasses of Pinot Noir, he thought. And he stood frozen again, now across the alleyway, questioning his sanity. He stood, feeling stupid and like a lightweight, on a large strip of wet grass where the boy had been. Where the boy had played with his metal disk. Where the brick house had stood. And where the green light had lit the alleyway in a dizzying green glow. Reid felt as if he was about to vomit. There was nothing here. No sign of anyone having been here, either, or the entire foundation of a house having been uprooted. There was nothing. Or rather, there was only the strip of grass—tall, green, no patches of sickly yellow, as if no one had stepped on it for months. Where was the brick house? Where was the boy?

Reid laughed. He laughed as he fell to his knees and then lied on his back. The tips of the wet grass tickled his neck. He kept laughing until his abs stung, but he decided he wasn't laughing out of hysteria—no, he was just drunk out of his mind last night. He had never met the boy. No, he was just drunk. Still chuckling, he stood.

"I'm never drinking again," he said as he brushed dirt from his shorts.

He started back toward his new house when a black car stopped in front of his house. The woman in the car rolled her window down.

"Hey, did you just move into that house?" she asked Reid, pointing.

"I did," he said. "Me and my wife. I'm Reid."

"I'm Sophie. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too."

Sophie smiled and rolled her window up. As she started again down the alleyway and onto the street, there was a crackling snap. He couldn't tell where it had come from.

Then he saw it.

He was no longer waving and smiling politely at Sophie who now turned onto the street and disappeared. His body grew tense. Nervous. His head was nervous. His stomach was heavy. He felt that sudden pulsing tremor in his chest again. His feet were on the gravel, closer, closer now to where Sophie—what a friendly woman, he thought—had just stopped to introduce herself. At the corner of his driveway was a circular silver thing, shattered into eight different pieces. He felt something heavy come up in his throat.

The little boy's metal disk.